Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new other than a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.

Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.

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First admin bot to go through BFRA

As you may or may not know, the Bots request for approval policy was recently changed to permit the members of the Bot Approval Group to grant sysop bits to bots without the necessity of going through a Request for adminship. No one has yet attempted to do this ... until now. I'm putting Cydebot through the process for a task which it has been performing for over a year now (on my personal sysop account), so hopefully this is as non-controversial as possible. However, so far everyone that has commented on the bot has been a BAG regular, so it will help to get some wider discussion. The last thing I want to have happen is for someone to say after-the-fact that this was sneaked through the back door, so let this serve as a public notice to the community regarding the issue. If you have any feelings on this subject, please join the discussion. --Cyde Weys 20:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Then it should be mentioned at WT:RfA too; I don't see it. (I also don't have any real complaints about CydeBot.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:30, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Is this the first step in the robots' takeover of mankind? --Eliyak T·C 12:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I hope this remark is tongue-in-cheek?  :) Fritzpoll (talk) 12:04, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

No, Cydebot is in fact a key component of Skynet, and will lead to Judgement Day. We're all doomed. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Deletion policy

Please take a look on my proposal for restructuring the deletion policy. The readers of this policy is often non-administrators. For them the information on alternatives to deletion is more important that the deletion rules. I also think it should be more important to try to improve the article than to try to delete it. -- Hogne (talk) 10:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• I don't like the idea of "Courtesy blanking", which smacks of censorship. You might want to consider adding reference to WP:USERFY to your proposal as well. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
• I like it; I don't think the current version does enough to stress revision and improvement over rampant deletion. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 10:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Policy proposal on dealing with threats of violence and suicide

Moving from AN, where it seems to have much support.

We are getting more and more of these, and each one results in drama, disagreement, and long discussion on noticeboards. If they are people trolling (as at least most are), then we are simply feeding them. If some are in fact genuine, then we are not doing so good either.

I'm generally of the "ignore it, it is trolling" school, however, I can appreciate the other point of view too. So I'd like to propose the following, which is designed to please both sides.

1. We create a closed mailing list, consisting of a couple of dozen clued people who think it is important to report such threats, and have the time and willingness to do it. This would just be a normal community controlled mailing list, unrelated to the Foundation and NOT OTRS.
2. We create a policy that says "NO DISCUSSION ON WIKI, EVER." On wiki, we revert, block, ignore. No trolls are encouraged by getting to see the drama they cause. This should reduce instances of fake threats, and allow concentration on others.
3. Users are encouraged to report ALL threats, however, by e-mailing threats@whateverlist.com. There users who have a desire to see these things dealt with (and perhaps some experience) can handle them. What to do can be discussed there, without any troll being given satisfaction watching.
4. The list would have known clued users, but doesn't need to be totally secret as it would only be looking at publicly available diffs, or edits viewable by any admin - not privacy policy stuff.
5. Where the poster is "logged in", people on the list can contact a checkuser to do the necessary. (Checkusers really need to clarify with the Foundation about what they can and can't do - whilst the community has a concern here, it doesn't have a say).

This strikes me as a win/win. Those concerned with the trolling/drama aspect get this off wiki (win), and those who feel that we need to report these get an effective mechanism for dealing quietly with threats (win). The users on the mailing list can learn from each other, and share any feedback from authorities (was it good/bad to report it?).

To clarify: a) the mailing list's purpose will to discuss and report - NOT to counsel or contact the posters (wikipedia should probably actively discourage people from doing that). b) helping out on the mailing list would initially be open to anyone who's trusted as sane. Once it is up and running, the moderators can decide on new applicants (or those on the list).

I'd hope that such a policy would reduce drama, end the feeding of trolls, but allow swift reporting of threats as people feel necessary.

So 1) anyone think otherwise? 2) is anyone willing to get a list up and running (I'm not interested personally)

---Scott MacDonald (talk) 16:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Support but such a list should be semi-official, and you would have to vet the list membership... Sfan00 IMG (talk) 16:10, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The Foundation will not get involved, I understand. As to "vet", I see no great need. The current discussion on AN is seen by anyone who looks, anywhere in the world. This would simply be the same discussion in a more discrete place. It is not a big deal.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 16:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Support Sarcasticidealist (talk) 16:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Support Gwen Gale (talk) 17:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Weak support - My only concern is the detached nature of the list. It would sort of be a part of Wikipedia, but completely separate, as it wouldn't even be on Wikimedia servers. Its like the community is giving it a charter and then just letting it loose. While its pretty unlikely, we don't want another wpcyberstalking incident. I think as long as the actual on-wiki part is just an "encouragement" to report, it should fix the problems of potential liability that previous proposals had, though IANAL. Mr.Z-man 17:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Support - Nicely explained, too. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 17:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Support. How are the mailing list members going to get the word out that they have received the notice? Users are encouraged to report ALL threats has the possibility to swamp the list with same threat before it's reverted, especially if posted to a high-traffic area. --Kbdank71 17:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

No hope of success - Sorry, but no. Maybe they're trolls, maybe they aren't. There's an excellent chance that the first person to find such a threat and try to do something about it will have no idea of this "policy" and will wander around looking for help or report it to ANI or AN, where someone else who doesn't know this hypothetical policy will respond, then their thread will be blanked and then there will be not just the threat to deal with, but the good-faith editors who have tried to address the situation being angry because there's some rule about ignoring things. Given that even professionals have not much better than a 50/50 batting average at differentiating genuine threats from attention-seeking behaviour, we do ourselves no favour by playing the ostrich game. This is definitely in WMF territory, because of the potential for bad publicity should something actually come of a threat that this policy mandates be ignored. Mailing lists? Oh please. We had an arbcom case where everybody (administrators, Arbcom members, Foundation members and experienced editors) on what was supposed to be an important mailing list denied having read the messages on the list. They were all supposed to have Clue. Risker (talk) 17:40, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, as far as I'm aware, the WMF are not interested in involvement, so scratch that. Secondly, it is regularly admins who are bringing these things to AN, so I have more faith in people learding. There would be no need for drama. If someone reports something on AN etc, someone else just places a note saying - please see the policy at WP:whatever - it will tell you what to do. The person learns, and so do others who see the two line thread. End of story, no drama. Risker, if you've got a better proposal, I'm all ears. Because at the moment you've got people like me who simply remove threats and ignore them (to the annoyance of some), and others who want to call the FBI every time. We need another way forward.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 18:28, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

They most certainly are. Last night's situation demonstrated that, where WMF legal counsel specifically requested consultation in a suicide threat situation. The same thread (now reverted from the noticeboard) indicates that WMF legal counsel has provided advice directly to the checkuser list on dealing with this situation. We do not know what that advice was for certain. Scott, nobody is saying you personally have a responsibility here. A relatively undramatic method of handling such threats had already developed on its own - report it to ANI, someone finds a CU, someone local makes a call, over and done. Hardly even a scramble most of the time. Last night was ridiculously dramatic, and it was those who were seeking to reduce the drama who made most of it. Have we not yet learned that every time a bunch of admins decide to try to reduce drama, it only exacerbates things? Risker (talk) 18:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, as far as I am aware, the involvement of the WMF concerned checkuser information. Checkuser information is the concern of the WMF, not of the community. I believe that beyond that the matter of threats IS a matter for the community. The practice of reporting to ANI etc, is not acceptable. It simply encourages BEANS and trolling. Today, we had death threats from an IP, and folk rushed to phone the cops, until it was pointed out the same IP had made an unconnected suicide threat last week. The current pseudo-practice encourages trolling. And personally, for that reason, not only will I not report threats on ANI, I will remove the threat in the hope no-one sees it, and the troll (for I earnestly believe these are ALL trolling) is not fed. Now, the policy above tries to find a way through that. It discourages BEANS, whilst allowing those who genuinely (but in my opinion wrong-headedly) believe these should be reported to do so.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 19:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Scott, you take it upon your shoulders to do what is right for you; I won't bother trying to guilt-trip you because you believe you are right. Just keep in mind that some of these threats have been serious, or have been considered serious enough by independent professional third parties for police action on several occasions. Nothing quite like having a cop show up on the doorstep and having to explain to mom and dad that you really weren't going to blow up the school to change an attitude, in some cases. However, anyone who starts from the belief that these threats are almost always trolling does not have sufficient Clue to be in a position to figure out how best to handle these situations. A mailing list is totally useless since there is no guarantee the message will be seen in a timely way. Reading an email and making a call 24 hours after someone took the overdose serves no purpose. The guideline we currently have is just fine, it does not oblige anyone to do anything, and allows the people who feel a responsibility to act to do so. Risker (talk) 19:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me hazard a prediction that the trolling (which everyone agrees most of these are) will continue to increase if we leave the present situation. Besides, if there are so many people who feel as strongly about reporting these things as you suggest, then getting 50 people on a mailing list should not be hard.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 19:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Lovely how you are volunteering everyone else's effort, and laying the guilt on them: "If you think it's important, you babysit an email list." There is no evidence of increased frequency of such threats, simply more people bothering to try to address them by posting on ANI, based on the recommendations in WP:TOV. Anyone who has ever sent anything to a Wikipedia-related mailing list knows the black hole they tend to be; even those that should have relatively prompt action, such as oversight and checkuser, can often get backlogged for extended periods. This mailing list would be useless without the active participation of checkusers, as well, and they're already overloaded with emails. I think an opinion from Mike Godwin is definitely required before this is pursued any further. It's one thing to have a guideline, but to have an official policy that such posts will be immediately deleted and flushed down a black hole is not where the Foundation wants to be when something goes wrong. If an editor deletes such a threat right now, it is their editorial decision, and they must stand behind it. If it is the official policy of the project, then the project and the Foundation (which actually does have the right to effect policies or reject them) will be responsible. Oh, and will we you also be blocking people who report on ANI? Risker (talk) 20:15, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I've said before, there would be no blocking. Just undramaticaly pointing people to the policy page. A community policy has nothing to do with the Foundation. And, for precisely the reasons you've given, the Foundation's response to this, or any proposal (or indeed to the status-quo) will almost certainly be "no comment". If they touch this, then they will incur liability. So beyond the checkuser policy, for which they cannot escape liability, I'd be incredibly surprised if you'll get any guidance from Godwin. He'd not be doing his job of protecting the Foundation if he waded into this at all. We're on our own here.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 20:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Timid support - I support anything that would move the handling of these situations off wiki in hopes of reducing drama and not feeding the trolls, but I am need some clarification on a few things before I would feel comfortable giving my full support. First off, how would these "few clued users" be selected? I mean how do we determine who is knowledgeable enough to handle such situations, and a on-wiki RFX would not work. Second, this proposal states that we create a policy stating that no one is to ever comment/start a thread about TOV's on-wiki, I would really like to hear more about this (though I support the premis) I mean are we going to just revert such threads, or take it all the way to blocking for violation? How does on classify a threat, and if a user thinks it is just vandalism do they still need to report it to the mailing list? Lastly, CheckUser ultimately needs to be discussed between our current CheckUsers and the foundation as we (the community) have no say as to who's personal information gets released. Maybe it would just be better for CheckUsers (when it is needed) to contact the authorities themselves instead of releasing the info. As for the comments about legal issue, um, well, there are none. If I see some graffiti while walking to work that says "I will kill myself on 2.10.08 please help" or see a bomb threat in a school bathroom and decide to call the police, I am in no way legally liable for the actions the police choose to make. Simply calling the police does not do anything more than make it another persons problem. Now it would be different if we acted upon the threat and decided to try and talk to the person ourselves (ie: via talk page), which I highly recommend against, and the whole point of the mailing list would be to avoid just that. Tiptoety ^talk 18:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Indifference I don't see this as a bad thing really, if there are people who are prepared to contact relevant authorities and they can be contacted in this way. However currently all we need is a note on one of the admin boards, a response from an admin to say what action they've taken in the way of blocks and protections, and someone to say they have contacted the authorities (or we just wait until nobody has seen fit to do so). The drama need not exist in any case, and won't be prevented any more by an off-wiki list like this. "We create a policy that says 'NO DISCUSSION ON WIKI, EVER.' " ROFL. There is a risk that the off-wiki list consisting of a few individuals decides that no action is necessary (or worse they are all away for the week), when there would be someone who could be reading the admin board who knows that action is required and is prepared to take it. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• Make it so. Either they are trolling (in which case WP:RBI is right) or they are genuinely disturbed (in which case drama is wrong). So the present solution is wrong in both of the possible scenarios, whereas this idea would be right in both. Guy (Help!) 19:10, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support: This idea has come up a few times previously. Far better than public discussion. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:19, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support: Admirable solution to persistent drama. — Lomn 19:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• I endorse this to the full degree. It has become slightly out-of-hand how some people have conducted themselves in discussion(s) (whether they regret it, is a different matter) constantly revolving around these matters which have been on the increase as of late, as suggested in the proposal statement – also much better than public trawling discussion on wiki, which is, as we know, slow. I appreciate MBisanz creating such a proposal (which hasn't been adopted by any local wikis - ?) and to S McD for elaborating on it here, with an appropriate timing too. Taking part in such tasks would obviously require experienced administrators, but obviously those who are more acquianted with such tasks would discuss those most eligible for the role. Caulde 19:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• Expanding from Risker, there has to be some publicly available reference or otherwise the same threat/plea is going to be reported for as long as it is visible - it needs to be visibly noted somewhere (and the Admin noticeboards are both highly trafficked and kept clean of vandalism). LessHeard vanU (talk) 20:24, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• I will neither support nor endorse the proposal. Morally it is a great idea practically it is a nightmare. We are all responsible for our edits if one of us chooses of their own volition to announce to world that they will be the one responsible to report these types of cases then they can be held accountable for their decisions. Screw one up and let a person die who you could have saved and see if their family will ignore your decision.
• —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.143.204.198 (talk) 20:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• I'm going to kill the next person to bring up this policy. These persistent efforts to ram an offical "threats of violence" policy down the throats of the community are tiresome. --Carnildo (talk) 21:14, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I see what you did there! that's either quite clever, and quite funny.. or, well, not. Privatemusings (talk) 21:23, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Why do you think WMF wants nothing to do with this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.143.204.198 (talk) 20:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Because I don't think their legal counsel is stupid enough to take any position on this.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 20:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I see no problem with anyone interested in creating a mailing list to do so (or indeed a response team), but also have long advocated a 'minimise the fuss' approach. To my mind a concerned editor dropping a note onto AN/I should be met with 'reported per WP:TOV, and the thread marked resolved. Easy, no? :-) Privatemusings (talk) 21:05, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

However, I note TOV didn't gain consensus. I suspect any policy that says they must be reported will not.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 21:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

yeah you're right about the consensus, and I totally agree with your suspicions (and support the spirit!) - it might be worth a quick re-read of WP:TOV though, because in a nutshell, it just says "It's a good idea to report credible threats." - sounds sensible, no? :-) Privatemusings (talk) 21:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

What's credible? And then we get reminded that we are not qualified to judge what's credible. And then it really means "report ALL threats - no matter how incredible they seem to you". And you'll not get consensus for that. In a nutshell my proposal lets those who think all threats should be reported go off and do that, and does so without a policy or an argument.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 21:40, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

yeah, it's a toughy alright... I support the spirit of your suggestions, and appreciate your work, with the exception of no. 2) which I think faces pragmatic hurdles, and isn't a great idea. I think we need to 'allow' communication 'on wiki' :-) Actually, if you take no. 2) out, the effect is pretty similar to WP:TOV by my reading :-) Privatemusings (talk) 21:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

If you take number 2 out, I'd totally loose interest in the whole idea. My interest is to get the trollfood off the wiki, (whilst allowing those who want to report stuff to do that, if they like).--Scott MacDonald (talk) 22:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I called the police and dealt with them for several hours on the last threat (i.e. the last non-suicide threat), so I suppose I have the requisite experience. I also have plenty of experience with mailing lists so I'd willing to be involved. John Reaves 22:56, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Support, but that shouldn't be much of a surprise. Bstone (talk)
• Endorse proposal, endorse early archiving of this thread. Why in heck did it come Village Pump anyway? See WP:BEANS. Durova^Charge! 00:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
• Clarification needed — how would the members of this hypothetical mailing list distinguish between trolling and genuine threats, both of which we've had plenty of? When they judged a threat to be potentially real, would they contact local authorities? I know that we don't want to spill the BEANS, but I feel like I need more information about this proposal before I can support or oppose. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:48, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
  • They'll guess. The same way people do when responding on AN. My guess is that it is all trolling, but others think that's not a risk worth running. Bottom line is that it will be reported if any person on the list decides it is worth reporting. It is entirely up to each individual who has their attention drawn to it. List or no list there's no other way. Sorry that's all the clarification there is, or can even be, for this, or any other proposal.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 02:04, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to oppose. If we're going to set up a group of Wikipedians who are dealing with threats of suicide or violence, they should be people with some training in counseling and crisis management, not just people determined to have "Clue". Some of these cases are real, and it would be irresponsible to say "that's not my problem". —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:10, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support - this is a good idea. -- how do you turn this on 02:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Strong Oppose. I support this in spirit, but there are too many problems that aren't addressed. As others have said, we aren't qualified to judge what is credible; making ourselves mandatory reporters for "credible" threats of violence opens us up to civil litigation, as does missing one if we change it to report ALL threats of violence. That's not a level of danger that I'm willing to accept for the benefit; although, it is an improvement over TOV in that the records of who reported the threat are not publicly available and would require a warrant to obtain (unless, of course, one of the list members caved, which is always a possibility; if approved, I would encourage a policy of keeping private information private unless no other choice is available or unless the editor expressly opts in to having their information released). Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 03:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

• • This is spurious. Who is the "ourselves" who are opened up to Civil litigation? The Foundation isn't involved, and has a counsel to worry about its liabilities, not us. I can't see how any wikipedian would be liable, since no one is obliged to report anything, and no one of the list is obliged to do anything. It works the same as now, someone may wish to report it, and so it gets reported. Or no-one may wish to do it, in which case it doesn't. NO, we are not qualified to decide what needs reported - that means the standard of what gets reported is "that which one person who is aware of it decides to report" - that's the same standard for the current practice, and would be the same with a list. There's no collective decision involved.--Scott MacDonald (talk) 16:29, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
    • The ourselves would be the foundation; individually, no, we would not be liable. We would only be so as a collective; my concern involving individual editors is one of that law enforcement now has an editor on file who reported it, if they can find someone to cooperate with them and hand over the emails. I suppose it could work if one were extremely conservative in wording; i.e, that it is made clear reporting is not mandated in any way, shape or form, and there is little to no way to link an individual editor to a given report to ensure a maximum level of anonymity (i.e, using a web form behind an authorization frontend running on a separate instance of apache with all forms of logging disabled to submit reports or something equivalent rather than a straight email), but given the discussions that I've seen at TOV and the like, seeing this kind of thing is extremely unlikely, since most people want to encourage reporting as much as possible, which puts us closer towards having a "we report all threats of violence" face, which is a very, very bad thing (see my comments at TOV on how and why we would be civilly (not criminally, at least not in the jurisdictions where the Foundation and its servers reside) liable in such cases.
    • I realize that it is difficult for some people to wrap their minds around the concept that "Having a guideline/policy encouraging reports of TOVs = bad", but I assure you, in an environment where we can't audit all contributions to sift out and report ALL of them, it is. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 02:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support - The potential "drama" involved in this staying "on-wiki" would seem to be problematic regardless of whether the post(s) in question are sincere or trolling. And I think that if User:John Reaves (with his experience) is willing to help, we should immediately chain him to that desk as list moderator : ) - jc37 08:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
• A number of key problems - Having a prescriptive policy and designated agents to handle this exposes those agents and the Foundation to liability, and the WMF has to be consulted on such things first. No members have been put forwards for or volunteered for this supposed elite suicide squiad - If we cannot locate a sufficient critical mass of people for it, it just breaks, and having a "only report to these people" policy if "these people" aren't reliable responders is a rather grandly immoral approach to the problem. The number of people required to keep unblock-en-l responses typically only as little as one day is turning out to be many tens of members. These types of incident are likely to be higher urgency, but please keep in mind that all Wikipedia participation is voluntary and uncoordinated in a "scheduled and responsible" sense, and getting 24x7x365 coverage out of professionals requires 5 to 6 shifts worth of people. Worse with part time volunteers. Everyone has to have a life sometimes. Telling people not on the list to not respond, just report it, risks us being liable for having discouraged them to act themselves.

The level of drama on-wiki from these events is low. There is a huge can of worms here. Please don't cause a huge problem trying to fix a small one. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:13, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I oppose this proposal, but I would defiantly support the creation of a policy to deal with this. I started the first policy attempt. However, I very strongly believe that reverting or otherwise treating possibly suicidal individuals as trolls is not just inappropriate, it is it is downright irresponsible and potentially lethal. Instead any policy designed to deal with this problem should be more in line with the Reference Desk guidelines concerning requests for medical advice. Though some of these posts may be trolling many of them are unquestionably people desperately seeking help. We should respond gently and redirect them to a crisis hotline and to medical professionals, then we should contact authorities in the individual’s area. While I defiantly support the creation of a mailing list, and would be interested in being a responder on such a list, I cannot support this proposal as it stands. Thanks, --S.dedalus (talk) 05:22, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - psychologically bereft. let's assume for the argument that the poster is in fact having a moment of acute suicidal ideation, and decides to post it for the world to see on wikipedia. in that case, there is absolutely nothing productive that wikipedians can do about it. the fact that they are announcing it either means (a) that suicide is imminent, and the process of passing around emails, tracing the IP and notifying local authorities will ensure that any help arrives too late, or (b) that they are venting some of the angst, and the moment will pass. involving authorities, and generally being big-brotherish, will only feed into their misery by forcing them to confront an unexpected and deeply embarrassing exposure to police, social workers and wikipedians. really, what we ought to do in these cases is remove the threat and replace it with a (very carefully) neutral template that tells them the content has been removed, that we are concerned for their welfare, and that we'd like them to seek counseling - maybe with a link to some internet suicide prevention site(s). it would also be nice to have an process so that the suicide threat can be expunged completely from the page history at a later date - we don't want them to be permanently marked by it in the page history. let's not make a policy that has us hunting down these poor people like they were terrorists. --Ludwigs2 06:45, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Ludwig's alternative. This makes much more sense for cases of suicide than the secret mailing list idea. Threats of violence against other people, however, would need to be treated differently — I'm a strong advocate of contacting local police departments when death threats and the like are made. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:06, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support - I'm hearing lots of interesting philosophical musings on the nature of humanity and the usual level of haggling over semantics, but Wikipedia is neither a bureaucracy nor an anarchic collective. We need a no-drama method of responding to these common threats that lies somewhere between invoking RBI and plastering it all over ANI and running around like headless chickens. At the very least, I think consensus has clearly established that we should definitely not simply RBI everything. I realize the Foundation has Mike Godwin to cover it's ass, but considering the continued cultural integration of Wikipedia, especially amongst kids, can you imagine the fallout if (I almost want to say "when") some kid decides to actually follow through on a TOV and the news media got ahold of it? "School shooter's threat went ignored on Wikipedia, say police". The mailing list solution needs to have some kinks ironed out, but I think it's a rather elegant way of splitting the difference, covering our ass (and our consciences) while denying recognition to trolls. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 23:46, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course we need to use comment sense when it comes to liability here, but we currently contact local authorities when suicide or violent threats are made out of concern for human life. We do not have the resources to deal effectively with these issues on Wikipedia, so we turn it over to professionals. --S.dedalus (talk) 21:21, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Quantify it however you like. Either way, we can't just RBI it. Considering the humanist aspect of it, I think this mailing list should help to ensure professionals end up finding out about it and hopefully helping the user who made the TOV, as opposed to us ignoring it and hoping for the best. If you make a TOV, hoax or real, it should be taken seriously. Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 06:32, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

If we were to say there is consensus here to create such a list, how would we go about creating it? -- how do you turn this on 20:19, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I doubt that consensus here would be enough for such a drastic change of policy even if such existed. A formal proposal would first need to be created and approved per Wikipedia:How to create policy. --S.dedalus (talk) 22:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Rollback option

I would like an option in preferences added concerning the use of rollback.

Something like:

[] Prompt me for an edit summary when rolling back an edit

And the checkbox would be checked by default.

This would help for those of us concerned with "accidentally" clicking on rollback. (I've seen admins request for it to be removed for that reason.)

And by having this be the default, it might provide the opportunity for newbies to gradually learn how the tool works.

It would also allow those who regularly use rollback to be able to add an edit summary in situations which may merit it. (Think of how this might reduce the "bite" of merely seeing your edit reverted, yet not knowing or understanding why.)

My understanding is that this is already possible through personal scripting, but this is not necessarily a possibility for everyone (for technical reasons, for example).

And a single line added to preferences would seem to not be too intrusive. (Likely added to the "Editing" section.)

Note that this would in no way otherwise affect the way the tool itself works. By removing the checkmark from the check box (one time, and never having to do so again, unless the user chooses to reenable the checkbox), Rollback remains the same as it is now.

And if anyone would like to help with the eventual bugzilla request, that would also be appreciated : ) - jc37 00:59, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Respectfully, if one wants to add an edit summary when rolling back an edit, then rollback is just not the correct tool to use. It should be used only in situations where the reason for the reversion is absolutely and unambiguously clear. If one wishes to undo an edit and leave a specific edit summary, this functionality is already part of the user interface. See WP:UNDO for instructions on how to use the undo tool; it is available from both article history and diff screens.

Editors who occasionally mis-click the rollback link can undo their action easily by simply rolling back again, or by using the undo tool. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:20, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

UNDO is actually different than rollback. For one thing, it's possible to rollback more than a single edit in a single click.

That aside, why oppose a change which will in no way affect editors who already use rollback? To use rollback as it is currently used, all you would have to do is make certain that the checkbox is clear. No harm to existing use, and great help for those of us who wish it.) - jc37 01:31, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with jc37. Currently, when I want to add an edit summary for a rollback I use Twinkle (a form of "personal scripting"). Being able to do this through Rollback would certainly be less of a strain on Wikipedia's servers. SMP0328. (talk) 01:40, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there a way around this? Wikipedia:Rollback feature#Mass rollbacks implies that a custom script can add edit summaries to rollback. Darkspots (talk) 01:44, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Note: Undo actually can revert several edits in a single operation if you use it from the diff display of the edits you want to revert. —Ashanda (talk) 02:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

And this would still allow rollback to be done in a single operation. To clarify, the difference is that rollback is a "single click". And once done, it's immediately in the edit history. It takes several "clicks" to perform the UNDO of several edits (the operation you note). Accidents can and do occur. And as others have noted, there are times where having the option for an edit summary might be useful.

And I might add that one of the main reasons that that Rollback was offered to non-admins was to reduce twinkle usage due to technical/server reasons (as noted above). This proposal is another way to help with that (also as noted above). - jc37 03:34, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

When I make a mistake with Rollback I just rollback my own edit- very simple. When I want to leave an edit summary I either revert manually (i.e. edit a previous version) or use a script. This proposal seems like a solution in search of a problem to me. —Ashanda (talk) 03:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not, if even because even you state that such a "problem" may (and does) occur. This is both a reactive and a proactive proposal. Note again, that this would in no way affect your ability to rollback. - jc37 04:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

This entirely defeats the purpose. Rollback is intended for expeditious rollback of clear vandalism, without having to type anything or click multiple clicks. It should never be used in situations where the edit may have been in good faith, so biting is not an issue. As for tools, let's not speculate on what would be more performant - the truth is, Twinkle is probably even more efficient than the rollback button, because it goes through the XML interface. If people have been clicking on it accidentally, it might make sense to have an option to hide it or have a confirmation dialog. Dcoetzee 01:49, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Prompting for an edit summary is presumably a "confirmation dialog"? After all, we're only talking about a single line addition to preferences. And by doing so, we get the best of all worlds : ) - jc37 02:00, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

The road to hell is paved with the tickboxes of preferences. Twinkle can be customised so that it does nothing but provide rollback-with-rationale AKAICT, which seems appropriate for this use case. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:29, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Twinkle, unfortunately, is too slow sometimes. I've had several times where someone introduces a non-vandalizing, likely well-meaning but not an appropriate change to an article, then follows up with one or more fixes (most commonly when their change breaks tables). If I'm editing and come in the middle of that, Twinkle may or may not catch that due to timing due to the steps it needs to take, and despite I go through all the activity, and it seems to take, Twinkle won't recognize if, after it started its process, a new revision came in and thus neutralized anything Twinkle may attempt. --MASEM 15:44, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

If you need rollback that prompts for a summary, use a user script. I'm almost certain that one already exists that modifies the existing rollback links to prompt for a summary, if not, it would be easy enough to make. Or just use undo or a manual revert. In addition, making this checked by default is almost certain to break tons of scripts and programs that haven't switched to the API for rollback and make tons of people mad who don't want to be prompted for a summary. Mr.Z-man 17:10, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

First, not everyone has access to scripting (due to technical reasons, among others).

Second, I would presume that every one of those "mad people" could rather easily go into preferences and "uncheck" the check box. So no harm, no foul. - jc37 18:39, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

"not everyone has access to scripting" - we're not talking some massive-slow-down-your-PC-by-50% script here. It would probably be about a dozen lines and would be installed by adding one line to your monobook.js or could be added as a gadget (and enabled in preferences). The only people who really don't have access to it are people with javascript disabled, but they should be used to the internet sucking by now. Yes, people could turn it off, but they'd have to know that there's something to turn off first. Mr.Z-man 19:04, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

See also bug 3552, closed as WONTFIX. Mr.Z-man 19:07, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

That bug was presented differently, for one thing. They seemed (initialy) to want the edit summary regardless. This is merely about a checkbox option in preferences. Though I do find it interesting that there are obviously others who would be interested in this functionality. - jc37 21:14, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

What if it was unchecked by default? That way only people who are interested in having this ability would have that box checked. SMP0328. (talk) 19:24, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

If that's the only way that this would get consensus, I would not be opposed to that as a compromise. - jc37 21:14, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I've written a user script to make rollback prompt for a summary at User:Ilmari Karonen/rollbacksummary.js. To try it out, just add

importScript("User:Ilmari Karonen/rollbacksummary.js");

to your monobook.js (or equivalent page for other skins). If people like it, it should be straightforward to make it a gadget that can be enabled via Special:Preferences. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 21:42, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I vaguely remember writing that bit about "mass rollbacks". There is also Wikipedia:Rollback feature#Custom edit summaries. I've added User:Ilmari Karonen/rollbacksummary.js (though it is technically a "Prompted edit summary" feature, not a "Custom edit summary" feature) to the other two there: User:Gracenotes/rollback.js and User:Mr.Z-man/rollbackSummary.js. I think it would be a good idea to make User:Ilmari Karonen/rollbacksummary.js a gadget that can be enabled via Special:Preferences. Carcharoth (talk) 00:43, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

First, I think it's great that several people have made tools and gadgets to help others.

But as I mentioned above, that doesn't help those with no scripting.

(And incidentally: "The only people who really don't have access to it are people with javascript disabled, but they should be used to the internet sucking by now." - According to who? And by the way, I personally feel that that was a rather (to put it nicely) self-centered thing to say. And I was rather shocked to read it, especially considering who said it - That's just not been my typical experience of that editor.)

Anyway, the thing is, this doesn't even seem to be something that's difficult or intrusive. It's a single line in preferences, and I would presume should be rather simple to enact.

It's helpful, it's intuitive, it can potentially help prevent WP:BITE, amid several other positives, with no negatives that I see.

But let me ask: Are there any actual concerns besides "I don't want another checkbox in preferences, because it could lead to more and more checkboxes"? (paraphrased) - jc37 09:42, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Adding the line to preferences would not magically make it work. Rollback currently doesn't use a form at all, so one would have to be written for it to support this. As for "According to who?" - according to common sense? If you can edit Wikipedia, you don't have JavaScript disabled in your browser (even public computers generally have this enabled), and you are using a browser newer than Internet Explorer 5 (IE6 was released more than 7 years ago), you have access to JavaScript. How else would you not? As for "used to the internet sucking" - it does. Wikipedia is one of the few large websites I know of that doesn't look or act significantly different with JavaScript disabled, at least for anonymous users. Most sites are designed to be somewhat compatible for people with JS disabled, but others might be completely broken. Probably around 95+% of people browse with JS enabled ([1] stats for this site are probably similar to those for Wikipedia editors). People with JS enabled are a massive majority, so I don't see how it could be "self-centered" to say we shouldn't change the software for this. Note also, that since building it into the software (unless we also built the Javascript into the software) would actually be slower than using the script as it would require an extra pageload (albeit a small one). Mr.Z-man 17:31, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for listing your concerns. I'll try to go through each individually:

I realise that it wouldn't appear like "magic" and that someone would have to write the code, but since there are (presumably) similar pieces of code already written (and now even scripts which perform this), I would presume that this would not be difficult.

And actually, most websites work just fine without scripting, activex, and quite a few even without cookies (though most sites which are editing based, or email based - that is, those which wish you to "sign in" - now typically require cookies).

As for your comment, it appears selfish (or perhaps you prefer dis-inclusive?) in that you seem to be suggesting that anyone who doesn't edit the way you do can go screw themselves, since you don't feel that their concerns should be bothered with.

• '"Note also, that since building it into the software (unless we also built the Javascript into the software) would actually be slower than using the script as it would require an extra pageload (albeit a small one)."

Only if the box is checked, else I presume that rollback will work like it always has, and thus there would be no "extra pageload". And for those who do have it checked, this (as others have noted) would presumably not be any more intensive to the system than is someone were to use UNDO. And this would be abother case in which Twinkle usage could be deprecated. Which was my understanding for allowing non-admins access to rollback in the first place.

So where's the bad in the proposal? It helps, rather than hinder, and even helps with the spirit of Wikipedia:Accessibility. - jc37 23:38, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

If its unchecked by default, its not as much of a big deal (it won't break tons of stuff and be really annoying). While I still think it would be much better as a JS gadget, I wouldn't completely oppose putting it in the software though. But Brion seems to be against this, and when it comes to the software, his opinion wins. Mr.Z-man 16:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

That was another thing I didn't understand, it's ok to add gadgets to preferences, but not this single line?

And as for him being "against this", I presume you're speaking of this?

I could be misinterpreting, but it seems that that's just a general disinclination for preferences-bloat (which I understand).

But I can't imagine that his comments should be taken to suggest precluding the possibility or that no discussion should occur?

I'm honestly not just "banging a drum", or even having a wish to "bang my head against the wall". But this honestly seems like something that several editors would find useful. (I seem to recall even seeing a bureaucrat request removal of rollback due to concerns of accidental clicking.)

So now, since there has been discussion, and several have commented in support (and opposition), I suppose th next step would be a poll... - jc37 14:20, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Keep cleanup banners to talk pages

The proposal starts with a realization that placement of certain well-meaning templates at the tops of articles is getting out of hand, and in most cases these templates cater to editors rather than readers and do not contain any information pertinent to the article subject, so they constitute talk content, and should be placed in the talk space rather than the article space where they end up effectively supplanting the article lead. Stubs in particular should not be topped by lengthy multiple tags that only state the obvious. The proposal has garnered support (and as yet no substantive opposition) in the discussion here. Robert K S (talk) 20:36, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

You are misinterpreting the discussion. There is clearly substantive opposition on the page you mentioned, and has been there for several days. Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 19:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is substantive opposition. There hasn't been any disputation of the two main points outlined (or their bolded conclusions), and no one has put forward an objection supported by a solid rationale. People have said "I like tags" and "tags are useful", but I think the reasons against them outweigh the reasons for them. They are talk content and belong on the talk page. At the rate they're proliferating, pretty much any talk message you want to plaster at the top of an article, there were soon be a template tag for it. Let's reign this in. Robert K S (talk) 04:35, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I see no need to further characterize the discussion here, anybody who goes there and reads it knows what the state of it is. Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 00:59, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

date auto-formatting chaos

One of the articles on my watchlist recently had all its wikidates removed. In the almost four years I have been using wikidates there have been other instances when someone undid wikidates. All those earlier instances had been the work of vandals, or newbies who didn't know about wikidates.

• This change had an edit summary with a cryptic link to a similarly brief and cryptic section of a style guide that very said that wikidates were officially deprecated.
• This brief, cryptic section of the style guide had a footnote.
• The footnote referred readers to a discussion in late August.

I spent ten or fifteen minutes trying to make head or tail of this discussion. Valid points were raised by both sides.

Proponents of deprecation kept dropping hints to earlier discussions where their points had been explained in greater detail. But the proponents of deprecation didn't actually link to those earlier discussions.

Was a binding decision made that wikidates were to be deprecated? Proponents wrote as if it had been.

Less than one hundred people participated in this discussion.

After the proponents of deprecation started writing as if the binding decision had been made some cooler heads pointed out the practical difficulty of explaining the reasoning behind this decision -- of drafting a document that clearly and briefly laid out the perceived advantages of deprecation -- prior to setting loose robots to strip out the wikidates.

These cooler head pointed out how alienating this decision would be to all the good faith contributors who spent a lot of effort putting those wikidates in in the first place.

Unfortunately, no one made the effort to draft that clear, brief explanation. A cryptic edit summary... that points to a cryptic section of a guideline... that has a cryptic footnote... that points to an acrimonious and divisive discussion -- this is a fundamentally inadequate attempt at explanation. I agree with the writers in the August discussion who suggested that many of the wikipedia's good faith contributors, who spent a lot of energy using wikidates, would be alienated by this policy change, if a good-faith effort to explain it wasn't made first.

From my reading of the discussion it sounds like this could be an instance where a proposal was repeated, over and over again...

Was this discussion, by one hundred people, or a couple of dozen people, really sufficiently broad to justify a change to practically every article on the wikipedia?

And, if it was, why didn't anyone take the responsibility of trying to provide that clear explanation of its benefits, prior to loosing the robots?

Candidly, Geo Swan (talk) 06:19, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it could have been explained better to the community, but there were no serious arguments advanced against deprecating date linking for autoformatting purposes: it was an obvious case of WP:OVERLINKing, producing no actual benefit (at least, only the negligible benefit of being able to see dates round the other way, and only to a negligible percentage of readers anyway). Don't get upset about seeing "your" articles changed - the changes don't affect the content, and probably improve the presentation (particularly if there were also mixtures of different date formats there before, masked from editors who had the autoformatting option enabled), so be cool and take consolation from the fact that you don't have to make the unnecessary effort to link dates any more.--Kotniski (talk) 09:59, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

"From my reading of the discussion it sounds like this could be an instance where a proposal was repeated, over and over again..." Sounds about right to me. I've decided to not care about the delinking (except when someone decides to arbitrarily change date formats along with the delinking), but it would have been nice if it had been done through a method other than "push and argue until everyone else gives up". Anomie⚔ 12:58, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

On this occasion I think the clear arguments won the day. But of course it would be nice to have an ordered and moderated process for deciding about substantial policy changes - hence I will take yet another opportunity to encourage support for the proposal at WP:Policy/Procedure.--Kotniski (talk) 13:32, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

A large majority of Wikipedians will not keep up with all the style guidelines discussions and article reviewing discussions. That's perfectly all right. That's how most writing gets done in the real world ... some people contribute content, other people worry about copyediting and publishing issues. The article where Anomie reverted is Calvin and Hobbes, which the style guidelines people correctly converted to the American date format when they de-datelinked, since it's an American comic strip. Conversely, many people who contribute to style guidelines and article reviewing don't also have time to hang out at a lot of wikiprojects, getting a feel for how style issues look through their eyes. Anomie brings up a good point here: when there are endless discussions among style people on a topic, it can come across as trying to win by excess rather than having an honest debate. The best approach is usually gentle and usually involves more listening than talking. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 19:59, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Kotniski, are you suggesting that the current situation -- where the robots have been loosed, with no effort made to explain this decision to the 99.9 percent of the wikipedia's contributors who were unaware of the discussion(s) is acceptable?

You may think that this discussion is clear. You called it "obvious". Sorry, nothing is obvious.

IMO this delinking should be stopped, immediately, until it can be done properly. Properly meaning with that essential clear explanation. Geo Swan (talk) 01:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, but if that is really what you meant? Geo Swan (talk) 01:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Let's keep a sense of proportion here; it's only dates changing colour. Ever since I've been on WP there have been bots (not to mention humans) going around doing things to the articles I've edited - if they're making them better, or bringing them into line with policies I didn't know about, then that's great - I've never felt the need to object because I personally haven't been consulted on every detail. These date bots and their masters are doing valuable work removing inconsistencies and pointless links - we should be positive about the fact that there are people making the effort to do this work.--Kotniski (talk) 07:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes. By all means, lets use the proper perspective here.

Sober thoughtful participants in that discussion strongly recommended the preparation of a clear explanation for the decision. Sober thoughtful participants in that discussion strongly recommended that rather than simple delinking the wikidates be wrapped in a template -- a template that would currently just render them as if they were unlinked, but preserve the effort -- the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of hours of good-faith effort of those contributors who complied with the earlier standard.

Yes, by all means, lets use the proper perspective here. The discussion used to justify loosing the robots was one only an very small fraction of the wikipedia's contributors participated in, or were even aware of.

I am one of the wikipedia's more prolific editors, having made over 30,000 edits. I've supplied a lot of references in those edits, where I used wikidates. Making sure I put the dates in my contributions in wikidate format probably represent more than 100 hours of my time.

I strongly urge you to withdraw your claim that the advantages of delinking wikidates is "obvious". I am not a beginner. And it was not obvious to me.

You acknowledged that proponents of delinking wikidates had made previous attempts -- which failed. I suggest the existence of previous attempts which failed proves that the advantages of delinking wikidates were not "obvious".

I repeat, the robots should immediately be stopped, and a good-faith discussion over how to address the decision on the manual of style page in a responsible manner. Anyone who thinks making the effort to provide a clear, simple explanation of this massive change is a waste of effort is ignoring the enormous good faith efforts of the contributors who complied with the standard over the last four years.

Ignoring the suggestion that the wikidates should be preserved, but wrapped in a template, because it is too time consuming to discuss, or would be too time consuming to set robots to work performing that task, is ignoring the enormous good faith efforts of the contributors who complied with the standard over the last four years. My 30,000 edits probably represent something like 0.0001 percent or less of the wikipedia contributions over the last four years. If the 100 hours I spent complying with the wikidate standard are a useful yardstick then wikidates represented a million hours of effort. If it represented something like a million hours of effort then it is worth spending time to make sure deprecating it is well explained. It is worth spending time delinking or encapsulating the wikidates is done in a well-thought-out, responsible manner.

Candidly, Geo Swan (talk) 17:13, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not just dates changing colors, it's dates no longer being linked to other articles. It's also dates losing the linkage which allowed a person's Preferences to be set to a specific format. If the original editor entered [[October 6]], and my preferences are to view dates in European format, the removal of the linkage now makes my set preference moot, and I'm being forced to see the date in a format I don't prefer. It also means that there is no simple way to go over to the October 6 article, nor to the 2008 article, to view the event in the perspective of other events in the same time frame. Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 19:56, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

As a WP editor, you ought to be pleased that you can now see dates in articles in the same way your readers can - this will enable you to notice (and correct, if you feel like it) inconsistencies between date formats that were hidden from you before. The linking arguments are none too strong either - you won't find any historical context by linking to October 6; and it has long been the policy (enforced by bots, without any noticeable opposition) not to link solitary years, so there seems no reason to do differently when a year happens to be accompanied by a day and a month. I agree with GS that this change could have been handled in a more ordered way, but now the reasons for doing it have been made clear, I would hope (too optimistically perhaps) that we can now move on from this issue. --Kotniski (talk) 10:24, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

There are many arguments in favor of delinking dates, and I don't want to imply that this is the best one, but it's a sufficient one. GS says "Making sure I put the dates in my contributions in wikidate format probably represent more than 100 hours of my time". How does it benefit Wikipedia to require all future editors to spend their time the same way? Most editors don't read guidelines or policy, they try to copy what they see in articles. Even if we had a guideline that said "link or not, your choice", the practical effect would be that editors would look around, see that most dates were linked, scratch their heads, and spend proportionate time linking their own dates. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 23:47, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

P.S. See User:Tony1/Information on the removal of DA for 6 reasons that dates should usually be delinked, and User:The Duke of Waltham/Auto-formatting is evil for 8 reasons. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 03:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Reply by Tony1: Geo Swan, thank you for your inquiry. The issue had been debated from time to time at MOSNUM and elsewhere for some two years until June this year. During a six-week period, there was intense debate at those places, which was flagged at other style guide pages and the Village Pump. The decision has been widely welcomed, despite the misgivings of a few WPians. I myself cut and pasted positive reactions here until mid-August, when there were so many that I just didn't bother any more. You may find this page useful background information.

Please note that the purpose of date autoformatting has never been to link to chronological pages: it was a formatting device to conceal from WPian editors the raw date formats, apparently to stop them squabbling about which format to choose for which article. WP has matured since that time, and like our highly successful article-consistent guideline on WP:ENGVAR, we have clear guidelines on the choice of date format. There has, to my knowledge, been no edit warring since late August, when we've been able to see in display-mode the frightful mess of inconsistencies and wrongly chosen date formats that our readers have had to put up with for all this time.

I do apologise for having chosen international rather than US format for the Calvin and Hobbs article. It appears that I was fooled by the sentence in the opening paragraph "The pair are named after John Calvin, a 16th century French Reformation theologian, and Thomas Hobbes, a 17th century English political philosopher." I like to think that this is a rare mistake, since I try to be meticulous in choosing the right format. The purpose of the monobook script (as opposed to a bot) is to scan the automatically produce diff before pressing "Save".

You're welcome to post any further queries/feedback on my talk page. Tony (talk) 10:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

When to use hidden/collapsible sections

copied/refactored from the VPT archive

We really need some recommendations about when/when not to use the "hidden" code, outside of footer-navboxes.

See:

• Template talk:Hidden#Within article text
• Wikipedia talk:NavFrame#Accessibility of collapsed sections
• Wikipedia talk:Accessibility/Archive 1#Hide/show buttons?
• the discussions about the entirely-hidden-infobox experiment at Ponte Vecchio
• people using it whimsically in vertical-navboxes, such as {{Alpha Phi Alpha articles}} and {{Video RPG}}

Questions:

1. Are there any more links to relevant discussions about hidden/collapsible sections?
2. The various hiding-templates often get used to hide content that some editors simply cannot agree on whether to display or not (see the "influences" sections in some Writer-infoboxes (e.g. William Gibson), the Ponte Vecchio experiment, the vertical navboxes linked above, etc). Is this a usage we want to encourage or discourage?
3. What code should be used? Wikipedia:NavFrame says it is deprecated, but it is widely used by all of the hiding templates ({{Hidden}}, {{Show}}, {{Hidden begin}}, {{HiddenMultiLine}}, {{Hidden section top}}, {{Hidden infoboxes}}) none of which mention deprecation.
4. Any suggestions as to what we should be using for guidelines? Or where we should be discussing it? -- Quiddity (talk) 04:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

My general intuition is that hidden/collapsable sections should never be used except for navigation elements. The reason is to facilitate moving articles to print form - everything has to be fully expanded in print. Dcoetzee 20:47, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree, while some dynamic content in articles would be nice, there's generally no reason to show/hide article text. Mr.Z-man 21:33, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if this is within the scope of the question, but I think it's legitimate to hide the solutions of "puzzle" boxes, e.g. chess diagrams or colour vision tests. -- Philcha (talk) 21:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Until we have a way to show collapsed sections on non-standard browsers (eg text-to-speech) and for printing, collapsed sections should be avoided. --MASEM 01:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

CSS can define separate rules for display and printing, so that's an internal technical matter. In the case I raised, it's all done via a template, so if someone defines a CSS class "hide when displayed, show when printed" it can be applied very easily.

I've never used a text-to-speech reader. Do these have options to speak hidden text? If not, that sounds like a deficiency that the suppliers should resolve.

In any case the cases I cited are chess diagrams and colour vision tests, which would be pretty unintelligible to text-to-speech readers. -- Philcha (talk) 08:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I would hope (though I'm not sure) that screen readers would just act as a browser with JS disabled (where all the text should show by default), though I'm not sure. Printing is still an issue though, AKAIK. Mr.Z-man 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Screen readers should be fine (as collapsing is done by JS), but that's why printing fails; I asked this before and it's not just changing the media type for CSS; IIRC, JS will react independent of the CSS media setting, so if tables start collapsed on a page, they will stay collapsed when the page is parsed for printing. We should be avoiding any collapsed media until this can be (if ever) resolved, despite the fact it can really help a page with lots of secondary information. --MASEM 16:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. I'm still not certain what the consensus is though; A few specific questions:

For hiding things like:

• the "influences" sections in biographical-infoboxes as a standard practice (this information is not always duplicated within the article-text)
• anything, just to avoid argument (entirely hidden infobox at Ponte Vecchio)
• anything, to save random space (hidden timeline at Elizabeth Smart#Legal proceedings)

are we recommending against these practices? How strongly?

To which guideline/policy page would we add any sentences related to this? (and discuss further there)

Besides the printing and usability problems, there are isolated text overlap problems (e.g. Ant infobox).

I'm also concerned that some readers will completely tune-out [show] links, because at a glance they look just like [edit] links, down the right edge of the page. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:54, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Autoblocks and legitimate users

(Any admins watching? This is still a current issue.)

I'm editing on a third world ISP that uses IP masquerading and transparent proxies. Unfortunately, an overly agressive block of User:Motheria resulted in my being autoblocked, receiving messages like: "This is because someone using this internet address or shared proxy server was blocked. Your ability to edit pages has been automatically suspended to prevent abuse from the other person. " If you're seeing this message, it's only because I've remotely logged in to another computer to post this via w3m - I'm sure you'll understand why I didn't bother logging in.

Unfortunately, as I am unable to edit User talk:Motheria and my own fricking talk page at User talk:Mrzaius, barring magically getting a new IP address, I am stuck having to email the offending admin or other admins that I may know. This is hardly a sufficient or timely fix for the problem at hand. Yes, I know that the proper fix is to just get these IP addresses flagged as shared to prevent this from happening here again, but that isn't enough when newbies are involved. They need to be able to comment directly here to deal with this sort of problem in any sort of accessible manner.

I propose that secondary users affected by an autoblock (or at least those that existed PRIOR to said block) should be able to edit two pages: 1: The initially blocked user's talk page 2: Their own talk page (for registered users) or their own IPs talk page (for anonymous users)

This shouldn't be controversial. Note that I am not proposing any changes to the blocking policies for the initially blocked user, just other users that presumably existed before the block. User:Mrzaius 198.247.173.235 (talk) 03:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

This is actually just a software bug, not an intentional policy, autoblocks were set to disallow editing usertalkpage editing regardless of what the original block was set to. The fix is done, but it hasn't been applied to Wikimedia sites yet. Note that you can also email unblock-en-llists.wikimedia.org to request that the autoblock be removed. I've disabled the autoblocks from the block of User:Motheria (it triggered 7 o_O) and reset the block of the account to disable the autoblocker, so you should be able to edit from your account now. Mr.Z-man 03:53, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Bias with Admins

• I've prepared a section of the RFC for you to make your comments, R123, just click here and enter your views. Don't forget to sign in the endorsement section. –xeno (talk) 13:48, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia ads

i was perusing Jim Wales's user page and saw his wikipedia ad template. I thougth wikipedia did not have ads? What is the deal? Bilodeauzx (talk) 04:43, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Strong consensus throughout the history of Wikipedia has been shown against the inclusion of for-profit advertising. The use of banners to advertise on-Wiki efforts, however, has generally not met such opposition, and is generally considered ok as long as they do not become obtrusive (and given that Jimbo keeps his user page open to editing, it's reasonable to say that it's ok to have a few such ads there). Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:18, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't like it though. I think this might be a way for Jim to "backdoor" some paid advertisements on wikipedia before we knew it. First on userpages, next on articles. A paranoid conspiracy maybe, but it just doesn't sit well, and I dont think i'm alone in that regard. Those banner ads look just like google banners. Bilodeauzx (talk) 05:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Um, apart from them appearing on his user page - what exactly have these ads got to do with him? They're community made and are included on Template:Wikipedia ads. There are even instructions there for hiding them. Nanonic (talk) 06:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an excellent article on this topic. See Slippery slope#The slippery slope as fallacy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Suggesting revision of Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials

I am proposing a revision to Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials, giving donors information on how to contact the Wikimedia Foundation themselves rather than suggesting they leave a note for another contributor to do so. I feel this process is inefficient, as it creates a needless middleman. It is also not inline with practices described elsewhere, including WP:IOWN. Please offer feedback at Wikipedia_talk:Donating_copyrighted_materials#.22someone_will_contact.22_redux.2C_suggest_revising. I'd be appreciative. I'm publicizing this at relevant places because I don't see any evidence that anyone monitors that talk page. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:09, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Honesty

Wikipedia:Honesty is, once again, being considered for guideline status. --Barberio (talk) 23:28, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Naming conventions on countries with same name.

Please discuss on Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(country-specific_topics)#Naming_conventions_on_countries_with_same_name. --Fixman^{Praise me} 06:38, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

What's the deal with the 'There is no picture' templates?

When I look at articles about people, I often see things that say something like 'We don't have a picture'. For an example, see Ann Robinson. It seems to be due to:

• Replace this image female.svg

We don't put 'work in progress' or 'under construction and I think that is just as silly. If there is no picture, then just... er... don't put a picture... What is the deal? Lightmouse (talk) 14:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably to prompt new users /readers to upload them... –xeno (talk) 14:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

These are, as of a few weeks ago, officially discouraged in the Manual of Style. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:13, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. I looked at Wikipedia:MOS#Images but couldn't find the discouragement. Can you provide a reference please? Lightmouse (talk) 15:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Just remember that discouraged =/= an encouragement to remove them all. –xeno (talk) 15:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Seems pretty synonymous to me. Which ones do you think should not be removed?--Kotniski (talk) 16:06, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The ones that are already in place. Basically, there's no need for a bot to mass-remove them all. –xeno (talk) 16:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

So are they considered a good thing or a bad thing? Or are some good and some bad? In any case I don't see how their desirability can be dependent on whether they were added before or after some arbitrary date. --Kotniski (talk) 17:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

If we don't remove the ones that are there, people will keep adding more—most people base article style on what they see in other articles. Darkspots (talk) 17:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Last I heard, there was a consensus that the current images are ugly but no consensus on what to do about them. Anomie⚔ 18:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders for further reading. --Sherool (talk) 20:02, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Can somebody point me at the reference in the MOS please? Lightmouse (talk) 22:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah those templates are stupid, esp. when the silouhette figure looks nothing like the actual subject of the article (a white middle class westerner). Bilodeauzx (talk) 02:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

...as vigorously as others wage war" Ghandi. So, why not shift focus away from war-related "On This Day" material on the Home Page. Why not look for and publish the good news that ALSO occurs each day in history: the times a brother helps another, the peaceful events that start social changes without violence, the times Peace treaties/parades/councils occured, etc???? Thank you so much, AMIG —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amuseingrace (talk • contribs) 02:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

huh? Bilodeauzx (talk) 03:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)