Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

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New ideas and proposals are discussed here. Before submitting:

• Check to see whether your proposal is already described at Perennial proposals.
• Consider developing your proposal on Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab).
• Proposed software changes that have gained consensus should be filed at Bugzilla.
• Proposed policy changes belong at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy).
• Proposed WikiProjects or task forces may be submitted at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals.
• Proposed new wikis belong at meta:Proposals for new projects.

« Archives, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214

Account Deletion

WP:UNAME states: "It is not possible to delete user accounts, as all contributions must be assigned to some identifier; either a username or an IP address." My proposal is that a single, catch-all account be created for the purpose of account deletion. Any user who wishes to delete their account may request that their username be changed to this account's name, which will reassign all their edits to the account. However, they will be unable to log in to the account, as the act of usurpation will remove their password information - or something similar. This will solve the problem of edit assignment and allow any user to remove their influence on Wikipedia permanently. Of course, if this proposal is carried out, it will supersede "right to vanish". Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 22:27, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The merging of contributions from multiple users to one account I don't think is technically possible. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 22:31, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Will you please elaborate? Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 22:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Teechnically, that could easily be done (changing a value used in the SQL table(s) is relatively trivial), but doing this would make our license meaningless. The way that I understand it we can't go changing the contributions history at all, especially for the GFDL license. Of course, they're all pseudonyms anyway, but... I don't see anything like this standing a chance of gaining acceptance (I'm certainly willing to be proven wrong, I just doubt that it'll happen).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

See also bug #17265 and mw:Extension:User Merge and Delete. Helder 22:44, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

This would cause huge administration problems should ever the allegedly vanished user return as a sockpuppet (or be suspected of doing so). I wouldn't mind it in cases of extreme harassment or some such thing, but for general hissy fit + vanish, there is too much potential for abuse. --B (talk) 22:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite understand how a user who returned under a new name would pose a problem - it is mentioned in WP:ADMINSOCK. The process for account deletion would work much like username changes do now - a user must give a valid reason why they want their account deleted, and the process would have to be reviewed - perhaps they would not be able to delete an account after a certain number of edits (fewer than 50 000)? I also don't understand how there is potential for abuse - as long as the account never actually makes edits of its own, everything should be fine (but I don't understand the system all that well, yet). Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 00:01, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Suppose some user is under arbcom sanction. They say, "delete my account, I'm leaving". A month later, a new user appears who edits the same topics as the old one. The new user should obviously be subject to the same arbcom sanctions, if, in fact, they are the same person, but because the old account's edits have been added to the slush account, investigating it is no longer possible. This has nothing to do with admin accounts. "Administration problems" != "problems with admin accounts". --B (talk) 00:35, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

A simple solution is that no one under arbcom sanction may delete his or her account. Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 02:56, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Another problem is looking for systematic bad edits by a former editor in order to fix them. This would be impossible if the edits could no longer be distinguished. Imagine a user creates a large number of copyright or BLP violations and then vanishes before it's cleaned up. It should be possible to see edits by an account whether it's active or not. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:57, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

This actually wouldn't be a problem, as I envision approval being required to delete an account (though things are starting to look grim). Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 02:49, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

All of this is irrelevant, regardless. L i c e n s e.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 07:33, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

By deleting their username, then, users must agree to forfeit all copyrights to every edit they have ever made. Or is this a bit more complex? Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 14:27, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

And what if they come afterwards and claim somebody else accessed their account and illegally forfeited their rights? Or that they were in a bad mental state and not competent to make legal decisions? And I still think my earlier objection is a serious problem. People approving requests for account deletions would get an unreasonable burden if they had to check there were no edits which would later require investigation, and they could still easily overlook something. This proposal has a lot of drawbacks including legal issues (though I'm not a lawyer) and very little benefit compared to renaming the account to a name unconnected to the old name. If we want edits by vanished users to stand out then we could rename the accounts to something systematic like Vanished1729. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:47, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Policy descisions are frequently willing to take into account extenuating circumstances already. There doesn't really need to be an exception for some hypothetical case like this. i kan reed (talk) 15:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

You can already have the account renamed. Why do the contributions need to be merged with some other vanished user's work? Why isn't it good enough to have a User:Vanished1, a User:Vanished2, a User:Vanished3, etc.? What's the benefit of merging them into one enormous User:All-the-users-who-ever-vanished? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:24, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It makes identification virtually impossible. By the way, User:Alltheuserswhohaveevervanished is a great idea for the account's name! Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 19:43, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but that sounds like a very good reason not to do this, from where I'm sitting. We have a problem with liars who say that they're going to WP:LEAVE, but then come back days or months later with a new account name and/or as an unregistered user, and cause the same problems. We need to be able to associate individual "vanished" (ab)users with their future abuse.

And, no, you can't really say "we'll only do this for people who aren't abusing Wikipedia", because it is exceedingly rare for an editor with a perfect track record to vanish. Many simply stop editing, but very few have their accounts renamed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose There is no good way to implement this. I could, like the people above, try to show examples of why this is a bad idea, why it creates more problems than it could ever possibly solve, but it would all be a waste of time because this is never going to happen. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:00, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose We already have revision deletion that could remove usernames for a limited amount of edits. But the editor has already granted a license to make what they contribute available. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:27, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
• Comment - it's really not clear to me what problem this is trying to solve. Never mind the issues raised with the solution - what's the motivation here? Rd232 ^talk 12:51, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

  My question as well. This is a solution without a problem. Resolute 13:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

My motivation was seeing that very passage in WP:UNAME listed above. I tried to think of a way to delete accounts while still assigning edits to something, and this was my idea. Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 14:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I suspected as much. You came up with a technical solution for what seemed a technical problem - but as the discussion here shows, it's not just a technical issue. Rd232 ^talk 14:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose You can delete accounts on meta! ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 23:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - as Ohm's Law says, this would be problematic for our license. Other problems have also been pointed out, and there is little benefit over the current vanished user situation. LadyofShalott 01:22, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support for accounts which have null edits and no SUL. mabdul 17:18, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, that's a great idea. Accounts with zero edits could easily be merged in to the slush account. Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 21:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Support this suggestion — agree that this is a pretty good idea. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Why would an account with no edits need deleting in the first place?--Jac16888 ^Talk 03:00, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

So that the name could be reused (hopefully by someone that will actually edit). Sven Manguard Wha? 05:20, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that and that if - for example - a user is requesting an account at WP:ACC with a "similar name" the helpers with tool-access don't have to check for accounts and thus unflagged users (so not having the WP:accountcreator-flag) are able to handle these requests. Since the "conflicting" account is already deleted.

I would also propose for accounts, which should be deleted, get a mail(if they have a mail address saved) with - say - one week time to "reactivate" their account and rescuing it for deletion. mabdul 12:54, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Which begs the question, what about accounts without email addresses set? Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 01:34, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

This would would only make sense if restricted to accounts that haven't logged in for years. I believe there is a large number of users who don't want to edit (yet?), but who are logging in regularly because it's the best way to change the way various aspects of Wikipedia are displayed. E.g. it's the only way to change how mathematical formulas are displayed. Anyway, a week's notice is way too short for inactive users. There are numerous good reasons (e.g. hospitalisation; international travelling in countries with poor infrastructure) why someone may be completely offline for a month or two. Hans Adler 04:30, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support - The CC BY-SA specifically states (in the short version, at least) that "the above conditions can be waived if one gets permission from the copyright holder (or something along those lines)". The license will not be rendered meaningless. Agreeing to the deletion of an account simply means that you agree to waive your rights to your contributions, which is perfectly in line with CC BY-SA. It's a good way to free up good names that have been seized, although we'll have to keep some obvious ones like JarlaxleArtemis from being deleted. --Σ _{^talkcontribs} 04:02, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
  • This is simply incorrect. Vanishing users do not (currently) agree to waive all rights to their contributions. The requested attribution may change but the license does not. Dcoetzee 15:04, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
    • You are correct. The users who have vanished in the past did not agree to waive their rights. However, if we could require that all users who wish to vanish after this day waive their rights to their contributions, it would be in line with the license. If they refuse to waive their rights to their contributions, they can take the old method of renaming to "User:Vanished 480,904,054". Already-vanished users can be emailed and asked if they would like to relinquish their rights to their contributions, maybe. --Σ _{^talkcontribs} 02:35, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose A solution in search of a problem. There's a virtually infinite number of names available for usurped accounts, and it would take about the same (minimal) amount of work to merge accounts in a new process as it currently takes to simply rename to a "vanished" or "usurped" name. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 03:52, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - Due to licensing concerns. However, I would have no problem deleting old accounts (>1 year old) with no edits at all. Many of these are sockpuppets or just long-forgotten accounts. Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:40, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that we should implement account locking as well, which would be especially effective with sockpuppets.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:56, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

It already exists here. Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:40, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I mean, for local users, not just unified ones.Jasper Deng (talk) 21:50, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

• I don't think so - will makes things far too confusing. From a bureaucrats' perspective, people are usually satisfied with the explanation that accounts cannot be deleted - but that we can rename them to some (unique) random string of characters. –xeno^talk 12:44, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
  • It's for a different reason why I'm proposing it. I'm sure that accounts like the socks of Grawp and other LTA users should be locked, to avoid even a chance of server overload from the user clicking Preferences and changing things over and over again.Jasper Deng (talk) 21:50, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose — Without thinking really deeply on the matter, I think that the content at Wikipedia:UNAME#Changing your username, WP:VANISH and WP:CLEANSTART adequately cover the matter, but perhaps for the need for some more clearly worded language at Wikipedia:UNAME#Changing your username; for instance, the section could be rewritten to reflect the reasons for changing a username and the ensuing options for retaining original identity vs. anonymizing the account. Further, if the "deleting" subsection is retained, then providing a better accounting of why an account can't be deleted would be helpful. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:13, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Making the Main Page undeletable

I've noticed in the past that the main page has been deleted by either account hijacking or by accident, to prvent this, cant we somehow make the main page undeletable?--Spoctole (talk) 19:52, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Don't delete the main page#Historical context, last sentence--Jac16888 ^Talk 19:59, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The main page is undeletable. Go on, try it... ;p Happy‑melon 23:18, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

No, no, no, you're supposed to test deletions on Jimbo's userpage; that's what the template says. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:01, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Reminds me when I discovered what I thought was some rather iffy stuff on a mainframe and I asked an operator to run a little job to test it out for me next time the machine was about to go down. "No there's nothing you can do at user level that'll cause any problems" he said and straightaway ran it. Everything froze instantly and the machine needed to be power cycled. :) Dmcq (talk) 12:23, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I personally would support the proposal to make the main page undeletable - in fact, I did not even know it could be deleted. It seems an innocuous enough proposal to me. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:26, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

The main page can't be deleted or moved. Or maybe the page mentioned at MediaWiki:Mainpage (currently, Main Page) can't be deleted or moved, I don't know. Maybe we'll need a developer when finally the main page gets moved out of article space (the obvious thing fails). —Kusma (t·c) 20:44, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

This is what happens: --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:50, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Having just looked at Wikipedia: Main Page, I see it does not even have an "Edit this page" column at the top - which would imply that it cannot be modified, let alone deleted. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 16:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

It does have an edit this page button for admins. What you are probably seeing is "view source" instead of the edit this page button, which is what you will always see when any page is protected and you don't have permission to edit a protected page.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:39, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

The software has already been modified to make the Main Page undeletable. However, this is intended to deal with casual curiosity, not a determined attacker. There are well-known ways around it. Dcoetzee 15:00, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Missing images in infoboxes

Image requesting an image

Hi. Why doesn't America Now (and similar articles) show an image like this one (OK, a pretty one)? I think it can improve participation. The image can be shown by default when image = parameter is empty. Also, we can show a "upload a fair use image" or "upload a free image" depending on topic (fair use for TV/films/albums, free for the rest). The image must link to a tutorial about uploading content to local (fair use) or Commons (free). This idea could affect any template including an image = parameter. Regards. emijrp (talk) 13:19, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

There was a relevant discussion fairly recently that maybe useful here, see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 75#Image_placeholders. wctaiwan (talk) 14:04, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Support It is a good idea and one I would support.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:38, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Many types of articles typically have non-free images in their infoboxes. It would be quite unacceptable to imply that an article would as a matter of princple be incomplete without such an image and that people should upload one simply for the sake of having an image. A non-free image should only be used if there is a specific, individually motivated need for it. In the case of the specific example cited above, America Now, it doesn't need an image because basically it has no text content to begin with. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Oh, god, eww. First off, these were depreciated because a) most people don't understand copyright, and 'people trying to help' caused many, many, many, many, many, many more problems than they ever solved, and b) because placeholder images are ugly and unprofessional. As one of the people who deals with the flood of copyrighted crap that gets uploaded, I'd like to kindly ask you to please not needlessly make my job harder. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:16, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm not aware of a single problem on Wikipedia that was ever solved by anyone except the "people trying to help" that you deride here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:46, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Reform of Wikipedia IRC

I've been discussing a huge problem with Wikipedia IRC for a while now with a lot of editors, whose opinions have varied (although I'm not going to identify them, because I'm too tired to go and get their permission). The problem is that Wikipedia IRC users have no control over one of the primary methods of providing help to new users, they can't select the people who run these essential channels, they don't even have a say on minor administration issues. The community has no power to stop cloaks from being made or even to express their concerns. They can't replace the people who "represent" them. They can't voice their opinions on the most minor of issues. If some people, for example, were to believe that it may be ideal to have bots in certain channels, to add to discussion and the assistance provided to new users, they would be shunned. We need a new system if we are to ensure that the encyclopedia continues to be a welcoming atmosphere to all editors, new and old, and the lack of the community's right to run its own assets and channels will surely harm developments to the encyclopedia. I propose change. I propose that we ask WMF (or if we have the right to, do it ourselves) for a new, welcoming, consensus-based sphere of discussion on the freenode IRC network (or others, should the community choose), where the community has the right to elect its representatives, Group Contacts, to freenode, via on-wiki discussion and consensus, where all channel policy is proposed, changed, and passed by the community, and where the community has the ultimate power to improve this new sphere. I believe that this will help newbies and oldbies alike, for the benefit of the encyclopedia and its great community. Let us decide. Thank you. --123Ħeðŋeħøŋ456 22:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support IRC is now a fundamental part of collaboration; the old "IRC<>WP" lie doesn't hold true. Our {{helpme}} template links users there, as do our welcome, and many other areas. We need to move towards improved support. The existing system is anachronistic, and in need of reform. The consensus should be able to dictate the operations of IRC - specifically, the help channel, but others as well. Control of these channels should belong to the community; management and operating procedures should be agreed through our norms of discussion and consensus. GCs should be elected through discussion. The community needs to make this happen, in the interests of progress. For historical reasons, the IRC system is administered separately from normal Wikipedian process; this must change, to make progesss. For the future of collaboration.  Chzz  ►  22:39, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Just a side question though it may have some bearing. I've never been on IRC. I was wondering: how many users ask help there per day?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:04, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

We don't have stats, but I think it's about 30-50 people per day on average (I checked a random typical week from my logs a while back and got such a result). --KFP (contact | edits) 23:16, 16 August 2011 (UTC) [Clarification: I only counted people who actually asked a Wikipedia-related question, not others.] --KFP (contact | edits) 23:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Nobody keeps any stats that I know of - and it varies a lot day to day - but on average, I'll probably see 8-10 come into #wikipedia-en-help in the few (4-6) hours I'm on IRC. The vast majority are there for help with WP:AFC submissions; there's also the occasional helpee needing assistance elsewhere, and about every other day we get someone asking for medical advice that we have to tell to go see a doctor. I'd guess there are about 20 or so drive-bys on average during that period as well - people who come in the channel, get welcomed by Helpmebot, and then leave without saying anything. (edit conflict: KFP's count sounds right) Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:18, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm both a newbie on IRC and have been a regular in both places for about a month and I lend a hand in the help channel on questions I'm capable of addressing like "is it notable?" I see absolutely zero reasons to create more bureacracy on-wiki and the above paragraphs of support did exactly nothing to lay out a case of why this is necessary aside from vague boilerplate language about "control" and "democracy" -- which in itself gives me the creeps. If somebody can make a case where the harm is in the current arrangement citing concrete example I'll be more than happy to consider it. From my standpoint, the people I see on IRC regularly and as channel ops are solid, well-respected Wikipedia regulars. NO NEW BUREAUCRACY Snardbafulator (talk) 23:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

To address your concerns, I will give some examples. Let's say a user proposes that a bot sending periodic messages about, say, vandal emergencies be installed in a multitude of IRC channels (let's say the GCs' zone of control) to help the reliability of the encyclopedia. The current GCs are inactive, and so they won't approve the bots. Consensus is rising, what can you do? Get active, involved GCs who will listen to the community? Can't do that. Get a new system of approving bots? Can't do that. There is simply nothing that can be done. --123Ħeðŋeħøŋ456 12:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• I have a few concerns about your proposal (or more perhaps some of the points you raise). I'm not sure what you mean by "Wikipedia IRC users have no control over one of the primary methods of providing help to new users" - the #wikipedia-en-help channel is constantly staffed by active editors; sometimes a helpee will go a few minutes without getting a response, but that's usually during times of low activity (after 5 AM UTC, for example - most English-speaking countries are asleep around then). As for stopping cloaks from being made, I'm not sure why you'd want to. A cloak serves as a means of identification, much as an account on Wikipedia does. It hides your IP address and allows you to get autovoice or other flags. Aside from that, a cloak means nothing. As for raising concerns or proposing new bots etc., have you tried to do this recently and were rebuffed? If there is a problem that needs to be addressed, #wikimedia-ops is always open; as for bots, just bring it up with active users in the channel and discuss it there. I think this is a solution in search of a problem. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:25, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I strongly second Hersfold's observations. Snardbafulator (talk) 23:31, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Concerns have been raised about GCs being inactive and some aspects of channel administration not being in the hands of the community when it should. Why choose a good system when you can choose a better one? Why choose an old, outdated system where the community is mostly, but not completely, involved in channel matters when you can have a system of cooperation, collaboration and consensus, where total power is in the hands of the community, where bad policies can be struck down, where GCs who refuse to allow this can be struck down? --123Ħeðŋeħøŋ456 12:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

This doesn't really address my concerns. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:59, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

• I vaguely support the idea that IRC should be subject to some amount of on-wiki control e.g. we should be able to establish policies by consensus on-wiki that apply with force to IRC channels, and Arbcom should be able to make rulings that apply to them. But the OP's proposal reads more like they had a bad experience on IRC that they're not relating to us and are trying to generalise it into a poorly-conceived proposal. Dcoetzee 00:54, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I have no bad experience with IRC except for the lack of total community control. I tried to generalise it so that the bulk of the proposal was in the hands of the community, and this was just a proposal of certain action.--123Ħeðŋeħøŋ456 12:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose; this is utterly unenforceable. We don't get to pick group contacts, we don't get to alter behavioural standards, and we don't get to pick ops, because Freenode is not in any way controlled by the Foundation or WP. If you think you coming to them with a petition will work, you're wrong. By all means try to petition the Foundation to create their own dedicated IRC server network or something, but this proposal fails before it even gets off the start line. Ironholds (talk) 03:35, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

What utter nonsense. While we cannot change Freenode, and while we cannot their policies, we can change who runs our channels and we CAN choose what policies we choose. The Wikipedia community has a right to select its representatives to freenode, and many wish to destroy that right and destroy any hope of a consensus-based, collaborative system on IRC. We must take action if we want change, and change IS necessary. --123Ħeðŋeħøŋ456 12:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• On principle, I agree that IRC channels with some degree of officialdom (mention in in WP:IRC, official IRC contacts, etc.) should be run with some community oversight. In practice (from my years in various IRC channels), attempts to impose the control of a larger community on IRC channels have rarely if ever succeeded. I just raised the issue in #wikipedia-en, and I think the opposers are right in that greater oversight / more rules would just drive people elsewhere or just completely kill the form of collaboration. It is also debatable whether people who are not already long time users of IRC (and used to its more relaxed atmosphere) would find it a convenient way to collaborate.

Note that as it is, IRC conversations do not have any official power aside from the participants on-wiki actions in their capacity as individual editors or admins, so its effects, harmful or good, are already highly limited. wctaiwan (talk) 04:34, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Additional comment: What I've said above only applies to #wikipedia-en. #wikipedia-en-help is running very well in its current form. There is usually someone around to help, and most conversations are constructive and relevant to the help request at hand. Additional control on that channel would not have much effect either way, I think. wctaiwan (talk) 04:45, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

But we need a better system, while this is good, we need change if we want a better discussion and help atmosphere on Wikimedia IRC. --123Ħeðŋeħøŋ456 12:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose — The IRC channels are separate from on-wiki discussion/rulings/monitoring for one main reason: they're, well, separate from on-wiki discussion/rulings/monitoring. Things tend to be more uncivil, more crude, possibly even involve personal attacks, and as a general whole, even get unruly at times—in contrast to that which you'd find on-wiki. The reason for this is, once again, self-evident: it keeps it from littering on-wiki discussions or activities, because it provides an outlet for people to go, vent frustration, or relax and socialize without their every single word being recorded and coming back to haunt them days/months/years down the road, among other things. One can get in an argument and say something they'd regret saying without it tanking their chances at RfA, for example, or causing them to get banned on-wiki for just some drunken socializing or controversial personal opinion.

If we try stomping over it with official regulation, committees, elections, and all of the various nonsense involved in bureaucratic red tape, it will simply move elsewhere—the very way it arose in the first place. It can easily move to different channels, an entirely separate network, or even entirely different protocols, because the chatters, helpers, and chanops will go where it's most comfortable...and I'll clue you in right here and now, that will always be as far away as possible from attempts at on-wiki regulation. The proof is in its very existence and popularity.

--slakr^\ talk / 05:07, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

If it is entirely unaffiliated, then why do we link to it from e.g. {{helpme}} ?  Chzz  ►  05:31, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, I've never said they were "entirely unaffiliated." They're seperate—one doesn't control the other. Just like m:Countervandalism Network isn't "entirely unaffiliated;" it's just separate—one doesn't control the other. Additionally, no, -en-help wasn't in {{helpme}} until only recently—someone only added it last year. You're free to revert, because that would constitute an on-wiki disagreement about content. However, please don't start assuming that enwiki can magically bestow authority upon itself to invade otherwise-personal channels when someone changes a template or alters a page. Keep in mind that although Wikipedia habitually reports on reality, it has no power to dictate it unilaterally. --slakr^\ talk / 06:36, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

But why have them separate when having them together would ensure more control over channel policies and procedures by the Wikimedia community? The current system may be good, but a consensus-based system is, IMO, even better. And I recall Chzz was reverted and warned when he changed the channel on the helpme template, not your "free to revert" claim. --123Ħeðŋeħøŋ456 12:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose per Slakr. The Wikimedia Foundation is quite capable of running a public IRC server. Should they ever chose to allocate resources there, then this becomes a relevant discussion. If freenode staffers maintain "Freenode isn't Wikipedia" in the attitude of their decision making, which they do, we must maintain that Wikipedia is not freenode. That's just how it is. Keegan (talk) 05:29, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Erm, while Freenode isn't Wikipedia, it may be better to link them as much as we can. We direct newbies to IRC, so when the community cannot choose who represents it to freenode (and vice versa), and change channel procedures and policies, we have a problem. --123Ħeðŋeħøŋ456 12:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support per Chzz. How it will be implemented is the trickier question, but there should be at least a semblance of Wikipedia's rules being applied there. On-wiki discussions for example, should have effect on IRC, contesting a ban, requesting things, getting a say in decisions, etc. From my time there (dunno the situation now, haven't been on IRC for months) for example, the most active helpers often do not have op powers or even just any authority at all to say... kick trolls or be involved in active decisions. It can be frustrating, especially as some ops can be a bit impulsive in their decisions when they're not in the right mood or something. At the very least, ops should have roughly the same responsibilities as admins in that they serve rather than rule. The problem is IRC by necessity must give special powers to the few, and who they are can't really be changed that easily, especially as Wikipedia's channels are in a public non-WMF server - Freenode.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 05:43, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
• Delink from any and all Wikipedia pages. The channels are admittedly run without regard to Wikipedia behavior policies, which give new users the wrong idea about acceptable communication. I'd support this but the main actors will never agree to it. Cutting all ties should have been done years ago. People are making a great point about how IRC and Wikipedia are completely separate. If that's so, why are we linking to it and promoting it? RxS (talk) 13:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
• Deprecate IRC with regard to Wikipedia The problems are known. WMF has no real control over the IRC chats. It is no more related to the proper running of Wikipedia than is the infamous "WR." This opinion applies to all such "instant communication" which is not fully transparent to the community. Any such "chats" which have full transcripts posted on Wikipedia would be far superior to the current system, for sure. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:32, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
• No, and stop spamming this stupid proposal on IRC. hare j 13:58, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. The current system works fine to me, and I see no need for action. Increasing complexity involves pointless work that detracts from more important tasks, and ultimately more bureaucracy and red tape is detrimental to the goals of Wikipedia. --Slon02 (talk) 14:06, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
• Fish or cut bait The proposal has serious merit if just to say whether the IRC channels are part of the project or not. If they are part of the project, then they should be covered by equivalent processes to any other forum used for discussions. They should be logged and be as much a part of "the record" as talk pages and user pages. If they are not a part of the project, then they are unofficial and off-wiki. Links should be removed and they should not be recommended as a support channel for anyone. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 14:25, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

This isn't the right place, according to an admin who contacted me, so I've moved the proposal to m:Meta:Babel, a lot better. --123Ħeðŋeħøŋ456 15:24, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

On not smushing all the text together

Wikipedia has trouble attracting casual or new editors. One problem is that you'll go to fix some issue with an article and find that some editor, often an experienced one, has "improved" the article by smushing all the text and wiki directive together and created a huge hairball. I have, a number of time, given up on fixing an article upon seeing this mess.

My Proposal - all wiki-directives, like refs, images, etc should begin and end on their own line if at all possible. This still leaves the text available for people to compulsively smush together (or to obsessively straighten all the pictures in their own home if they choose).

Prehaps we could even design a "bot" to un-smush articles automagically.Ploversegg (talk) 03:26, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• Conversely, I have often tried to edit some article, only to find that refs or some other template stretch over lines and lines (probably due to automated tools used by some editors) and the whole thing is just too unreadable (The sentence begins BAM multi-line ref and it continues here) for me to actually get to doing it. I wouldn't be too bothered if the template stuff is on its own, single line, but to me that isn't better than having everything together. (Ideally, for source readability, we should separate refs from content, but some editors who do more content work than I have strongly opined that inline refs are much easier to maintain.) Also, It's a personal preference thing. Please don't assume your behaviour is the logical one and ridicule that of others. wctaiwan (talk) 06:22, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I personally concur with wctaiwan and seem to recall (though I am having trouble locating) that the current guideline is that neither multi-line nor single-line referencing is preferred. I wish the WMF would put funds towards a better citation system instead of their proposed image censorship crap. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:22, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
    • In my opinion, WP:LDR already solves all of these problems. It just needs to be promoted more. Ntsimp (talk) 15:19, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Don't get me started on this whole CITE abomination, which makes things 10 times more uneditable than simple refs and has no added value for 99.9% of Wikipedia users or editors. I considered proposing getting rid of CITE entirely but wasn't up to starting a flame war. :-) Ploversegg (talk) 21:19, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

If you have a proposal for an alternative to Cite that provides standardization and error checking, then please make it known. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:11, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I suppose I don't know what the advantages of Cite over ref are then. The result looks the same to me on the finished article but the Cite source text is noticeably more complicated, especially if you are trying to edit it cold. Anyway, ref does seem to do everything you need while being simple to edit. Clearly there must be a reason Cite was created to make up for the complication. I'm sure there was a huge discussion about this at one time that I missed.Ploversegg (talk) 23:57, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

As the comment above you said: standardisation and error checking. With the template, we get errors if something is malformed, and the format is consistent across every citation made using the template. Editors don't need to worry about memorising the APA style—they just need to fill the information into marked fields (author, publisher, date, etc.). And if we suddenly decide to say, replace periods with commas, we only need to update the template and every single citation would be updated to use the new format. It's more lengthly, but also far more accessible. (And individual editors are free not to use it, too, if they find it cumbersome.) wctaiwan (talk) 02:04, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Now, as long as people don't come along and convert all my nice refs to cites using some fancy "bot", I'm happy.Ploversegg (talk) 02:33, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

To clarify: Cite is the software extension that supports the <ref> tags and is documented at WP:FOOT]]. Previous methods included Wikipedia:Footnote4, Wikipedia:Footnote3 and Wikipedia:Footnote2 which had major issues. See User:Gadget850/Comparison of Footnote3 and Cite.php Footnote. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:12, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal for InstructorCommentBot

We are researcher at Carnegie Mellon University who are working on a project to involve experts in different scientific fields to contribute to Wikipedia. Our project has started as a collaboration with Association for Psychological Science to improve the quality of psychology articles. More information about the initiative can be found at: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/members/aps-wikipedia-initiative, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Psychology/APS-Wikipedia_Initiative. As part of this project, the team is developing tools to support instructors who are interested to use Wikipedia in classroom. An important purpose of our tools is to allow instructor to share comments they are providing to their students with the Wikipedia community to broaden the audience who can contribute in addressing the problems with the article. To support that feature in our tools, we are creating a manual bot to post comments on article talk pages on behalf of instructors who are very familiar with the topic but might not be familiar with the Wikipedia markup language and to decrease the difficulty of providing feedback for them. You can find more information about the bot which is in approval process here. We appreciate your comments, questions, and concerns. Notice that given the feedback we received from the community we are changing the name of the bot from ExpertCommentBot to InstructorCommentBot. Rostaf (talk) 13:43, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Kollanthoppu

Kollanthoppu this my village. My village is non pollution and naturely.it has been wonderful area. This area is one great person living. Our name is karthikeyan. He is king of the village. My village famous temple is muniyasawami temple.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kd3890 (talk • contribs)

Um... Here are the guidelines to determine if your village is worth an article, or rather, why we really don't care. You have no evidence that your village exists, either. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:34, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Speedy Confirmed Wizard

Well, already suggested at and in preparation for WP:ACTRIAL, we need an faster way to get to autoconfirmed. It has already been proposed that admins patrol WP:AfC and liberally give out confirmed status to users proposing good quality articles. Take Monsey Church, for example. It was created via the article wizard, drafted in userspace, then moved to mainspace. They posted a review request, with one glance I couldn't believe it was a brand-new article. Newbies have great article ideas, so admins should take more advantage of that by patrolling AfC and the move log and granting confirmed status. Now for the main idea. The Speedy Confirmed Wizard consists of a quiz where the questions are pulled at random from a large depository, preventing posting of all answers. The quiz would require study of Wikipedia's policies and the WP:MoS. If the user passed the quiz, confirmed status would instantly be granted. Now, new users will learn of the wizard via a welcome message posted to their talk page automatically. A frequently declined feature that is on Commons and Meta is auto-welcoming. Considering the fact that I was never welcomed (except by myself once I had general knowledge of Wikipedia), I think leaving a general notice talking about autoconfirmed and linking to basic policies would be good. Then another user could give a regular welcome later. I'm going to continue working on this idea and related templates. Thanks, Nathan2055^{talk - review} 03:32, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Clean up the edit page notices

I know right now we're trying to make Wikipedia easier to use and what-not, but the notices and reminders below the edit box and edit summary box seem a little messy (and sometimes redundant)

I think maybe we should simplify it, or at least clean it up into something a bit more manageable, like, say:

• Encyclopedic content must be verifiable. Remember to cite your sources, and maintain a neutral and unbiased point of view.
• Do not just copy and paste text from another web page; it may either be written in an improper style, or lack permission for use. Only text in the public domain, under the same license as Wikipedia itself, or used under fair use can be used in articles.
• By submitting text to Wikipedia, you irrevocably agree to make your contributions available under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 license and any version of the GNU Free Documentation License, and that a URL or hyperlink to the page will be considered sufficient attribution. If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, do not submit it—Wikipedia's licenses explicitly allow these activities.

Your changes will take effect immediately once the Save page button is clicked. If you wish to experiment or make test edits, please use a sandbox.

Either that, or if we can trim it even further while still keeping the same messages. ViperSnake151  Talk  04:13, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Support: Simple and brilliant! This is such a completely obvious thing, and I don't know why no one has thought of it before. Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 21:49, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd support if the bolding were taken out. I think you also have to link the Terms of Use as a requirement, I think. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I had an idea of linking "CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL" to that page. ViperSnake151  Talk  05:31, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I recall that the WMF uses the existing licensing language ("you irrevocably agree to release your contribution") to make crystal clear the permanent nature of the licensing, and places that snippet where it does on the page to preclude claims by users that they didn't know they were so licensing their contribution. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:02, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

No, no no.... - that language was written by the office of the General Counsel. It's very specific and legally crafted. You're welcome to propose changes to Geoff (gbrigham@wikimedia.org), but PLEASE don't make changes to that language without doing that. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:18, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Philippe: is there a reason that it's presented the way it is? Would it be improved without changing what it says by getting rid of its three different formats and two different sizes? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:44, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Simply because IANAL, I'm gonna say that I'd strongly prefer that any changes go through the legal department. This stuff is too important to mess around with. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:53, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Did tweaks. Still gonna be bold though. ViperSnake151  Talk  23:39, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Appreciate people examining this issue. We need to keep this language: "By clicking the "Save Page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license." Other language above this sentence is possible, but I would appreciate people running it by me. Philippe is right that there are some important legal considerations here. Many thanks. Geoffbrigham (talk) 18:06, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Aesthetic changes

At the moment, it looks something like this:

Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable.

By clicking the "Save Page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.

If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here. All text that you did not write yourself, except brief excerpts, must be available under terms consistent with Wikipedia's Terms of Use before you submit it.

Please note:

• When you click Save, your changes will immediately become visible to everyone. If you wish to run a test, please edit the Sandbox instead
• Please post only encyclopedic information that can be verified by external sources. Please maintain a neutral, unbiased point of view.
• Please do not copy and paste from copyrighted websites – only public domain resources can be copied without permission.

Would this be an improvement it's worth asking for:

By clicking the "Save Page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.

Please note:

• Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable.
• If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here. All text that you did not write yourself, except brief excerpts, must be available under terms consistent with Wikipedia's Terms of Use before you submit it.
• When you click Save, your changes will immediately become visible to everyone. If you wish to run a test, please edit the Sandbox instead
• Please post only encyclopedic information that can be verified by external sources. Please maintain a neutral, unbiased point of view.
• Please do not copy and paste from copyrighted websites – only public domain resources can be copied without permission.

Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 22:22, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Please submit the final version to me when you are ready. There are some sentences where I may propose slightly differently language; for example, I might say: "Content that violates any copyright is not allowed and should be deleted." Big picture, the language "By clicking the "Save Page" button ...." needs to appear immediately above the "Save page" button (or at least above the Edit summary). There should not be additional text between that language and the "Save page" button; additional language can appear under the "Save page" button, however. Many thanks for your review here. Geoffbrigham (talk) 15:30, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Redirects containing topics when possible

We should allow redirects that can concisely identify the nature of an article whose name does not.

Argument: The title used for the referent of piped links ([[referent title|display text]]) can be seen in browsers as alt text. It's logical to hover over a link like "there is no clear boundary between the languages" before clicking it. I've observed Wikipedia users doing the same for links whose display text is their title without parenthesized disambiguation, disambiguating without navigating.

While parenthesized text is sufficient to distinguish, it is not always sufficient to identify the topic. Articles are blessed with identifying redirects only as a sideeffect. Nonetheless, articles that have the choice will use the title that describes the referent, as Hoy uses Norse rather than Norse, which would only frustrate someone looking for the title to disambiguate.

Mathematical objects are often named after non-mathematical ones, which can be sufficiently distinguished using (mathematics), and rarely have identifying redirects. Yet there is a great need for them in math articles — Defining one article depends on several external concepts. Reviewing a concept must be done sparingly, or the article will become unmanageable and regressive. That doesn't change the fact that to understand the internal definition one has to be able to hold the meaning of all the externals and interpret them in the new context. This requires the reader to navigate the regression that the article spared in review. Many concepts can be reduced to simple themes or categories, which could be used to identify them. For example, Image (mathematics) can be meaningfully recalled if Image (output) is used as the title, which would relieve the sentence (Metric space#Continuous maps), "The image of every compact set under a continuous function is compact, and the image of every connected set under a continuous function is connected." If there were titles for math articles that carried enough semantic content to identify the terms as they are read, readers could glean information about a subject and gradually obtain a firmer understanding, rather than requiring comprehensive knowledge of the foundations before approaching the subject.

Policy: Titles of this form are extensions of WP:TITLE's recognizability and precision criteria. Precision stipulates that the title be only as precise as needed to distinguish it from other articles, but WP:REDIR allows redirects for alternative names and (though it may falsely apply here) more specific forms of names. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 02:31, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

This is trying to optimise for two things at once. That's the sort of thing politicians always seems to be talking about and failing to do, and they fail for the simple reason it is normally impossible. One major requirement is quite enough for article titles. If something like this was to be done the obvious way would be to have a bit of javascript get a small chunk from the beginning of the article when the mouse hovers over the link, support could be put on the server later for just returning what's needed if the feature proved popular and if it isn't popular the extra load wouldn't matter. In fact overall it might lighten the load if it was popular. Dmcq (talk) 08:08, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest instead making use of the Popups gadget. --Cybercobra (talk) 08:55, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, I will try that out. ᛭ LokiClock (talk) 17:45, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Make it easier to get to WikiProject pages

My guestimate is that there are a few thousand WikiProject pages. Currently in order to access a wikiproject page at minimum the following must be typed: "WP:WikiProject ". I propose that "PJ" be designated an alias same as "WP" and "WT". As of now "PJ" is a shortcut for, you guessed it, "WikiPedia:WikiProject". Seems apropos. (I checked PEREN.) – Lionel ^(talk) 09:48, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Yep your right there are about 2500 give or take a few including taskforces. It seems reasonable that having a shortcut would be useful but many of them already use the WP shortcut appreviation because the WikiProject pages fall under the Wikipedia namespace. So although we could use PJ specificially for projects it might be better to use WP for namespace consistency. --Kumioko (talk) 16:09, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. Many projects already have shortcuts - e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography has WP:WPBIO, Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa has WP:IA, Wikipedia:WikiProject Literature has WP:LIT, etc. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 10:28, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Aliases are currently only for namespaces. See Wikipedia:Namespace#Aliases and mw:Manual:$wgNamespaceAliases. Page names starting with "Wikipedia:WikiProject" is not a namespace, and Wikipedia:Namespace for WikiProjects was a failed proprosal. Is the suggestion that "PJ:X" should be treated as "Wikipedia:WikiProject X"? It would require software changes and could cause confusion. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, we could hack it with redirects like is done with the MoS (e.g. MOS:NUM). --Cybercobra (talk) 05:51, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Requests for bureaucratship threshold RfC

An RfC to determine the threshold for successful Requests for bureaucratship is now at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Requests for bureaucratship threshold. All of the community is invited to comment. Thanks. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 01:57, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

View wikipedia as it was on yyyy-mm-dd

I think this would be a handy feature. It could be used for historical/nostalgia purposes - or it could be used to freeze things in time - or it could be used to understand what someone was seeing in some report... or some other things I haven't thought of.

Obvious issues: 1) Deleted pages 2) Oversighted pages.

There are solutions to either (we could have as an option to see either first rev after deletion, first before, current page etc - this is more problematic when oversight is involved as we may not want to mention the oversight... we could even have a "undelete for nostalgia" option that selectively enables deleted pages on a case by case basis) but I thought best not to be too specific and instead throw the ideas out and say...

...what do you think? Egg Centric 19:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

An interesting idea. Since you can already view pages as they were by using the compare pages feature in page histories, all that would be needed would be a user friendly tool to streamline the process. I've been thinking of floating a similar idea, "see this article as it was when it got promoted to GA/FA/etc., which could be achieved through the same tool. Shouldn't take too long for someone to rig up if they use the method I described, would take longer if some other method were needed, as it'd have to be developed. I support this. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:54, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

And there's also the issue that old reviews transclude the most recent version of templates. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:56, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

And the newest versions of files, if there are multiple uploads under one name. I forgot about both of those things, good catch. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:09, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes it'll necessarily have to parse the entire page to work out all dependencies, as the extant media will have to be used too. It won't be trivial but at the same won't be hard either. Egg Centric 19:59, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Would be a cool gimmick, but I don't think it would be useful or cool enough to spend developer time on it. –xeno^talk 20:21, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Wayback Machine seems to already do it for us, but they don't seem to crawl all of Wikipedia, just select articles that have been requested through the site before. I wonder if we could strike a deal with them or something. Equazcion ^(talk) 20:42, 22 Aug 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... I seem to remember that being requested before. Something about becoming an archive partner? Sven Manguard Wha? 21:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

It would actually be very useful in cases of suspected category emptying. At the moment there is no practical way to find out what was in a category at some given time. The only thing you can do is look at the contributions of accounts you suspect of doing the emptying, if you can figure out which ones they are.

But saying something would be nice is different from saying it can be done. I don't know how hard it would be; my guess is "kind of hard". --Trovatore (talk) 21:42, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah sheet, I hadn't considered categories. I have no idea how Mediawiki keeps track of them but if it does so how I would imagine it does then reconstructing them for a given date would be very expensive. Having said that, an appropriate data structure could be implemented to go forward where tis very little trouble at all. Doesn't help us for wiki-2008 though. Egg Centric 21:55, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

...another reason I think Wayback Machine is the way to go. Category listings are generated on the fly from querying the database, I think, though probably with a caching layer that still won't really help. Generating periodic snapshots of all pages rather than trying to finagle a way to use our internal history system beats all the problems, and Wayback Machine already does this. We'd just have to get them to do it for all of Wikipedia. Equazcion ^(talk) 22:02, 22 Aug 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that it would be cool - and that it probably isn't worth wasting much developer time on. I like the idea of asking the folks at Internet Archive if it's something they would be interested in doing, since they presumably already have the infrastructure up - perhaps this is an idea that could be proposed over at meta:, even? On the other hand, the opposite idea - preventing the Internet Archive from archiving us at all - has come up before (apparently unsuccessfully) at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 57#Disabling Wayback Machine archiving on Wikipedia. Perhaps this is the earlier conversation that y'all were remembering? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 01:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Oversight issues would still be a relevant concern, though, as we wouldn't have any control over removing things from the histories. But that issue applies to any Wikimedia mirror anyway... --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 02:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is a terribly good idea; caching snapshots of webpages is a brute force method, which we should not have to resort to given that the user interface content is underlain by a database. Given that we have pretty comprehensive history (albeit with some holes and disjunctions), it should be computationally tractable to recreate a version of, for instance, en-wikipedia based on the history data. This includes category content as a page is place in a category by one of a small number of methods, the most prevalent being addition of [[Category:{some category title}]] to a page; for most categories, an article content timeline should be able to be reconstructed through clever parsing of page histories. I would much prefer to see a computational slice generated on-demand rather than a complete frozen state mirror of every page in every wikipedia for every edit instance (or even for a particular time point each day). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Any particular reason why you'd rather that? It seems hard drive space is cheaper than processor time these days, and your method would be more demanding on the latter; plus it would require adding a lot of database queries to the existing db servers for each page request (what with all the different transcluded content to find and retrieve through the transcluded pages' histories). Snapshots seem much simpler and less demanding, especially if a third-party site handles it of course. Equazcion ^(talk) 03:40, 23 Aug 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Main Page history has daily snapshots of Main Page in 2011 but doing something similar for millions of pages sounds impractical to me, and the interest in other pages would probably be very low. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:12, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

That long tail effect is a prime reason to go for a computational approach rather than a storage approach. The demand for looking at past snapshots of page sets would, in my opinion, be low. People already have the ability to look at past versions of single pages, which satisfies the vast majority of demand, I think. Storage space is cheap compared to computational power (not in my neck of the woods, but in general it is), but just because something is cheap is no reason to effectively waste it by storing material that will never (or very seldom) be accessed. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:50, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

• There is a userscript TimeTraveller that you could try out. — AlexSm 14:43, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

  That's really useful, am having a play now - thanks for letting us know Egg Centric 14:47, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

E-mail Users reform

In light of this, this, and this (the last updatable once it archives), I am wondering if we need to reform the ability for users to e-mail other users. My comment in the last of the threads:

To comment on this part of the discussion: one idea brought up in the discussion in question was having a requirement for users to have to make a certain number of contributions before removing a captcha requirement. I would go a step further and perhaps disallow new users to use the e-mail function until a certain number of edits has been met. Thoughts?

The idea behind this is to reduce the likelihood that a user will be able to register multiple accounts and repeatedly harass a user, as TreasuryTag has experienced. Can we develop a way to reform the system to prevent abuse by unregistered or newly registered users? CycloneGU (talk) 22:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Just to echo (with minor differences that come to mind) what I said in the ANI thread: I think users should have a choice about who can email them, with no particular preference as to what the default choice should be. At the minimum I think users should be able to pick: Anyone (including anon editor), registered editors, autoconmfirmed editors, admins, arbcom/stewards only, no one. We could also implement a filtering system of various complexity - but adding the ability to block IPs/IP ranges and specific users would perhaps be two obvious features to add. Egg Centric 22:46, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I dislike that idea. The e-mail system is a tremendous convenience, and having some people putting up higher barriers than others is a nuisance. Requiring autoconfirmed, or requiring capchas for non-autoconfirmed, I can understand. Limiting to arbcom/stewards? You might as well just disable email if you're going to be that restrictive. Let me remind you that Wikipedia email has been around for a long time, and the number of serious issues can be counted on what... one hand? two hands? Sven Manguard Wha? 03:36, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the autoblock feature needs to extend to email, given what I see above.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:38, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Sven - a few options might be useful, but "restrict to admins+" should probably be a single option. (Separating out crats, stewards, etc. from each other and from the admins for e-mail availability seems pointless to me.) As far as autoblock goes, at the very least, the ability to e-mail administrators would need to be left unimpaired (for dealing with inappropriate autoblocks). --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 03:46, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

@Philosopher:We could make a userright called "receiverestrictedemail" that could be very easily delegated to all of those users. I agree that it's pointless to separate it out. Wikipedia isn't a bureaucracy.Jasper Deng (talk) 04:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

That's not at all what I said. Let me be excessively clear: If your email is enabled, anyone who's reached autoconfirmed should be able to email you. If we want to restrict below autoconfirmed, that's fine, but anything else is unacceptable. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I guess I did misunderstand you. I'm not sure that there's any need to change how Wikipedia handles e-mail presently, but if we changed it, having an "admins+" option would make sense to me, given how easy it is for an account to reach autoconfirmed status. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 04:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)And admins should be able to turn off the option, given its potential for abuse.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:48, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Of course, but admins can already choose to turn off e-mail capability when blocking users. WP:BLOCK specifies that that option is only to be used "in cases of abuse of the 'email this user' feature," but it is available. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 04:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I think it's a shame that admins. can't just e-mail anyone when the circumstances call for it (assuming the user usually does not want e-mail), but granted, e-mail addresses DO change, and a user not wanting e-mails isn't likely to keep their e-mail updated, thus nullifying that ability in any case.

As for the restrictions idea, I also am not keen on limiting to 'crats and stewards. I think three levels is enough; block all non-autoconfirmed (noting they can post on the user's talk page of course), block all regular members (including autoconfirmed), and block all e-mails (including admin.). There is no need to further separate it. But I don't mind the middle step; that way, a user getting an e-mail from Wikipedia knows it's an admin. and is more likely to take its content seriously than if a regular member were e-mailing. CycloneGU (talk) 04:31, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Humble Request for a template heading this section

This is just a humble request for a template to head this section, just to clarify the type of edits that should and should not go here I was thinking of something along the lines of "Please make sure that your comments are suited to here and not to the ideas lab" or to the helpdesk. Personally, I think that having a tag heading this section to clarify what should go here and what belongs in Wikipedia: Help desk would be useful, as I am sure that - in all my years of editing Wikipedia - I have at times (in my more youthful days on Wikipedia) put in comments here that should really have gone to Wikipedia: Helpdesk. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 15:32, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you looking for a more extensive WP:Editnotice? (The current one refers users to WP:PEREN.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. I have just taken a look at the template heading this section of Wikipedia, and I noticed that it does say "Before submitting, considering developing your ideas in the ideas lab". I just wondered whether we should also add a note in that very template to the effect of "If you are seeking help with Wikipedia editing, please do not post comments here, but at Wikipedia: Help desk. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 14:28, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I have added to the editnotice text directing users to the help desk (diff).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:22, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks - that looks very neat. Again, thank you for your help, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:18, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Add language names in English as tooltip in language links

I think it would be a nice minor convenience to have a tooltip (hover message) on the interlanguage links, allowing English users to easily determine what the different languages are without having to look them up individually:

Current Languages Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Français ⋮

With tooltip Languages Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Français ⋮

Or something along those lines. —Designate (talk) 21:48, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

As you have the table above, the words in the right of the column are a mere replication of the words on the left hand side. Did you mean to have the words Danish, German, Greek, Spanish, Esperanto and French on the left-hand side of the table? I appreciate your good intentions here, but I feel that if Wikipedians are knowledgeable enough about different languages to be able to edit in different languages, they would almost certainly know that name of a language in its own language (please correct me if I have misunderstood you here!) ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Hover over the words on the right and you can see it gives the English name of the language in the tooltip. –xeno^talk 23:02, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

To translate the interwiki links to English, add this to Special:MyPage/skin.js:

importScript('User:Tra/sidebartranslate.js'); //[[User:Tra/sidebartranslate.js]]

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 04:25, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I would support this for sitewide implementation. Before I figured out an easier way, I can't tell you how many times I went to m:List of Wikipedias to figure out things that this would have made moot, and I can't think of any reasons not to do it except possibly if we were told it was a server strain, which I doubt.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:10, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

When I hover over the link, I want the name of the article, not the name of the language. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 05:33, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

It already does this. Hover over the third one down to see.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 06:27, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

That's my point: don't change it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 11:58, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

In other words, you oppose this because it would add an additional feature that other people would find useful, that you personally would not, but which would not affect the feature you find useful at all?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:21, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

This looks like an excellent idea. Well worth proposing to the developers (though there's no guarantee they'll act on it, of course).--Kotniski (talk) 10:32, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. As long as it retains the name of the article (and it does), adding he name of the language sounds like a great idea. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 11:55, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

It's bugzilla:5231 from 2006. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:45, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a good idea to me. bobrayner (talk) 11:30, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Shortened links

I suggest that wikipedia institute a shorter form for linking to a page much like youtube provides links to movies at youtu.be/XXXXX Maybe here it can be wi.ki/Page_Title I must admit, though, that the technical aspects of this are beyond me...— Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.122.234.32 (talk • contribs)

Previous discussion about this can be seen at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 74#Really short Wikipedia URLs.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:19, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

For practical purposes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page can be shortened to http://enwp.org/Page (as described in that thread linked above). However, this is not official or operated by Wikimedia / Wikipedia. wctaiwan (talk) 11:39, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Courier New

Why must the font while editing be Courier New? In my opinion the font is intimidating and looks too much like something a sophisticated computer programmer would use, when in fact Wikipedia's controls are very easy. Wikia[1] allows you to change the appearance of the editing window, and their default editing font is the same one as they use on the site. Is it possible to make a user preference for the font in the editing window? Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 04:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

MediaWiki / Vector does not style text areas by default (at least, I'm not aware it does). The font is inherited from the settings in your browser. For Wikipedia, you can easily change the preference by adding something like

textarea {
font-family: "your desired font here";
}

to vector.css (or whatever your theme is) in your userspace. Respecting browser settings in text areas is fairly standard, and I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to overwrite that by default, or to spend development time on allowing this type of customisation. wctaiwan (talk) 06:19, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The Editing tab at Special:Preferences#preftab-3 has "Edit area font style" to choose between a few types of browser defaults. If you want to get more creative then you have to change the browser default in your browser settings, or edit a skin file like Special:Mypage/vector.css. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:26, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Watchlist Feature

I recently discovered that I had 14 pages on my watchlist. I looked at it and discovered nine of those pages were AfD pages that I had nominated some time ago, all of which have since been closed. At the risk of sounding lazy, here is my proposal: an AfD, FAC, RfC, or anything along those lines that has been closed should automatically be removed from the watchlists of all users. As (hopefully) they will never be modified again, why should we have them stay on our watchlists for some time? Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 04:14, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Why don't you just edit your own watchlist and remove them? --Jayron32 04:16, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

If the pages aren't going to change, they won't give entries on your watchlist anyways.Jasper Deng (talk) 04:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think automatic removal would be a good idea, while closed discussions should not be edited, it has been known to happen, and there is some value to them lingering in watch lists. That said, it would be great if there was a way to set a time before something is automatically removed from your watchlist. There are a decent number of pages I want to keep watchlisted, but most of my list is consumed by pages I want to watch for a few days after doing something, in case anyone objects or has any comments, but then would be happy to forget. But I guess that is really outside the scope of the suggestion here. I would mention that excessive watchlist bloat will cause your watchlist to load much more slowly, though it takes many times more pages then 14 before it becomes an issue. Monty₈₄₅ 04:32, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I seem to recall that the recommended upper limit for a Watchlist is 9,800 pages, so rather more than 14! And even then, I believe that figure dates back to 2006 and one can easily imagine - though it's not necessarily so - that the technical infrastructure can now handle a great deal more (though whether the user can is a different story). --bodnotbod (talk) 07:56, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I am at about 5000 at the Moment, and don't see any particular timelag. I have to filter by namespaces if following something in particular. Altogether though you will find quite some spattering of chatter on old - closed - pages. Agathoclea (talk) 09:04, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that automatic housekeeping of watchlists has too many potential downsides, in return for modest benefits. You'd need an opt-out for the kind of people who want to be notified of a change to some page on an issue which ought to be buried. (As well as old AfDs, My watchlist also contains a few redlinks: Problematic articles which got AfD'd but I think there's a risk that the problem might return). bobrayner (talk) 12:12, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

If it helps any I have around 21, 000 pages and it works just fine. --Kumioko (talk) 13:30, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Showoff. TeleComNasSprVen (talk • contribs) 13:44, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

21,000!? How do we know if your watchlist is really working fine or whether, in fact, you have simply been driven insane by your demanding overlord and cannot now bring yourself to say anything about its flaws? --bodnotbod (talk) 14:50, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

LOL, its really not that bad, I usually scan it for certain things (blanked references tags and the like). Besides for me insanity is a short trip. :-)...--Kumioko (talk) 14:56, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if something like that would be technically possible, but here goes: It would be really cool to have an option for each watchlisted page to set a timer to automatically remove the page from your watchlist after a customizable time interval. The default should be to watchlist a page indefinitely, but there should be an option like something along the lines of "Automatically remove the page from watchlist after X days". As I am a person who wants other people I leave a message on their talk page to respond there, I will always place that user on my watchlist. However, in most cases, there is no need to witchlist a user indefinitely. I think this would be especially nice for people like me who patrol the help desk. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 13:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I personally like the idea of a Wathclisthelperbot to do some things and I think that it would be fairly easy to do both of the suggestions. I think that coding abot to do some of the following things would be fairly easy and there are probably a couple of existing bots that are capable of it with minor coding. Here are a few things that it might be useful for but should be opt in only:

• Remove redlinks
• Remove redirects
• remove closed MFDs, RFD's and other for deletion type things
• Remove FA, A, GA and other for review candidates

Heres the problem with this though and this is very important. Once an article is removed from the Watchlist there is no undo. Its gone. So I would recommend if a bot removes something it leave a message on the users talk page of the action taken so the user can decide if it was correct. The user can always burn after reading from the talk page but that will give them a recod of what the bot did that they can fix. --Kumioko (talk) 14:36, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

This would be necessarily opt-in, as it would require editors interested in this service periodically posting their watchlist somewhere accessible by a bot, and then copying the edited list back into their private watchlist. –xeno^talk 14:38, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

True, I figure the watchlist is stored somewhere on the server and if so it should be accessible via a bot on the toolserver (although perhaps not a Wikipedia run bot). I agree it should be optin.--Kumioko (talk) 14:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

See m:Watchlist#Privacy of watchlists. –xeno^talk 14:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I have also noticed another thing that I find annoying when it comes to watchlists. If I add a category, template, etc It will display on my watchlist but if I try and edit the list to remove it I can't. I have to go to that template, category, etc and select unwatch. It would be great if I had some visibility of that on my watchlist. --Kumioko (talk) 15:02, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Xeno so that rules out the use of a bot. It would have to be a user run script of gadget then I guess. Although, here is a twist. Although I see why some would not want to share that info I for one could care less who sees my watchlist and I suspect others feel the same way. If a bot edited it, there could be a parameter to prompt the user if they wanted to be notified of the modification. If they say no then it wouldn't post the change to the talk page. I wasn't aware of the privacy factor though and I find that interesting. I would be curious how much space that takes up no the server for Users who have been gone for more than a year. I imagine its quite big. --Kumioko (talk) 15:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I do not think the devs would take time to modify the software to allow bots to access the watchlist on an opt-in basis, but a clever bot might be able to use the watchlist token if the editor were willing to disclose it. A bot could also act on a list posted to someone's userspace (i.e. special:mypage/Watchlist) or something. Then the user could copy the list back to their private watchlist. (Useful side effect would be that the history would provide a useful record of pages trimmed by the bot.) –xeno^talk 15:16, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Your probably right about the developers not wanting to spend time but I wonder if they would be willing to allow a person to optin use of a subpage in their userspace rather than the hidden watchlist. I wouldn't think that coding in a user preference switch would be too difficult or time consuming. They would just need to prompt the user that the information would be visible and the normal privacy settings in use on the watchlist are nullified by using a subpage. In the meantime (and likely forever) a user could follow your suggestion and create a subpage that could be tweaked but then they still have to update it manually. For very large lists like mine it would be helpful, for short lists of less than 100 I don't know if it would save much time. --Kumioko (talk) 15:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe an option that would be a workaround would be some easy way to filter the watchlist beyond the simple namespace separation there is now. Redlinks, redirects, AFDs, etc etc could all be filtered in or out to make it much easier to trim things as needed. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 16:14, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Contrast / HIDEF appearance

I noticed that many websites support Microsoft's High Contrast appearance. Propose making website more accomodating to people with vision problems or eye strain problems so that high contrast can be seen just like on Facebook, where the background color turns black and the colors of text are high contrast colors.

The main reason is because I personally have eye strain issues, and I only hesitatingly go to wiki pedia if I need to view an article, and then only if its life or death.

Regards,

Marc *Going Blind b/c there ain't no High Contrast Options* Noon