Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 84.169.52.4 (talk) at 19:02, 20 December 2005 (→Ability to change edit summeries). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 
The proposals section of the village pump is used to discuss new ideas and proposal that are not policy related (see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) for that).

Recurring policy proposals are discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals). If you have a proposal for something that sounds overwhelmingly obvious and are amazed that Wikipedia doesn't have it, please check there first before posting it, as someone else might have found it obvious, too.

Please sign and date your post (by typing "~~~~" or clicking the signature icon in the edit toolbar).

Please add new topics at the bottom of the page.

Before posting your proposal:

  • If the proposal is a change to the software, file a bug at Bugzilla instead. Your proposal is unlikely to be noticed by a developer unless it is placed there.
  • If the proposal is a change in policy, be sure to also post the proposal to, say, Wikipedia:Manual of style, and ask people to discuss it there.
  • If the proposal is for a new wiki-style project outside of Wikipedia, please go to m:Proposals for new projects and follow the guidelines there. Please do not post it here. These are different from WikiProjects.

Proposals archive

Discussions older than 7 days (date of last made comment) are moved here. These discussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.

Wikipedia Credit Card for Fundraising

I have a credit card that supports the American Medical Student Association. When I signed up, they said that 1% of my purchases would go to AMSA, and while I can't specifically find that on the website, it does say "Carry the card that supports your chosen profession." Here is a similar Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE, credit card. I would definitely carry a credit card that supports Wikipedia and helps buy new servers as I go about daily business. --Truc-HaMD Thu 24 Nov 05 12:22 -800 UTC

The company is called MBNA, and they issue over 5,000 different affinity credit cards to support a wide variety of organizations. Maybe we could write this up as an actual proposal? 67.124.89.57 00:31, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hehe. I drive by MBNA's world headquarters every day during my daily commute. Raul654 00:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Their website hides it very well, but as best as I can make out, to "Start a Credit Card Program", go here (PDF). I am not sure, however, that such an arrangement would meet the foundation's goals. Bovlb 07:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
What are your issues with it? Voyager640 00:30, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good idea to me. +sj + 20:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Linux credit card that used MBNA's service generated a couple hundred thousand dollars if I recall correctly. Has there been any progess on this? - Taxman Talk 18:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like more of a consensus to develop before pursuing this... Maybe get more people to participate in the discussion? Voyager640 06:17, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The credit card proposal sounds like a great idea! I don't have a credit card, but in the future, if I do, I would definately get one that supports Wikipedia. Kareeser 17:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. Anything that gets the money rolling in to wikimedia. EDIT: all logical exceptions apply, of course. TastemyHouse Breathe, Breathe in the air 16:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I would use a wikipedia credit card daily. Unless there is some reason not to, I'm all for it.the1physicist 18:13, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps we should call it WikiCard?the1physicist 18:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

please allow donations in other currencies like rupee

Excessive Wiki-linking

The other day, someone went through the Joseph Stalin article and practically wiki-linked every second word. Can we please stop this? For example, the word "bar", the word "books"...I could go on and on...

Do we really think that someone would look up Stalin, and then while reading the article, have the urge to link to the article on "bar" with its myriad meanings, or the generic "books"?

I do hope that this is not gonna become a trend...it adds nothing to any article.

Camillustalk|contribs 23:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Some misinformed newbies like to do this. Just revert the changes, keeping any appropriate additions. If there have been more edits in the interim you'll just have to go through and clean up the mess. Also watch out for the more insidious "surprise links" where the visible text has no clear connection to the linked article or is trying to be clever/funny. Deco 01:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Don't you mean cases where the link is trying to be clever/funny? :) -User:Fennec (はさばくのきつね)
  • When I first started looking at Wikipedia I found the copious linking really annoying. Partly this was due to the underlining which was very visually distracting but has now gone (congratulations to whoever did that). But, apart from that, I have shifted my point of view a little. I find that links lead me on to other interesting articles that I would never have otherwise looked at, and generally give me a picture of the breadth (if not always depth) of Wikipedia which I would otherwise not have formed. So, I say, except for extreme excesses (or, obviously, links to articles that aren't relevant), leave the links alone. Matt 23:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC).
      • My rules of thumb for linking: link proper names, link topics the reader might need background about, link topics expanding on a topic discussed briefly in the article, link the topics that the subject has an immediate relationship to such as "is a" or "is a kind of", and link major lists related to the article. If there's any chance in your mind a link might be going to the wrong place, double check it and disambiguate it if necessary. Things not to link: common words that happen to appear in the article and, more controversially, topics which the reader could be reasonably expected to not require background on. For example, it's doubtful that someone reading about Fourier series needs to know what addition is. Deco 08:18, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • This is kind of where I disagree. I think that having links to "topics which the reader could be reasonably expected to not require background on" encourages people to browse Wikipedia, look at things they otherwise might not look at, and quite possibly contribute more as well. Matt 00:01, 10 December 2005 (UTC).

There is guidance at:

One of the root causes of overlinking is that square brackets are used for two entirely different functions (date preferences, article linking). This leads to a popular misconception that all date elements must be linked, including solitary years such as 2004. The Joseph Stalin example article suffers from this problem right now. Another root cause is that we have no objective data on which links are useful to readers, so we rely on subjective judgement of each editor. Thus there is an inherent tendancy for linking and an inherent opposition to delinking. Bobblewik 15:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

HOW ABOUT THIS: Wikilink every word. Turn off all the links and make every word effectively a wikilink. Of course some words will not point anywhere but then those are less likely to be words clicked on..but not always. Besides, if someone wants to click on any word, they may just need a definition or something. Who knows, we all have different interests and needs.

AN ANSWER: I have a suggestion that which might be a good compromise and make everyone happy. I created a software called LinkZu a while ago. What it does is basically allow any text on a webpage become a link by hilighting the text. It would effectively make every word on a page capable of being a wikilink but at the discretion of each individual visitor. It is javascript and I've tested it out in just about every browser and it works well. I know when I am looking at wiki articles I use the wikilinks a lot and even copy and paste text that isn't linked into the wiki search. I do sell the software, but I'd be willing to GPL the thing for use on wiki, no one buys it anyway. Check out the website(www.linzku.com) for a demonstration of how it works. I think once you educate wiki users on its functionality it would be an awesome addition to wikipedia. --Schirinos 22:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of "the free encyclopedia" slogan and more pro. s

I'm a daily wikipedia user and contributor, and I use wiki for any information I need for projects. Even though I trust the content in wikipedia many teachers and professionals do not like wikipedia being used as a source. They say it isn't relieble. I have two suggestions to fix this.

  1. Please try and remove the slogan of "the free enyclopedia" on top of the pages.
  2. Have some professional and more knowledgeable editors checking the work of contributors.

Thank you very much orginal contributor: User:Aytakin on 2005-12-07 22:37:33 +0100

I agree. The tagline is misleading. See Mediawiki talk:Tagline for some proposals of changing it. — Omegatron 22:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Have some professional and more knowledgeable editors checking the work of contributors.

  • We would simply love to have more professional and knowledgable editors checking the work of contributors. However, we are extremely limited in our resources and funding and as such simply cannot afford to hire such editors en masse as we might hope to. If, however, you know of any knowledgable or professional editors who would be interested in volunteering their time, we would relish the opportunity of having them! (Well, most of us; those not trying to abuse the site, at least.) -User:Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 03:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    There have been about 23476535436 different proposals for rating editors and articles to keep quality content while rejecting bad content, which would be just as good, but no one has come up with a really good one that everyone likes. — Omegatron 18:49, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Tagging individual revisions by individuals or groups is the way to go. Then you can filter it however you like.--Gbleem 15:41, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd like to see tagging based on some combination of number of constructive edits and length of time the account has existed - in other words, something that can be used to make throwaway accounts and new accounts stand out in RC. Triona 08:57, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I had the exact same thought earlier today when I used Wikipedia as a reference. It sounds cheap with the "free" in there. Replacing it with something along the lines of "Non-Profit" Encyclopedia makes it sound more authoritative. Ereinion 03:47, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

See? Proof that the current tagline is misleading!  :-) It means "Free" as in "freedom", not "free" as in beer. — Omegatron 18:49, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
To me I like this word "the free encyclopedia. The tag is sweet"--manop 20:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No one should be using an encyclopedia as more than a starting point in any kind of serious research, anyways. Voyager640 06:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't reliable. I'm a big fan of wikipedia. But at this point it isn't reliable. You could start your own web site where you have a staff comb over every article and then call say it was derived from wikipedia or whatever the lic will allow.--Gbleem 15:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Marking edits as a revert

I just had an idea that I thought I would propose and see if it floats - currently there is a way to tag an edit as minor; I propose that edits can also be marked as a revert - either automatically (by editing an outdated version of the page) or manually (like marking an edit as minor). I know conventions exist, but if the functionality were identical to minor edits then one could for instance hide reverts on watchlists, and identifying three reverts could be made easier. Neo 04:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I like everything except hiding reverts from your watchlist. If vandals can revert to a vandalized state, how are you going to tell what is and isn't vandalism, or will this be restriced to registered users/admins?the1physicist 20:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Recent changes - improvements to catch Libel and Misinformation

Following the Seigenthaler incident, it would be easier to keep an eye out for possible libel on Wikipedia if there was an option to view the Recent changes special page by category.

  • Firstly this would allow people with specialised knowledge to keep an eye out in all articles across a knowledge area and reduce the risk of misinformation getting in .
  • Secondly we could have a new category called something like " Biographies of living people" which would identify all articles where there is a high risk of a libel being committed. Changes in this category would be given the highest scrutiny.

The number of categories offered could be limited. Lumos3 08:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We do have this, after a fassion, at the moment. Go to a category that contains articles about people (e.g. Category:Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom) and click Related Changes. Thryduulf 15:50, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Name change

I think we need a name change of one terminology of Wikipedia:

NPOV (neutral point of view) is to be renamed CPOV (common point of view.) This term makes more sense to me because a neutral point of view to me sounds similar to political correctness when it comes to being, for example, gender-neutral. Also, something a Google search widely reveals about Wikipedia is people write on talk pages that "Wikipedia is supposed to be descriptive, not prescriptive", meaning that it is supposed to use the common view of things rather than the proper one. Any objections to this rename of NPOV to CPOV?? Georgia guy 21:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A problem would be that especially in disputed cases there is no common view. So the way out is to describe both (or several) views. −Woodstone 21:12, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not a good idea. One of Wikipeadia's strength is it's ability to discuss minority views in an objective manner. Writing articles with a common point of view will result in stuff like "Intellingt Design is a largely discredited 'theory' supported by religious fundamentalists" Fornadan (t) 21:30, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If an article is written from a "neutral point of view", it means that it is written as if by someone who does not favour the worldview of any interested group. This is exactly what we do. A "common point of view" is not correct. Common could either mean a view that is "frequently held", which would mean one of the partisan views, or "the point of view that we all share", which would leave out most of the text of most articles. --Slashme 06:54, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. NPOV entails objectivity, even among minority viewpoints. To say we are descriptive is merely to say that we talk about things without making judgements; we don't tell people what to do, think, or feel. Text can be either descriptive or prescriptive and still be POV (for example, "George Bush is an idiot" vs. "Don't vote for George Bush"). Deco 08:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If we wanted to call it "Objective point of view" that might more accurately describe our current policy. DES (talk) 18:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One thing I have a problem with is using "POV" to mean "the opposite of NPOV" (something I have done myself). Having a point of view isn't bad; it just has to be a neutral one. Using the terms "objectivity" and "bias" would be better. — Omegatron 20:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It can be, and has been, argued that strictly speaking the "Neutral Point of View" isn't a point of view at all, it is the absence of any particular point of view, which makes the name an oxymoron, but everyone here pretty much understands what it means, or at least most people quickly come to understand it. Perhaps "objective stance" would be a better term, but the term isn't nerarly as important as the principle IMO, and the principle as it currently stands is just fine in my view. DES (talk) 20:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. — Omegatron 22:40, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I used to be very POV when I first came, in 2002, because I thought this was a magazine style of website and I saw a great conduct for me to show the world my talent as a writer (POV there, hehe!). But I understood the NPOV concept clearly after about two weeks here, and you know what? I appreciate it!!! Let's just say that if I read on Bernard Hopkins' article, for example, that he "Kicked Felix Trinidad across the ring before winning by knockout", I wouldn't like it that much (in reality Hopkins did have his way against "Tito", but Trinidad did give him one of Hopkins' most competitive challenges). So NPOV is the way it is, and shall be as long as Wikipedia stands. - Antonio Las Vegas Martin

Ability to change edit summeries

It sometimes happens that defmaatory contnet, information that violates privacy, copyvio content, or a personal attack can be placed in an edit summery. In this case there is no way to get rid of the damaging content short of compeltely deleting the articel and recreatign it at a different name without its history, or else having a developer make direct changes in the DB. This is true sience even deleted edit summeries are now visible to any user who looks at the history and clicks "view nn deleted edits". See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive50# Edit Summery Vandalism on Judith Krug for an example.

Also, rather more often, an edit summery can be highly misleading.

I propose that the software be changed so that admins, or some more limited group (perhaps B'crats?) be enabled to change existing edit summeries. Use of this feature should of course be logged: the log should should the articel title, the revision timestamp, and the old and new edit summeries. (Alternatively this feature might be limited to the summeries of deleted revisions.)

I know this will require a software change, and must be propsoed on MediaZilla, but there is no point in askign the developers for this unless there is soem support for havign such a feature. If this proposal gets soem support, i will log a feature request. DES (talk) 21:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I'd like to be able to change edit comments - if we can edit everything else after the fact, why not those? Sometimes we wish we'd been more descriptive or less misleading, or said something we regret in an edit comment. That said, I would consider this relatively low priority, since you can always correct an edit comment with a subsequent trivial edit ("Last edit was really [blah blah]") and because I don't think I've recently seen a New York Times article about some defamatory statements in an article's history. Deco 08:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It hasn't made the outside media, no. But it has been used ot "out" a contributor, and it has been used to make personal attacks on editors, and it has been used to make false statements about article content, and there is nothing, not even delteting the revisions, that fully removes or hides such comments from anyone. Nothing but database hacks will do so at present. See the case linked to above where an editor has complained several times about an edit summery that disclsoes her legal name contrary to her wishes and to our privicy policy. DES (talk) 18:37, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I have wished I could edit an edit summary after the fact more than once. Seems to me that there are a couple of potentially messy issues: clearly one should only be able to edit one's own summaries. But then, anons with floating IPs would be unable to get back to their own summaries (on the other hand, this becomes one more good reason to get an account). More troubling, though-- presumably there should be an edit history of the edit summary edits-- kept where, accessed how? Would we have edit summaries for the edit summary edits? Ech! -- Mwanner | Talk 00:23, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
An Annon could always simply edit again with a summery "previous edit actually was..." Just as anyone can do now. i am actually more worried about cases where there is a need to correct a malicious or blkatently incorrect summery by another. That is why I suggested a change log, simialr to the delete log. That is also why limiting this to edits of the summeries for deleted revisions might be enough IMO. DES (talk) 00:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hm. Should we have edit histories for our edit comments? (Presumably, edit comments would be disallowed while editing edit comments to prevent the Universe from imploding). Otherwise the wiki principle of recoverability goes out of the window somewhat, it seems to me. This could usher in a new era of edit summary vandalism, too. Lupin|talk|popups 23:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest that if this is done we make edit comments append only (with a limited exception for admins suppressing vandalism and/or removing sensitive/private information) - you can append to them to correct incomplete or misleading comments, but can't change what's already there. This would keep from having a "revisionist" edit summary, as well as discourage someone from making unneeded/pointless corrections in the edit summary (the project is better served by editors that are producing content rather than by editors producing log entries!). It might also be helpful to be able to automatically create pointers between an item in the edit summary and the article's talk page (maybe let anyone do this via a "discuss this change" type link?) Triona 09:31, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

another proposal: If an registered user has edited an article and left the summary field blank he should get the chance to add a summary later for his own edits.--84.169.52.4 19:02, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's Calendar

An exchange from my talk page:

Wikipedia:2004: I see what you are trying to do, but I really feel, it's not neccessary. I suggest you mark them as {{db-author}}. Renata3 20:06, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That's how you feel. I feel different. Wikipedia is a community. It is bigger than any micronation. It deserves a record of its history. I will discuss the issue at the village pump. mikka (t) 21:24, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am very surprized that my idea of wikipedia calendar was met with indifference and urge to kill.

I have a feeling that wikipedia will not die any time soon. What's wrong with keeping track of our own history, of notable events? Of course, really notable accomplishments should go into the global calendar. But IMO we have plenty of events of "local pride", so to say, which are notable for the wikipedia community.

I am not particularly zealous about this my idea, and I have no problems with deletion of what I've already done. But I'd like to hear a broader reaction first. mikka (t) 21:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, looks like all you got in response was more indifference—no single response in three days! Fascinating... Anyway, for what it's worth, I support the idea, even though I have no desire whatsoever to work on such calendar myself. It'd be quite interesting to see the end result, though. That is, if anyone is going to bother to work on this, of course.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 21:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I just now spotted your comment. I am not against the history of wikipedia, but I don't think that anybody will really bother to properly develop it (I would be very happy to be wrong). Besides, we have History_of_Wikipedia. Just fill in any gaps there. Renata3 18:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to improve the Babel template

(Interesting: If I don't word it as a proposal, nobody bothers to react to it.)

I propose to re-implement the Babel system with the backport from fy:.

  • Advantage - No longer any need for adding number of arguments.
  • Disadvantage - Requires renaming the babel templates (or one other template).
  • Status: So far no-one has voiced a protest, and there are two persons in favour.

Aliter 01:07, 14 December 2005 (UTC) (01:38, 11 December 2005 (UTC))[reply]

Have you proposed this before in more detail? If so, can you provide a hyperlink? Andjam 01:49, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

(My apology for forgetting to include the link to Babel this time. CG mentions it below. Aliter 01:07, 14 December 2005 (UTC))[reply]

Yes, I've seen your proposal on Wikipedia talk:Babel#Improved design and I liked it. On the long run it will make the use of Babel templates very easy. But it will need great efforts to implement this design and change all other templates. CG 15:56, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Changing the existing templates could presumably be done by a bot. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:03, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Once you remove my test bars, the language skill templates need only be renamed; would this be doable for a bot?. I suggested "Template:BabelUser etc.", but I don't know whether en: has a specific naming convention for templates. Of course, if you move the categories as well, then the templates do need adapting. As renaming will leave redirects, old-style Babel templates will still function, even when they are not adapted immediately.

Anyway, that's implementation, so it should probably be discussed on the babel talk page. If this proposal is acceptable, is there anyone willing to take the ball? I've neglected fy: for a couple of days to get this working and noticed on en:. However, on fy: an editor missing causes a noticable drop in the contributions, so I'd rather go back to writing. Aliter 01:07, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed Wikipedia 1,000,000th article celebration

Given that when I first came here, (September 2002) we had less than 100,000 articles and this was not foreseen, and now we are up to 800,000+ articles, I say a small celebration should be in hand when that 1,000,000th article is created. Maybe a banner congratulating the poster and the article written, provided it actually is an article and not some sort of vandalism, vanity, etc. What do you guys think?

God bless

Antonio Me Me Me for 1,000,000th!!! Martin

We'll certainly have a press release, like we did for 500,000 and for 1 million across all languages. We're bound to get a Slashdotting too. One million is such a big milestone though, I wonder if we shouldn't have an alternate logo or banner or something for a little while. Deco 08:53, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We should also think about the fact that if we intend to make a big deal out of it, there will be all sorts of cretins and yahoos waiting in the wings, hovering over their "submit" buttons, ready to pounce the instant the existing count reaches 999,999, so they can proclaim that their silly troll article on creative navel bubble gum moulding (or worse) is the millionth. It occurs to me that one way to guard against this would be to inject some deliberate noise -- a random, plus-or-minus fudge factor of 100 or so -- into the published "total article" count. That'd make it harder to "game", but an admin with access to the database could still determine, after the fact, what the truly 1,000,000th article had been. Steve Summit (talk) 20:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If a troll article did get the spot, we'd delete it and take the next article as the 1 millionth. We are allowed to shape reality. Broken S 21:06, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I predict the millionth article will concern a character or set of characters from a television show. Geogre 13:50, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'd go for some highschool student who is apparently gay. Filiocht | The kettle's on 13:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Simply the word "Penis" is often believed to be encyclopedic enough to deserve an article, although not so much now anons can't make new articles. Martin 14:01, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Have you actually seen the Penis article? It's not bad. Anyway, I predict the 1 millionth page will be an asteroid, an unremarkable province in China, or a list of B sides released in 1966. Actually there's a page to do these predictions somewhere...but I forget where. :) Stevage 00:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The count is already fudged for technical reasons. The count is already way off. Nobody can find the nth article. r3m0t talk 02:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, we can just pick any article that looks good and that was uploaded around the time we crossed the 1 million. Broken S 02:45, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

is there any way possible to add some sort of sorting filter to "what links here" in the same way as user contribs? So, for example you could click on "What links here" and find all the talk pages, or user pages, or wikipedia-space pages alone that link to a page? I think it would be a useful thing to have. Grutness...wha? 11:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me, User:Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason recently asked if anyone had any software development ideas for him to work on.... Martin 11:41, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The inverse would also be nice: "everything that links here that isn't an article" --Carnildo 06:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
A way of sorting the what links here would be nice as well. Thryduulf 21:23, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
My program User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser can find the "What links here" to an article, then you can sort them alphabetically, that would have the desirec effect. Martin 14:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Great ideas. Alphabetical sort, chronological (date of last edit) sort. Forward and reverse on each. Wish wish.
In the meantime, it would be nice to have consistency between:
  • user contributions
  • watchlist
  • recent changes
To this user, they all seem to be addressing similar needs.
Would it be good to handle redirects out of the main sequence? Bobblewik 17:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

French translation of the week

I see that there's a large French speakers community in Wikipedia. Is anyone a fan of creating a collaboration project much like the Spanish Translation of the Week, since there's a lot of great featured french articles. CG 20:55, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded.--Shanel 21:07, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes please. I'm willing to do French translations, but the only page I found that had a list of translations to do was a complete shambles and very demanding on the translator to provide status reports etc. I'd much rather just see a quick list of pages to be done, with an optional "not started, draft, needs polish, done" status. But none of this "Yes, I'm working on this now, contact me before you start" business. Please. :) Stevage 00:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Tagging revisions

This proposal would provide a pathway for solving quite a few different issues. I think there should be a way for individuals or groups to tag individual revisions. Then you could select for example the latest revisions approved by some group or individual you trust. Maybe some parenting groups would tag articles it thought were suitable for children. I would like to tag revisions free from vandalism. Maybe another group would like to tag revisions that have been fact checked. Admins could mark certain revisions as libel.--Gbleem 15:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

New talk page "accountability" template

{{Maintained}}

I will be starting a new template for the top portion of talk pages, which will list something to this effect: "This article is maintained by the following users. Contact them regarding verification and sources." Users who either helped write the majority of a page (such as a featured article) or users knowledgeable about the subject, can add their names to the template and will be listed as points of contact for readers requesting verification of the page's contents. It also lets readers know that the page is being watched for any vandalisms. Any suggestions? — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-13 21:56

This is a great idea, but be very careful not to word it in such a way that you imply that the listed users are the only contributors or are somehow "better" contributors than other contributors, as this could create conflict. Deco 22:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The idea goes somewhat against the wiki culture. It could suggest a kind of "ownership" of pages. From the history of an article it is not difficult to find out which users actively working on it. The template would risk becoming outdated. −Woodstone 23:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I don't think it will do anything of the sort. Anyone can add their name to the list. It is simply saying, "these people are willing to be bugged regarding questions about this article, either because they've identified themselves as contributing significantly to the article, or as knowing enough about the topic or its sources to provide meaningful answers." — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-13 23:21
  • Also, while it is obvious to editors that they can check an article's history for the recent contributors, it is not always obvious to readers. I'd rather they have a direct link to an Email page, since a simple Email form is something most internet users understand at this point. As for the list becoming outdated, that is why I have included a link to the user's contribs page in the list, so that people who know a little bit about the site will be able to determine immediately whether a user is still active on Wikipedia. If that user is not, anyone should feel free to remove the user from the list, since it is not meant to be an "ownership" list, but a list of active contacts. — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-13 23:48
We already have tagging a bit like this, but by groups not individuals, so it's not a completely alien idea...
WikiProject Adding templates This article is part of the Big orange templates WikiProject, which aims to expand Wikipedia's coverage of talk pages with templates on them. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
Big orange templates WikiProject, a must have, now :) →AzaToth 23:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I forgot to mention "create the redlink and die die die", did I? Oops... ;-) Shimgray | talk | 23:41, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather readers have a direct link to Email someone for verification/sources, rather than have to jump through jargon hoops. Nobody is being forced to add this template to any article. — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-13 23:48

Ummm, how is this useful compared to, say, the History tab, or the talk page? I don't mean to be too snarky, but when folks introduce weirdness into an article where I'm one of the few experts, they find out about it pretty quickly from my watchlist lighting up. Geogre 13:48, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • It provides direct contact to email someone, something with which all readers are familiar, rather than assuming that all readers will know what the "history" tab is for, how to check for significant contributors (ie: looking for non-minor, non-bot, significant edits). Besides the contact, one of the main points is to let readers know that the page is being maintained by people, that it is being watched for vandalism, and that some people will hold themselves accountable for its contents. — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-14 14:03
I do not like this. There are already far too many people who act on the notion that ownership of page contents is the trade-off required to maintain quality and fend off vandalism. This will only aid and abet the creation of editorial cliques ... for good and for ill. One solution implemented by a number of editor groups is the WikiProject framework with the addition of a template affixed to the talk-page of articles in the subject area of the WikiProject that indicates that the content is of particular interest to members of said WikiProject. I would much prefer to see the proliferation of that mechanism over this one. Courtland 03:25, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Categories and Article Titles

Reading down a list of Civil Wars I see that First Sudanese Civil War is listed under F and Second Sudanese Civil War is therefore under S. These should surely betogether in any index? I appreciate the category sort will work on the first word. If this cannot be overcome simply, would it not make sense to favour titles that avoid this problem such as Sudanese Civil War (first). Having World War I and World War II is already prefered to First World War and Second World War which are redirects. Is this already governed by a manual of style or soemthing that can be discussed for change. If so I propose it. Dainamo 13:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Although the default is to sort by first word, articles within categories can be sorted however you'd like. Please see Wikipedia:Categorization#Category sorting. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:05, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Use category sorting. Parenthesized topic areas are used solely for disambiguation and should not be mixed up with other purposes — this would only create confusion. Deco 05:48, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Tag for British and American spelling differences

I am aware that there has been some debate over using British vs. American spellings of English. I propose a new tag and corresponding profile setting that provides both settings, such as [[dialect:color|colour]] or something like that. We could probably even have the server autodetect the country to provide American spellings for people in the U.S. and Brittish spellings for people in the U.K. (we'd still have to decide on a default for other countries & for users whose country can't be determined.) Phantom784 22:05, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So how would this system know when to translate "flat" to "apartment", and when not to? --Carnildo 00:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Next step will be "Global warming is [[POV:totally disputed|widely accepted]] by scientists..." - Fredrik | tc 00:59, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think any such tag would make articles far harder to edit, and so would not be sued often enough to have any point. DES (talk) 01:01, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There are some entertaining applications of this idea, such as: [[dialect:With the arrival of the Americans, the war was quickly won.|Despite last-minute interference by the Americans, the British prevailed]]. Deco 06:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There's always standardizing what English to use on Wikipedia. Ereinion 07:31, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I remember BC[E] wars; I don't remember any colo[u]r wars being fought with similar fanaticism. If we're going for display preferences, let's begin with BC[E], which will be straightforward enough to implement. You cannot turn American English into British English or vice versa just by substituting a few letters, it's a can of worms, so I suggest we have no choice but to continue living with the fact that there are a variety of Englishes. dab (ᛏ) 10:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. At first I supported PizzaMargherita's proposal for this on the MoS talk page and then I realized the real can of worms is not the vocabulary differences, it's the punctuation! Probably the most common punctuation fight I see is the difference between "this," and "this". --Coolcaesar 05:18, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure the punctuation is standardized in the Manual of Style: you do it like "this". It's not the way American English does it, but it makes sense. rspeer 20:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
And let's not even begin to talk about what floor of a building is at ground level! :) Grutness...wha? 05:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I see how this could be abused, but the encyclopedia can easily be abused anyway due to its open nature. A way to make abuse easier to spot would be an option you can select in your profile that shows both versions, or highlights any text this option is used on. As for the first/ground floor, I beleive the best method is to use the system in place in the country of the building you are talking about, with a note given in parentheses. Phantom784 00:34, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I note the interest in this idea, and suggest we table the proposal. Shimgray | talk | 00:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC) (Wait a second...)[reply]
I agree. :-) --Carnildo 08:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As I like to say (I am a programmer) "No job is too hard for the person that doesn't have to do it". This would really be a bear to implement. --rogerd 02:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Move FA tag back into the article?

Some time ago several tags were moved from the articles to the relevant talk pages since they were considered to be editors' tools and not relevant for the reader. However lack of credibility is and will continue to be a major critisism against Wikipedia. That an article has received more than the average level of scrutiny is not irrelevant for reader. Currently it's left to the new user to discover that FA process exist at all. Fornadan (t) 03:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agreed. Some form of the Featured Article tag should be somewhere in the article itself. There's no reason to hinder our encyclopedia under the guise of "keeping the content free of self-references for compatability with mirrors." — 0918BRIAN • 2005-12-15 03:19
  • "Some time ago several tags were moved from the articles to the relevant talk pages since they were considered to be editors' tools and not relevant for the reader." - No, this is flatly wrong -- they have never been in the article. The reason it's on the talk page is that a featured article is supposed to exemplify our best practices. This includes keeping metadata out of the article. Raul654 05:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose move back. I don't believe that providing a measure of article quality is something we should do on the page itself, particularly since these articles are still vulnerable to vandalism at any instant. I prefer the ideas discussed at Wikipedia: Stable versions, where good articles would have good versions branched off into a separate namespace (or whatever) and protected against disruptive edits. The location of these articles would implicitly assert their quality. FA still serves the legitimate purpose of selecting articles to feature on the Main Page, even if readers at large know nothing about the process. Deco 05:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Isn't there some sort of star that appears on featured articles on some non-en wikipedia? (On the article itself, not just the interwiki links as we currently have). I quite like that - it's fairly unobtrusive. I think it's javascript, so it could also be easily disabled on a per-user basis. Lupin|talk|popups 23:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whatever the history, I wouldn't mind something reasonably discreet. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:58, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perhaps a note could be worked into the subtitle. "A featured article from Wikipedia..." ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 03:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pro: Many Wikipedias have got the FA tag on the article page, see German de:Todesstrafe or French fr:Yogh. Icelandic and Dutch have also got it, if I'm not mistaken. I think it makes people more aware on the quality of the article they're reading. German wikpedia has also got the votes for nomiation to and removal from the FA list on the article page (see de:Wikipedia:Exzellente Artikel, which can make newcomers become more involved into Wikipedia and create some awareness of the "process character" of our encyclopedia. The German label (de:Vorlage:Exzellent) is pretty unobtrusive and still rather nice, imho. We could just take it over for English, after changing the language, of course. The French FA tag has got two more nice features that are great to have on the article page, given especially the present discussions about certification of quality and about protection against vandalism: It links to the version that was chosen as a FA (this would be kind of a stable version), and it links to the discussion that led to the designation of the article. --Robin.rueth 15:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly support. Adding a small tag will show the reader this article is one of our best and most credible, will caution editors to be careful when doing bold changes, and is a significant step forward towards an article appraisal system. See my proposal concerning adding the StarSmall template (down below). Elvarg 21:04, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Bind contributions

I use mainly korean wikipedia. I suggest, Korea counter + English Conter + Commons + Source + etc... so, "All" counter will be good!! WonYong 10:32, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hello fellow editors, I posted at WP:MoS's talk page before I found out about this page. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Wikilinks_when_quoting for my original policy query. If I may re-phrase myself I'd say that wikilinks in quotes should not be used or with great caution as they may impose the editor's bias on the quote. Though its a matter of enriching articles vs. fear of corruption of statements I'd say that the latter outweigh the benefits. Scoo 11:34, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Piped link says "Do not use piped links to create "easter egg links"". Follow that everywhere including while quoting and the problem goes away. WAS 4.250 16:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I agree that it can 'corrupt' statements. Clearly the links are some editor's interpretation of the quote. Sure, if you did something like this: "We must protect the American people" then that would be one thing...but even still, it's so obvious what the person actually said as compared to what some editor thought of the quote. Stevage 00:06, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Leadership and Vision of Wikipedia Forum

THE IDEA: Another forum to discuss what the vision should be about before it is shaped by outside interests that are in conflict with the success of wikipedia. Seigenthaler has become a kind of conduit for others to assert their own agendas.

The media has an agenda to report and grab attention, "salaciate." Apparently, Mr. Seigenthaler has a need for attention as well. Academia is another critic of wikipedia. These gatekeepers are threatened by its populism: The constructs of Wikipedia are excellent and continues to excel. There is nothing like it for providing a central voice for people to communicate and nothing like it for people to glean information. Its popularity and usuage is evidence of this.

The whole Seigenthaler incident points to a need for strong leadership.

Wikipedia should not attempt to follow the insistence or pressure of media, academia and other gatekeepers therefore become another gatekeeper or delimiter for voice and information.

The attacks from someone as prudish as Seigenthaler should have been expected. Also there should be some idea of how to respond to such incidents in advance. This is leadership. Wikipedia cannot and does not have to kowtow to anyone. This is also leadership.

It would be great for those that care about wikipedia to have some say as to what the response should be to continued and perhaps increasing attacks or criticism from those who do not share in the success of this project.

An example of what could be done is a collaborative effort to define statements (a kind of press release) that can be reported to the media to buttress concerns or attacks. This allows the formidable collective intelligence of wikipedia users to weigh in against competing pressures...again from other interests that do not share in wikipedia's success.

Once a year a "Best of Wikipedia" version

I propose every year starting with 2005 Wikipedia produce a vetted "Best of Wikipedia - (year)" with as many articles as can be reviewed, improved and approved and provided as a stable can't be edited publication both on the internet and in print. I know lots of work along these lines is currently going on. It's the once a year, "Best of" part I haven't heard from anyone else yet. WAS 4.250 16:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We could just print out a hard copy of all the fetured articles on december 31st, 2005, and then 2006, 2007, etc... --User:Rayc

Column width

With most people using higher and higher desktop resolutions (1600x1200 here), I find it sometimes really hard to read through an article seeing as the text spans over the whole width of the screen (imagine having to read a 30cm large page). Wouldn't it be possible to force a smaller column width for readability's sake?

I know of one AOL user (not myself) who only has 500px for the article portion of the screen.... Physchim62 (talk) 17:33, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest you not maximuse your browser window. Make it full height, but not full width. In KDE, you can readily do this by middle-clicking the maximuse button. I don't know of a similar shortcut in Windows or other operating environments.-gadfium 19:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's surely possible to do this with user CSS. Don't ask me exactly how, but it has to be possible. Lupin|talk|popups 23:37, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, CSS can control width. Readability studies suggest we might want to limit the width of the text itself to about 50em. Here are examples of various widths:
  • (50em) Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. …
  • (30em) Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. …
  • (20em) Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, …
While the examples use CSS property "max-width", a stylesheet can also use "width". Using "em" as the width unit allows folks with poor vision to increase the font size without being thrust into three words per line. (Bigger fonts have bigger ems.) --KSmrqT 03:46, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that this has no effect on my IE6 browser (it's ok in firefox) −Woodstone 15:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If such a thing were implemented, it would be much more useful if it created multiple columns, no? Perhaps each section, if long enough, could be displayed as two columns...I'm sure it would still play havoc with the images etc. In the mean time, a quick hack is to just zoom in, rendering the font size larger. Of course you get less on your screen vertically too. Stevage 00:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Change "Editing" Page to Encourage Citing Sources

As a relatively inexperienced user, I notice that one of the things I don't really know how to do is to cite sources for an article, especially non-Internet ones. There is no button or text box for inserting citations, and no link to information on what style of bibliographic citation I should use to cite a book or article. If I follow the "help" link on the far left, I'm taken to a page with a multitude of links, many of which seem like they *might* help me with citing sources, but it's hard to be sure. (I'm not even sure what a wiki-bibliography should be called: "Sources"? "Bibliography"? "Further Reading"?).

Since the lack of internet and, especially, non-internet, sources is a big problem for wikipedia articles, I would suggest considering how the "edit" page might be changed to make it easier to cite articles, and to indicate that such citations are generally expected, and appreciated. Changes might include a text-box for citations, or buttons for "add web citation" or "add non-internet citation" or just prominant "Adding Citations" help button located near the "save page" button. I'm not sure how this could best be implemented. But in my humble opinon, it would be very beneficial to wikipedia to encourage people to include better citations by making it easier to do so.

[On preview: Ok I just noticed that the "edit" page includes a helpful link from the word "sources." But it's hidden in what seems like legal fine-print: ("Content must not violate any copyright and must be based on verifiable sources. By editing here, you agree to license your contributions under the GFDL.") But this info should be more visible, and citing should be made a more integrated and normal part of the editing process, I think.] --ThaddeusFrye 17:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would support such a text box to encourage adding sources. I'm not sure exactly how it should work though; should urls just be pasted in and then magically appear in the ==References== section? There should also be an option to let more experienced users turn it off. Once the details are settled on, I could do this in javascript, I think, or (better yet) we could get a dev to do it server-side. Lupin|talk|popups 23:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It should be included only on new pages as a seperate box, and perhaps javascript or something for edits. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:25, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Replace new articles with CotWs

How about replacing the requested articles on Special:Recentchanges with the current CotWs? Since anons can't create new articles anymore, it makes sense to do something that they can more easily participate in -- there'd be a lot of general copyediting and tweaking. Wikipedia has an article on everything notable that is not obscure, I think, and the vast majority of people have no inclination and/or resources to do the required research. CotWs tend to be general subjects that a lot of people can help out in (and that interest a lot of people). We could have the general Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week and one or two of the more specialized ones (and active ones, as a bonus, this would be an incentive for more active CotWs) on a rotating basis. Tuf-Kat 07:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a good idea. I support this. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Page validiation

Page validiation, but not as on the tin. All edits would still emediately come out on the page, but they would have to be approved by a wikipedia admin. If the current version is not a accepted one, a note is put on the top of the page with a link to the last approved version of the article. Such a feauture could make the world for Wikipedias credibility. Aye? ThorRune 10:25, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is an article validation feature in progress, see m:Article validation feature. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but despite the name, the article validation feature (which is really a rating system) and what ThorRune is proposing are two separate things.the1physicist 21:06, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The article validation system is also intended to hide versions that have not yet been rated positively, if my understanding is correct. Deco 04:08, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Your proposal for admin approval implies that admins have a better understanding of content than non-admins. This is not a correct assumption and presents an inappropriate expansion of admin responsibilities and powers. Courtland 03:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As an admin, I have to agree with Courtland on this. Zoe (216.234.130.130 18:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC))[reply]

Highlight Recent Changes

One way to make vandalism obvious would be to automatically highlight any recent changes in the text with a slightly off-white color. This would make it impossible to introduce very subtle changes (such as adding a "not" or modifying a link) without becoming visible.

It would also draw attention to recent edits, because either they or what used to be in their place is likely to deserve improvement.

This would require a change to the rendering engine so that it would automatically consult recent versions.

This is a more scalable method than page validation, only requiring more CPU cycles, zero moderator cycles.

Template protection

I've suggested permanently protecting a range of high-volume templates in order to lessen the impact of vandalism on the hardware. See Wikipedia_talk:Protection_policy#Template_protection. --bainer (talk) 23:09, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

These might be good candidates for semi-protection, or if ever such a thing is proposed, three-quarters protection. It's probably safe to allow them to be edited by people with, say, 500+ edits under their belt. Stevage 23:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No, it is not safe. Editing one of those most-used templates (like Template:TL) would practically grind the site to a halt for a while. Admins should definately get consensus before editing them. r3m0t talk 02:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

MIT's OpenCourseWare

I just ran across MIT's OpenCourseWare. Darned impressive resource. I was thinking that we should probably add to External Links wherever relevant, but I don't want to be accused of spamming (on behalf of an institution to which I have no connection, by the way) so I thought I'd come here first and see what others think. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Inspect the site more closely. It was just a publicity ploy--the links lead to empty shell pages. Lotsofissues 05:06, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
MIT, and especially the MIT Media Lab, is keen on hyped-up "world-saving" project ideas which get huge amounts of positive media publicity around the world (great for fundraising and brandbuilding), whether or not the ideas are actually that substantive and dramatic. I'm sure they'll eventually fill out the categories for OCW a lot more, but if its more of the same now (i.e. those few categories now which have something more than just MIT course syllabuses) it's still basically downloadable lists (literally lists) of lecture notes / questions /reading recommendations and some (also just text ) instructional cribs sheets. Remember OCW was launched with generous funding in 2001. over 4 years later, and its still downloadable lecture notes that cover only some subjects. (I'm a former MIT grad student) Bwithh 15:50, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
More annoyingly, they are essentially attempting to recreate already existing infrastructure without working with the various pre-existing MIT courseware projects. On the bright side, the translation project part of it is pretty cool. Glasser 15:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

{lookfrom|}

I made a template - Template:lookfrom, which links to all pages starting with those letters. How best to integrate this into Wikipedia? --For One World 19:15, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

WHEREAS Featured Articles represent the best work of Wikipedia, and

WHEREAS Featured Articles should be edited with extra care if doing major revisions, as community consensus has approved of the current version, and

WHEREAS Featured Articles are a major step forward Wikipedia 1.0+, and ultimately printed/CD-based wikipedias, where all articles go through community appraisal

THEREFORE, Featured Articles should be visibly distinguished; and

WHEREAS the English Wikipedia has no distinguishment of Featued Articles on the article itself (only on talk pages), and

WHEREAS other Wikipedias have successfully adopted various distinguishments,

NOW, THEREFORE,

I propose all articles to include the template FeaturedSmall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:FeaturedSmall

What it does: It places a small yellow star in the top right corner of featured articles, followed by the text "ARTICLENAME is a Featured Article"

This template is already successfully used on other wikipedias, such as the Italian Wikipedia, for distinguishment of featured articles (see http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6rfuknattleikur).

The template is not overly pompeous, it does not "brag" the article excessively, and does NOT convey the message that it is "elite" compared to others. As well, it does NOT look restrictive or critical of change. It does, however, display the featured status of the article right ON the article, without need to go to the talk page.

I propose that all Wikipedia Featured Articles use this template.

It would need to be minorly adjusted (from "top:72px" to "top:10px") once the Fundraising Drive is over, for proper layout, but otherwise it will be stable.

Articles having the template would look exactly like the article on the Italian wikipedia I gave the link to. I also chose ONE (since there was no community consensus yet) English article to use the template on, and it will be there unless someone decides to revert it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond

Some discussion has already occured at the Technical board, where I inquired why don't we use them, and I found out it is used in some wikipedias but not others. So, I propose we use it here.

If adopted, the FeaturedSmall template should be locked, since it would be present on over 700 pages. Elvarg 03:01, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I like this implemtation. It's small, elegant, and doesn't seem to have the problems people have mentioned with other options. Good idea. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:23, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I like this idea, too. I propose a text that contains some more vital information namely:
"This article [[(link to the page with the FA vote for this article)|was identified]] as a [[(link to FA page|featured article]] on [link to the historical version of the article that was chosen | date when it was chosen]. "
This should not be too long and gives some more vital information. Alternatively, we could just add a link to the talk page.--Robin.rueth 14:20, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I could try that, but people who already object to including metadata on the article may raise further objections (and they may be right to some extent). Since the article tag (as opposed to talkpage tag) is intended primarily for the readers, rather than editors, the main thing they need to know is that the article is accurate, neutral, and well-referenced. It may not be the place to display the inner-workings of WP, such as our FA selection process. On another note, it may present technical difficulties -- namely lack of space. Already I realized I must either replace FULLPAGENAME with "this article", or create a second template (such as StarSmallLong) for articles with long names that doesn't have FULLPAGENAME, or face the problem of this tag overlapping some other text or not fitting on one line at all. Elvarg 20:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

For the 977th time, NO. One of the important things about Wikipedia is that it be easily replicable. This means it is very important to keep metadata out of articles -- metadata makes replicating our content elsewhere very difficult. Featured articles are (by definition) supposed to explify our best standards and practicies. This means keeping them free of metadata. Raul654 20:40, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is it that difficult to mark metadata in such a way that whatever bots perform the replication don't pick it up? We already have {selfref}. There is enough value in such metadata that defining a simple standard for "metadata specific to wikipedia - you probably don't want this" is worthwhile and probably not difficult. Stevage 20:58, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Do we not have a ZILLION of tags that we put on articles anyways? Cleanup, COTW, AFD, RefsNeeded, NPOV, and HUNDREDS of others? Oh, and what about the TENS OF THOUSANDS of stub notices? At any given time about 20%-30% of Wikipedia articles have some kind of metatag. And besides, if a website wants to copy WP contents as a mirror, its really up to them, not to WP, to ensure a good copy. It is REALLY not that hard to program a bot to ignore STARSMALL templates (as they alrady ignore the mentioned tens of thousands of other stubs). "Free of metadata" is NOT holy scripture, and is not even a wikipedia policy (if anything, its a guideline), and to every guideline there are MANY valid exceptions. Elvarg 21:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Just because other articles break the standard does not mean the best ones should. (2) What is really needed is a technical solution - e.g, something implimented in the mediawiki markup that can be used to exclude certain data from dumps. Until and unless that gets done, we won't be putting metadata into the featured articles. Raul654 07:45, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with Raul here. We're here primarily as an encyclopedia; you don't see "featured article" tags on EB articles. Then again, they don't have talk pages, either... Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:56, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Did you ever see on EB "this article is a stub" notice?Elvarg 21:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wanna know a way to vandalise thousands and thousands of pages with one edit?

How? Template:Tl -- Perfecto Canada 03:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Aw that's no fun. How many articles are using it, I'm curious. My browser almost crashed finding out. Is it over 10,000? -- Perfecto Canada 03:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • ALL articles that use ANY template also use THIS template (this template displays the "This article uses the following templates..." message). So I'd say its a good half of Wikipedia articles. Elvarg 03:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure? -- Perfecto Canada 03:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Pretty sure. Try editing any page that uses templates, and the bottom of whose editbox has the "this article uses..." text with list of templates used. It should also list this one. Elvarg 04:03, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Don't I get an award for pointing this out? I saved the project a big disgrace, and this proves my trustworthiness and self-control. -- Perfecto Canada 04:24, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Have a cookie. There are tons (how much does a template weigh?) of templates like this one that are unprotected (if you find em list them at WP:RFPP). Broken S 04:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Except we're already well aware of it.  :-) See four headings up, for instance. — Omegatron 04:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Limited license for Images

Wikipedia:Restricted image licenses is a proposal to accept a slightly more limited license for images, one which might be acceptable to many content creators/copyright owners who are not willing to release images under the GFDL. Your comments and views are welcome. DES (talk) 04:53, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Use common ground if therre is a choice in your version of English

This old chestnut is a perennial discussion: the suffix "ize" is not an American trait. Most words in British English that end with this suffix can be "ise" or "ize" (there are some exceptions as there are words that should end in "ise" in American English. In fact the OED prefers the use of "ize" as do many accademic sources. [1]. "ise" in British/commonwealth English seems to have crept into use more over the course of the latter twentieth century (find any old English dictionary and you will srtuggle to find "ise"). It has reached such ubiquity outside accademic circles that many British/Commonwealth readers often mistake the "ize" as Ameircan. Most dictionaries now list both suffixes as acceptable in British English, but if we are writning an international project and we have a choice, it makes sense to use the spelling that would be usiversally acceptable to all English Speakers and matches other existing links.

I propose the logic should also apply to examples such as Gaol and Jail in British English and Ketchup and Catsup in American English). Dainamo 13:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

We have a policy that works very well already. I don't see the need to tamper with it. No, -ize is not uniquely American. However, in modern British writing it is rare to see -ize used. Most Britons would use -ise. I am a classicist, and I prefer, etymologically, to use -ize where it comes from the Greek -ιζω. However, I also am editor of a school newspaper, and we use -ise because it strikes fewest people as being wrong. British English writing generally uses -ise, and to recommend against it is not necessary. Where words are intelligable from both countries' points of view, I don't think it necessary to recommend that one or the other should be used. However, a note in the MoS that writing for a majority audience is recommended is a good idea. [[Sam Korn]] 16:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO, it's not a question of "mistake" but a question of semi-nationalism. I, like many "commonwealth" people, once I became aware that American spelling uses -ize everywhere, began to use -ise everywhere as a way of asserting my culture orthographically. I'm not talking about on Wikipedia, of course. Words like 'realize' just leap out at you as being American, anyway. Stevage 23:56, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the general notion that where a word or spelling is commonly used in many nations, we should prefer it. I used this to argue that "connection" should be preferred to "connexion", but this was opposed vigorously by some British who use it commonly in some localised areas. I think the current policy is pretty much all we'll ever agree on. Deco 05:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

New suggestion to stop Vandalism

Hi

I was a bit disappointed regarding the negative publicity surrounding the Wikipedia recently Although I have used the site many times when looking for something from simple to complex topics and found it great I have not contributed to a post

I would like to suggest the following to prevent further abuse of a very good tool and concept.

Charge any user who wants to contribute an article a 1 time deposit fee of 50 USD. For every article which they submit they are billed 5 dollars which is deducted from this amount. If the article goes through a time period of six months without anyone proclaiming it to be false or incorrect. The 5 dollars are added back to the persons account. Should the article be found to be false. The person who entered it is offered the opportunity to correct the entry. Should they refuse to do so they lose the 50 dollars. Where mistakes are innocent the user loses the 5 dollars but may submit the next article for free.

This covers admin costs and prevents those intent on destroying the wikipedia from succeeding. Good Luck ! Uven

That goes against the 'spirit' of Wikipedia, and will deter people from contributing. Any cost to the contributor should be avoided. But thanks anyway! Yellowmellow45 18:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, any cost, even if refunded, would only hamper the project. I know I wouldn't contribute under those conditions. --Falcorian 18:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This would dimnish contributions by 95%-99%. Not workable. Lotsofissues 00:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Edit-only templates

I think it would be handy to have templates that are invisible at view time, but pop up and alert the user when they go to edit a page. Such a thing would have many applications: alerting a user to the history of a page, conventions (eg, "Use British spelling here"), letting users know whether restructuring changes are likely to be appreciated by other users, warning users not to add the same piece of information which has been added hundreds of times before...

I'm sure someone will reply that all these should go on the talk page. Well, who reads talk page history before making changes, anyway? :)

This can already be done with HTML comments (like for instance <!-- This is a comment -->). --cesarb 00:26, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that there is no guarantee that a user will see a page-wide HTML comment, especially if they only edit a subsequent section. They're great for commenting specific paragraphs or sentences, but they don't work well for a whole article. Stevage 01:04, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Plus there's no way to insert useful links, without the user having to copy and paste them from the edit box. the wub "?!" 14:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Fundraising

Here is a modest proposal which is bound to get me flamed to a crisp: Why not use the space under the toolbox for google pageads? It would not be invasive, there is blank space there anyway, and it would bring in so much money that it could be discontinued after one year, leaving enough funding to keep the foundation in hardware for a decade. Maybe we could, instead of having a fundraiser every now and then, make December the PageAd month. --Slashme 11:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Generally I don't like advertisments, but google page ads *are* nicely unobtrusive. Are page ads pay-per-view, or pay-per-click though? I rarely (one in a thousand or whatever) bother to click through.
Also if we could maybe give an option to turn the ads on or off for registered users. Then maybe there could be a trial period in which anonomous users don't get ads and registered users can opt-in to them. Depending on user response and income generated the scheme could remain opt-in, or be extended to all unregistered users. --Neo 11:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's just because I'm a registered user, but wouldn't it be wiser to make the ads visible to anon. users before registered users? After all, registered users tend to contribute more than anonymous users, and we're less likely to click on the ads. But I would say the best would simply be to make the ads visible to all. The faster we make our target, the faster we can ditch the ads. Here's a thought: Make the ads come on at the same time as a fundraiser. If the ads irritate you enough, you'll pay to get rid of them ;-)

As an aside, to see what they would look like, see the Uncyclopedia main page. --Slashme 12:11, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The community response to advertising in the past has been very, very strong - the mere discussion of funding the project through advertising was enough to cause the Spanish wikipedia to split, forming the Enciclopedia Libre; this didn't do either project any favours, really. We can get the money through private donations, people are happy to donate, and there are no major cashflow problems. Starting advertising may bring in money, but the possible side-effects are not at all promising. Shimgray | talk | 12:26, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that:

  • The split was caused by more than just the threat of advertising.
  • It would be a shame if Wikipedia were to split due to the threat of advertising. I for one hereby pledge not to form a splinter encyclopedia over this issue.
  • The fundraising ad at the top of the screen is rather more distracting than google ads down the side of the pages of Uncyclopedia (and more monotonous).

But if the community is dead set against it, who am I to stand against the masses? When was the last vote held? How overwhelming was the vote? --Slashme 13:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There was a big fuss back in October as a result of this announcement, which kicked off Wikipedia:Wikiproject no ads - it wasn't a proposal to add ads, but it got interpreted as one, and there was much screaming. A glance at the associated talk pages should give you an idea of the size of hornets nest this tends to kick up... Shimgray | talk | 14:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I for one would rather tolerate google adsense ads than fundraising drives. And I'd definitely rather put up with them than pay WP. I'm not sure what the economics of it are though - how much money I would generate for WP over a year of watching adsense ads. Stevage 14:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. After reading that petition, I realized just how hypersensitive some wikipedians are, and just what a hornets nest it indeed is (thanks Shimgray!). Is it just a vocal minority that believes that the trustees of WikiMedia are here for personal enrichment, or would a couple of PageAds really cause a large rebellion? Maybe if they took a closer look at the WikiMedia Budget, and compared it to any real-world company, they'd be a bit more understanding. Really, $33,000 is not a lot of money to pay 2 full-time and 2 part-time staff. Almost all the money goes to hardware!

Anyway, the reason that I raised this here was that I didn't know where to find this kind of information. Is this not by now a frequently-enough asked question to go into the FAQ? --Slashme 17:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]


For the foreseeable future, fundraising alone should be able to continue to pay to keep the server farm humming and the foundation running at minimally acceptable levels (that is, if we spend 25% of the year fundraising). Doing more than that will require grants and large donations. At the same time we *all* need to understand that, by choosing to *not* have something like GoogleAds we are giving up millions of dollars of revenue each quarter. The mission of the foundation is to freely give every single person access to the sum of human knowledge and to do so in their own language. Revenue from something like GoogleAds could be used to expand our reach outside of areas where cheap high-speed Internet access is ubiquitous. We often forget that that still accounts for the great majority of humanity. But we can't do something like that without community support. Just make sure your decisions in this matter are fully informed and not the result of a gut reaction against advertising. BTW, I'm talking for myself and not at all in any official capacity as a foundation officer. --mav 18:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi mav. You say "millions of dollars...each quarter". Was that an official figure someone came up with, or just a guess? If it's for real, that is a ridiculous amount of money to be turning down for the sake of...uh...what exactly. And hell, if ads are brought in, sell 'premium accounts' for like $5 a year to turn the ads off. Hell, $1 a year and you'd still probably come out in front. Stevage 21:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
IIRC, the last estimate I heard about this is a couple months old; it stated we'd make - at that time - several hundred thousand dollars per month. Traffic has increased significantly since that estimate was given. I think it would be safe to now say the figure is at least a million dollars per quarter. --mav 22:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This sort of figure gives a bit more perspective to the surprisingly insistent levels of linkspam we get... Shimgray | talk | 23:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not that I'm against the whole idea, but it is worth pointing out why people don't like it. Wikipedia's trustworthiness (such as it is) depends on it's only being subject to the sway of its editors and not external forces. Suppose we become dependent on Google Ads, and an article criticizes one of google's endeavors. What do we do if Google says, remove the critical article or we will pull the ads from your page? I'm not saying google would do that, but it would put wikipedia in quite a bind. Either we sacrifice the encyclopedia or change our content slightly. Even if this were to never happen, people would definately accuse us of doing it. This is why Consumer Reports doesn't do advertising. Not because they couldn't still be objective, but because no one could trust that they were. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 02:04, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I do not understand this argument, currently Wikipedia depends upon minuscule amount of donations (around 1M p.a). Certainly if somebody will offer say $100K donation in exchange to some POV (say protect George Bush or Microsoft in a particular state) it would be hard to resist. If Wikimedia would have a budget of 20M/p.a. it would be much easier to resist such an offer. Alternatively, for $100K the POV-pusher can employ quite a number of web monkeys that would push the POV, in my own experience resistance against even a single determined POV-pusher is almost futile unless you want to spend all your life in a revert war over a single article. Frankly side ads on Google does not bother me (sometimes I even follow them), I do not see why they should bother other peopleabakharev 03:51, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think that unless there is an official proposal here, there shouldn't be a drawn out (likely very heated) discussion at the VP. I just wanted to be sure that the objections to advertisement were not dismissed without at least a brief defense. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 04:42, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe if we just had PageAds on during our fundraisers, it would on the one hand allay fears of manipulation, and also make the fundraisers shorter. As for the discussion at the VP, where is the best place to discuss issues like this? --Slashme 06:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've written a page at User:NeilTarrant/PageAds trying to summarise thoughts on this topic. Maybe discussion can be moved there? --Neo 12:32, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Listen to this article (help)

Noticed its placement when reverting something on Jimmy Wales, could that link be moved to the same line and font size (right justified) as "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." - RoyBoy 800 20:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Image upload (source)

As including a source is now (and has been for some time) required, I think it'd make sense to include a "Source" edit box (in addition to the box for "Description"). This would encourage users to include a source (be it a URL or a note saying it was scanned from a newspaper or screencapped by the uploader, or whatever). Ideally this "Source" box would add a new section (similar to how the license drop down box adds a "License" section) called, logically, "Source". :P As a side note, is there anyplace else I should suggest this (and future image upload suggestions)? —Locke Cole 02:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Review boards

We want to have all the articles reviewed, to prevent hoaxes and increase the quality of the articles. I propose to form boards of reviewers at each WikiProject and Wikiportal each board adopts a group of categories related to their Project/Portal. We can also form a wildcard review board for the categories that are not adopted by any project.

A member of a review board should be a registered user with at least a few months of experience, never founded to commit hoaxes and other bad faith editions, who has some good quality contributions in the field of the board. The board can be originally elected by the participants of the project/portal and then co-opted by the consensus of the board members or by additional voting. For the wildcard review board lets say that the administrators are the original wildcard board.

What do the reviewers - they review articles on their adopted categories. If an article is reviewed does not mean that it is a perfect article. It only means that it is not a hoax, that it is not in a vandalized stage and that all the applicable tags are there. If it a stub, than it labelled as a stub, it it POV then it is labelled as POV, if it needs clean up - it labelled for clean up, if a minor fact is dubious - than it clearly marked as dubious, etc. If an article already was reviewed, than the next review means that it is clearly in better state than it was at the previous review. If the article became worse since the last review the reviewed status should be withdrawn. If there are arguments between the reviewers, than the decision should be voted (probably by consensus as with the adminships), if there is no consensus it goes in RfC, Arb com etc.

After reviewing an article, the reviewer leaves a template message, showing the name of the board, his own name and the date at the bottom of the article. He/she also clearly marks "Article was reviewed by the board member" in the edit summary. Reviewer can not review an article if he was a major contributor to it ( or the major contributor to the changes since the last review, if the article was already reviewed). For people who are not official reviewers leave messages masquerading as a review should be a blockable offence.

In future, if we will have a large pull of reviewed article we could have a GUI switch between the latest reviewed version and the development version as well as "revert to the latest reviewed version" button. We could also have a separate colors for the links to the reviewed and non-reviewed articles, toolbox for the reviewers, etc.

Advantages: improves quality by forcing systematical reviews, starting point for checking - comparing with the latest reviewed version, CD distributions should be done based on the latest reviewed version if they are available. I also hope the decision would curb revert wars and give some recognition to good participants of particular projects abakharev 09:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a good idea, which is (in part) already being worked on. An article validation system is currently in development and is scheduled to be deployed here in January (I think). There is also the {{Maintained}} template which is currently under threat of deletion which does a similar thing (although with individuals as well as boards). No one has thought to add the restriction that non-authors review it, but that wouldn't be a bad idea. I think once article validation goes live there will be a lot of policy discussions surrounding it. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 16:54, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Second-hand hardware

One of the major costs for wikipedia is currently hardware. For the expendable computers lower down in the information chain, would it be practical to use second-hand computers donated by wikipedians? Andjam 12:38, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This has been suggested before. I can't remember the page, but apparently the WikiMedia foundation has filled up its racks already, and a larger computer room would be more expensive than more computers. Or something of the kind. I'll check this out soon... --Slashme 12:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)&oldid=32132256"