Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 97

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Hide all references option while editing[edit]

While editing a section of an article, references are sometimes too long and almost amount for half the text. So until we get WYSIWYG editor, better to have an option to hide all references in the edit text area. Just an option checkbox "Hide references" or "Simple view" as caption, which is default off. This is easier to implement for wikimedia coders, this will hide all text inside < ref > tags and few { { ref } } templates, until we get WYSIWYG editor. Recent hiding of all templates below the edit box has helped the matter to some extent. This option would help experienced users too, as they can hide references temporarily to read coherently the edited text without interruption of references, without the need of preview. Ideas river (talk) 04:56, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure how I would edit the references if they were not displayed in the edit window. Isn't preview the same as WYSIWYG? Apteva (talk) 05:47, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Agree that preview is same as WYSIWYG, making "show preview" and "show changes" loading using ajax would improve things as it is fast, so people use those buttons more often. Thanks for the clue, I am making separate section for this. Ideas river (talk) 11:05, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
The reference segregator might be the kind of thing you're looking for. It's pretty good. DoctorKubla (talk) 07:33, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, this looks in line with my proposal, but main limitation is it doesnt work in section edit but only in full article editing. And just like "segregate refs for editing" button of the plugin, once segragated there should be "merge back segragated refs" button should be made visible. Ideas river (talk)
mw:VisualEditor is coming soon-ish. Anomie 13:08, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Show preivew and Show changes in editing using ajax[edit]

Using Ajax for show preview and show changes buttons, and loading preview/changes asynchronously will make it fast, and also since it is fast people will use it more often. This will help new editors as it is as good as WYSIWYG editor as told by Apteva above, and also reduce minor errors and re-editing for experienced editors. There are methods to make ajax foolproof, that is if there is no ajax reply in 5 seconds then the form can be actually submitted to the server. I found one user script here User:Js/ajaxPreview Ideas river (talk) 11:05, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Arbcom, oversight, and confidential information[edit]

This is a notice concerning an RfC concerning the access and handling of confidential information by arbcom members and oversighters. And also changes policy concerning the granting and retaining of the Oversight user-right. - jc37 11:32, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Withdrawn. Apteva (talk) 20:45, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Religion and Christian Denomination Including in Demographics[edit]

I know i have read such demographics; when reading about various cities, towns and counties before. I think you all should include that information again.— Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎S. Wesley Mcgranor (talkcontribs)

When that information is available, we include it. The problem is that that information is not always available. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

RFX notification (or lack thereof) in centralized discussion[edit]

I propose that we include the open RFX template in the centralized discussion template to bring awareness about open RFX discussions and the lack of RFX discussions. A bot updates it automatically and it could be transcluded in the bottom. --Mono (HG) 00:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Support Although I'm not completely sure how this would look. AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 02:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support I envision some sort of <noinclude>/<includeonly> magic in the master RfX template, which is then (magically) transcluded at the bottom of {{centralized discussion}} (probably using a third "in-between" template). Doesn't need to be bold, just...there. —Theopolisme 22:49, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. Anything to give more attention to RFA. If we can't figure out how to include this notification in the template automatically, the bot could be instructed to edit the template at the same time as it does its other updates. Nyttend (talk) 03:54, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose (or conditional support) It should be removed if the user selects a display option (compact, very etc). Alternately, a new display option should be provided for those who don't want to display the RFx notice. EngineerFromVega 06:12, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
    To clarify: this change has broken the layout of my user page as the RFx notice takes considerable more width than the CENT topics. EngineerFromVega 06:17, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: The people who comment at WP:CENT and the ones that comment of Rf* are distinct groups. There probably is a overlap, but I know of no lack of discussion in the Rf* discussions that is letting underqualified candidates through. Hasteur (talk) 15:53, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

New appeal[edit]

Appeal YellowPegasus (talkcontribs) 03:20, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I think that's brilliant. Steven Zhang Help resolve disputes! 22:31, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
May Jimbo forgive me, I like it better than "A personal appeal from Wikipedia founder..." Diego (talk) 14:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Maps[edit]

I am very fond of Wikipedia and donate money each year. Still, Wikimedia maps are almost utterly worthless! They virtually never, ever show any surrounding cities or other features. Nothing is named, just the spot that is under discussion is shown. Why can't Wikimedia maps be upgraded to actually give SOME information other than the equivalent of a flyspeck on the wall? I was looking for Patiala in Punjab and there it was--sans name, no indication of anything in its surroundings, just some no-name rivers--no reason to make such a worthless thing available, even. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WickerManRalph (talkcontribs)

I doubt this is the best forum to address your concerns. I'd suggest trying Commons; Meta might be appropriate, as well, especially if you want to get a bearing on where precisely to lay your problems out. dci | TALK 05:19, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
Try using our WikiMiniAtlas interactive map - it's much better. Go to Patiala. Check out the Erioll world.svg-icon in the top right corner. Click it and drag the map around. Use the +/- buttons to zoom in and out, use the downward arrow to open the config page. Mono 02:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
I understand the OP's concern: would it not be better to make infobox maps, when clicked, load WikiMiniAtlas in the same way as the "globe" icon? — This, that, and the other (talk) 09:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Closing Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages[edit]

WP:MWM is a noticeboard about changes to MediaWiki pages. It is quasi-active, not never really active. It is not being used in favor of {{edit protected}} and the Wikipedia:Village pump (and other noticeboards for proposals). There is not many people watching WP:MWM so consensus is harder to reach there than here. MVM can (and I think should) be closed in favor of more known noticeboards. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 22:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Seems like a good idea; discussions of the type that would normally take place there could be fostered at one of the Village Pumps (probably miscellaneous) instead. dci | TALK 05:21, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I've never before heard of this page. Mark it as historical and start having its discussions at the miscellaneous village pump instead. If we ever start getting lots of MediaWiki announcements or lots of comments on them, we can move them back to this page at that time. Nyttend (talk) 03:46, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Simply direct people to make edit requests on the relevant message talk page, and for larger/more controversial proposals, use the VP. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Protecting templates used in MediaWiki pages[edit]

Does a template automatically count as high-risk when it's used in a MediaWiki page? {{Opentask-short}} is transcluded by MediaWiki:Gettingstarted-msg, which every new user is shown upon registration, so I was going to protect it until I found that it's updated by a non-admin bot that's run by a non-admin user. Should we try to find an adminbot to start doing the updates, or should we have an admin do it manually, or should we do something else? Could we perhaps have the template simply transclude a .js page in the bot's userspace, since only the bot and admins could edit such a page? Or should we stay with the status quo? I'm going to request input at WP:AN and User talk:Nettrom, since admins do the protecting, and since Nettrom is the bot operator. Nyttend (talk) 03:42, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Without getting any further into WP:BEANS then we already are, I don't think it is prudent to leave things the way they are. Using a .js page or other restricted extension in the bot's user space would seem to be an acceptable work around. It would create an unusual circumstance where the bot could edit something that the owner couldn't directly. (Also, would be happy to discuss my BEAN concerns via email) Monty845 06:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
I think the .js page is an excellent workaround. If Nettrom ever needs to actually edit the page, s/he can just log in using the bots account and indicate the edit was manual in the edit summary. Legoktm (talk) 07:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
I proposed the .js with that in mind, thinking that it was a violation of the last portion of WP:BOTACC, but I figured that we could IAR in this situation because it wasn't violating the spirit of the policy. However, rereading that section, I don't think that logging in as the bot to fix a mistake in the bot's userspace would be a kind of "contributions that do not fall within the scope of the bot's designated tasks", so it wouldn't be a violation of the wording or of the spirit. Nyttend (talk) 12:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
My preference would be to leave things the way they are for now, since even the alternate JS idea would require recoding the bot. We don't plan on having this set up permanently, and the plan is to eventually encode the logic for gathering the article list directly in Extension:GettingStarted. For now we're relying on SuggestBot because it allows us to more flexibly change the criteria for articles in the list, and because it was already set up to do very similar tasks, e.g. {{Opentask}}. We haven't seen any vandalism of the page, and in fact some other non-admin users have made helpful edits to the formatting. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:13, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Seconded – it's a temporary experiment, and for the whole duration both Steven and I will be watching the page closely, not to mention Nettrom and the other members of the E3 team :) If the experiment is successful and it seems worthwhile to make into a permanent feature, we'll have to change the way we populate the page, anyway, as Steven explains above, so locking down the current workflow is not the best use of anybody's time. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 18:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

DYK nomination[edit]

There is a discussion underway at DYK to discuss whether or not to commemorate Dr. Blofeld's 1000th DYK as a special Christmas DYK. Please leave your opinion there. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 12:55, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

How do we keep them from finding out about the surprise? Apteva (talk) 17:53, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Keep whom? And if dont let them know about it, then the surprise may well be nasty. Let the surprise remain for those who have not seen it. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 19:20, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

User contribution display[edit]

User Contributions are usually quite hard to locate. Its only in the article history that we find it being easily accessible. Otherwise its quite hard to find the contributions of a user once you are on their user page/talk page. Is there any easy and quick way to check a person's contributions when you are on their user page or talk page? It will be quite good as I often find myself checking people's contributions.

If there is no simple way, then I suggest we add an extra tab next to "User Page" and "Talk", named as "User contributions". It provides easy access to a well-used resource. 15:18, 9 December 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheOriginalSoni (talkcontribs) 15:18, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Note there is already an entry "User contributions" in the 'toolbox' section in the sidebar on user and user talk pages. Anomie 15:49, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
I believe that the user already knows that. He/she seems to want it in a more visible place. —Tom Morris (talk) 17:01, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
I asked this exact thing about a year ago. Why do people's signatures not have Userpage/talkpage/contributions? Hello...... *so* much easier!--Coin945 (talk) 17:58, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
We do that for IP signatures, but adding that to every signature would just add billions of unnecessary bytes. Anyone who wishes can create a custom signature that includes their contributions. Apteva (talk) 01:32, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm not going to use any of my brain's valuable processing cycles to find a more precise figure for this, but I'm sure that each of those billions of bytes of storage has a cost measured in cents/pence rather than in dollars/pounds/euros. I don't think that we need to worry too much about that if we judge it a good idea to make this link more obvious. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:36, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it is as easy as clicking on "User contributions" on the left hand side of a user's user or talk page, under the "Toolbox" heading.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:42, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
I know that now, but only because I asked this question and then was told where the link is actually located. (to Apteva): If we're talking about resourses being wasted here, what's a couple of billion bytes when your time and effort is taken up every time someone asks the same question, to which you give the same answer because this neccesary feature is so hard to find? Wouldn't you rather invest your efforts in more important things? As long as this remains unsolved, i can guarantee that you and many other editors will waste huge portions of their wiki-time answering this question over and over. Make your choice...--Coin945 (talk) 04:29, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Why not just go to Special:Contribs and type in the username in question? I see the problem of its potential inconvenience, but it's only occassionally that I find myself scrutinizing another editor's contribs. dci | TALK 02:32, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
    • Most editors do not have a great deal of need to check other users contribs (stalk them), but as with anyone else who does wp:RCP, I do it a great deal, and had not noticed the link to user contributions, and had been just copy and pasting the user name into a contributions page, or click on history and click on contributions from there. Apteva (talk) 05:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

A better option may be to turn on popups, (see Preferences → Gadgets )

Then hover the mouse over the user name and it gives you access to the contributions, and much, much more.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 13:57, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, popups are very helpful. It also gives you info about the user rights, number of edits and date of registering of the user which would otherwise require you to go to things like central auth or edit counters.
If you are using the android version of wp, then it is impossible to see one's contribs unless they carry it with their signs. If you are using the normal mobile version, then you will have to switch to desktop version to see it. :(This also made me change (back) my signature by replacing the link to Special:emailuser by contribs a couple of months ago.)···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 21:03, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Correct the Main Page "article count"[edit]

Currently the Main Page declares that Wikipedia has 5,074,878 articles in English. The number is given by [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}]] and includes disambiguation pages, which we do not normally consider articles. There are 266,521 members of Category:All article disambiguation pages, so the number of actual articles is 4,808,357, given by {{formatnum:{{#expr: {{formatnum:{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}|R}} - {{formatnum:{{PAGESINCATEGORY:All article disambiguation pages}}|R}}}}}}. So my proposal is simply to use this more correct calculation on the Main Page. The main concern I can see is the potential effect on caching, which I can't comment on. Rd232 talk 20:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

+1 for this idea. There's a discussion going on about this already at the technical pump, you may want to add your suggestion there as well.
Regarding caching, the figure could be put in a template by a bot and updated every few hours, or something. Unless the absolutely-current-right-now figure is considered important, in which case there's going to be a code change needed for this, which is why I started out over at the other pump. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:57, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Well the VPT thread is a more general discussion; this is a concrete proposal. The VPT thread has thrown up "set index articles", which I've never heard of but seem to be a type of disambiguation page collected in Category:All set index articles and not members of Category:All article disambiguation pages, so that would need to be added to the code described above. Rd232 talk 22:43, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
This has been tried before. Graham87 12:37, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
May I suggest we keep talking about this in the other discussion, please, rather than in two places. I have replied to Graham there. — Hex (❝?!❞) 13:08, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:MMA Notability discussion:[edit]

A proposal regarding the essay WP:MMANOT has been made suggesting that the essay be promoted to the level of guideline. Please feel free to look in at both the proposed guideline and the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mixed martial arts/MMA notability/Archive 8#Promotion from Essay to Guideline and contribute where appropriate. Hasteur (talk) 18:16, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Add math stuff to "Help" on editing toolbar[edit]

I wanted to format an equation properly on a page but math was not detailed in the "Help" the editing toolbar. I think it should be added to promote the correct formatting of mathematics in smaller use cases and by new users.--Gizmoguy (talk) 00:05, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

RfC complicated articles[edit]

Per a request at WP:AN/RFC, this RfC is closed as no consensus. Changing the question two weeks into an RfC isn't cool. It is impossible to judge what the consensus may have been had this run the entire month with the current proposal. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 22:19, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

(see Complicated articles)

Disregarding all the fighting that is going on , I believe it is quite clear what the main points are. 1) The question here is 'Is Wikipedia too complicated to be understood by most readers, and should something be done about it?'

Myself and Vanischenu are convinced that it is indeed the case; while J. Johnson (JJ) believes that it is not sufficient evidence yet to show that.

2) The other question to be addressed is 'What should be done about it?'

To this, my response has been very clearly to highlight the 'Simple English' wikipedia as a means to simplify matters and present article in a simple way. The counter-argument goes that most articles will be longer when they are in the Simple wiki, which may not necessarily simplify things. To which the counter-counter-argument goes that it shall happen only for a very specific section of technical articles, and the majority of the articles wil be much more readable that way.

3) Finally the last and the most clear cut question is 'How to highlight the Simple wikipedia, if at all?'

To this my personal stand is that there should be an infobox displaying the corresponding Simple Wiki articles [with the provision that the corresponding Simple wiki article be rated 'Good' or better]. [First proposal Withdrawn, seeing lack of support for the first proposal, and gravitation of support away from the other proposal] Inamos (talk) 17:32, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── An alternate solution, which other users have found much more acceptable, is to put 'Simple Wikipedia' at the top of the languages list, thus giving it some sort of highlight without being bothersome to the reader.

With this being said, I put the above question for a vote. Inamos (talk) 10:24, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

  • 1: No and no. 2: Nothing, because premise (#1) is not demonstrated. 3: Put at top of language links? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:54, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I would answer the first question with a resounding No. To the second, logically, "nothing," and the third may be acceptable but having the language link position depend upon the article status (or quality) at another project seems a bad idea at the surface. --Nouniquenames 04:56, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose People who don't understand an article should do what I do when I encounter a technical article: read the lead and look at the pictures, if any. Pokajanje|Talk 23:45, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
    Why should we do so, if we have a better way (say, if there exists a good article in Simple). Also leads of most articles are not written in complete. Reading the lead of proposal for meta:Concise Wikipedia might be worthy; one of the reasons why it was proposed is that the leads of most of the articles are poorly written. And I don't think any Wikipedian would disagree with it. Then why should we force the readers to grasp information only from the lead and picts.···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 17:31, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose (I think). Wikipedia has articles accessible to the general reader and detailed technical articles. There is benefit in both, so we should have both - i.e. have "Introduction to ..." and "Outline of ...", etc, articles, with hatnotes linking the two versions. Simple English Wikipedia is for younger audiences, language learners, etc, not for articles accessible to lay adult native speakers and we should not force it to be something it is not. If any content should be moved off Wikipedia it is the detailed, complicated articles but not only is that not necessary (WP:NOTPAPER), but I think it would actually do a disservice. Thryduulf (talk) 18:33, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Just so you know, your presumption about what Simple English Wikipedia is for is incorrect. It's for everybody, including native speakers looking for easier-to-understand descriptions of complicated topics. Osiris (talk) 23:23, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
  • There are 4 million articles. Many of those are too complex, I agree, and should be simplified. I oppose to adding a link to the Simple English article. --NaBUru38 (talk) 20:03, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
    I am assuming this means "other than the link we already have"? How about listing the simple English link at the top of the language list, instead of burying it alphabetically as is done today? Quantum mechanics is in 89 languages, plus simple English, but right now simple is listed number 68 on the list. Apteva (talk) 22:11, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support (as already said). Will help both the readers and simplewp.···Vanischenu (alt) 08:24, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Partial support. I am against advertising simple English (s.EN) inside or attached to the article. Moving it to the top of the langauge list is OK, but let's limit this pole position to a certain period of time (1 year). However, I already use s.EN a lot when I want to get a quick understanding about a topic - because I am used to it and I know where to find it. Others will do so as soon as they discover it's advantages. So, in addition, I favor other ways of promoting s.EN: By applying for a promo-box on the WP:Homepage, mentioning it in tutorials and in talk pages as a adequate solution for the conflict complexity vs simplicity, etc. --Jesus Presley (talk) 22:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: The Main Page already has the interwiki link for Simple English at the top via {{Main Page interwikis}}. Also Simple Wiktionary places English at the top of everything. (PB:I have already supported above using my alternate account from an open computer, please don't count me as another user)···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 16:58, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
  • No and no, Overview if necessary, SE link first
    (1) No and no. Articles reach a level of detail determined (both more and less) by the contributing editors, and we should not interfere with such development.
    (2) For individual articles which appear to be too complex, any editor can create an overview section in addition to the even-shorter lead, which could itself have a main-article link with the desired simpler contents. (This is basically the same as the Introduction to virus comment from the original discussion).
    (3) I think placing the Simple English interwiki link first in the list is a very good idea and would support doing that in any case. No other emphasis or dependence on any perceived (probably contentious) relative quality of the articles is necessary.
    --Mirokado (talk) 18:29, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: I brought this up independently at the Village pump's idea lab Possible hatnote linkage to Simple English versions of some general reference WP articles. I think that all of us need to keep in mind that most people who access Wikipedia are not editors, they are readers looking for information, and that some of those readers are either younger students or people for whom English is a second language.ne ( What editors notice all the time, most of our readers never even see. If the whole point of this encyclopedia project is to get information into the hands of the people, then what is the harm of providing some way of easily-accessing the basic Simple English Wikipedia article on a subject? I have to wonder how many readers actually notice all the Wiki-linkage on an article-page... Can anyone here tell me from memory where the Simple English linkage is over there among all those languages? I'll tell you...it's between Sinhalese and Slovenian. As I said at the idea lab, I've been keeping an eye on the Article Feedback for my Watchlisted articles and I can tell you that some of our readers are unable to fully grasp some of our general-interest articles, like maybe the ones about US Presidents or about other history subjects. I did do up a Simple English hatnote for Thomas Jefferson and did have one up at George Washington which looked like this. I think at the very least that the Simple English link should be moved up to the top of the languages or that using a hatnote to provide a link should be an accepted way to deal with some of our stated Article Feedback, so here are my thoughts on the numbered aspects of this RfC:
(1) & (2) Not sure there is an answerable question here, but I do not think that Wikipedia articles, in general, are too complicated for our readership in general. I think that some of our articles are too complex/too long/too whatever for some of the readers that look up those subjects, for instance,ne ( the Wikipedia article on George Washington. I would think that some of our readership arriving at that article are early-elementary schoolchildren or people from non English-speaking backgrounds who are trying to learn more about the first US President. How about we put out some form of a Simple English welcome mat to easily introduce them to the subject? They can then come back to the Wikipedia article for a more in-depth look if they wish.
(3) No to the infobox, Yes to at least moving Simple English up to the top of the languages list.Shearonink (talk) 16:33, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

ne ( I take back my first two questions in an attempt to remove any biases against the question for the 3rd question [which the community takes very differently from the first two], which now stands as-

Should we have the Simple wikipedia at the top of the languages links?

Inamos (talk) 17:32, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

If only you had gone straight to that at the beginning! "Taking back" a question in the course of a poll really complicates matters (are the rest of us to "take back" our answers?). I suspect that having Simple English at the top of the language links is innocuous enough that there is no great objection (despite the spurious bases which were presented), though at this point I am not certain how to best determine consensus on that. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:02, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - I agree that the Simple Wikipedia should be more prominently displayed and I mentioned that myself recently there. I'm not quite sure how the best way to do that would be though. I also think that the inverse should apply at simple. If we create a more direct route there, then simple should create a more direct route here. That way if the reader wanted to see a more complete article (which presumably we would have) then they could come here. At minimum I think putting the Simple WP icon on the top of the interwiki links would be a good start. A couple additional possibilities:
    • A new tab that says simple if the editor chooses it under gadgets. It could display in Red if the article applies or a Blue link if not.
    • Another option could be to add an Icon or something similar yo how we do for FA's and GA's. I was thinking an S but that's just one possibility. Kumioko (talk) 22:51, 2 December 2012
  • Support for the SEWP interwiki to be sorted at the top. Not doing anything in response to all the article feedback is just not productive. To readers of this wiki, the link to SEWP is the most valuable link in the list. If they're reading this wiki, chances are good they can understand a bit of English -- if they want to read the topic described in clearer terms, they'll be able to see the link more easily. Nothing wrong with sorting it at the top at all. Osiris (talk) 23:33, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support for the SEWP interwiki to be sorted at the top. That's both simple (!) and relevant. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:16, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • If I look at my current layout, I have "toolboxes" (navigation,search,interaction,other languages) down the left-hand side of the article. I have some "Tabs" at the top, in addition I can scroll, and I see some titles scroll by. If an article is "featured", there will be a small icon (one of two, I think) on the right hand side at the top. Logically, if I want to attract the attention of the reader, I must place something at the top of the article. This is because the "in other languages" is at the left, all at the bottom. For a longer article (that's what we are talking about here, no), it will only become visible after scrolling. In my opinion there are several options how to handle it (WP-wide):
    • We have another box "related languguages". This will list Simple English, as well as perhaps Scots, for the English WP. (2-3 links). Users can parametrize the box using theming, if they are logged in; but for anonymous readers, it will simply "show", Simple English amongst others. SEWP will use a similar theme, where the regular English is shown.
    • We can provide some hoverbox ("This article in Simple English") if the article exists.
    • We can highlight and perhaps reposition the "Simple English" language link. Note that none of these will solve the fundamental problem of "getting a simpler version of the article". If it is always possible to "fall back to the EnWP version", this will also provide no incentive for the few editors working at SimpleWP to improve article quality. --Eptalon (talk) 11:15, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support having Simple English iw link at the top. Its definitely a useful resource and should be highlighted. Agreeing with others on this matter. Kennedy (talk) 17:07, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support having link at the top. I've often wondered why it wasn't already at the top of the interwiki links since that seems to be the most appropriate place to me. -DJSasso (talk) 12:36, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

A bot to implement this[edit]

Sine it appears that there is some support for this change, if its implemented, I recommend a bot be set loose on the articles to implement this new change. Rather than just leave the articles as is this will set a baseline order so that it can be done going forward. Otherwise many of these will not have the new order for a very long time if ever. A couple of other things that will need to be done:

  1. AWB will need to be updated.
  2. The bots that currently work with interwiki's will need to be adjusted. Kumioko (talk) 21:40, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────Given the fact that this wiki will soon stop hosting interwikis (most likely sometime early next year), the easiest option is to simply wait for Wikidata to take over. I'm not exactly sure, but I doubt that a customised sorting for individual wikis has been added to the extension's code. That will have to be brought up with the developers. Osiris (talk) 15:15, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

A bot looks good to implement it. The other idea may also be implemented when that code comes out, but right now we might as well design a few bots and get the Simple Wiki some coverage. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 14:33, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Umm... Can someone design the bot to do this? Anyone? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 17:44, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 51#To change the order of languages in every page of Wikipedia - Made a request here. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 09:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

LATA Numbers[edit]

Have you ever considered putting the Lata numbers in the information box that has the county, etc for the towns, villages etc? This would be a great help to some of us that are doing research & verifying addresses etc. Looking forward to your response.

Thank you so much for your time in this matter.

 Marla Gonzalez — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.80.110.75 (talk) 19:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


See Local access and transport area if you don't know what the original poster was talking about. Graham87 14:46, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Golden Team, the Hungary national football team of the 1950s.[edit]

Would it be possible for someone to review the header on the "Golden Team" article, stating that it has has multiple issues? The header was placed following vandalism by a sock user; the article has since been reverted back to a "good" revision. Coopuk (talk) 12:00, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I removed POV and peacock parts but the article still needs references. Ruslik_Zero 11:34, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Image policy and guideline[edit]

OK guys, listen up. At the moment we have:

Note also the existence of Wikipedia:Copyright, which isn't really about media.

As the main ones, the numbers in the first bracket are views/month. I believe the problem here is really the allocation of topics between them is arbitrary. I've worked in this area before, about six months ago, and there were clearly some disagreement like this one about what ought to be policy or a guideline or neither. There is also the issue of whether we're speaking to uploaders or editors. I think we'd do better to reorganise it like this:


Image upload policy If we take, for example, Wikipedia:Image use policy it has several sections about uploading that I think should be the new Wikipedia:Image upload policy: ss. Requirements; Rules of thumb; Copyright and licensing (User-created images, Free licenses, Public domain, Fair use images); Deleting images; Image titles and file names; Format; Privacy rights. It has some subsections that I feel should be included: Uploaded image size; Animated images; Watermarks, credits, and distortions. The section "Consideration of image download size" from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images would also be included, merging with "Format". These are all a) aimed at uploaders b) have either a legal or technical basis. They aren't advisory, they are firm rules (all rules have exceptions).

Image use guidelines Wikipedia:Image use guidelines would be everything advisory about the use of media. So, again, looking at Wikipedia:Image use policy I can see things which are aimed at the editor, not uploader; that are about getting the best out of images. They are about size, placement, context: Placement; Displayed image size; the first half of section "Content", before the subheading. It would also take in most of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images: How to place an image; Choosing images; Image preferences. The section "Making images available" should be removed, or rehoused. It's distinctly incongruous - I'm not sure anyone comes to this page when seeking help about finding images. Parts of it might be relevant to upload policy.

Conclusions The effect of all of this would be to make it easier to point someone to the right page for them; it would help remove redundant sections and duplications; it would ensure that policy in particular is kept as concise as possible; it would help each to be more understandable since at the moment they switch between types of reader and tone. I know there's going to be some inertia to achieve this, but I do think it's something that needs to happen - and any wrinkles ironed out after. I haven't mentioned above what the new "Image use policy" might look like; I attempted to remove from "Image use policy" those parts I thought should be a guideline (Section "Placement") but was reverted, as I recall on at least partly the basis that it should be policy (to my mind, it was at least, part of the wrong policy page). So the idea there is to look at the new "Image use guidelines" and work out what, if anything, should be policy.

Proposal I have drafted the new Wikipedia:Image upload policy at User:Grandiose/Image upload policy and Wikipedia:Image use guidelines at User:Grandiose/Image use guidelines. They retain the same content which could do with some work but I didn't want to complicate the choice. So I therefore propose we

Discussion[edit]

This proposal is to adopt the drafts above about image use and image upload policies and guidelines in order to make the system in my opinion clearer, shorter, and with further potential for improvement. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:24, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Two things. First the upload policy proposal is confusing, it starts by saying "This page sets out the policies towards images", then has four links to other information. Second, almost no images should be uploaded to Wikipedia - only fair use images. The rest get uploaded to commons, and this is not noted. Apteva (talk) 04:03, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

These are both problems from the original. I didn't want to make any substantive changes so as not to confuse the picture. As to the first point, rewriting both leads is something I'd look into once/if we got the new system in place. The second point would be far easier to explain in the context of the new system I've proposed - the upload policy could discuss it, without confusing the image user (for whom it makes little difference - clearly fair use makes a difference, but not where the file is per se). So I see this as a reason in favour. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 10:33, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd support this proposal; it seems like a matter of housekeeping to relieve the confusion that results from having several different pages. I agree with the changes that Apteva notes, but let's tackle one thing at a time. Nyttend (talk) 03:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Oppose proposal as not having any real discussion from the general community to actually form the proposal itself. We need input as to what other areas may need adjusting and if this proposal reflects community consenus. I like the idea very much and am fully onboard with making changes but this isn't the exact way I would go about it. Please layout the proposal to discuss fully.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:02, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
I had a drafting stage at WP:VPP which got very little attention indeed - I'd left notices at the affected pages, at WT:MOS, and at this page. I don't believe we can have such a discussion much wider because it would suffer from lack of input because few editors have an understanding of the entire field of play; it would be more open to claims of no consensus because of the number of editors giving input and the wider impact; I don't think it could possibly reach any conclusions without a very lengthy process because the options would be too vast and the discussions on so many points, some of which would be relevant to only some proposals. We've never laid out policy from scratch - I realise you might not be proposing that, but I think it would be closer to that than this incremental change which is closer to policy formation at the moment. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:45, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, a million times, yes. The current system is terrible, the drafts are better, yes. Danger! High voltage! 06:40, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - This doesn't simplify anything. Carrite (talk) 19:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Could you be more specific so I can take your concerns into account? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:39, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure. Per the opening of the thread, we now have WP:Images, an image use policy, and a MOS guideline for images. If I understand the proposal correctly, the first of those would remain, the second would be recast as a policy about uploading, and the third would be cleaned up, to focus on style considerations rather than policy concerns. I see some logic in keeping policy in one place and guidelines in another place, so maybe that's a good thing. But it seems to me that most of what really baffles users is licensing and how to decide whether a file will be kept or deleted. And that's just an intrinsically complicated subject. I'm not sure that people are baffled by whether something is directed at uploaders or at editors. Also, I'm not sold on the argument that everything about policy is really just an upload issue. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:01, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
I actively opposed the creation of WP:IMAGES but there was almost no other discussion other than me and the creator, so I decided to leave it. I understand what you say; I think upload/use would be a good start on licencing. Also, I'm not sold on the argument that everything about policy is really just an upload issue. - I envisaged that a separate discussion, after, about splitting the new usage guidelines into guideline and policy. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 22:25, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. This is entirely about reorganising the existing content to be logically organised and easier to find which is exactly what is needed. Some improvements to content are needed, but the proposer is wise to make that an entirely separate discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 23:05, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Kiwix[edit]

Greetings to all friends, Kiwix is a program used to view Wikipedia offline using ZIM files, meaning it does not use an Internet connection. You can visit this page and read more information about it. Kiwix is under Wikimedia Foundation and supported by it. The English ZIM file will be updated soon. Unfortunately Kiwix is not well-known enough among the Internet users. We suggest to add a temporary notice on top of the Wikipedia pages which introduces Kiwix. (Just one or two weeks is enough) We did that before with two other Wikipedias and the result was really good and currently the most of the visitors of Kiwix are from these two. Regards. ●Mehran Debate● 15:34, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Cool, but why are you posting this on the proposals page? Rcsprinter (chat) No, I'm Santa Claus! @ 16:32, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
What would be the most appropriate place to do that? Kelson (talk) 12:31, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
Images are a problematic part of wikipeda and they are very confusing for most editors. Copyright is essentially nonsensical to many people. See, for example, all the people on Youtube saying "No copyright intended" when they post a blatantly copyright violating video. Ask 10,000 wikipedians if they can upload a photograph they have taken of a statue; then ask them if they can upload a photograph they have taken of a Japanese robot toy; then ask them if they can upload a photograph they have taken of a Japanese robot toy in its box. You might know the answer but most people don't. Perhaps all images need a CSS overlay of "NOT VETTED" or "NOT APPROVED" until an expert has examined the image, and the source, and the licence to determine if it's legal or not. Or just give up on images. See the hate generated by bots that checked image licences, and the regular appearances on ANI. People hate this stuff. 82.3.143.88 (talk) 23:35, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Add "-wikipedia" to google books search[edit]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to propose this, so if someone knows a better location, let me know. My idea is a simple one. In AfD discussions, there is always a little search bar at the top of the page:

(Find sources: "Article title" – news · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images)

The generic search includes "-wikipedia" automatically. What I've noticed more and more when searching google books is that it includes books that are created from wikipedia content. Hephaestus Books, for example, is one of the more common sources of such books. So I'd suggest adding "-wikipedia" to the books search as well as a convenience, and to help eliminate false positives for people searching who might not realize what is happening with all these amazing books they're finding. —Torchiest talkedits 14:38, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to work. Unless the word "wikipedia" is on the same page, GBook search seems to return these works anyway. Mangoe (talk) 14:49, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
Works alright for me. Hephaestus Books all have the same boilerplate description, which includes the line "...the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia", and other ripper-offers carry similar disclaimers. While the "-wikipedia" solution might not catch all of them, I think it's worth doing. By the by, a better place to discuss this would be Template talk:Find sources. DoctorKubla (talk) 08:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Admin tenure[edit]

The current consensus (as of the 27th of December) is not to implement a tenure. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 02:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I know this has been said before, but to propose to that effect, instead of having unlimited admins without acountability, its best to give accountability to the transparent process of having admins orotated ever so many years. One such idea I would like to propose is a three-year tenure-ship with 1/3 of admins up for re-election every year. Its as transparent as the oft-quoted "benevolence" of [western] democracy. Keeps people more transparent knowing they have a constituency to report to and an election to face so as to prevent abuses of power. Perhaps 150-300 admins with 1/3 rotated. Other options are very welcome.Lihaas (talk) 04:44, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I support this, with the full knowledge that it will never happen. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:11, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Any idea how to put it to a wider vote?Lihaas (talk) 08:04, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I'll make it an RfC. AutomaticStrikeout 18:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
An admirable goal. But it seems likely to raise logistical issues that you may want to address (if 1/3 are to be elected each time, how many admins would there be altogether? if the re-election is going to be meaningful, there would have to be lots of RfAs going on all the time, but isn't that process not seen as... super efficient?) AgnosticAphid talk 08:33, 17 November 2012 (UTC) Edit: Somehow I missed your suggestion of 150-300 admins. But right now there are 1,451 of them (WP:Admins). AgnosticAphid talk 08:36, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Didnt know how many there were. Perhaps we can keep it thereabout. For the first cycle, the oldest third can be elected and then move on for the first three year cycle. Alternatively a handful of active admins (active in admin work, not just active with edits here and there) can be longer/permanent with the rest in a regular electoral process as any nationalelection. The admin holds his views and questions at some page and then others can ask/read/see achievements/criticisms.Lihaas (talk) 09:18, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Switched to Support below. because I am not convinced that this will work. I believe this would create a way too complicated process for a volunteer project like Wikipedia. I've seen a number of experienced editors leave the project because of failed RfAs. Increasing the risk to lose more such editors through this process isn't something I am comfortable with. Also, it's not clear to me what problem this proposal is trying to fix. Is there really so much abuse of admin powers lately? -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlkctb) 09:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
It gives admin authority uniaterally and is not accountable. ive seen numerous admins who take decisions without any consensus discussions (some of which are uncontroversial, but nevertheless a bad precedent). I dont think its harder than any election. As proposed above, even the RFA's would go and be more streamlined. This would have to happen since its rotated and not permanent. (hence the RFA's are arduous because the process for that permanent job has to be harder to weed out others). Knowing you have a set tenure will make one MORE accountable and open the process more.
Alternatively, we dont have to have a set number of, say, 500 to vote for each year. We could do more or less. And even have some 150 every 5 months or 50 a month (just throwing out ideas)Lihaas (talk) 09:18, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support The principal idea. Now how is this process intended to work exactly? -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlkctb) 12:19, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Seems to be per above and below. But any specific questions?Lihaas (talk) 17:40, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
So does that mean any admin has his or her admin rights automatically removed after 3 years or am I misunderstanding this? -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlkctb) 19:07, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment While I support the idea and the 3 year term for that matter, this is one of those perennial ideas that has yet to get support. See Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Reconfirm_administrators. Dennis Brown - © Join WER 15:25, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
    As as an admin, any idea how to get this wider discussion? We can refine certain aspects through discussion too.Lihaas (talk) 17:40, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - I rather think a monthly election for 10-20 admins for 3-year terms will be fine. With terms less permanent, admin hopefuls will not require as stringent conditions, opening up the chances for newer hopefuls. Opposing the idea of having permanent admins. Even a permanent admin may not stay active after 3 years. If he does, then we can easily re-elect him. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 16:57, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Question - Is there already a system for de-admining rogue/bad admins? This might help do something of that sort, and even in making the process better and easier TheOriginalSoni (talk) 16:57, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is WP:AOR which is voluntary (at the time of adminship) and WP:Desysopping which is reserved for extreme cases. AgnosticAphid talk 17:06, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Yep, but its, as said above, on extreme circumstances and doesnt yield to much change (or accountability). We dont need to have term limits either as that could harm good admins staying on.Lihaas (talk) 17:40, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Why not? Good admins would still be good, and would have to ask for re-election every 3 years at the most. How would that be a major issue? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 07:55, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose – It's just too likely that admins would face backlash for admin actions that they had taken during their term. This could result in admins being afraid to intervene in controversial situation because they know it would hurt their chance at re-election. AutomaticStrikeout 18:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - For a few reasons: (1) many admins are inactive, and they should be purged from the admin roles; (2) some admins are not really suited for the job, yet they were given the role back in the 2004-2006 heyday when the RfA process was less stringent; (3) a "admin for life" role is not consistent with WP philosophy. One third every three years? Or maybe 1/4 every four years? The exact period is not too important. --Noleander (talk) 19:00, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia needs admins who will firmly reject nonsense, but such admins accummulate a group of haters. Fixed tenure would guarantee that we lose the admins that are needed most since no sane person wants to waste time periodically rehashing settled cases with a group of disgruntled users. When challenged, supporters of previous proposals have been unable to show a case where periodically hazing admins would be beneficial—if an admin has made bad calls, raise the matter with evidence at a suitable noticeboard. It's possible there won't be much comment here since many people know that it is rarely productive to discuss rejected perennial proposals. Johnuniq (talk) 23:34, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Is it just me or is 3 years actually a very short period of time in Wikipedia years? I think it is quite a long amount of time for any admin to be hazed or anything. [Ifyou feel otherwise, please do say].
I really doubt the validity of your statement that there have not been bad admins [If thats what you meant to say]. I am pretty sure they are plenty of cases of admins not being removed due to weak deAdmin policies. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 15:48, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment This proposal is orthogonal to the real fix, which is to implement Jimbo's original idea that adminship "shouldn't be a big deal", but should be just normal for editors who've been around a while, understand what they're doing with the tools and when they shouldn't, and appear to be trustworthy. Instead RfA has become this huge deal about how many featured articles you've been involved in (it has never been clearly explained what that has to do with, say, evaluating the outcome of deletion discussions, or keeping one's personal feelings out of the choice to block an editor). How we get there from here, though, I have no idea. --Trovatore (talk) 23:45, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Wikipedia is not trying to resemble a democracy, and if we elect them once, we elect them to make good decisions without deadline. If an abuse arises, let the community do the appropriate action, not suck every sysop into this system that will just reduce the number of good sysops. ~~Ebe123~~ on the go! 01:46, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Just because Wikipedia is not trying to be a democracy doesnt mean we try not to be a democracy. Thats very fallacious as a line of reasoning, as it implies we boycott anything that looks like democracy.
The main point of contention here is that wikipedia already elects admins [So its like a democracy already!] But admins can change [I am sure this question of tenure would not have arisen had almost all admins been as good or just or fair as they appeared to be when elected]. Sometimes they fail to have enough time to devote; and at other times the regulations surpass them [Reference to Noleander's comment there]. Plus, having a tenure and a stronger De-Adminship regulation implies Nobody is above the law- Admins will learn to be more responsible seeing the fact that they can be removed too. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 15:48, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per Dennis Brown and AutomaticStrikeout. This is not ArbCom; and also, if admins would have to be re-elected, they would face fear of performing their job as they must. This is not the right solution for bad admins, and will harm good ones more that giving them a bit of benefit. — ΛΧΣ21 16:29, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose per AutomaticStrikeout. And frankly, there is no chance I would waste the time going through RFA again. Aside from creating a culture where admins may be afraid to act in the best interest of Wikipedia, you're only going to cause a large decrease in the number of admins available to complete the tasks. Hell, given the general tone at RFA these days, I suspect this proposal would create one of the most effective ways to drive editors away from Wikipedia entirely. Resolute 16:38, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support It requires a rather large amount of bias to be a useful administrator. Some decisions are supper hard to make. I believe the spirit of the project wants dynamic rather than static admin bias. The only static bias should be the bias in the sources. This is the only type of opinion we should enforce indefinitely. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 19:56, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. We have enough trouble recruiting administrators in the first place due to the mangled mess that RFA has become. Added to that, the only reason for removing administrative capability is abuse of the tools or other egregiously bad behavior. Arbitrarily doing so after a set period of time will do nothing for "accountability" that our existing processes do not already do. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:03, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm overly ambitious but does that really work? Can you really argue that adminship should be permanent because Wikipedia can not recruit new administrators? 84.106.26.81 (talk) 20:14, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose per AutomaticStrikeout. (Disclaimer; I am an admin.) And, to the anon: This would create a "world" where admins would want to do what is popular among those who shout their opinions, rather than trying to do what is right, or even what is popular among editors. It might be reasonable if it would require a 2/3 !vote to desysop, with those who have been in direct conflict with the admin restricted from voting. I'd still lean against, but that would allow some protection from WP:GANG warfare. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:21, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose this specific proposal per AutomaticStrikeout, but am not fundamentally opposed to the concept of some sort of admin accountability. Go Phightins! 03:43, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Like those before me, AutomaticStrikeout raises the exact point I believe is the killer in this. While I like the idea of limited terms, why not instigate something based on a period of inactivity. I.e. If an admin hasn't been active for ~12 months then they'll go through a process to keep the mop Cabe6403 (TalkSign) 16:27, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The Administrative approval process is often a mean-spirited, dysfunctional circus. What's needed aren't mass numbers of re-elections using the same nearly broken process but a more reliable method for the removal of the handful of "bad apples" from the Administrative barrel. Carrite (talk) 16:02, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Weak Support (I've not read all the material above) - I like the idea of removing the "lifetime appointment" for administrators (I am an admin myself). Maybe a middle ground could be something along the lines of this:
    a) Admins who have been inactive for 3 years would need to go through a re-vesting process if they want to become active administratively again.
    b) 1/3 of all admins would be "inspected" on a rotating 3 year cycle; that "inspection" would cover the a) point and would lead to a "suggested for re-vesting" set of admins. In other words, someone(s) could indicate that they think Admin XYZ should go through re-vesting -- I think a good number would be 5 'yeas' for re-vesting -- which would keep the number being formally reviewed low enough to be manageable and would cover those who might have been among the worst admins (whatever that really means) over the past 3 years.
    Maybe what should be done at this point is to start the looking now as year 1, but don't do anything until the next cycle - year 4; use year 1 only for observation, but start the real process in year 4. Year 1-3 would be the "calibration sprint" with things beginning for real Year 4. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:20, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose I think we should have a better way to deal with problem admins, and that having such a process would lessen the problems at RFA. That said, AutomaticStrikeout's point must be addressed by any process I would support, and this proposal does not. The self selection of RFA participants, and the rate of participation, means that a vocal minority would be able to have a disproportionate impact if they show up to get revenge on an admin they disagree with or that had taken action against them. Monty845 16:44, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
COMMENT The point of this is exactly to cull the arduous and silly RFA process. It would be as such because its nota ligfelong thing. Itd be far more straightforward. And if somoene on the fring has an issue it would easily be undone (as does ANYI, ETC) . Why is that hard to understand? WP is local government? Sems that way. Stick to the high horse and oppose all and any change.Lihaas (talk) 17:32, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
I think your statement "WP is a local government" pretty much sums up the entire thing. That being said, we should also see what we can do to change RFA to make it a lot better and less 'arduous' TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:25, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Alternative addition to proposal - Any outgoing Admins seeking re-election shall be allowed to continue their tenure following a 'scrutiny'. This scrutiny shall be a discussion of past actions of the admin, both positive and negative; and cumulate in a vote by the community. The admin shall be asked to step down only if 2/3rds [Maybe 2/3rd is too high; 1/2 may be better?] of the votes are against him. Otherwise he gets an extended tenure. Only the seats that fall vacant shall be open to election, with the top x successful candidates making the cut. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:34, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

This way, we make sure a handful of people with a vengeance cannot go after an admin. All the same, if more than 2/3rd of the voters vote against him, we cannot really can them a handful. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:34, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Alternative addition to addition to proposal - We can have a clause that only if the majority of a jury of 12 experienced admins find that the scrutiny is correct in asking for an admin to step down will the admin be asked to step down TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:34, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
A high threshold for removing the bit, as opposed the the default 1/3rd at RFA does help address the vocal minority problem, it may also be worthwhile to consider a minimum participation level. If I knew that at least 100 editors and admins would participate in a discussion, I think a 50% threshold would be fine. However, if I thought that only 30 editors were going to show up, a 2/3rds in favor of removal would be more important. As for admin juries, I think there will rightfully be objections both to having the foxes guarding the henhouse, as well as to giving admins another role where they are special and above other experienced editors, which we should avoid whenever possible. Monty845 19:40, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
The answer then looks easier. No vote can be decided on a non-Speedy closure without a minimum number of people voting in. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 20:44, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - A) Such a system would, as pointed out above, increase the likelihood of Wikipedia losing admins because they made difficult but correct choices which angered people; B) Inactive admins are already removed regularly so there is no reason to force the active ones to reconfirm; C) ArbCom can handle problematic admins far better than any elections; D) Having to face elections might tempt some admins to make popular but incorrect choices for the sake of remaining an admin. If you think that old, inactive admins who return after 3+ years should be re-scrutinized, then that's something that should be discussed as a chance to WP:INACTIVITY. Regards SoWhy 19:38, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. To the extent that any of the problems outlined by the proposer exist, this proposal wouldn't solve them. It would just cause more bureaucracy and more drama. Is an admin "controversial" because she edits in volatile topic areas, or because she genuinely abuses her powers? An admin could lose the tools in both instances under this proposal. Can we name one admin who was once good but started taking abusive actions because he served too long and thus started getting cocky? Such an admin would lose the tools, but so would many, many others who were still good admins. szyslak (t) 07:24, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Neutral Comment with Different Proposal. I originally read the proposal and supported it, but now I'm leaning opposed per AutomaticStrikeout's argument. As we also see in western democracy, politicians are scared of making major (and often necessary) decisions because they are concerned about their backlash in the next election, as many Americans know as we head towards this so-called "fiscal cliff" as a result. However, we need some sort of method for admin accountability beyond desysopping in voluntary or "extreme" cases, especially with how the RfA process has changed and will continue to change. I'd support an annual(?) opportunity for "proposed desysopping" by any user who wishes to desysop an admin (or admins willing to enter themselves). If it is clear the proposer of a desysopping is basing his claim on a legitimate admin action, then this proposal, by its nature, will be killed in the discussion and closed with the admin kept. The only questions now are who would be allowed to close such discussions, how often do we allow for "proposed desysoppings" (annually? quarterly? any time?), and, if they are not allowed at any time, for how long do proposers have to open a proposal (one week? two weeks? one month?) RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 22:32, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Anything that's likely to be another deterrent to new candidates is best not implemented. If our admins are performing reasonably well and not demonstrating any need to be sanctioned, why force them through another week of hell? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:28, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Though I mostly agree with the premises, this is not a solution, as I see it. We have some 600+ active admins. To keep such a number in a 4 year rotation election, we would elect 150 per year. Well.. it is hard to check some 20 candidates to the current ArbCom election, who would and how would we check some 300 candidates for 150 spots? Making it a continuous process would require starting a reconfirmation election about every 2 days. Double, or halve, the numbers accordingly if you consider that there are ~1400 admins (including inactive ones). not a pratical solution. I disagree with the seemingly main oppose argument: that admins would be pressed by the fear to dissatisfy the masses, aiming for re-election. Well... I agree they (we) probably would feel that pressure but the opposite possibility is worse: if you can keep a position of 'power' indefinitely even the mildest and better kind of human being is tempted to abuse. It happens in 'outside' world, it is even easier to happen in a 'virtual' world. I think accountability is surely very much important, I never looked much into Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct#Use of administrator privileges, but the concept is good. Does it work? - Nabla (talk) 00:55, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose We need admins to block vandals, delete attack pages and several other things. We have a declining number of admins and this proposal would lose us many of them - including hundreds of uncontentious admins who use the tools too rarely to bother with reconfirmation but who collectively make a very important contribution. Also it would inevitably make RFA even harder for new candidates as the fewer admins we have the bigger a deal adminship becomes. There are problems with arrogance in the admin cadre - but the solution to that is to expand the admin cadre not to up its exclusivity factor. A longer version of this is at User:WereSpielChequers/RFA_reform#Periodic_reconfirmation. ϢereSpielChequers 16:00, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Adminship already is the sort of thing where you do a lot of work for free and virtually the only feedback you get are complaints. More abuse? I'll pass, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. And, as noted by many others above, re-appointing an admin daily would be a ridiculous increase in an already bloated bureaucracy. I'm not opposed in principle to a streamlined way to deal with actually incompetent/inactive admins (preferably something that doesn't have to go through the ArbCom bottleneck), but this is not a solution to that problem. Danger! High voltage! 19:40, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose the lack of practical math skills. We have 1,316 admins right now. Re-confirming each of them every three years means nine or ten RFAs per week, which is many time what we're doing now. That's way more time than the community can afford to spend on this subject. Additionally, we don't want admins to be "accountable" in the sense that re-elections make politicians "accountable" to their constituencies. We want admins to be more like appointed judges, who are willing to deal with difficult situations and to use their best judgment to make the occasional unpopular decision, without fear that refusing to apply page protection, or deleting an article, or whatever choice they make, is going to be punished at their next "election". (Unimportant question: Why does nearly everyone who proposes this choose three-year cycles? The math works for a ten-year cycle.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:33, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose I shall break with the usual veil of modesty and say this: as an admin, I'm fairly uncontroversial. I occasionally slip up and get shouted at, but I try very hard to avoid drama and silliness and just plod away at improving the wiki. My RfA wasn't too stressful. But the thought of doing it over and over again in perpetuity is not something that would be too appealing to anybody who isn't either a masochist or a process fanatic. Ah, that's just an admin trying to sneak away from accountability!, you say. I think we do currently have a problem with desysopping people who abuse the tools. Forcing uncontentious admins who just toil away keeping the sausage factory running to jump through hoops to keep doing the work they do for free is a waste of time. Address the actual issue: make desysopping problematic admins easier. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose As every admin knows, any admin work besides the most routine and uncontroversial is going to eventually piss someone off. What admin would close a contentious and difficult discussion, knowing that no matter what call they make, they've just racked up a bunch more oppose votes for their upcoming re-RfA? And how many admins are going to stay active for 3 years, knowing they have to go through the RfA circus again? (And again, and...). Rather, we need an ArbCom that is willing to take the tools away from those who blatantly and routinely misuse them. Those are, however, a very small fraction of our admins, and I see no reason to punish the many admins who do excellent volunteer work for a few bad apples. Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:10, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Limited terms is the most unmanageable of the alternatives, and the least promising. Much more sensible approaches include e.g. (i) a community-elected adminship committee, which would combine community control with strongly reduced drama, especially for the admin candidates, or (ii) a continually open "RfA", where any registered user can give or withdraw their support/opposition at any given moment. I envision a system where people only get a bare vote, without any additional commentary. Such a variant would of course not work with a threshold of 70%+. It would probably have to be closer to 50%, considering the typical (and likely, normal) number of enemies any active admin makes. This second idea would introduce continual accountability, without having to resort to extraordinary drama at AN/RfC/RfAr/recall. I regard both of these alternatives vastly superior to a proposal based on limited terms. Alas, none of these will ever be adopted. --87.79.111.177 (talk) 10:40, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I would be willing to support this if the re-adminship threshold were significantly lower...probably at 50%. I'd also want to consider limiting the voting membership to nominally established editors (say...1000 edits?). This would keep out, for instance, the new editors who just got their page speedily deleted by the admin in question. Finally, I would recommend that it be set up as basically a vote, with discussion occurring on a separate page; I don't think that a full RfA style "consensus-building discussion" would be plausible, simply given the number of participants. Qwyrxian (talk) 22:42, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, even though this proposal has gotten to the point that it should be closed as a snow oppose. I'd support this with the modifications proposed by Qwyxian (wow, that's a difficult username to type :-) because otherwise it would be abused. In order to fulfill the spirit of WP:DEAL, we need to lower the standards both for getting adminship and for losing it. This system is used at the Swedish Wikipedia (and perhaps others, but I can't think of any others), and we don't hear anything about them descending into chaos. Nyttend (talk) 00:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I would support, more or less, a similar arrangement in which a stipulation is made at an original RfA that a candidate, in order to pass, must undergo a second RfA after one/two years, something like a mandatory recall. I support wholeheartedly the ideas and ideals behind this proposal, but I just don't think it will ever get the momentum to be widely implemented. dci | TALK 05:25, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support per Noleander and any other arguments that give my !vote more weight. St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 02:25, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Alternative proposal, ArbCom subcommittee with community review boards[edit]

Linking lyrics from legal providers[edit]

Reader feedback has made it clear that many people who visit Wikipedia articles on musical artists, albums, and songs are looking for lyrics. Obviously, we can't provide them here due to copyright reasons in most cases. Until now I had been linking official sites of artists, which often host some (but not always all) of their lyrics with a proper license. However, this is very taxing, as each site uses a different layout, many don't permit linking lyrics of individual songs directly, and many sites change their layouts over time.

However, I recently discovered, to my surprise, that Gracenote has an extensive lyrics licensing service. Their first and biggest partner is MetroLyrics, which describes themselves as "the most comprehensive database of legal lyrics in the world with over 700,000 titles." Gracenote also licenses lyrics to Lyrics Wikia. Gracenote also claims they employ "live editors to capture and review each song lyric to provide the maximum accuracy and consistency for all lyrics content," which would also seem to make their lyrics a relatively reliable source.

I think it would be useful to create a bot which automatically matches articles on songs or albums up to their corresponding lyrics page on a legal lyrics provider like MetroLyrics (if one exists), and adds an external link to the end of the external links section using a template. This could be done quite reliably using infobox data, where available, and I would implement it myself. Nothing in WP:EL would prohibit this, and it would serve readers looking for lyrics. Even in cases where the official site is already linked, this would also provide a "backup" link in case the official site changes their URLs (which happens rather frequently).

My main concern is appearing to promote particular lyrics providers with large numbers of links. It'd be better if we had an extension akin to Special:BookSources that did a metasearch and linked the lyrics at many legal providers - but this is difficult to implement due to the lack of a widely-used unique identifier for songs, and the current small number of legal providers (I couldn't find a single site so far other than MetroLyrics that doesn't mix licensed lyrics with illegal unlicensed lyrics).

Update: I've discovered MetroLyrics has a mobile site that presents a much cleaner and more reasonable interface than their atrocious primary website. See sample lyrics page. It still has ads but they're pretty unobtrusive. This is legal but I'm not entirely sure MetroLyrics would be very happy with us linking to their mobile site.

Any feedback appreciated. Dcoetzee 13:04, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

The article proposal itself seems like a valid thing and would allow us to extent what Wikipedia can offer readers while being in the legal clear. I personally would support this fully but I open to the side switch. How would the bot in its work operate though? That is probably the only thing that would change my mind. John F. Lewis (talk) 20:37, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
The full details of the bot are still being worked out, but the basic idea is this: I enumerate all pages on the MetroLyrics site and all song/album/artist pages on Wikipedia (using a database dump), and then do matching based on infobox data. Any cases that can't be resolved with high reliability that way I would have to review manually. For each article that has a page on MetroLyrics, the bot transcludes a template subpage in its External links section (e.g. for Our Song (Taylor Swift song) it would be {{lyrics/Our Song (Taylor Swift song)}}) which contains a link to MetroLyrics using {{MetroLyrics song}}/{{MetroLyrics album}}/{{MetroLyrics artist}}. This allows us to easily switch to another lyrics provider at a later time using an automatic process, and facilitates sharing lyrics links with other wikis (possibly using Wikidata someday). I sidestep the problem of disambiguation by reusing the disambiguation already in use in mainspace. To avoid confusion, I would probably also include an HTML comment in the article explaining that MetroLyrics is a legal provider. Dcoetzee 21:54, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
Support, but I don't think you need to worry about the book service issue. I see no problem into linking into an official site and a "database" site for additional information - TV shows do this all the time. I would stick to MetroLyrics to avoid any issues with SPS sites like the Lyrics Wikia. --MASEM (t) 20:41, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
I also support. We frequently link to lyrics or other original source texts from Wikisource when they're in the public domain, and it's no less helpful to link to copyrighted works whose authors permit them to be online. In fact, it may be a downright good idea, because we'd be driving traffic to websites that are hosting these texts legitimately. Nyttend (talk) 14:34, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support This is long overdue.It there do become multiple such sources, we should handle loik booksources, but for the moment, it's good to get started. There's no objection to multiple sites. Doing this is highly in line with our basic principle of not assisting copyvio. By making it easy for people to find the official sites, it discourage the use of the illegal ones. (which is no doubt what the licensors have in mind also, and while we might not agree with them on all other copyright issues, I hope we do agree on not promoting copyright violations.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DGG (talkcontribs) 05:22, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Pop-up links for citations?[edit]

I was just thinking for the sake of navigation simplicity, wouldn't it be better if for the majority of links (especially citations) if by default they would be put into new tabs/windows? Just a thought, someone might just wanna verify a citation, and if the page is large you wouldn't wanna wait for it to reload would you? Just a thought... JDHuff185 (talk) 15:21, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with this on the basis that sites that force links to open in new tabs or windows tick me off to no end. If I want to open a link in a new tab, I use middle-click (or Ctrl-click or the right-click menu option). If you set links to open in new tabs you remove the option from the user; the website is making the choice for you.
That said, I would support a user preferences option for this that is off by default. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 03:55, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Somehting like Preferences → Gadgets → Reference Tooltips? --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 04:20, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Gadget850: i think you read the title but not the actual request - this person seems to be looking for something different than what you seem to think they are looking for.
Aaron: there is no need to support this existing user preference, unless its removal is discussed.
JDHuff185: of course, you can always open links by clicking them while holding the Ctrl for "new tab" or Shift for "new window". this works with IE, Firefox, Chrome and Opera (at least under windows and linux - not sure what is the key combination for mac). However, if you want to save the keyboard action, you can set a preference under Prefereces => Gadgets => Browsing => "Open external links in a new tab/window".
peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 19:19, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Are "Palestinian territories" titles still appropriate for topic articles[edit]

This section was previously located at Talk:Marriage in the Palestinian territories

– At multiple talk pages it has been suggested that because of the UN vote this type of article should use a tile other then "Palestinian Territories" (maybe "Palestine of "State of Palestine"). Should these pages continue to use "Palestinian territories" titles and if not what should their titles be? Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 04:16, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

*Retitle to "State of Palestine". There seem to be multitudes of wikipedia articles that are now using "State of Palestine" now, and although it is contrary to my original thinking, this would seem to be the overall Wikipedia consensus. These areas are no longer "territories" they compose an independent nation with self determination according to international law. --Sue Rangell 05:20, 19 December 2012 (UTC) See proceedural comment below.

Why not just "in Palestine" instead of having to take a position on the whole state recognition controversy? Dicklyon (talk) 05:45, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
Sue Rangell, State of Palestine is a specific entity - a state declared in 1988, not controlling any territory yet (because of Israel occupation/control), consisting of specific institutions (President different from the PNA president, Government different from the PNA government, Parliament different from the PNA parliament) and the actions of this state are mostly in the foreign relations field (sending ambassadors, etc.) - and those are conducted by the PLO. One of those famous actions is the recent change in the title of the PLO UN observer delegation. That doesn't make the Occupied Palestinian territories or Palestinian National Authority (allowed by Israel to perform some administrative functions in the oPt) to disappear. Japinderum (talk) 08:46, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
Dicklyon, "Palestine" is ambiguous in various contexts and should not be used in WP:TITLE unless it's about Palestine (region) (that redirects there). Japinderum (talk) 08:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
Sure, as mentioned before - i already look over those discussions and no need to notify me again and again.Greyshark09 (talk) 20:13, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose It's nice to see consolidated discussion on the topic, but I can't support moving these articles while the parent article remains at Palestinian territories. Reasonable people can disagree with me on that, but the PNA's territory is increasingly looking like the West Bank alone, and the State of Palestine is largely a fiction (I don't intend that as a value judgment). I continue to support a merge of Palestinian territories with State of Palestine, and would subsequently support moving these articles to whatever title is used in that merged article. Palestine would be easiest, but that RM was recently declined. --BDD (talk) 06:21, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't say that SoP is fiction - it's more akin the classical case of a government-in-exile (e.g. internationally recognized, but without control over any territory that it claims). The topics of "Palestinian territories" and SoP are quite different (SoP claims sovereignty over these territories - but that doesn't mean that we should merge the articles - even if SoP gains control over these areas in the future the territories article should be kept separate as description of the period when it didn't had that control, e.g. of the present time). The topic of Palestine (region) (redirecting to Palestine) is also different - it covers the whole region (e.g. including also Israel). Merging those separate topics, each with plenty of content - will only bring confusion and will go contrary to various guidelines. Japinderum (talk) 08:46, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
You make some good points, but as long as the SoP "has designated Jerusalem as its capital" and "The areas that make up the state of Palestine have been occupied by Israel since 1967," I don't know how we could rename these topics without substantial confusion. As long as they just cover the West Bank and Gaza Strip, these are appropriate titles. --BDD (talk) 15:56, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't say we should rename all of those - as you can see below I say that it should be decided on a case by case basis. Japinderum (talk) 17:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment - I don't think move requests should be with unknown destination. Also as explained at some of those I mention above - decisions should be taken on a case by case basis. Geographical issues should refer to Palestinian territories or Palestine (region) (depending on whether they cover only West Bank and Gaza or also Israel). Issues related to the local Palestinian administration and its institutions should refer to Palestinian National Authority. Issues related to the state declared in 1988 and its institutions (PLO-EC acting as its provisional government in exile, PNC, President) should refer to State of Palestine. Etc. Japinderum (talk) 08:28, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • In the common case you have a single set of state, government and territory and only one entity conductive administrative functions there, under the name utilized for this single set - the government of the state controlling the territory. The case here is different - special, because there are multiple entities conductive different actions under the name of a territory (PLO, State of Palestine, PNA), that's under the control/occupation of another state (Israel). There are some institutional links between the three entities (PLO, SoP, PNA), but there are also clear distinctions - SoP doesn't control any territory. PNA is allowed by Israel to perform certain administrative functions in some areas (Area A and B) - per the Oslo Accords signed by PLO, Israel, USA, Russia. So, for example there can't be "Prostitution in the State of Palestine" unless somebody claims the President or members of the PLO-EC and PNC are prostitutes. There can be "Prostitution in the Palestinian territories" or "Prostitution in West Bank and Gaza" or "Prostitution in Area A, B and C", etc. Japinderum (talk) 08:28, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Also, it should be noted that the recent change of the PLO UN observer delegation into SoP UN observer delegation doesn't change anything into the institutional arrangement or Israel occupation/control. That's a clear case of WP:RECENTISM. Maybe PLO will engage in some transfer of functions from PNA to SoP, we shall wait and see. But changing the title of the UN delegation isn't a reason for us to change titles of unrelated articles - those dealing with PNA functions and institutions or with territorial and geographical issues. Japinderum (talk) 08:33, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose if the proposal is for ALL targets to be "Palestine" or "State of Palestine" regardless of the topic of the individual article. As explained above - that should be decided on a case by case basis depending on the specific article topic. Also, as explained above the recent UN vote has nothing to do with transport, lakes, cathedrals, football, geography, etc. Japinderum (talk) 08:56, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
    • I had that in mind when making this proposal. I excluded some articles that would be possible exceptions, most notably the Years in the Palestinian territories articles. The article topic for these articles is the West Bank and Gaza Strip (AKA Palestinian territories, Palestine etc.). The articles about Palestinian National Authority institutions should of coarse remain at PNA titles. As for what to do with those possible exceptions, if these article are moved maybe we'll decide those on a case be case basis. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 16:18, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • But we're now on that bridge with the rename proposal. OK, I'll quickly go trough the ledes/content of the articles to extract the topic:
  • "Marriage in the Palestinian territories deals with the marriage law and customs" - if it was only "law" then we could move it to PNA (with a note that Area C follows law per Marriage in Israel, but since it includes "customs" then the current titles is a better fit.
  • Tourism article looks to be with purely territorial focus (across PNA, Israel and Hamas), current title is OK.
  • Taxation article looks to be focused on PNA, title should include PNA.
  • Scout article wikilinked articles look to be focused on PNA - but haven't checked the sources, so maybe that's an edit-creep result. Are those organizations registered according to PNA law? If correct title may move to include PNA.
  • Football - same as Scout
  • Communications - tough case, but as it mostly covers commercial entities presumably registered in the PNA and PNA regulations - title may move to include PNA.
  • Geography is kind of a DAB page and looks territorial, current title is OK
  • Economy - since it covers also Gaza (outside of PNA control) I would suggest to keep it at current title, but there are also arguments for the title to include PNA.
  • Demographics - covers Gaza and Jewish settlers - current title looks the most fitting
  • Education - primarily concerns actions of the PNA ministry and its subordinate structures - title to include PNA
  • Islam - unusual as it covers also Israel - most probably the title is result of some discussion. Either keep or split in two.
  • Textbooks - wrong title - topic is actually "stuides about a particular subject in textbooks published in the PNA" - title to include PNA
  • Outline - wikilink aggregation - current title is OK as it's more encompassing and thus most fitting.
  • Racism - covers also historical period, thus title may move to include Palestine (region), but doesn't cover present day Israel, so maybe current title is most fitting.
  • Transport - lede explicitly defines the topic as PNA-centric, but transport itself is territorial subject, so 50/50 for current title or move to include PNA
  • Religious freedom - content seems PNA-centric - title to include PNA
  • Lakes - geographical stub, current title is OK
  • Airports - tough case - like the Airlines and Communications
  • Roman catholicism - maybe the title will be better with some more ancient name from the Christian period of the region - or with the official title of the "clerical division" currently utilized by the Catholic Church
  • Human rights - seems PNA focused (but maybe includes some Hamas and Israel-occupation notes)
  • Water - PNA-leaning, but current title also fine
  • LGBT rights - since it's about legal rights - PNA. Wikilink to marriange in Palestinian territories would be good to add.
  • Vehicle registration plates - clearly PNA as it is the administration issuing those (Historical section can remain)
  • Cities - territorial DAB, includes also Israeli ones, current title is fine
  • Telephone numbers - as Communications. But lede says "places under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority", so maybe more PNA leaning.
  • Cathedrals - like Islam title includes Israel - same issues. Like Roman Catholicism - maybe some non-Israeli/Arab term can be utilized - "Jerusalem partiarchate" or something like that
  • Twin towns - territorial, current title is fine.
Please keep in mind that above list is just a quick look trough, I don't say we should move any of those right away and don't reply too harsh if I have mislooked some detail. The above comments are just an example of what I think the discussion should be centered on - the topics of the articles - instead of on not directly relevant far away votes, whether SoP is fiction and similar political issues. Japinderum (talk) 17:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
For the most part articles about the West bank and Gaza strip use "Palestinian territories" titles unless they about some institution or topic closely acocated with the Palestinian National Authority ("the administrative organization established to govern the West Bank and Gaza Strip") such as offices in the PNA (e.g President of the Palestinian National Authority) of topices closly ausoted with the PNA such as Elections in the Palestinian National Authority which deals with the elections of the administrative organization, or Postage stamps and postal history of the Palestinian National Authority which deals with the postal stamps issued by and the postal system operated by the PNA. See also All pages with titles containing Palestinian National Authority and Talk:Economy_of_the_Palestinian_territories#Rename.
If I understand you correctly, your mostly making an argument to expand the scope of PNA titles and narrow the scope of PT titles (or whatever the new standard title for WB&GS articles becomes) which is an argument you could make, perhaps in another discussion about Palestine titles, but it's not really the point of this discussion. The point of this one is to figure out if "Palestinian territories" is still an appropriate title despite the UN vote. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 18:24, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
As shown be that link to articles with PNA titles, only a few topic articles have PNA titles (most articles with PNA titles are about some PNA office). Compare that with All pages with titles containing Palestinian territories which has 48 articles, most of them topic articles. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 18:55, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
I thought about this some more and I think that what you've identified is mostly just that some of these articles just don't have as much coverage of Area C as they should. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 23:34, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
"The point of this one is to figure out if "Palestinian territories" is still an appropriate title despite the UN vote." - yes it's appropriate - the UN vote is IRRELEVANT for the titles of these articles because their topics are related neither to the UN nor to the PLO and the State of Palestine (the entities involved in the UN observer delegation status change).
Also, I'm not sure these article should have more Area C coverage - maybe it's better to have separate articles for the PNA (Area A/B) and "Judea and Samaria"/Area C/"Israelli settlements"/"Israeli Civil Administration" or whatever title is appropriate for the narrow topic of Area C. But this may depend on the particular content available, so I again think it should be discussed case-by-case. Japinderum (talk) 07:36, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
Contented bellow. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 21:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The State of Palestine is a fiction. While it is okay to have an article about that fiction, having articles about subjects that are real called that is well, fictional. Apteva (talk) 09:23, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. First off, procedurally: this talk page isn't a good place to have such a wide-ranging discussion; it should be held at WP:VP/Pr to get more attention. Moreover, substantially: a single UN vote doesn't change anything about WP:COMMONNAME, and it's not as if the UN has the power to change something in terms of international law. "Palestine" is ambiguous, because it can mean the region, or it can mean the British Mandate, or it can mean the area that the Hamas government controls right now. "State of Palestine", being a disputed concept, isn't a good thing on which to base our article names. "Palestinian territories" is best, because it's not ambiguous and because everyone agrees that there are areas of Earth over which the Hamas government exerts some control. Nyttend (talk) 12:20, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Wrong Venue This needs to be taken up at. WP:VP/Pr. I originally just wanted to move a list of four airports to List of airports in Palestine, and it has blown up into what looks like a major political debate. This is not the place to have it. Furthermore, it is clear that some of the items on the list should not be moved. --Sue Rangell 19:44, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • n.b. Comments above this line were originally posted at Talk:Marriage in the Palestinian territories. --BDD (talk) 20:14, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment Another possible title is "West Bank and Gaza Strip". Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 20:05, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment. Thanks for removing the RM tag. Some of the above are valid moves, such as List of airports in the Palestinian territoriesList of airports in Palestine, but each should be discussed separately, and the proposed move of State of Palestine → Palestine is closed as not moved. We all know that there are two proposals for Israel - the two state solution and the one state solution, and we all know that neither has happened yet (for what it is worth only the one state solution makes any sense). The UN has no authority over sovereign states and can not decide whether Palestine is a state or not. Only Palestine and Israel can decide that and they currently disagree. Granting observer state status at the UN is a polite gesture to Palestine and nothing else. Apteva (talk) 21:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
    • For the most part I don't see why some of these should be moved but not others. To simply discuss each separately would just result in a bunch of different WP:LOCALCONSENSUS at each article that would result in non-standardized names for these articles. Japinderum makes an interesting point about some of these articles focusing on PNA law or not having much coverage about Area C, but is seems to me that for the most part ether "Palestinian territories" is an appropriate title for articles about the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or it isn't. If say List of airports in the Palestinian territories should be moved to a non-Palestinian territories title per the UN vote, why would that not apply to most other topic articles about the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 22:56, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Each article has different topic - that's why some may be moved and others not. It's not like a set of articles "Whatever in Canada" are moved to "Whatever in Adanac" (if Canada changes its constitutional name). As said at 08:28, 19 December 2012 - you can't treat these articles here as "standard" "Whatever in a country X" articles, because they don't deal with a "simple" "country X", but with the complex political and institutional setup of multiple state and non-state entities with overlapping territorial affiliation. In this situation it's wrong to have "standardized names" for ALL of these articles. "List of airports in the Palestinian territories" should definitely NOT be moved "per UN vote" (see 07:36, 20 December 2012). Japinderum (talk) 07:47, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
My understanding is that articles about the Palestinian Territories (or State of Palestine of West bank and Gaza, weather you call it) are generally supposed to be about just that, the Palestinian Territories, not just parts of the Palestinian Territories. That some articles have poor coverage of Area C doesn't change that. Right now there are standardized names for all of these articles, and you're proposing we change that. Most of the leads in those articles that includes info about the scope say that those articles are about the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which implies that that's what the articles are trying to be about.
Your idea to give some of these articles PNA titles doesn't seem like a good idea to me, or at least would be strongly against precedent, because as shown by All pages with titles containing Palestinian National Authority (and Talk:Economy_of_the_Palestinian_territories#Rename) only a few topic articles have PNA titles (most articles with PNA titles are about some PNA office) and those that do are topics closely ausoted with the Palestinian National Authority ("administrative organization established to govern the West Bank and Gaza Strip") such as Elections in the Palestinian National Authority which deals with the elections of the administrative organization, or Postage stamps and postal history of the Palestinian National Authority which deals with the postal stamps issued by and the postal system operated by the administrative organization. Compare that with All pages with titles containing Palestinian territories which has 48 articles, most of them topic articles.
Also this airport source and sources such as the Polish goverment one (see it's map), and this dictionary (it's second definition) seem to use the praise "Palestinian National Authority" to refer to the whole West Bank and Gaza Strip, not just Area's A and B. Ouvesly the Palestinian National Authority (the administrative organization) does not control area C, but it would seem that term "Palestinian National Authority" (when referring to a physical territory) refers to the West Bank and Gaza Srip, and not just Area's A and B, so simly giving them PNA titles wouldn't really work to well.
There is one example a pair of articles that work the way you described tough. List of cities administered by the Palestinian National Authority is about Palestinian-administrated PT cites and List of Israeli administered cities in the West Bank is about Israeli administered WB cites (Israel no longer administers any cities in Gaza) and List of cities in the Palestinian territories points the reader to those articles. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 21:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
"See also All pages with titles containing Western Sahara which has a bunch of topic article about Western Sahara vs All pages with titles containing Free Zone which dosen't have any topic articles about the Free Zone
There is no "set of articles about X" where X is "the Palestinian Territories or State of Palestine or West bank and Gaza or weather you call it". There is no "standardized names". There are articles about the Palestinian territories. There are articles about State of Palestine. There are articles about PNA. There are articles about other topics. Each article has its own topic. Currently some are mixed-up - you have listed here such having "Palestinian territories", but there are others that have "Palestine" (in some cases, because a POV of one camp succeeded in changing the title - Palestinian supporters prefer "Palestine" as it looks like a "normal state" and Israeli supporters prefer "anything other than Palestine" so that it don't look like a normal state - the same motivation that was used in the UN in 1988 for the designation of the Palestinian delegation). But Wikipedia should be NPOV. Titles should describe the topic - they should not be tools for political promotion of noble causes. Now, after the recent UN vote - that's unrelated to almost all of these articles - some of the Palestinian supporters abandon "Palestine" and start to push for "State of Palestine" (citing the UN vote as reason - which is invalid in most cases - and mimicking official moves such as [1]) - but in most cases that is even worse. "Palestine" is ambiguous, but "State of Palestine" is outright wrong for most of these articles (e.g. their topic is entirely unrelated to that state).
I don't propose a specific change (certainly not to use PNA everywhere!)- I say that titles should describe the topic. And that should be decided on a case-by-case basis, because topics are different - most are either about the Palestinian territories or the PNA and a few are about something else.
Airports - if you want to use PNA in that title it can be "List of airports administered by the PNA", but I'm not sure that fits with Hamas in Gaza. So, I think that the current title is OK - "List of airports in the Palestinian territories" - even if there are some in Area C those can be easily added to the list. Japinderum (talk) 09:51, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
You did suggest that allot of those articles might be better with PNA titles tough. A a few of those articles perhaps should have PNA titles, but you lean far more to PNA titles then I would. Part of my objection to PNA titles is that as shown by those sources "in the PNA" would mean "in the West Bank and Gaza" but if the title is something to the effect "in PNA administered areas" or "under the PNA" then that shouldn't be as much of a problem. If I understand you correctly the point of your PNA titles is to exclude Area C, but in my opinion the topic of most of these articles is the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it's mostly just that some of them have very lax coverage of Area C. Area C usually shouldn't receive much coverage, there aren't many people there compared to the rest of the PT, but mostly I don't see the point of Area C being excelled or having it's article. When it comes to articles that deal partly with law something like this would work. There are expectations, such as Textbooks in the Palestinian territories which I have proposed be moved to "Textbooks of the Palestinian National Authority". According to this the PNA has some, albeit quite limited, authority over area C, and our Administrative divisions of the Oslo Accords article in area C there is "full Israeli civil and security control, except over Palestinian civilians"(emphases mine) and there plenty of Palestinians living there, so the difference between Area C and the rest of the PT isn't as great as it would appear at first glance.
I also started some similar discussions at Talk:Vehicle_registration_plates_of_the_Palestinian_territories#Scope and Talk:Scouting_and_Guiding_in_the_Palestinian_territories#Area_C and [[2]], although at the time I was under the mistaken impression the the PNA had no authority over Area C, so what I said there may be may be partly incorrect. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 21:30, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
I suggested titles based on the topic of the articles. Whether a lot of them or only a few of them I don't know - what I suggest is to decide it individually. A title "in the PNA" doesn't mean "in WB and Gaza" - it means "in the PNA". The fact that some source utilizes the two terms interchangeably - in a particular context - doesn't mean that those are synonyms (and as you see we have different articles for those). I'm fine with "in PNA administred areas" or "under PNA" or another variation of that - depending on how that fits the particular article topic. As see with the airlines - "registered with PNA" fits well. The point of "my PNA titles" is that for articles whose topic is PNA-related this should be clear in the title. If you want the scope of some article enlarged to include also Israel administration (if it's a "territorial/geographical" and not "administrative/governance" article), that's fine - this should also be decided on a case by case basis - whether to enlarge the scope or to keep the topics of PNA and Israel administration split in separate articles (Israel administration can have its own Area C article or to be a section of the general Israel article on that topic). That decision can be taken together with the title decision. Japinderum (talk) 07:32, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment - Excellent, if there are no other objections (other than the single one) I would like to remove List of airports in the Palestinian territoriesList of airports in Palestine from this discussion, which kicked this whole thing off. I don't personally care what outcomes boil out of this debate for the rest of the topics. I was only ever concerned with the one article. Personally, I think they should all be considered on a case-by-case basis, but I will leave all of that to you kind folks. My interest in that article is in that article only. Be well. --Sue Rangell 00:39, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
    • I don't think it should be removed. It doesn't seem like a special case compared to the other PT articles. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 01:22, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I disagree with Airports move to "Palestine". The "per UN vote" is not a valid reason for that (see 07:36, 20 December 2012). Also "Palestine" is ambiguous and thus not appropriate for WP:TITLE. If you move the airports article to "List of airports in Palestine" what will you write in the lead instead of the current "This is a list of airports in the Palestinian territories"? "... in the State of Palestine" (result - none airports to be listed as that state doesn't have control over any territory yet) or "in the Palestine (region)" (result - adding all Israel airports)? Both are inappropriate. With the Hamas control over Gaza using PNA in the title also doesn't seem fitting, so I think the current title is OK. On a related note - I made a proposal at the Airlines article. Japinderum (talk) 08:05, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
  • They should probably be moved to State of Palestine or just Palestine. However, the best place to have this kind of discussion would be at Wikipedia:WikiProject Palestine. Nightw 14:03, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea, any objections to moving this to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palestine? Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 21:37, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't object moving to WikiProject Palestine, but somebody else suggested moving the discussion here, so I'm not sure what policy says about that. I disagree with moving all to "State of Palestine" - none of the articles listed above deals with it, so there is no reason for such move. "Palestine" is also inappropriate for almost all of the articles - it's ambiguous and that's contrary to WP:TITLE. Titles should clearly and precisely describe the topic of the articles - "unambiguously identify the topical scope of the article" - titles are not vehicles for political promotion of noble causes. Japinderum (talk) 07:38, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
By "sounds like a good idea" I was referring to moving this to "Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palestine". I agree with you objections to Palestine titles, an In addiction a "Palestine" title on an article about the West Bank and Gaza Strip wouldn't match Palestine which is about the region. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 07:49, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Display Chess games (with animation) using PGN data[edit]

There is a standard, called Portable Game Notation to describe chess games. This is the dominant standard to store and present chess games on computers, and is also used in many books and newspapers. There are numerous databases containing tens of thousands of chess games, all using this notation.

There are many chess web sites that can display chess animation based on this format, e.g., http://chesstempo.com/pgn-viewer.html (just an example - i listed it just because it was the first google hit for "pgn viewer").

There is a mediawiki extension called Extension:EmbedChessboard which displays chess games using PGN notation. This extension has it cons and pros. However, i do not believe it is likely that this extension will be accepted for any wikimedia site.

i developed a pgn animation script+template which is now deployed in hewiki (demo page: he:משתמש:קיפודנחש/ארגח 1, example of one of the articles using the template: he:עמוס ברן.

The script is a roughly 720 lines of easy to read JS. in order to use it on enwiki it will have to be included from common.js. it can be viewed here: he:Mediawiki:common.js/pgn.js. discussions in chessclub here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Chess#PGN_viewer. discussion in WP:VPT here: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 104#Display chess games from PGN data.

Proposal: Add the pgn script, optionally with required modification to common.js, and Create a template to display chess games using PGN format.

קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 04:30, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment For complete games animations like this seem like the only practical way to display them, but for short move sequences it'd be nice if there were some way to generate a sequence of static images, since print versions of Wikipedia articles aren't able to display animations. Dcoetzee 10:40, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
you mean like {{Chess diagram}} ? what would you expect a script to do there? peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 16:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
A chess diagram shows a position in a game. What is required is a sequence of moves. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 20:08, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
like, e.g., Chess variant#Chess with different forces? (in that example, those are not sequence of moved but rather different boards, but visually this is the same). but this is really off-topic. even if the nice solution to what you want did not exist, i would still like to consider the original proposal. please note that some changes were made based on the comments i received. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 04:55, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Please note that i made several changes to the script and css, to get more in-line with the suggestions from enwiki. if you visited the linked pages and did not like it, please do so again. if you did not, please look at he:עמוס ברן for a demo page of this script. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 00:10, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Malware and phishing[edit]

Currently, WP:ELNO prohibits us from linking to "Sites containing malware, malicious scripts, trojan exploits, or content that is illegal to access in the state of Florida", but official websites of article subjects are exempted from this prohibition. Do we really want to permit the inclusion of links to official pages that contain malware etc. or that otherwise try to harm users, e.g. through phishing attempts? I'd like to see this section (including the illegal content, since that's perhaps a legal issue) moved to WP:ELNEVER, a different section of the same page. This arises from the "Phishing on Silk Road (marketplace)" section currently at WP:ANI, in which several of us agree that it's a bad idea to link to the official website for Silk Road (marketplace) because it's trying to phish users. There's already some precedent for this: websites committing copyright infringement are in WP:ELNEVER, even when they're official. Nyttend (talk) 14:41, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

As to sites that contain "content that is illegal to access in the state of Florida", I think that as long as the Wikimedia Foundation and the Foundation's legal counsel (currently User:Gbrigham) don't object, we can have links to these - we aren't hosting the illegal content, and we're linking to an official page of the subject.
As to the other things mentioned here - I think that we definitely do need to move these to ELNEVER. In this case, we want to protect our readers to the best of our ability, and this means absolutely none of these links. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:28, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
I agreed to avoid the link, but not because of phishing (I believe one editor said they did not phish), but because I think it ill-advised to link to a website that sells illegal products by mail. Is the current title of the header, "Malware and phishing", relevant to Silk Road?--Wehwalt (talk) 02:31, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Frankly, no it is not relevant to the silk road. But it is a website that is intent to violate Florida law in no uncertain terms, just like the armory sells illegal weapons. Linking to this is probably not the best thing, but legally speaking, its in the gray zone. I believe messaging the foundation about this matter would be the best course of action and trying to get an official response on record about this. Though Wikipedia is not censored, personally I see little difference in this and linking to the website of any other drug dealer's 'business' page. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:20, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Issues of legality aren't the main reason I brought this up, people — look at the header I chose. Malware and phishing are problems because they can endanger readers' computers and bank accounts, not because they're illegal under laws applicable in Florida. Nyttend (talk) 05:39, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I believe we need to think of our readers first. I strongly support the prohibition of linking to sites which may harm our readers' computers. Firsfron of Ronchester 05:52, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
To reply to the issue of specific to malware and phishing, I believe the website is clean and have read reports to that effect, but I am not personally going to visit that website and find out. I believe it is the way the browsers react to the website which probably trips the warning for phishing, I've had it happen on legitimate websites because of a variety of errors, including URL irregularities of what is expected. It is not a normal website by any means, but it is not an attack website and it will not work with your browser. My only guess was someone clicked on the link and got the message that the Gizmodo article made reference to.ChrisGualtieri (talk) 06:37, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
If you are not willing to visit the website yourself, I don't know why you would want readers to risk their own computers viewing such a site. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:50, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I am not supporting having the website listed anyways, I was responding the issue of malware and phishing. You do realize you will get the warnings in your browser (most browsers) if you click the URL? False positives exist and this website is only reachable through Tor. Of course it is going to trigger a warning because it is set up in such a way. I need not visit a black market drug store to understand the reason why the warning would pop up. They should trigger on any Tor site because of how they are configured. This is in an age where a DNS issue triggers warnings on Paypal and eBay even if they are valid. And people can get viruses from ads on 'news network' pages all the same, I've had them hit false positives and real viruses on news sites.ChrisGualtieri (talk) 06:59, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I seem to remember that websites only accessible through TOR aren't linked for the reason they can't be accessed by everyone. Even without the other issues it seems like that'd be a good reason not to link it. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 07:09, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I can't find anything about TOR on EL, but I would think that these should be on the same level as sites which are only open to payed users - and this is clearly acceptable in an WP:ELOFFICIAL situation, as explicitly stated on the page. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:57, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

I note that WP takes greater care avoiding potential harm to user's computers than we do to avoid potential harm to user's themselves. What do we care for? - Nabla (talk) 16:47, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

One has nothing to do with the other. If you want to start that shitstorm up again, start a new thread please. --OnoremDil 17:04, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I'd like to clarify the situation a bit. The problem with the link to Silk Road was that it was being changed by sockpuppets to a different link, to a different website. This other website was designed to steal the login credentials of Silk Road users. This is particularly insidious because of the nature of the technology used by the site, which makes its URL difficult to remember or recognize. I proposed removing the link out of a desire to protect our readers. The link is easy enough to find elsewhere, so it's probably not worth the time and effort that it would take to find a technical solution that would prevent the phishing. Changing ELNEVER is a solution in search of a problem and would create other issues. Consider the Wikileaks article, for example. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 17:29, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
A noble aim, indeed. However, some user is once again going to bring up WP:NOTCENSORED as a rationale for keeping the link, even though it serves no valid encyclopedic purpose beyond what we can describe in the article, and advertises illegal goods. Wer900talk 20:02, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, Orly Taitz's official website keeps getting attacked by malware, and whenever it's discovered, a warning is put next to the link in her article, but the link is not removed. 216.93.234.239 (talk) 03:37, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Featured outlines?[edit]

Just a thought, how about making another category of featured content for outlines? This would probably encourage editors to work on them more. Alternatively, expand the featured list criteria so outlines can also qualify. -- YPNYPN 04:12, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The very existence of outline "articles" is rather controversial. 216.93.234.239 (talk) 03:45, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
From where did you get that? -- YPNYPN 04:20, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Several things, but Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Contents/Outlines for one, and see Wikipedia talk:Outlines. 216.93.234.239 (talk) 04:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
And Wikipedia talk:Why do we have outlines in addition to...?. 216.93.234.239 (talk) 04:30, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Please no. They are definitely controversial. Few editors watch them (you can check this yourself). Those that are just lists of articles are ok, but those that do more Outline of prehistoric technology and need to be watched to make sure editors don't use them to add material that's been rejected elsewhere.. Dougweller (talk) 10:23, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Project:Wikipedias in the minority languages of English-speaking countries[edit]

I propose to create Project:Wikipedias in the minority languages of English-speaking countries in this wikipedia as in Russian wikipedia - ru:Проект:Малые разделы Википедии на языках России --Kaiyr (talk) 09:09, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

So if I understand the Russian project, you are proposing coordinating Wikipedias in the minority languages of English-speaking countries, such as Cree, Cornish, Navajo, etc?--Curtis Clark (talk) 20:57, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes. --Kaiyr (talk) 05:05, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Isn't coordination between Wikis more of a Meta wiki thing? Thryduulf (talk) 23:36, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
It is, though it would probably get more done here instead. Ajraddatz (Talk) 05:39, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

View larger image with description upon mouse click.[edit]

When pressing the 'enlarge' button on an image the user is unable to view the description associated with the image, this is particularly inconvenient when viewing labelled diagrams.

Proposal: Using simple JavaScript code clicking on the enlarge button should expand the image to larger size with the description still visible; a second click should redirect the user to the 'File:' page.

Example: http://lokeshdhakar.com/projects/lightbox2/

  • Strongest possible support for this proposal - we could even use LightBox 2 as it is open-source. Wer900talk 22:04, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Seems like a cool idea, but I don't know how plausible it is to feature this on wikipedia (on the technical side). You may get better responses with a cross-post at WP:VPT. GFOLEY FOUR!— 01:09, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Good idea! As an editor, I don't need this! --Tito Dutta (talk) 23:10, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

WP-ball[edit]

New year ball

What would you say about changing the Wiki-logo only today into this ball? Greetings Allrounder (talk) 02:16, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:2012 main page redesign proposal[edit]

The Wikipedia:2012 main page redesign proposal seemed to be essentially completed (or not), but was never implemented. It was going to be rolled out for the first of the year, which is today. Does anybody want to complete this (or not)? 64.40.54.37 (talk) 08:43, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

LGBTQ Literature Section?[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

When you search for LGBT Literature, you are redirected to 'Gay Literature'- if a page could be created that was actually LGBT instead of inclusively centering around male homosexuality that would be amazing.

The LGBTQ community is often misrepresented to contain only themes of male or female homosexuality, with inherent stereotyping, and the introduction of a page that inculdes more than that would be appreciated by the community as a whole. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.101.34.169 (talk) 11:08, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

At a glance, Gay literature doesn't look to me to be "centered around male homosexuality". But it does look like it could use expansion. And you can help with that! See the following preformatted message for some helpful links:
Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).
Hope that helps. Anomie 13:15, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
While this is clearly the wrong venue, now that this has been brought up, is there any reason the redirect shouldn't be reversed? Since only admins can do a redirect reversal, this needs to be discussed anyways (though if I were able to, I'd be tempted to boldly do it myself.) Since there's still that pesky issue of this being the wrong place, here's what I say: If any admin thinks this would be worth doing boldly, then do it; if not, then move this to Talk:Gay literature. Sound fair? — Francophonie&Androphilie(Je vous invite à me parler) 14:28, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

New user right proposal[edit]

Moot, no need. -- King of ♠ 00:58, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hi everyone. As similarly done with file mover right, I propose a category mover user right be created. As of right now, any user must request a category to be renamed, and there is a strong backlog typically at the speedy moving request pages. In addition, it would be useful for potential future administrators and trustworthy editors here at the English Wikipedia. Thanks in advance. TBrandley (what's up) 21:09, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I think this would need software development, since currently no user can move a category, whatever their rights. See mw:Manual:Namespace#Functionality and mw:Help:Categories#Creating a category page. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:45, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
please note that category move can be accomplished relatively easily using Cat-a-lot (see Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts#Categories). no special permission is required. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 22:00, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Support


Neutral


Oppose


The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Random link: give more weight to popular articles[edit]

I love this feature, but as Wikipedia grows, there are more and more articles that are too narrow to be interesting. Reading through the track record of a small local football team or an article containing only GPS coordinates of some place is not what I (we?) usually look for.

Giving more weight to popular articles (linear or logarithmic to page views) can make this option more interesting while preserving original 'random' behavior.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2620:0:105f:303:226:b9ff:fe84:8878 (talkcontribs) 14:54, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

This is one of those de gustibus things: I find it delightful that this feature shows obscure corners of human knowledge that I myself might not think to look for. Remember, also, that one of the tacit purposes of this feature is to help people stumble upon items that they might feel motivated to clean up. I need not care about the track record of the local footy team in order to be moved to tidy up the grammar and maybe remove some gratuitous NPOV violations. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:43, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
I think it would be cool to have a more powerful Random-O-Tron special page that gave you the option to see either a random page of a certain type or popularity, or just completely random. I'd probably spend hours playing with it. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:14, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
I find an abundance of association football players when I use the random button. --NickPenguin(contribs) 20:32, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
I like the idea of some kind of weighted "random" function. But there is much to be said for a purely random selection from article space. If after a few picks we feel overloaded with nearly empty stubs that that is an important statistic. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:37, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Restricting people from orphaning non-free images, unless free replacement is found or person still lives?[edit]

Consensus is to Oppose restrictions on orphaning NFCC images, as it would create a structural incentive toward non-free images, unreasonably limit WP:BOLD, and institute WP:OWN by privileging uploaders with notification or permission requirements.

Oppose !votes: J Milburn (talk · contribs) Masem (talk · contribs) Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs) Kww (talk · contribs) Amadscientist (talk · contribs) Thumperward (talk · contribs) Dcoetzee (talk · contribs) Toshio Yamaguchi (talk · contribs)

Support !votes: George Ho (talk · contribs) Mangoe (talk · contribs) Diego Moya (talk · contribs) Hahc21 (talk · contribs) Thryduulf (talk · contribs)

Comments: Anomie (talk · contribs) Thincat (talk · contribs)

Non-admin close per request at WP:ANRFC by VanIsaacWS Vexcontribs 18:17, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Orphanning an image without finding a free image is unconstructive (if not destructive), disruptive, and too shoddy. This case is an example of how orphaning an non-free image is out of control. Look at endless yet pointless discussions in Talk:Red (Taylor Swift album) and WT:NFC; it's almost a pre-discussion of WP:FFD. Without a free replacement, like an image of Patrick Duffy, or unless a notable person is still living, orphaning an image should be either restricted or prohibited. If this isn't a good idea, what are any other ideas? --George Ho (talk) 21:45, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh wait: orphaning an image would be allowed IF an uploader (per WP:CSD#G7) either allows or has no objections against its deletion. --George Ho (talk) 22:15, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

There are lots of reasons that a non-free image would not meet the NFCC; orphaning is going to be appropriate in those cases. You identify some, but here are some others. It's an image "from a commercial source (e.g., Associated Press, Getty), where the file itself is not the subject of sourced commentary" (CSD#F7). There is no attempt at a non-free use rationale (NFC#10c). The image is adding nothing to the article (and so fails NFCC#8). If the use of an image does not meet the appropriate policies, the image should be removed. If you feel that an image has been removed improperly, then you have a dispute on your hands. This is how Wikipedia works, and how any content policy works. I don't really see what there is to discuss here. J Milburn (talk) 10:05, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
NFCC#8, being subjective, can be poor reason to orphan an image. Taking it to WP:FFD is fine, but unilaterally orphaning it in cases that aren't blatantly clear just leads to edit warring and so on. Anomie 13:08, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
That still goes against principles of education. Awareness on consensus to keep or delete an image needs more works than just simply removing it. If the image fails #2, then either nominate it; don't remove it, unless the user who uploaded an image, even if not an original author, has no objections. Why is NFCC still favored over common sense? --George Ho (talk) 22:20, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Because using images are just like including any text in an article - we allow people to be BOLD and remove anything they believe fails policy. And if you are one that disagrees with its removal, you simply revert and plan to start and engage in discussion about that and not edit war over inclusion or omission. Limiting BOLD removal of images based on NFCC problems would be counter to the nature of the open wiki. --MASEM (t) 22:58, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Completely unacceptable. A rule that would make it essentially impossible to remove non-free images as a matter of editorial discretion, while adding such images remains completely free and uncontrolled, would turn NFCC and the Foundation rules right into their opposite. No procedural rule can possibly be legitimate that makes adding non-free content less difficult than removing it. Fut.Perf. 13:35, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Besides, in cases where the NFC issue hinges on a replaceability argument, everybody here ought to be aware that the crucial criterion is never that of actually finding an existing free replacement, but of demonstrating that such a replacement could conceivably exist. The moment that has been demonstrated, an image not only may be, but must be removed. Also, as for George Ho's addition regarding an uploader's agreement, the uploader's opinion is of no relevance whatsoever. Uploaders "own" no right regarding the maintenance of the images they have uploaded any more than they "own" such rights regarding text they have contributed. When I see poor quality text in an article, I will apply WP:BOLD and remove it; I am not obliged to ask anybody first. When I see an unsuitable image in an article, I will do just the same. Fut.Perf. 13:49, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I would argue that (except in a very limited set of circumstances) an editor is free to BOLDly remove an image citing a NFCC reason (eg like NFCC#8) but if that change is reverted, the next step for the editor that would like to remove the image is to either use the talk page or to take it to FFD, with the file remaining on the page as to allow proper assessment during that discussion (eg avoid the orphaning problem).

As to what limited sets of circumstances we're talking about, we are looking at completely objective NFCC problems: NFCC uses in non-article space, NFCC lacking #10c (after a period of notification), blatant licensing problems, obvious images with the possibility of free replacement, and probably only a couple more. Cases like a press agency photo would have to be determined through discussion as we don't outright prevent such images so subjective calls are needed. --MASEM (t) 15:13, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

The issue with orphaning is that it circumvents the WP:FfD process. Unless someone is watching the article and happens to catch the edit that deletes the image, nobody is in a position to object. We've had cases where a user added images in the distant past, when the requirements for FURs were less demanding (or at least less demandED), and then retired; then an admin came along and started orphaning the images according to disputed reasoning. But not all the pages were watched, and therefore a lot of the images were deleted before anyone caught on to what was going on. And then it was difficult to reconstruct what had happened, because one had to go back through the uploader's article contributions and look for edits which might represent the removal of images, and hope indeed that this was how they were put into the articles in the first place. Images should be deleted through process and then removed from articles, so that the proper review processes are carried out. The only time images could legitimately be orphaned by editing of articles is when the content of the image is inappropriate (e.g. inaccurate depiction of the subject). Removing it because of a preceived rights problem requires at least the opportunity for discussion, especially considering the cases where admins made up their own rationales for how an image could or could not be Fair-Used. Mangoe (talk) 15:41, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
No, not really. Yes, I would encourage editors that believe an image fails based on, say, NFCC#8, to use FFD (and note, that in a separate discussion there, I'm trying to get the idea of having talk page notifications mandatory & bot automated to alert editors when such images are up for deletion), and absolutely required to remove it to prevent 1RR edit warring, but we can't require this, per BOLD. If an image is removed and no one reverts its removal after a week, it is unlikely that discussion of its removal would generate any input. Mind you, removal, followed by immediately putting the now-orphaned image up for FFD is not appropriate. I would definitely prefer editors to use FFD for non-objective cases, but I cannot see how we can make that a requirement and violate the open nature of wiki editing. --MASEM (t) 16:14, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Why is everybody making a fuss as if getting files deleted were some horrible potential catastrophe that needs to be checked and prevented and controlled? It's no different from removing other kinds of content. If somebody in the distant past added some questionable text to many articles and then retired, and I today start going around removing it, and some of the articles are now not being watched and nobody notices my removals, why would that be an issue? It isn't. Removing images is no different from removing text. WP:BOLD applies, period. Fut.Perf. 16:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
I think a key thing here is we want to avoid a BetaCommand situation where edit warring over image removal happens. WP:3RR does allow for editors to indefinitely revert image restorations where there is clear failure of NFCC (primarily around #9 and #10c), but when there's any subjectivity, as with most of the rest of NFCC, particularly #8, one BOLD removal is all an editor should take before going to FFD; the image should be left in place while at FFD. --MASEM (t) 16:49, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that there is nearly always someone that will claim WP:NFCC#8 is passed. The example used here is one such case: an image that doesn't even approach meeting it, yet it has been used as an example of why orphaning images is a terrible act. Replying to your earlier post, I strongly object to making any notifications to any editors involved in the editing process mandatory. It stirs up contention far more often than it sheds any real light on the topic at hand.—Kww(talk) 17:10, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, this issue arose from that DRV that you closed on SheuminWeb's closures, and complains that FFD are not getting enough attention/notification. The proposal at WT:FFD is to notification the talk pages of articles that use the image of the FFD, not the specific users (outside of the original uploader). Right now, when an image is put to FFD, unless the editors are watching the image itself, they aren't aware this is going on, and only know when the image is stripped from the article after the FFD closes as "delete". --MASEM (t) 17:24, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Kww, that isn't true. Yes, the recent mass nominations set off routine objections to routine nomination rationales which the guidelines say shouldn't be used, but mostly I'm the only responder for most deletion requests of late, and most of them I concur with. I'm not calling for mandatory notifications to individuals anyway; all I'm really calling for is that the FfD process be the expected route for most file deletions. I don't really see why there are so many people saying, essentially, that we should just chuck it and make silent PRODding the normal means of deletion. Mangoe (talk) 17:19, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
The only reason you aren't getting the affirmative votes is precisely because you aren't notifying the editors on every involved page. That's why I favor no notification: an objective review by people that understand the criteria is better than an a review by people that have a vested interest in the subject articles.—Kww(talk) 17:32, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
At WT:FFD we are talking about a bot that would be doing the job of notifying every page that the image is used on when an FFD is opened on it, thus "notifying the editors on every involved page". However, this does require that images remain on the page they are being used in for the bot to determine the right set of pages to notify. And yes, I know this will bring passionate editors that want to keep the images, but I would argue based on that Schuminweb situation that that would have at least prevented a handful of them from being deleted on their first FFD pass and avoid the DRV and followup that we had. NFCC policy is still strong, and cried of "But it's pretty!" or the like will be ignored by closers. --MASEM (t) 17:46, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
I know that notification is a popular move, so I don't expect to stop it, but I still strongly object. I don't notify anyone of any nominations I make: files, templates, categories, or articles. Never have, never will. If you want to make such a bot, please create an opt-out list that allows nominators to prevent automatic notification. I don't want a bot taking actions that I have consciously decided not to do.—Kww(talk) 17:53, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, it's not really true that notifications would produce huge numbers of mindless "keep" responses either. For the Otto Perry images, most notifications would have gone to a user who hasn't edited in something like five years, so unless someone was stalking their talk page still, that wouldn't have elicited responses. I didn't check, but I believe this was also the case for the Twilight Zone screencaps that went through in November. I'm fairly indifferent to that sort of notification just as I'm not too terribly concerned about notifications for AFDs (even though I realize other disagree with me on that point). I would also question the inherent objectivity of the nominators. We've had several go-'rounds where someone (usually an admin, and yes, this was a feature of the SchuminWeb debacle) came up with some questionable fair-use theory and went after a group of articles using it. Sometimes they were caught and there was pushback, and sometimes they weren't and they got their way without being questioned on it.
The fundamental principle I'm working from here is "don't be evil." It's not a burden on anyone to put the file through the explicit reviewable deletion process in cases where there is a judgement call which not everyone may agree with. Some of the NFCC reasons, such as NFCC#9, don't involve that; NFCC#8 always does, and NFCC#1 usually does. NFCC#10 often enough means that there's something that can be fixed, if someone could be bothered. If people follow the process, then the file gets a chance to be looked at, and if nobody cares enough to save it, then OK, it goes. Deletion by orphaning is only "preferable" in that it subverts this process (which is definitely evil) and because it's less work. Mangoe (talk) 20:19, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Masem, I've taken to reviewing everything that comes up on WP:FfD, so anything that goes through the proper process is going to see some review even though I don't watch every article out there. And I really think that I shouldn't be the only person doing this; except in the case of these mass deletion binges (which are questionable: I've seen several of these where it's obvious that the administrator pushing deletion isn't looking that the image use in the articles) the traffic is pretty low, less even then WP:CfD, which is heavily patrolled. Be that as it may, everything at present is being discussed if it goes through WP:FfD, so I don't think your reasoning applies in that wise.
And the people who are generally responsible for the problematic cases are experienced users and almost always administrators, so expecting them to follow process even if it isn't enforced by code is not unreasonable. Passing editors don't go after Fair Use issues; copyright enforcers do. We've just been through an RFC/U where this kind of enforcement was a central issue. It's not unreasonable that image deletion be expected to go through the deletion discussion processes. You're right in that there is probably no way to plug this loophole, but I think we can insist that it not be used.
The deletion paths may be no different for you FP, because you're an administrator and can go back and fish out the deleted content. For me, a lost image is not the same as deleted text, which I can fish out of the article history. A deleted image is, for me, utterly unrecoverable. Also, most article text is deleted for content reasons; at least in any article I've ever had on my watchlist, deletions due to rights issues are vanishingly rare, and almost every case led to the utter destruction of the article in question. By contrast, there's almost always a Fair Use issue on a day's FFD, and when the fair-use crusaders come through, there could be 160 cases to look at, as occurred one day back in November. Fair Use discussions are often enough not clear-cut, and often enough the defects can be fixed if someone can see them and bothers to act.
And why is it such a great burden on you that these image deletions actually get reviewed? I've stepped up to doing that review, and most of the time it's not really any significant work to do it. Yeah, it's more work than running Twinkle or some other bot-like process to tag a hundred images at a time, but so what? Life is suffering, says the Buddha.
NFCC#1 is also often subjective: there is a tendency for nominators to assert without proof that any extant thing can in fact be photographed. And the big issue for NFCC#10 is that a lot of the time (and this is especially true for older images) the nominator could just as well have fixed the deficiency. It's too late in the history of the project to expect all the work to be borne by people who often enough don't work here anymore and therefore cannot make even routine repairs, much less object to incorrect nominations. The only people who can be expected to fix things are people who are still here. Mangoe (talk) 17:11, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Again, my point to KWW is that unless some notification is made, editors of an article that use that image may be completely oblivious to its pending deletion unless they happen to be watching the image itself. Even with TfD or CfD, there's notices that show up on the article page that alert to the problem. Now, if no one is watching the article page, it is likely the image review will go uncontested and be deleted. But I'd rather see some more input, even if it makes the closer's job a bit harder to determine consensus, than to keep having images deleted in this current unintentional "stealth" manner.
Note that on the #10c issue, we've been here before, and there are some editors (on the "keep everything" side) that would want nominators to go as far as adding complete rationales when they should be obvious, which simply can't be done. Yes, an obvious typo in the article name should not be grounds to nominator the article, but then middle cases where an article name has changed due to a move w/o redirect may take a lot of time to figure out; here, it is better for those wanting to keep the image in the article to make the proper corrections to fix it. --MASEM (t) 17:24, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm perfectly aware of that, Masem. My points to you are that it's generally a good thing for the editors of an article to be completely oblivious to an image's pending deletion, and, that if I make conscious decision not to notify a group of editors, no bot should force me to. Go ahead and make your bot, but allow editors to opt-out of having it force our hands.—Kww(talk) 04:40, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
That is definitely not a good thing. No editor is exempt from the WP:CONSENSUS policy; all editing actions must be easily detected by other editors interested in the content if we expect the wiki process to work. Exploiting a technical loophole to avoid peer supervision is contrary to that spirit. If you think the NFCC are not working for their intended purpose, then put those for discussion and try to make them workable again; slipping under the radar is not acceptable. We only allow WP:BOLD when editors can then revert-discuss. Diego (talk) 06:35, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break un[edit]

Just in case, although no consensus has agreed yet here are recaps of proposed rules (and additional ones) on allowing orphaning non-free images under following conditions:

  • An image is of living person AND used in an article solely about that living person;
  • It is used in non-mainspace pages (NEW)
  • Uploader has no objections per WP:CSD#G7
  • A free replacement is found
  • Uploader (person who uploaded non-free image) removes that image from one article (NEW)

Wikipedia's goal is to improve; "violating" (or not violating) WP:NFCC should not be a reason to orphan an image, even if it might be an almost-redundant image of another. --George Ho (talk) 22:08, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

It's a bad practice to restate a position like this in a discussion. It creates the illusion that it represents a summary of the discussion so far, which this does not. I don't think there's any strong upwelling of support for your proposal.—Kww(talk) 22:28, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

If a file gets deleted as orphaned WP:CSD#F5, for example here, when it actually in use, here, ImageRemovalBot arrives to remove the image from the article (diff) whereas it could usefully report the error. See User_talk:Carnildo#Removing_links_to_files_deleted_as_orphaned. Thincat (talk) 22:59, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

  • Support Restricting people from orphaning non-free images iff the use of such images is under the NFCC. — ΛΧΣ21 23:07, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
  • VERY STRONG Oppose What the heck are we doing here? Really? We have to ask permission from the uploader? Really. The last GA I was involved with was a sockpuppet reviewing their own article. They had uploaded a lot of non free images and many need to be removed from the article for violating minimal usage, content, Wikipedia image use policy, contextual significance and not having a complete Fair Use rationale. I do not believe we should force hurdles to jump and to be honest I am a bit surprised it is even being proposed.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:44, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
Ask permission? No. Notify? Definitely yes. Ideally all editors must be able to follow all content they're interested in; for as long as Wikipedia:Dispute resolution remains a core behavioral policy. This extend at least to all images that are being used somewhere at article space. Diego (talk) 06:50, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
No. This is a giant brick wall for abusers of non free content and will cause a good deal of drama and is simply allowing them to control "their" images (when it isn't even "their" image) more than even the free content editors of "donating" free use images. I am dead set against this. I am with KWW on this issue. And I am familiar with the DR process.--Amadscientist (talk) 08:18, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
Those cases should be dealt with dispute resolution and ultimately sanctions for disruptive behavior. That some editors try to own content is not a reason to avoid supervision of your actions and become a problematic editor yourself. It's bold-revert-discuss, not bold-and surreptitiously get away with. Note that the notification suggested above is not to the image uploader (who's likely to be following the file talk page anyway) but to people reviewing articles where the image is used; those editors should be part of the consensus-building to keep or delete the image. Diego (talk) 11:31, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
BRD? BRD is not a policy nor a guideline and clearly states it is not a cycle that can be forced on editors.
This is not a list of conditions which ALL have to apply; only one of these need apply to any given file. Mangoe (talk) 17:55, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Wikipedia's goal is to be a free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit, fork, sell, read to the ducks at the park or print off and burn in the town square. It is not to be a motorcycle repair manual, a Pokedex, or a repository of album covers, and "improving" it in those directions takes us backwards. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

That decision is the result of... wait for it... consensus. Everything that hurts consensus-building, such as editors silently making undetected edits, is a danger to the project. Diego (talk) 16:54, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
I can't believe myself: I removed the non-free image because: 1) rationale is absent, and 2) the still image of a female character giving a mere cold expression does not increase understanding of an episode. --George Ho (talk) 21:50, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This is an unreasonable proposal solely because sometimes no picture really is better than a terrible picture or a picture that is misleading or doesn't suit the article well. The inability to remove such images strips editors of their customary editorial discretion in what images to include or not include. Non-free content that is deleted remains in the database, and can be restored on a simple request to any administrator if editors wish to use it again later. The uploader is already notified if an image is orphaned and at risk of deletion, and it would be simple to have a bot notify the person who orphaned the image as well, just so that they know the consequences of their actions. That much I would support. Dcoetzee 21:53, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Per WP:NFCC, non-compliant non-free media where a reasonable non-free use rationale cannot be created should be removed from the articles where it lacks a valid rationale. This proposal would mean if a use of a non-free file in violation of the NFC criteria is the files only use, NFCC enforcers could no longer remove that violating use. Also making the ability to orphan an image dependent on the agreement of the uploader isn't something I am comfortable with. Uploading a copyrighted image doesn't (legally or otherwise) give the uploader any special permission with respect to that image, so it is irrelevant whether the uploader agrees or not. -- Toshio Yamaguchi 21:15, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm slightly confused about what exactly is being proposed here, but if I understand the basic principal it is to add a new rules that:
    1. "No editor may delete or nominate for deletion any orphaned image without notification to the talk page of the page(s) where they know or believe that image was formerly in use."; and
    2. "No editor may remove an image from an article prior to or at the time of nominating that image at FFD unless all known uses of the image are listed in the FFD discussion AND there is a notification of the deletion discussion on the talk page of all pages on which that image is or was used."
    2 would, as I understand it, be accompanied with a note stating that where the concern that lead to the deletion nomination is a subjective NFCC criterion (e.g. #8) then removal before the conclusion of the discussion is strongly discouraged as it can impede that discussion.
    If my interpretation is correct then I support both parts, if my interpretation is incorrect I'd appreciate an explanation of what I've got wrong. Thryduulf (talk) 23:01, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
    I wish your idea would work better than actual intention. I proposed images may be allowed to be orphaned under one of following conditions that I listed at top of this subsection (or top of thread). --George Ho (talk) 00:10, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Closing Wikipedia:Categorization/Noticeboard[edit]

Boldly marked as historical by Ego White Tray. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 15:03, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia:Categorization/Noticeboard is an inactive noticeboard of which {{uncategorized}} is a better solution. Twinkle the template on the page, and the tag in a place where (some) people monitor to reduce the backlog. It is much better to have all the pages in one category than to have some pages on a noticeboard, and most somewhere else. People would go to somewhere else as there is more than go where there are few. If the noticeboard were to be used for something else related to categorization, the miscellaneous pump is better. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 01:22, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Wow, didn't even know that noticeboard existed. It looks like a ghost town. Support a close. bibliomaniac15 01:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, get rid of it. I've been here like 7 years and never heard of it. --Jayron32 02:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I just tagged it as historical. I was thinking of removing it's link from the noticeboards template, but I'll wait to see more discussion before doing that. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:32, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I also agree for what its worth. To be honest we should do the same thing with Wikipedia:File namespace noticeboard. Kumioko (talk) 04:36, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
I decided to be bold and remove it from the noticeboard template. bibliomaniac15 04:37, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Kumioko that FNN is inactive, but we would need a already existing alternative to close it. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 15:03, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Editor recruitment with TAFI[edit]

INCOMPLETE PROPOSAL:

This proposal is incomplete and as such can not go into effect until a few dangling questions need answering. The following statements are set in stone for the time being:

  1. It is obvious that there is support to implement TAFI on the main page.
  2. The community has agreed to place the recruitment message below DYK as suggested in this image.
  3. The community has agreed to use "Help Wikipedia and join fellow editors in building _______ - today's Article for Improvement"
  4. To reduce edit conflicts, the community has agreed to constantly, randomly, display one out of several articles chosen per day.
  5. Edit notices geared towards new editors will be placed on TAFI articles.

A follow up RfC will be launched to complete the proposal. It can be found here.—cyberpower ChatOnline 18:14, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should we use the Main Page for editor recruitment?[edit]

APPROVED:

It is in the interest of the community that this proposal be approved. This proposal will take effect as soon as the remainder of this RfC is closed. An RfC about whether this proposal should remain in effect or not should be launched one month after this proposal has taken effect, although this is not a requirement.—cyberpower ChatOffline 02:16, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

From User talk:Jimbo Wales:
We should use the Main Page for editor recruitment. There were only 12,633 new English Wikipedia editor registrations in September 2012, the least since 2005.

Jimbo, this went to the archives before you weighed in on it: Will you please support an experiment to place {{Today's article for improvement}} on the Main Page temporarily in order to judge the extent to which it may be an effective tool for editor recruitment? Please see WP:TAFI for more information. Fake Timestamp for RFCbot --Chris 07:46, 6 December 2012 (UTC) Paum89 (talk) 17:56, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I support this experiment. I'm back at work full-time on Monday, so I'll try to get involved a bit.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:00, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Paum89... why don't you propose this at a relevant village pump and see if there is community support for such an addition? Resolute 19:13, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Done. Paum89 (talk) 05:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
Comment The articles would have to be of fair quality already. We already have our best articles showcased, and you propose we add our worst. Pokajanje|Talk 00:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Agreed; please see the history and nomination and voting for WP:TAFI nominees while it's been in the Community Portal. Paum89 (talk) 19:19, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Not the very worst, by the way, just something well-suited for improvement by the median new editor. Paum89 (talk) 01:07, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
In that case, my vote would be support. Pokajanje|Talk 23:41, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Support: This isn't about adding our "worst" articles so everyone can see how bad we are at what we do. This is to help combat the widely held view that everything that could possibly be written about already has been, and show that it is completely false. We are bringing to light the many "comment sense" articles that anyone on the world would have been able to write a stub (even a start article) for without much thought. We are giving people that rare chance that they havent had in a while - editing bad articles on a major topic that they know really well. These articles are out there, but noone ever thinks about them, or know that are in such a bad state. Often I want to edit an article but I have no idea what to edit... so I start researching for something that I might be interested in, and usually that takes so much effort out of me I just give up in the end. This proposal allows us to plonk the articles on the main page, and say "guess what? this is an awesome article that i'm sure you know lots about and may be interested in. an article which is need of a lot of help, and you probably didn't even know. Wanna work on it with awesome editors within our beloved wiki-community, just like you?" I can only see a win-win here. Stop thinking about the main page in terms of "ooo looky at all the awesome stuff us editors have done, read and be in awe".... we should always try to reinforce the fact that we are all a part of one big community who are working together to achieve something great. The dichotomy between editor and reader really has to be stopped, and i can see no better way than this to start us on the journey to a better Wikipedia.--Coin945 (talk) 16:30, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Support: Wikipedia is by no means a complete source of information for every possible topic. Nor are Wikipedia articles completely unstratified. Making it easier and more obvious to improve Wikipedia would be a quantum leap for this encyclopedia, reducing our reputation in academia as a turd magnet in favor of greater fairness.
  • Comment - the main page is very heavily trafficked and even an hour of exposure could generate far more views than are needed. As this is rolled out this is something to consider - using random exposure of a dozen TAFI pages on the main page, instead of one a day. By the way if you want to encourage more editors you could display it opened in a special tiny preview window that showed the code and the rendered and invited them to improve the article. Apteva (talk) 05:40, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: How can we give this experiment more visibility? I for one really want to see the project on the main page.....--Coin945 (talk) 09:33, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  • 'support perfect replacement for ITN which needs oto go a as its highly subjective an d encourages recentism artiles to be created. Also give a bigger profile to the objective DYKLihaas (talk) 04:53, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support I wish I would have known about this earlier. Back when I was trying to get the project opened, I probably would have hoped for more by now, but given how long it took to even get started, I guess something is better than nothing. It would be nice to see the project really take off and people actually start improving the articles chosen. AutomaticStrikeout 03:32, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Ideally, articles for TAFI would be C-class; that way they're of a sufficient quality to be seen, but it's easy enough for a newbie to find something to improve. I wholeheartedly support both this, and "spinoff" TAFIs in various project areas (e.g., an NFL TAFI where the NFL Wiki-Project dedicates its resources and energy to a specified article or a Music TAFI where the Music Wiki-Project dedicates its resources and energy to a specified article, etc.) Go Phightins! 03:36, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment Before this discussion gets wiped off the face of the earth and never seen or heard from again, once the bot comes along and removes it, should we take this to the main page talk page, or just get someone who has authority to edit the main page on it ASAP?--Coin945 (talk) 14:39, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: a lot of our concerns about Wikipedia focus on retention... but a far bigger problem is outreach. We've gotten most of the tech savvy nerds (myself included). Now we need to do more to reach out to other smart people who might not have considered how they could contribute. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:32, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: Yes, yes, and once again yes. Great idea to help show people that there are still some "low-hanging fruit". Buggie111 (talk) 15:44, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Perfect way to get new editors to come together to give a helping hand to articles.
  • Support Great way to get editors to collaborate on a page. We shouldn't hide the fact that there is a lot of work to be done, to the contrary actually. C6541 (TC) 02:23, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Query: Wouldn't that create a large number of edit conflicts?···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 21:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
    • Maybe, but I think we can all agree that the good outweighs any possible bad.--Coin945 (talk) 16:28, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
      • The problem would be that only minor edits get saved. And almost all of the major contributions will go wasted and the newcomers, who would be slow, will not get a chance. Good faith new comers will get frightened or will hate to edit ever again. At least the appearance and the word "edit conflict" is terrifying, very much.···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 18:51, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
        • I think that says more about how Wikipedia handles edit conflicts than it does about this proposal....--Coin945 (talk) 10:14, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
          • To avoid edit conflicts, a clever rotation system for which article to feature should be introduced - e.g., by time & region. Also, when an featured article has a high editing frequency, it probably should be locked for a while. That might scare away some people, too. Jesus Presley (talk) 10:21, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
              • That turns it into a project that requires substantial editor overhead. Ironholds (talk) 23:37, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
            • The feeling of being unable to edit an article can no way be compared to that of losing great works done in good faith. The latter causes desperation. Even experienced editors can get frustrated by the edit conflict-effect. This is going to make the long term happy readers hate wp all at once.···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 12:33, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
              • There's a way to avoid the edit conflict problem. Protect or semi-protect the page and put the new feedback tool to good use, so that most contributions will be done as feedback suggestions instead of edits. Diego (talk) 12:54, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
                • Thanks for the valuable suggestion. But the proposal is not for improving any article, it is for recruiting more members.···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 13:35, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. Jesus Presley (talk) 10:21, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support If this pushes us to find mechanisms for coping with edit conflicts, all the better. --j⚛e deckertalk 18:29, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
    Is "predict problem with $thing, solve problem with $thing, deploy thing" not a far superior process to "predict problem with $thing, deploy $thing, hope someone comes along and fixes problem"? Ironholds (talk) 23:36, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Other than the subtitle, "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," there is really nothing on the main page that encourages editing the encyclopedia. This would be a good start. -—Kvng 22:53, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment It appears that the consensus is in favor of mentioning TAFI on the main page. The next step is probably to determine how this shall be done. Would somebody care to get the ball rolling on this? AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 01:30, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
    • I think someone should make a new section for a proposal at Talk:Main Page#General discussion with a link to this VPR thread for others to check that there is a consensus for implementing this. (No, I am not going to do it, as I retired from editing =)). -- Toshio Yamaguchi 08:33, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes check.svg Done Talk:Main_Page#WP:TAFI_proposal -—Kvng 14:43, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 21:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The Main page is for readers, not for editors. 216.93.234.239 (talk) 22:07, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
    I think the idea is to use the main page to recruit readers that might become editors. AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 22:45, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support for potential to recruit and encourage new editors. Setting up some sort of rotation system per Jesus Presley is an excellent idea. CtP (tc) 22:14, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose per anon above. I'd like to keep the main page as the place where we display our sausages [articles], not where we show them being made. Λυδαcιτγ 22:24, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose on both principle and procedural grounds. There is a long-standing consensus that the Main Page carries material of interest to readers, not editors, and with good reason. The MP is not the place for recruitment. Furthermore, you can't add content to the MP with a short discussion on VPP - at the very least you need an RFC on T:MP, advertised through WP:CENT. Compare with the amount of discussion there was about adding featured lists. Also, why do people start policy discussions on Jimbo's talk page, as if it's up to him? Modest Genius talk 23:11, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Your reason for opposing is longstanding consensus? What's the reasoning behind the longstanding consensus? -—Kvng 01:22, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
A discussion here to gauge consensus for the idea and concerns about the implementation, followed by coding and then a final, formal proposal on Talk:Main Page is similar to the sort of gauntlet that TFL faced. —WFCFL wishlist 09:48, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
So longstanding consensus is a euphemism for maintaining a gauntlet? -—Kvng 19:56, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • VERY strong support This has been something people have been discussing for some time. The project seems to have really imporved over the last few months or more. It is a very interesting idea and I bleive its time has come. Wikipedia is not, and never has been JUST for readers and gearing the mainpage in a manner for just readers is VERY disapointing in from a collaboration stand point. Why doesn't the mainpage have more about editing and collaborating if this is a site everyone can edit and contribute to. Why aren't there actual editing tips on the mainpage and even an Editor of the day to spotlight the real work some contributors have made. This may be a part of the reason people are falling off Wikipedia or, at the very least, could be a way to start bringing the main page in line with the rest of Wikipedia.--Amadscientist (talk) 23:23, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support if it replaces DYK or OTD. We have enough text on the main page. Otherwise I oppose. Bzweebl (talkcontribs) 05:28, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. - Great idea and great timing. GabeMc (talk|contribs) 08:12, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. Wikipedia's editor base is declining in part due to the belief that there is little more to add. Constantly pointing to presumed, longstanding consensus, and/or defending the way that we've always done things – is largely to blame for our failure to show the world that now is as good a time as ever to get involved. This proposal is a proportionate change of course, and one that I think could really work.

    A way of reducing the potential for edit conflicts would be to have a small pool of TAFIs, perhaps five articles and a list at any one time, with a random one of those six being displayed to the user when they load the Main Page? Anyone doubting the potential of lists under this format should look no further than the recent history of List of food preparation utensils. —WFCFL wishlist 09:48, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Sounds like a good idea to me, at least as a trial.  Sandstein  09:54, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support but with provisos I'm broadly in support of WP:TAFI, but I have a few concerns:
    1. I'm not at all happy that the discussion at WP:TAFI#Human body invoked unexplained "moral concerns" about listing Human body for improvement because (gasp!) human bodies are all nekkid!
    2. If we are going to put a suggested article for improvement on the homepage everyday, we need to have a process which actually does select a reasonable thing every day. Currently, TAFI seems to be not so much today's article for improvement but this week's article for improvement. We need to reach a point where we have an article selected every day to put on the homepage.
    3. We should consider putting pending changes on any BLP articles we select.
    Otherwise, rock on. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:33, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
    • I agree with Tom's provisos...they are sensible solutions to some problems that have occasionally arisen with TWAFI as it stands currently. Go Phightins! 11:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
      • I agree with the last two provisos (and one article a day was the original idea), but not the first one. I'm going to follow my beliefs, popular or not, on Wikipedia as well as in real life. AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 15:54, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
        • My problem isn't with your beliefs but the lack of public reason: "I have moral objections" isn't actually a reason, it's a statement of a conclusion. In deletion debates or featured content processes, we don't just vote, we provide actual reasons. The way we select articles for improvement needs to be done on the basis of reason, not on the basis of what people just state they find immoral or distasteful. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:19, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
            • My !vote is based off of my beliefs. What is unreasonable about that? I did provide a reason. It might not be a popular reason, but that does not mean it is not a reason. It looks to me like you are calling my beliefs unreasonable. AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 23:54, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
              • Tom seems to be describing your position as unreasoned more than unreasonable. You surely have some reason why you don't want to see naked bodies in an article other than "I believe it shouldn't be done"? For example, Ryan Vesey gave some at that discussion. Diego (talk) 13:08, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
                • Here, I think you'll find this article to be a pretty good expression of my reasoning. AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 18:27, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
                  • Clarification I honestly didn't read Tom's first proviso; I just saw the second two...I agree with ASO on the first one. Go Phightins! 04:22, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose, because I seriously doubt it will help much. Giving people an article and saying "you might want to tweak this!" isn't helpful: you're not giving them a concrete task, just wikisyntax. It's definitely not helpful if everyone is seeing it simultaneously, because we have no mechanism to deal with edit conflicts; we're going to frustrate a lot more people than it attracts. Ironholds (talk) 15:42, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • We have a mechanism; the new feedback tool at the bottom of pages is not affected by edit conflicts. Diego (talk) 13:11, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, I know. I helped build it. But "more people will use the article feedback tool" does not justify putting something on the main page, nor does it resolve the issue. People are not going to magically predict in advance that "oh, if I edit there will be an edit conflict!" and go to AFT5; they will try to edit, and fail, and get frustrated, and we will have deliberately created that situation. Ironholds (talk) 23:33, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose There are too many unanswered questions to make this a permanent resident of the home page. But we should support trying new things, so if a one-month (or so) trial were proposed, with an end date followed by an RfC on whether to make it permanent, I would support. First Light (talk) 20:55, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • This request is not for a permanent placement, but for a temporary one - precisely to help answer those questions. Diego (talk) 13:11, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
  • How long is "temporary"? Does it have an end date (I think it would have to have that, if were really "temporary")? First Light (talk) 15:43, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: Sounds like a good way to encourage new editors to edit pages. It would also be a good way to help me find pages that I could improve; something I would like to do more of. Lugia2453 (talk) 22:55, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support if there are a number of pages at a time, randomized, to avoid edit conflicts - which turn off newbies like that. -- ypnypn (talk) 01:22, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support - seems logical to try this. --Nouniquenames 04:36, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose while the idea might be a good one for ER, the anon at the top makes a good point: the main page is for readers, not editors. Legoktm (talk) 04:40, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Will someone please explain this readers vs. editors thing to me. Aren't all readers potential editors? -—Kvng 07:12, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Here's my train of thought, not sure if it's what other people are thinking about. Wikipedia's main goal is to be a free source of knowledge. Our main goal as editors should be to fulfill that goal. The main page exemplifies that goal, by showing off some of our best info (FA/FP/FLs), info related to current events (ITN), and new interesting articles (DYK?). Adding something like TAFI, while a great idea for improving the 'pedia, is counter to our goals of providing that information. One could make the argument that adding TAFI, we're improving the pedia faster for readers to use, however I don't believe that would be the case. Legoktm (talk) 08:17, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Well, our main goal is actually to create a free and reusable source of knowledge. Core to that goal is the idea that this is not a closed work, but one where anyone can participate in their creation and tweak it to their needs. Encouraging user involvement and participation advances this second aspect of the knowledge corpus by giving it more visibility. Diego (talk) 13:15, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Sure that's definitely an alternate view, but not one I see over the one I stated earlier/above. Legoktm (talk) 12:23, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
So even if we agree that the goal is to offer a "free source of knowledge", you're apparently using a passive definition of knowledge - knowledge is something you read in an article. Editing Wikipedia has taught me that knowledge is interactive - it doesn't just lie there on the page, you need to get up and dance with it. -—Kvng 15:57, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
I probably am. I'm not editing Wikipedia to learn something, I'm editing it to add things I already know and want to share. I've probably learned a few things from being here, and I'm glad you have too! But that's not why I'm here. Legoktm (talk) 12:23, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support as long as something is done about edit conflicts. Personally I like the suggestion that there be a whole bunch "lined up" for a given time period (probably closer to a month than a day), and then during that time, when the Main Page is loaded then a random one of them is displayed. ∴ ZX95 [discuss] 07:22, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support wholeheartedly, I've been hoping something like this would happen for a long time, now. Neglected Vital Articles seems like the best source of material. Perhaps it should be randomized somewhat to help avoid edit conflicts. PhnomPencil () 12:36, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, sound and sensible idea to encourage positive collaboration and quality improvement. — Cirt (talk) 19:10, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support and let's make it articles for improvement — one from the hard sciences, one from the social sciences, one from biography, each day. Carrite (talk) 19:37, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
    I would agree with this. I think part of the reason that the project has not seen results is that while one article may interest one person, it may not interest others. If there was a specific article selected for specific groups, we'd probably start to see progress. AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 19:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Yes, sounds like it would increase editor recruitment and quality improvement. Mark Arsten (talk) 04:12, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support but what will happen to the original Main page sections? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 08:01, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. Make it clear to the reader that someone has to actually write all the content, and that includes everyone. Nageh (talk) 11:50, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support we need to do a better job of editor recruitment, and this is a good first step. I've been lobbying for something like this for what seems like forever! Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:56, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. It's actually a great way to treat readers with respect: we would welcome your help. It's all about improving content, and the negatives that have been discussed are all surmountable. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:29, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Ironholds. Telling x million people, all at the same time, to improve an article is not likely to result in a rewarding experience for those among them who try. Andreas JN466 09:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
    Did you even look through the suggestions before opposing? We have a suggestion to randomize the article up on the wikispace to counter that potential problem. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 12:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
    Does taking a million and dividing it by 4 reduce the scope of the problem though? I don't think it does. Shoving one article at a large amount of people at once who might not understand the consequences of everyone editing at once is still a problem.Legoktm (talk) 12:14, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
    This is why there will hopefully be more than 4 in rotation at once; and if you look at the proposed layout, I think it's subtle enough that anticipating turnouts in the millions might be touch optimistic. ∴ ZX95 [discuss] 23:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong Support - There is virtually nothing on the front page to entice editors to...edit. Without participation, Wikipedia dies on the vine. The more active editors we have the better wikipedia is. --Sue Rangell 06:41, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support per Coin945. It Is Me Here t / c 19:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose—the Main Page is for readers, not editors. Imzadi 1979  08:30, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
I think you are missing the "Did you know" section of the main page? Or is it not a part of the page? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
DYK is mostly for readers, not editors. Editors is a subset of readers. Apteva (talk) 17:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. DYK is for editors, not readers. More specifically to give publicity to newly created articles and to encourage readers to become editors. Quoting the first paragraph of DYK main page : " This publicity rewards editors for their contributions. " TheOriginalSoni (talk) 11:00, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose, we already have more than a dozen article improvement drives daily on the mainpage: it's called DYK, and it has failed as a recruitment tool. We highlight enough bad quality on the mainpage already. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:30, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • *spits out tea as he reads this* Uhhh..... okay.. well that's news to me. So DYK is apparently a recruitment tool? Wooow.... well considering the articles featured there seem to be of such a high standard, despite their smallness, and knowing how anal people can get over "their" articles that get on the main page, I never dared touch any of them. Plus, (funny how *this* isn't even the case, let alone what you're suggesting), DYK is suppost to showcase "Wikipedia's newest content"... not articles that may or may not have been around for a while but have been heavily edited to be brought up to a presentable standard (...leaving not much else for anyone else to do - especially newbies). So, if that's what you and others assumed DYK was - some kind of recruitment tool - then you have been severely mislead, my friend.--Coin945 (talk) 13:21, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong support. For once, a proposal I can rally behind with few misgivings, except acclimatizing the new users to Wikiquette (cf. Eternal September, which, on en-WP, is finally slowing down after beginning in 2004-05); to several above !voters, DYK is for articles that have passed the stage in which easy improvement can be made, as stubs are never promoted to DYK. This is for those articles that couldn't make it to DYK. I'll leave the technical details to be worked out by others, asking that it does not disrupt the main-page layout, but, at the same time, needs to be obvious enough to someone who's not looking for it to see it. And, may I say, I think this may be an excellent time to float credential verification again.... St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 10:52, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. I'd love to see this done in collaboration with the Editor Engagement Experiments team, so that they could do detailed tracking on the effectiveness of it. This could also be an opportunity to test and refine various tutorial content for getting newcomers editing productively in short order (such as Wikipedia:Tutorial, Wikipedia:Training, and video versus text explain the basics). One thing that makes it tough to do that with general new editors is that they create accounts for many different reasons, whereas in this case we could identify people who make accounts specifically for the purpose of improving the advertised article (and optimize the orientation material for that).--ragesoss (talk) 20:20, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong Support. It is often reported that there are more editors retiring than joining recently, and I see this as a problem. This can certainly combat the problem, even if it causes increased vandalism and/or edit conflicts. However, we not combat these with pending changes protection? Just an idea. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 20:35, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong support. Excellent idea! • Jesse V.(talk) 01:56, 25 December 2012 (UTC)


Seeing the amount of support we have here, it might be prudent to vote upon other relevant questions too -


The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

How to add TAFI to the main page?[edit]

REVIEWED:

The community wishes to have this TAFI message displayed directly below the DYK section within the same box as Tom Morris proposed. The wording of this is to be decided in the subsection which will be closed in a few hours from now.—cyberpower ChatOffline 17:10, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  1. Keep everyting else intact, add new section for TAFI
  2. Remove one or more existing sections from main page [Specify in your vote which section]

(add any more options as necessary) TheOriginalSoni (talk) 08:01, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

  • How about... as a small one-line under DYK? Like this. (That's just a one minute mockup to show location. Obviously, wording and layout wouldn't be like that.) —Tom Morris (talk) 10:04, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
    • Maybe that one line should be in the TFA box, or between TFA and DYK? Nageh (talk) 12:04, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Between TFA and DYK seems to make sense. —Theopolisme 14:28, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
I agree. That looks good in the mockup. Go Phightins! 20:00, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
I like the location that Tom Morris shows. As far as design, it should be in a box of a different color, because each of the sections (FA, DYK, etc.) on the home page are in a different colored box. First Light (talk) 20:25, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
I agree with First Light that it should have its own box. Go Phightins! 20:27, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay, how about this:

Wikipedia Main Page with TAFI.png

(I managed to very carefully not press 'save page'. One of these days, I shall make a big fuckup and I'll be summarily desysopped pending castration. Today is not one of those days.) —Tom Morris (talk) 23:27, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Lovely. Go Phightins! 23:33, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Very nice. It may be too early to decide, but I suggest reducing the text to cut to the chase, something like: "Help Wikipedia improve: Article" since the title already explains what it's about. First Light (talk) 23:47, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
This looks good. However, I agree with First Light about the text. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 02:04, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
BTW, Tom, experiments can be made on Wikipedia:Main Page/sandbox. No need to risk pressing the save page button. I tried to re-create your proposed layout Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 17:17, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Tom's layout Well I envisioned a bright attractive banner in the space between the "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. 4,115,057 articles in English" and "Arts, Biography, Geography etc." text. Plus, no matter where the banner gets put, remember that it has to be inviting and interactively written. It has to persuade people to get excited and motivated. "Help build Wikipedia by improving Today's Article For Improvement: ___" does none of those things. It is bland, boring, and quite frankly patronising.
Anything would be more effective than that. Oh I don't know.... something like: "Why not give the rest of our wikipedia community a hand by helping out ______ - Today's Article For Improvement? :)"
Can you see how this would be better?--Coin945 (talk) 09:43, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Addendum I really like PhnomPencil's suggestion of "Join fellow new editors in building:".--Coin945 (talk) 16:48, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
I think most people would agree that we need to serve the users by leading with our best content. That's why Featured Article is in first place of prominence. I'm guessing that In the News is also above the fold because it changes frequently. Did You Know? also changes regularly and is typically quite interesting to the reader. If anything should get moved up, in my opinion it should be the Featured Picture, because it highlights some exceptional photos, and many readers mistakenly think that Wikipedia is just about the written word. All of those things serve the needs of the reader, not those of us who edit. While there might be some short term gain in always leading with the fundraising banner and this new "help us improve wikipedia" (both of which are asking the reader to do something for us), one reason Wikipedia is so widely used is because so many of these type of decisions put the reader's needs first, rather than "us" or "me" as editors. A brighter color would be nice, but in the end some of these types of decisions will probably have to include those who have been designing the main page, so that this new feature appears in context. First Light (talk) 16:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
"All of those things serve the needs of the reader, not those of us who edit". Wrong. Unfortunately there is a huge misconception that there is some kind of discrete divide between editors and readers, which is simply not the case. We are one in the same... something that i like to dub "edi-readers". All readers are potential editors, and all editors are potential readers. Our primary objective is to build a free encyclopedia. Everything else (as someone said in this discussion) is a side-effect. Why are we making it so hard for newbies to get stuck in? With attitudes such as yours, no wonder they're all getting scared off... What they need is encouragement and the feeling that they are entering a loving community full of friendly people who have the same goals as them and the same drive. Not the gut-wrenching feeling of stepping into a pool of darkness that stretches on into forever... a pool which (i might add) is filled with crocodiles who won't hesitate to bite at the slightest movement in the water... :/--Coin945 (talk) 16:42, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree (at least I will) on whose approach is more supportive and welcoming. Mine is colored by having some experience in web design and usability. Obviously we all come here from different experiences, personalities, and cultures, along with clearly different understandings of who is biting whom here. First Light (talk) 18:32, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Tom's layout. Looks so naturally placed, and less likely to attract vandals below the DYK spot than higher up on the page. I also agree with First Light that we shouldn't use "Improvement" twice. But we should make people feel at ease and "Help Wikipedia Improve:" may be too terse? "Join fellow new editors in building:" may help people understand that they needn't fear looking like a fool with simple mistakes. Cheers. PhnomPencil () 10:01, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Tom's layout with possible changes to the wording to avoid redundancy. AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 19:06, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • How about putting it between the DYK and the TFA, rather than below DYK? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 21:08, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Tom's layout. Looks good; only problem is that it's a bit small, IMO. Shouldn't be a big problem, though, and it doesn't require taking anything else out. dci | TALK 00:23, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Tom's layout With some tweaking of color and text, but the location and setting are good. First Light (talk) 02:56, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Tom's layout (1), taking in suggestions for alternative wording : "Help Wikipedia and join fellow new editors in building Name - today's Article for Improvement.". Browser screenshot Jesus Presley (talk) 10:20, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Tom's layout, but like Jesus Presley's proposed text, excepting "new". - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 23:06, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Suggestion. Start out by saying
  • Strong support of Tom's layout as is, including the "repeated information", as the heading-box draws attention to it in a way a line of bare text would not. It needs to be visible and attractive (the latter being the harder) to a reader who is not an editor and doesn't scrutinize the main page until it's 65,536 colours and read all over. St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 10:58, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Jesus Presley's layout. It makes it clear that the goal is to welcome new editors while also improving the encyclopedia, so I support it. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 20:40, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Help Wikipedia by improving one of Todays's Articles for Improvement: Minecart
The minecart or mine cart (also known as a mine trolley) is a transportation tool. Apteva (talk) 17:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Support Tom's layout per JohnChrysostom and others. It's more concise, to-the-point, and it's easier to know where to click. • Jesse V.(talk) 01:58, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

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What should be the actual wording of the TAFI?[edit]

OPTION 4:

The community has agreed to use:

Help Wikipedia and join fellow editors in building _______ - today's Article for Improvement

cyberpower ChatOffline 18:10, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  1. Help build Wikipedia by improving Today's Article For Improvement: ___
  2. Why not give the rest of our wikipedia community a hand by helping out ______ - Today's Article For Improvement
  3. Join fellow new editors in building _______
  4. Help Wikipedia and join fellow new editors in building _______ - today's Article for Improvement

(add options and alternate wordings as necessary to the list above; and signify your support to a proposal below) TheOriginalSoni (talk) 19:00, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

  • 2, 4, 3, 1 are my choices ranked by preference, but I would disagree with the word "new" being placed in #s 4 & 3. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 23:08, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • 4,3 (Help Wikipedia and join fellow new editors in building _______ - today's Article for Improvement). Jesus Presley (talk) 18:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
  • 4,2,3,1 St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 11:00, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • 4 (minus the 'new'). —Theopolisme 22:08, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • 4, as I already indicated in the previous section. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 20:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  • 1 seems best to me. It's the clearest, and it's easier to know where to click for the article. • Jesse V.(talk) 02:01, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

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How many articles will be displayed on the main page each day?[edit]

OPTION 4:

Consensus was scattered everywhere so I had to rely judgement to assist me in closing. My thought process is written below:

  1. First off, no one expressed option 5 as their preferred choice and very little expressed option 1 as their preferred choice so I have crossed them off as outcomes. This leaves me with options 2, 3, and 4.
  2. I combined options 2 and 4 into one group and considered them editors who wish to display one line only and weighed it against option 3 as its own group and have eliminated option 3 as an outcome. This option can be revisited later.
  3. With options 2 and 4 remaining as potential outcomes, I considered the arguments of edit conflicts (favoring option 4) with the argument of quality articles (favoring option 2). Through the purposes of trying to recruit editors on Wikipedia, reduced edit conflicts is important to getting new editors. By focusing new editors in one location, there is the possibility of an overwhelming amount of edit conflicts which could drive editors off and article quality in the end won't improve and barely any editors are recruited. I have therefore eliminated option 2 leaving me with option 4.
  4. It is through this analysis that I have closed this in favor of option 4.

cyberpower OfflineHappy 2013 18:50, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  1. One article, displayed in a similar system to Featured article.
  2. One article, displayed in a single line system, like Did you know
  3. Multiple articles (specify number), displayed like DYK
  4. Per above comments Have an article out of the multiple chosen being displayed randomly to the user.
  5. Per above comments Have several articles out of the ones chosen being displayed randomly to the user.

(add any more options as necessary) TheOriginalSoni (talk) 08:01, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Option two seems best to me. There's no point providing much context, because the content isn't being featured... —Tom Morris (talk) 10:06, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Option two, per Tom Morris. Nageh (talk) 12:05, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I would be in favor of showing one TAFI in each of the categories we decide to create (e.g., arts, sciences, sports, BLP, and places or whatever categories we decide to feature as the TAFI). (e.g., Today's article for improvement relating to sports is Jim Thome
    Today's article for improvement related to sciences is Hydrogen
    Today's article for improvement related to arts is John Philip Sousa,
    Today's article for improvement relating to BLP is Winston Churchill
    Today's article for improvement related to places is The Eiffel Tower

    If we're going to designate multiple articles as TAFI, all should be shown on the main page. Go Phightins! 20:06, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
  • The proposal was for a trial. So one article, on the main page but kept short and not particularly prominent, would make sense. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:13, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Option two. If we have several at a time, or per day, I think we would see less real improvement in articles. In other words, let's go for improvement in article quality rather than quantity. First Light (talk) 20:21, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I too have option two as my favorite. It fits in best with the current content. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 02:05, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Option four, in line with my above comments, as this is a variant of option two designed to minimise the possibility of edit conflicts. —WFCFL wishlist 07:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Option four, same as WFC. Edit conflicts could potentially cause exactly the opposite of what we want: turn new editors off. They don't know about that kind of thing... imagine someone thinking "Yes! Today is the day I begin editing," clicking "edit" and spending the next six hours improving the article, only to get an EC at the end... I consider randomization a necessity. PhnomPencil () 10:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Option 4--makes the most sense. —Theopolisme 17:22, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Option 3- I like the idea of someone choosing an article to improve based on the portal they are interested in. Bzweebl (talkcontribs) 18:20, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Option 2 is probably the best option, at least to begin with. AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 19:03, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Valid point by AutomaticStrikeout there. For starters, it makes a lot more sense to have just one article to be chosen. Supporting Option 4, weak support to Option 2. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 21:05, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Option 3 will make it easier for newbies to edit an article they know something about, rather than be invited to write an essay about oxidative phosphorylation, which will probably just annoy them. (My apologies to any chemistry fans here.) My second choice is 4. -- ypnypn (talk) 02:55, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Option 2 for now at least. I think we should be concentrating our effort to see if we get results, and if it's working, it could be expanded. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:55, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • For what it's worth, I completely agree with this line of thinking (if one works, one is fine), I just disagree with the method of reaching the ideal number of articles. I would rather that we start off with too many selections, and whittle it down to just the one article if there are few edit conflicts, than start off with one article and risk a hellish experience for the very people we are trying to attract. —WFCFL wishlist 11:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Just to ask, is there any way to know when or how many edit conflicts occur on an article (and if possible what those conflicts would be)? An edit conflict counter would do well to help us figure out whether we are creating way too many conflicts or not. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 12:01, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Option 2 sounds okay but keeping Edit Conflict in mind I think we should go for Option 4/5. If a new user failed to save a page, s/he would leave definitely without knowing why the interruption! -- ɑηsuмaη ʈ ᶏ ɭ Ϟ 14:43, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Option 4. Too much focus on one article otherwise. Apteva (talk) 20:37, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
  • STRONG Option 3, weak option 4, neutral 5, STRONG OPPOSE 1 and 2 (for Borda count, support 3,4,5, oppose 2,1: or 3,4,5,2,1) as the only one that makes sense for the goals that are intended, pursuant to above comments: especially that a newb can maybe actually possibly see an article they know something about or care about when looking. Someone who hates sports isn't going to piss on a football article if it was on electronic fire, etc. For example, when I was a reader, you could have put up ten thousand three-word articles on sports, arts, etc. and I'd have never lifted a finger, but as soon as I would have seen an article in maths, physics, religion, or philosophy, I'd be all over it. Displaying one of many is useless, as it relies on the reader refreshing the page multiple times and is inelegant.I would suggest: Sciences/Art-Music/Philosophy-Religion/Places-Landmarks/BLP, or Sciences/Math/Art-Music/Philosophy-Religion/Places-Landmarks/BLP (especially because WP's philosophy coverage really needs some improvement). I have little support for any of these that doesn't include both the sciences, or several specific sciences, and, mandatorily, "philosophy and religion" broadly construed (such as the FRS queue for "philosophy and religion").
Continued from above: I do not believe sports should be mentioned because of two facts: 1) unfamiliar newbs are more likely to break rules, and 2) sports is an area where feelings tend to run really hot, leading to rule-breaking amongst established sports editors. I think it would cause more trouble than it's worth, but this is a most weak oppose; the trouble to socialize newbs is probably worth it. "Sciences" might need to be broken down further - having several science articles per day listed - or rotated daily according to a predetermined schedule, having biology one day, physics the next, chemistry the next, medicine-pharmacology after that, [and maybe some soft sciences] psychology after that, then anthropology, then paleontology, so on and so forth (as, using my pre-editor days again as an example, I could give a shit less about biology, paleontology, psychology, or anthropology, but other "sciency" things - the so-called "pure" maths and particle physics - were my areas of specialty and in which I was interested. Thus the need for parallel placement or a rotation, as an editor who may be excellent, say, a postgrad studying quantum field theory, might not give two bits about biology or astrophysics. St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 11:08, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Option 1. Instead of summarizing the content, the text should summarize how the article could be improved: "It doesn't use recent reliable sources such as a, b, and c, it lacks illustrations, subtopic x is not covered at all, and it is in dire need of a good copy edit."--ragesoss (talk) 20:27, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
Option 1 seems to make the best idea, logistically. Having multiple articles gets complicated, and there's more spam. • Jesse V.(talk) 02:03, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

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How will articles be chosen?[edit]

NO CONSENSUS:

The should be settled over at TAFI as this has not come to a definitive conclusion.—cyberpower OfflineHappy 2013 00:17, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

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Above I wrote that I support randomization, but even if that doesn't pass I think we should all discuss how articles are chosen. There are four levels of Vital Articles in the encyclopaedia: 1 is the "Top ten" and 4 is the "Top ten thousand". I think we should use level 3, the "Top Thousand Vital Articles", specifically those classified as Stubs, Start Class, and C Class. If randomization is chosen this will be easy enough; if not we'd just go through the list, one by one I suppose. But I'm sure there are other options out there I haven't even considered. Any ideas? PhnomPencil () 10:22, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Question What are your thoughts on the current process used by TAFI? AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 19:04, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
While the current process works more-or-less well enough for the current requirements, puting it o the main page is another matter entirely. I support having a general guideline for the article to be allowed to be selected [Vital Article or High (or greater)importance in any of the WikiProjects AND C or lower in quality] first. Anybody can nominate an article, and 2 supports shall directly place it into the "Pool of TAFI candidates" [Any Oppose vote shall force a longer discussion of the same]. Every day, the required number of candidates are randomly chosen from the pool TheOriginalSoni (talk) 21:05, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
  • AS: I like the way they operate, though I've never taken part. I proposed "VA 1000 Stub/Start/C Class" because I see it as A) a clean, streamlined way of choosing articles without expanding bureaucracy and B) with randomization covering all broad topics, a good way to avoid any potential WP:DRAMA, which I consider the main reason we see the dismal stats on the graph above. But if there's a way to expand TAFI as it currently stands to a high profile Main Page project, then I'd be fully behind it; they're a great community. I'm just throwing ideas out there. PhnomPencil () 04:27, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Interesting to note - 1 out of top 10 vital articles is featured. 3 featured and 5 good articles in top 100 vital articles. Seeing the state of articles that are most important to wiki, I believe that PhnomPencil's suggestion makes the most sense [Vital level 3 or above; Start/Stub/C class or lower] TheOriginalSoni (talk) 07:55, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Encyclopaedic value is a big thing. But the starting quality of the article/list and potential for improvement have surely got to be the overriding factors. Drinking water is an extremely important article, but would be a crap TAFI. The potential to improve List of geometric shapes is far more obvious, and the latter is still of high encyclopaedic value. —WFCFL wishlist 11:09, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I'd prefer using Level 4, because Level 3 is quite limiting in the options to choose from IMO. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 23:11, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment "Vital articles" (meaning level 3 mostly) is mostly a place to argue about why what's important to me is more important than what's important to you. It's a disgraceful thing and ought to be MfD'd. That isn't going to happen because it has a built-in constituency, who are the people that like to argue about why what's important to them is the most important. But it should never be used for anything else; it should be left as a stagnant backwater. I have fewer objections to level 4. --Trovatore (talk) 23:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Even level four appears to ignore lists entirely, and I think to do so would be a mistake. For disclosure I have a degree of interest in statistics and the like, but let's look at this objectively. List of food preparation utensils was proof that undeveloped lists on broad subjects are well suited to the TAFI format. Provided that a similar level of prep were done for, say, List of geometric shapes, that would surely represent a far better collab than start-class maths articles like Cauchy's integral formula. —WFCFL wishlist 11:23, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
  • How about creating an initial list of around 50 articles which will be vital, interesting as well as in need of clean up. That list can be prepared in quite a short time by editors round here, and we can then put them up for a quick vote to remove any bad apples. And the TAFI chooses randomly from this list. Once we see how it works out, we can always refine the system used. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 12:01, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
    This is a good idea, but the articles should be broad enough to be friendly to new editors, long enough that the average new editor can elaborate upon and improve the prose of/add content too, short and simply-written enough that a new editor would be able to comfortably internalize the article, and not riddled with serious or deep issues (ie, a 10000 word article requiring a complete rewrite) that a new editor would not be able to resolve in one sitting. These fifty articles could be selected for a week of being featured on the main page, and then editors could randomly get a certain article by means of similar code to Special:RandomArticle. A small blurb of text should be created after "Join us in building today's article for improvement: Bob" (or whatever the actual article is) with the text "Or follow these steps to create your own article!" (with a link to the Article Wizard). If we don't want to link to the Article Wizard we'll have to show new editors the rules of the encyclopedia in some other way. Wer900talk 02:48, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
  • FWIW, I think VA 1000 has stabilized a lot, and would probably be a suitable source for TAFIs. Maybe just have all < B-class Vital Articles in a queue at once, and a random one is displayed when the main page is loaded? It wouldn't really be "today's", but I think we're moving away from that anyway. (Selected Article for Improvement? I dunno) Cheers, ∴ ZX95 [discuss] 15:41, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

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Helping new editors productively edit TAFI[edit]

APPROVED:

A todo list has been approved but where it should be placed is not clear.—cyberpower OfflineHappy 2013 00:27, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Could we create a to-do type template (something like {{To do}}) for the article page during the TAFI period? I think most new editors will click through and be like, uh, so what am I supposed to do here? Having a discrete list of tasks would take more time on the backend (and would obviously make the article uglier for the day it's up), but I think it would really help actually convert readers to editors. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:53, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

IMO, that would be a very helpful plan. AutomaticStrikeout (TC) 19:57, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support This proposal would make it more inviting to all editors. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 23:09, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
  • That will be a brilliant idea. We can even have regular editors supervising the changes, or something and provide real time direction, advice and encouragement to new editors who just edited the article. We can even have the supervisors strike off things from the to do list once they are done; and have the main page auto-switch to the next article on TAFI once a page successfully completes its 'To Do' list. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 12:01, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
  • A pretty good plan. How about implementing it like this: make it a subpage of the talk page, like Talk:Philosophy/todo. Use the standard todo template, and transclude it to the edit notice in a collapsed form... —Tom Morris (talk) 22:13, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Most strong support. I like this and think this is a good idea for expansion beyond newbs alone, or TAFI alone: regular articles that are tagged from heaven to hell for various irregularities would strongly benefit, IMO, especially with how unusable a busy or controversial talk-page is. (And, try to distil a concrete plan of action out of the nebulosities of talk page discussion... QED). St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 11:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

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A set of guidelines to be presented to each new editor[edit]

REVIEWED:

An edit notice is more appropriate however, precise wording is yet unclear.—cyberpower ChatOnline 17:05, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I think it will be good if every new editor who clicks on the TAFI link is first redirected to a crash-course style page; which will give all the basic tips required (Also linking to the longer tutorials for the same) and the most important things to be kept in mind before one can edit the page. We might do well to keep it no longer than 2-3 pages to note bore the new editor off. We could explain what problems they might face (not saving; preview; edit conflict etc), and how to avoid them (Do not keep edit window open for an hour, remember to save; etc...)

How does this idea sound? If there are any takers for this idea, we might try to move ahead with trying to create the basic layout of such a page; and seeing what should be included in it. Any suggestions as to what can be introduced? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 12:01, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd be wary of this as it could be construed as misleading the editors. If we have a link that says "Click here to do X!" and then we redirect them to a page that says "Before you do X, read A,B,C,D,E... then you can do X!". I'd suggest that, instead of redirecting them, a banner at the top of the page indicating that that page is the current article for improvement should be included with a few links to guides. Such as "Never contributed to Wikipedia before? Take the some sort of wikipedia crash course" and/or "New to Wikipedia? Have a look at this more something with more detail than the crash course" Cabe6403 (TalkSign) 13:19, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Support that. Sounds like a perfect idea to me. CharmlessCoin (talk) 16:40, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Support Cabe6403. Just keep it short and easy to read. Since they're editing a pre-chosen article, we can skip many of the guidelines about notability, conflict of interest, etc. Don't overwhelm the newbies! (By the way, that should be a guideline.)
Also, we should suggest editing sections, instead of editing the whole page. -- YPNYPN 18:08, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I also like the banner at the top of the TAFI article with some editing suggestions, rather than a head fake first. And it should include a friendly note about the need for reliable sources. If we're really interested in not just getting, but keeping new editors, it would do more harm than good to have to tag or delete all of the not uncommon first person sourcing that new editors often provide ("I learned something about this in freshman chemistry, I think I'll add that...."). I say "friendly" because we want to help the new editor learning process, without discouraging. First Light (talk) 18:57, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Strong support as well; they need to familiarize themselves with the core policies WP:ATT, WP:RS, WP:OR, and, dare I say it, WP:BRD before constructive engagement can be made. St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 10:52, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Support keep it simple and concise though, as well as an option to skip: many already know how to edit. • Jesse V.(talk) 02:04, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── We've got two different proposals being voted on here:

  1. if every new editor who clicks on the TAFI link is first redirected to a crash-course style page. (suggested by TheOriginalSoni)
  2. instead of redirecting them, a banner at the top of the page indicating that that page is the current article for improvement should be included with a few links to guides. (suggested by Cabe6403)

I think the second is preferable. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:56, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

I also think the latter is a better option. Plus, I have seen the talk pages of several users having guidelines like these when I try to edit the pages. Maybe we could add something of that sort on the TAFI page too.. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 14:04, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Here's one option for pointing new users to: Wikipedia:Training/Newcomers.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 21:00, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

We can have the following edit notice at the top of the TAFI page-

Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for editing "Today's Article for Improvement". Please know that Wikipedia is edited by millions of editors each day, and unless your edits follow Wikipedia Policies, they may be removed by other editors.

You may learn how not to go against those policies by following the tutorials in any of the following places - 1, 2 or 3. A video version of most of the important things to keep in mind can also be found there

Lastly but most importantly, there are thousands of editors changing this article this very moment. If you take too much time to edit the page, you may see an edit conflict, like this. Be careful to avoid them. Some help on how to avoid edit conflicts can be found there.

If you have any questions, you may ask there, there or talk to other editors at the IRC Chat there. Others ways to find help can be found there.

We hope you have a happy stay at editing here. Cheers and Good Luck!!!

Should all links be bolded? I find thats way more effective than the normal links everyone sees

Note the red links- They are intentional, giving a hint to the pages that we should be creating so we can link to them.

And we really need to figure out a separate page to suitably bring all of this together. Maybe someone can create a project page where we discuss everything together. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 14:07, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Please avoid the (ab)use of "here"s. e.g. instead of «If you have any questions, you may ask here, here or [...]» why not «If you have any questions, you may ask at the Teahouse, the Help desk or [...]»? It is not 'here', it is 'there', and 'there' as a name. Let's be helpful and clear, not cryptic - Nabla (talk) 03:47, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Writing the full sentences makes it way too long to make a new editor read it. And I have replaced 'here' by 'there' now. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 09:20, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Writing full sentences makes them have meaning by themselves. Using "here" tells nothing about the target page. Should I click the link or not? I can not know that by reading the text alone. I either must go there - possibly only to find out I am not interested in that. I also note that World Wide Web Consortium's accessibility guidelines say that «link text should be meaningful enough to make sense when read out of context». And thanks for the effort, but "there" is not really better while not solving the real problem. - Nabla (talk) 11:53, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
A "un-herefied" version would be, something like:

Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for editing "Today's Article for Improvement". Please know that Wikipedia is edited by millions of editors each day, and unless your edits follow Wikipedia Policies, they may be removed by other editors.

You may learn a lot about Wikipedia if you read about how to getting started, follow our editing tutorial, or do the Newcomers Training. There is also a video tutorial with most of the important things to keep in mind.

Lastly but most importantly, there are thousands of editors changing this article this very moment. If you take too much time to edit the page, you may see an edit conflict. Be careful to avoid them. Some help on how to avoid edit conflicts can be found in the Tutorial.

There are many ways to find help. If you have any questions, you may ask at the Teahouse, the Help Desk, or talk to other editors at the IRC Chat.

We hope you have a happy stay at editing here. Cheers and Good Luck!!!

still not perfect, for sure, but with better links. 950 characters, versus the initial 940 (1% larger). - Nabla (talk) 12:13, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
I may be alone, but I think we should cut down on the number of links. For example, it makes more sense to have them go to the Teahouse than to the Hekp Desk, so we don't need to mention both (especially when they'll have no idea what the difference is). Instead of giving them a choice of three crash courses, just link to 1 really well designed one. Also, the words "Last but most importantly" is excessive. Avoiding edit conflicts is important, but not the most important thing.
Finally, I think we should briefly spell out the most important policies: "Feel free to make any changes you think would be best, but please try to keep your additions neutral in tone, and cite sources if possible. You can see a list of all the policies at this page." Perhaps we can also include a link to WP:Referencing for beginners. -- YPNYPN 16:09, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Pubmed to Template:Cite journal converter[edit]

Hello,

I just created a php accessing PubMed by API to generate the citation string simply from the PMID identifier. Thing works and is started as Mozilla addon as deposited there : Firefox extension. So, one has not a) to copypaste vast amounts of text b) to use complicated applications to do so.

It is suitable for authors who are in medicine, biochemistry and the life sciences.

I need the linkout onto php because I have setup the api-requests once upon a time this way, so, development time was 3 hrs including debugging - 3hrs to make millions of people happy :))))

Question is not to ask of implementation (of course, things like that should be implemented) rather than how to get it into use. Thing does ...mlpwiki.php?search=12345678 ->> Citation String on screen to get it copypasted, all in php. The addon only funnels the marked pmid by rightclick into the php... --Ossip Groth (talk) 06:08, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

???? Could we have that in English (or at least Esperanto)? --Orange Mike | Talk 14:21, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
Isn't this already available in a different way, via the Wikipedia:RefToolbar system, which is currently enabled for most users? The popup menu there for journal articles allows auto-filling from PMID or DOIs, using a similar PHP backend. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:29, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, there are other ways to do it. User:Citation bot and user:Diberri's tool take alternate routes to the same destination. Each has its own problems, but they are still vastly better than manual entry. WP:CITE lists many tools to aid these processes (see near the bottom of that page). There should probably be some guidance on how to choose the tool that is best for a given purpose. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:08, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

RefToolbar does it well, indeed. It seems not to be so nicely included in my german wiki, so I proposed to make use of this item, (t)here. I would not make anybody unhappy if I kept my simple item running, and I will make a little merger with my mlpefetch.php which is designed to look for alternate free sources of a given article. The targeted php of the firefox addon above will do it in about 2 hrs. Thanks for fair critique. --Ossip Groth (talk) 23:46, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for removal of adminship process[edit]

A Request for Comment on a proposal to create a new process to allow for removal of adminship through community discussion. I welcome everyone's thoughts on this. - jc37 17:48, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for a new user-right group[edit]

A Request for Comment on a proposal to create a new user group with an abbreviated set of administrator user-rights, as an option for administrators to request instead of requesting removal of the entire sysop user-right package. I welcome everyone's thoughts on this. - jc37 17:48, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Closing Wikipedia:MediaWiki messages[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

WP:MWM is a noticeboard about changes to MediaWiki pages. It is quasi-active, not never really active. It is not being used in favor of {{edit protected}} and the Wikipedia:Village pump (and other noticeboards for proposals). There is not many people watching WP:MWM so consensus is harder to reach there than here. MVM can (and I think should) be closed in favor of more known noticeboards. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 22:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Seems like a good idea; discussions of the type that would normally take place there could be fostered at one of the Village Pumps (probably miscellaneous) instead. dci | TALK 05:21, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I've never before heard of this page. Mark it as historical and start having its discussions at the miscellaneous village pump instead. If we ever start getting lots of MediaWiki announcements or lots of comments on them, we can move them back to this page at that time. Nyttend (talk) 03:46, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Simply direct people to make edit requests on the relevant message talk page, and for larger/more controversial proposals, use the VP. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
To be closed (this discussion) on the 15th of January 2013. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 23:25, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Given that many MediaWiki talk pages are effectively unwatched, there should be somewhere central to note the existence of the proposals/edit requests. The existing setup isn't used, so how about a bot that monitors edits to the MediaWiki talk: namespace and posts a message to somewhere well-watched (perhaps the misc Village Pump) every x hours (probably 12 or 24) that lists (with a link) every MediaWiki talk namespace page that has been edited since its last message. Obviously the bot wouldn't post if there were no changes. Some pages in the namespace are active (e.g. MediaWiki talk:Bad image list, MediaWiki talk:Common.css), so maybe these pages could be excluded from the listing? I'm not a bot programmer by any means, but I think it should be pretty easy to set up (there are many bots that monitor recent changes for example). Thryduulf (talk) 23:53, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm puzzled: wouldn't this simply duplicate using RecentChanges and filtering to the MW talk namespace?... --Izno (talk) 01:07, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it would. The point however is that people do not do that and the bot would simply bring the requests to people's attention. Thryduulf (talk) 18:05, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
How about as the current system is not being used, PUMP is used instead. For the talk pages being used, there is no need for PUMP, but for the others. I think that what you are suggesting is too much, so WP:KISS. {{edit protected}} or use the PUMP, that is what I'm proposing. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 01:35, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Spot on. Editprotected, use VPT (or VPP/VPR if relevant), or expect to potentially wait years for a response. Moribund noticeboards do no-one good. — This, that, and the other (talk) 11:12, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Font[edit]

This may seem like an crazy idea, but please hear me out. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia of free as in freedom content. All our content, with the exception of fair use content, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License.

So why should we choose the default font to display that content to be Arial, "a proprietary typeface to which Monotype Imaging owns all rights, including copyright, design and trademark rights"? This is not a necessary evil, as the @font-face CSS feature allows fonts not installed on users' computers to be used.

I propose that Wikipedia's default font be changed to either FreeSans or Liberation Sans. Pokajanje|Talk 21:17, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I thought Wikipedia leaves it up to the browser to select the font? In Firefox, I can go to Tools > Options > Content > Font & Colors > Advanced... and switch my default sans-serif font from Arial to Garamond. Wikipedia is then displayed in Garamond. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:28, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Nevertheless, most users do not change those settings, and on most systems and browsers the default sans-serif font is Arial. Pokajanje|Talk 21:44, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
That's because most readers use proprietary operating systems. "Free if we need to make a choice: agnostic otherwise" is the ideal we're aiming for here. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
Defining Wikipedia's "font" server-side is not only a crazy idea, it is contradictory to the very principles the OP highlights. It demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the way the web works. There is no "default font", as John of Reading states. Instead of locking readers into a certain typeface, which they may or may not support and may or may not be technically possible with the MediaWiki software, we should allow freedom of choice as it currently exists. That includes the freedom to display content in a proprietary typeface such as Arial. - HectorAE (talk) 23:20, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

New feature; "Complexity Matrix" of relevant subject matter...[edit]

I was going through your pages today, specifically "Domain" as it relates to math. I am learning this stuff, however, when an article is highly specialized like this one is, is very specific, and uses "complex" terminology for someone who's new to something, an ability to "go backwards" through the subject matter would be a neat thing to be able to do.

Since your articles are written mostly by people with experience in the relevant subject, defining a "complexity matrix" could be possible. This would essentially entail allowing a user/editor to define a hyperlink based on "relative complexity" to other related subjects. In the case of Domain, a set of hyperlinks could be defined as essentially "more complex" or "less complex" than the current page (as defined by the people who know the subject matter very well and are mostly responsible for the page's content).

While this might not be very useful for something like historical subjects, anything that is geared around stepwise refinement (the process of learning math for instance) could be. With this, Wikipedia becomes a very useful learning tool because the user could traverse "more complex" or "less complex" until they found something they could either understand or something that challenged them. In the case of the Domain example, if the page was "greek" to the user, they could traverse the "less complex" links until they found a concept the could understand which goes a long way to help them eventually understand what a "Domain" is without necessarily needing to go to school. I think this is a very valuable learning tool.

I think for the most part this ends up being a matrix for relevant subject matter that could almost be displayed in some kind of grid. After a couple of years I believe this "learning matrix" would be extremely useful and at the end of the day, its really a slight modification to your code/database and the hyperlinks are pretty standard. I think it would be a "new feature" that could be implemented in pages that it made sense to implement them in.

Thank you for your time, Darren

That's a good idea; it could probably be made with a navigation template or a portal. You should post this suggestion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics, where you can find people interested. Diego (talk) 11:59, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
To a degree this is already handled with templates such as {{outline}}, {{main}} and {{detail}}, intended to be placed at the top of sections to provide a "zoom" to a different level of detail on the subject. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:16, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
Great idea. I suggest a hat note, called {{prerequisite}}, that would read "this article is intended for users with a strong understanding of topic A, topic B and topic C". A user could then follow the chain of hatnotes to the topic they understand. The word "prerequisite" is not about making Wikipedia a textbook, but simply because it's a commonly used word and people understand what it means. Ego White Tray (talk) 02:07, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
This does not strike me as a good idea. Although it is certainly in our best interests to direct readers to the articles they will find most accessible, and a "matrix" as described by Darren does make sense by itself, the implementation of such a system will not be easy. In the form of hatnotes linking to other articles, to be consistent it requires a centralized hierarchy of abstraction or perceived difficulty, which could be contentious. As well, such a generic template as a hatnote is generally intended for use in a much wider spectrum of topics and articles than are technically confusing; I imagine it would be prone to misuse, say, if someone decided that to understand The Smashing Pumpkins the reader must be familiar with alternative rock, Billy Corgan, and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Although the "See also" section and existing navboxes, as well as links to other articles in general, already fulfill the main purpose of the proposal, if some projects see fit instead to build custom navigation templates as suggested, so be it. Otherwise, as a project-wide initiative or built-in feature, keeping in mind that our goal is to build an encyclopedia, not a textbook or learning course, the complexity matrices will surely not help with the vast majority of articles. - HectorAE (talk) 23:53, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Watch streamlining[edit]

When watching articles, I want to quickly look at a diffs between current revision and the last time I visited the article. The "updated since my last visit" message in the version history shows me which diff I need to look at. There is room for improvement:

  1. Can we add a link on the watchlist associated with each entry to take me directly to this diff?
  2. Failing that, can we improve formatting of the "updated since my last visit" message. It is currently almost the same color as edit descriptions and, being almost at the end of the entry, with variable length edit descrtiptions and word wrap, it is not easily located scanning the list of revisions.

-—Kvng 19:11, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

for the 2nd part: add to Special:Mypage/common.css the following segment:
span.updatedmarker {
    color: #000;
    background: #99D642;
}
FWIW, in hewiki we have a "gadget" that is just this css snippet, so users can choose this by selecting an option in the "gadgets" tab. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 19:25, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm afraid this is not working for me. Is this stuff documented anywhere? I know about Wikipedia:Customizing_watchlists. -—Kvng 19:37, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
i think it did not work for you because you already have, in User:Kvng/common.css some other lines that deal with the same class. if you'll remove them (the
span.updatedmarker {    background-color: transparent;    color: #006400; }
that appear at the very beginning of the page), i believe you'll see the effect of the new lines you added. peace - קיפודנחש (aka kipod) (talk) 21:11, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
On review, I think you may have misunderstood my request. The formatting changes I'm suggesting in item 2 above are to the revision history page, not the watchlist. The instruction you're giving appears to for watchlists. -—Kvng 00:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
The code snippets posted above are for the history page. Anomie 12:22, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Regarding #2, unfortunately we can't improve it except on an individual basis (or a gadget, if enough people could decide on the same thing so that a gadget would be worthwhile). Not for any technical reason, there are just too many "Oh noes! I can't stand change! Not even if I can hide it with a single checkbox in my preferences!" people who oppose anything more visible. Personally, I use something similar to this for the history page:
span.updatedmarker {
    display: none;
}
.action-history #pagehistory li.selected {
    /* Confusing otherwise */
    background-color: transparent;
}
.action-history li.mw-history-line-updated,
.action-history #pagehistory li.selected.mw-history-line-updated {
    background-color: #eef;
}
Although I set it via a user script that makes selecting different styles easy. Anomie 12:22, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. Working now. -—Kvng 15:41, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposed amendment to GibraltarpediA DYK restrictions[edit]

I have proposed an amendment to the wording of the restrictions on GibraltarpediA articles on DYK. For details, please see Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Proposed minor wording change to Gibraltarpedia restrictions. Prioryman (talk) 08:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_97
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