MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-messages/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee should probably have a notice to get as wide ranging input/opinion as possible. --Barberio (talk) 20:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Er.. Can we have this back please, because it was rather an important one, not 'clutter'? --Barberio (talk) 20:14, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Uh, no. I regard it as clutter. This is not something that needs to be seen by every user, every time they look at their watchlist. The village pump and administrators noticeboard should be sufficient, and maybe Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration. Jehochman ^Talk 21:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Which would only do to notify the people who likely already know about the RfC. Putting the notice into Watchlist-details did in fact start getting new eyes on the issue, and bringing in people who didn't even realise there were issues that need solving.

Can I ask exactly what you think *wouldn't* be clutter, if something as important as an RfC on the function of ArbCom is clutter in your eyes? Reform of the dispute resolution system is a pretty important thing by my book, and affects every user of the wiki. --Barberio (talk) 21:54, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• This is exactly the kind of thing that should be advertised on the watchlist, due to its far-reaching importance, as all established users (not just admins) are eligible to decide the makeup of the committee via elections. I'm not sure why this is clutter. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 18:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Abuse filter

I'm involved, so I won't do it, but perhaps Wikipedia:Abuse filter needs some wider input. — Werdna • talk 09:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I think four notifications at one time is one too many

This MediaWiki page has been nominated for deletion. Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/MediaWiki:Watchlist-details. Jehochman ^Talk 17:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:18, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I was just about to say the same thing. Main page redesign and the Arbcom RfC I can understand, but I really don't think several million Wikipedians need to be notified of some new counter-vandalism tool or an RfC on admin wonkery. WP:VP and WP:AN are sufficient advertising for the interested. Skomorokh 04:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

For whatever reason things like WP:VP and WP:RFC still don't get a lot of people involved in some new proposals, so I'm not sure if I would really call it sufficient. It's not really a big deal if there's four at once, since each one has a dismiss button. However, I can still understand the objection, which is why I think rotating notices is still worth exploring. -- Ned Scott 06:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Meh. They're individually dismissable. It's a lot of text until you click the [dismiss] button. Problem solved. : - ) --MZMcBride (talk) 07:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

This is going to sound like a joke, but it isn't. Can an admin put this page/discussion on the watchlist? I think it's iportant that we ask user how much they want added to their watchlists. You might take off one or two of the current other discussions, but I think they should be left there along with this new discussion so people can really see where this is going. As far as I can tell, all one needs to do is convince 1 of 1000+ admins to add a link and it's done. Four at a time is just the tip of the iceberg. There's probably 10-50 discussions at any one time that people think are important. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:38, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Peregrine Fisher. Maybe its just my browser but when I refresh my watchlist, even though I've dismissed all 4 messages, the messages display for a few seconds before disappearing again. I get the impression that these messages have created some slight overhead which has slowed down the refresh rate. Please tell me if there's a browser (F/Fox 2.0.0.15) setting that I need to adjust. Moondyne 10:02, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a result of loading JavaScript later during the pageload. If you want to hide all current and future watchlist notices, you can use CSS, which will ensure that you don't see them for the fraction of a second that you currently do. The code needed to do so is #watchlist-notice { display: none; } which you can add to your monobook.css page, assuming you use Monobook. --MZMcBride (talk) 10:08, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

For the benefit of users like me who think this page has gone beyond a joke, the correct code is #watchlist-message { display: none; }. — Pek, on behalf of Tivedshambo (talk) 07:31, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Everybody can't add their pet project here to clutter the user interface. The average user does not understand how to change their Javascript or CSS. I am going to delete the lot of them, and if anybody wants to restore, we should have a discussion and get a consensus. Small inefficiency times a very large number of pages is not a good thing. Jehochman ^Talk 17:57, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

How about one at a time, and only if they have consensus. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Somebody could always create a template along the lines of Template:Recent changes article requests, which is transcluded on MediaWiki:Recentchangestext and rotates a long list of requested articles. This would allow important notices to be displayed, without a ton of clutter. Also, I have to agree with Peregrine Fisher's comment about only added those notices which have consensus (rather than the support of one admin). - auburnpilot talk 18:15, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

When the main page design "competition" notice was added on Saturday (with virtually no prior discussion on the matter), I warned that this was opening the door to the watchlist becoming cluttered (as people interpreted it as an open invitation to advertise everything here instead of at the village pump). My concern was dismissed as an unrealistic "slippery slope" argument, but it didn't take long before this came to pass. —David Levy 18:17, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Yup. Nothing should be added unless there is a discussion here with broad support from uninvolved parties. Jehochman ^Talk 18:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Where do we post the notice to get people involved in discussing which notices we should post to get people involved in discussing things?

Do you really want to have yet another little group of in-the-know people making important decisions. It does seem rather absurdly bureaucratic to demand 'discussion and broad support from uninvolved parties' for posting a temporary one line notice about a discussion. --Barberio (talk) 22:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

If we let you post your favorite notice, then we have to let everybody, and the situation gets unwieldy. As I already mentioned there are plenty of venues to announce things without taking the heavy handed approach of stuffing the message in everybody's face every time they look at their watchlist. It's rude and intrusive to use the watchlist page for promoting discussions that are of little interest to most people. This space should be reserved for very important notices, such as ArbCom and Board of Trustees elections. Jehochman ^Talk 23:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you might be being a bit over blown in calling a one line notice on a webpage 'rude and intrusive'. If it were a large Flash Banner Ad it might be intrusive, if it were a blinking picture of a baboon's rump it might be rude.

Short, unobtrusive 'MotD' style notices are really no big deal. Even at four messages, it didn't make the watchfor unusable, and I didn't see hoards of complaints about it anywhere.

And you've already said you consider important discussions about the ArbCom to be 'cruft', but now you say it isn't? You do seem to be saying that watchlist-details shouldn't have any 'crufty' community messages at all, and only messages handed down from on high can ever be accepted. Which I think wasn't the intent.

Yes, if we let everyone and their dog post long notices for unlimited periods of time, it'd get out of hand. But, that's not what really happened. And you do seem set on letting no one post notices at all. --Barberio (talk) 00:40, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if you may in fact be confused about the purpose of Watchlist-details.

Important WMF notices about elections have tended to happen on MediaWiki:Sitenotice rather than here. Watchlist-details is meant to be quite a step below that in importance. --Barberio (talk) 00:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist clutter is objectionable, no matter the source. Please don't wikilawyer and take this discussion in endless circles. Let some other folks comment and some other administrator can gauge the consensus. Jehochman ^Talk 01:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I do not appreciate the accusation of 'wikilawyering', and consider it a petty personal attack and grandstanding on your behalf.

If you don't want to intelligently counter my arguments, that's fine, but throwing accusations, and telling me to 'shut up and let the admins decide' is not big or clever. --Barberio (talk) 03:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

And since you've deleted it from your talk page, I'll restate here. You seem to have taken ownership of this process, and are acting as gatekeeper in control of it. I strongly advise you to back away from that. A couple of people agreeing with you on a talk page that doesn't get much community discussion is not consensus. --Barberio (talk) 03:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I've reverted Jehochman for the moment. First, let's make a few things clear. No knowledge of JavaScript is required to deal with these watchlist notices. They have a [dismiss] link next to each message, which puts a cookie on the user's computer telling the browser to hide the message from then on. Each individual message has a unique id, and all of the messages are wrapped by a <div> that has a unique id. So, if users choose to, they can alternately choose to permanently hide an individual message or all current and future watchlist messages using CSS, as I described a bit above.

While I understand that there may be objections to having four watchlist notices at once, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, is not the correct answer to most problems, including this one. Personally, I don't believe the adminbots RfC needs to be included, and I'm leaning toward axing the ArbCom RfC as well. But that is precisely the reason we have talk pages. Jehochman: if you want to hear other's opinions, it would probably be best to try to remain civil and friendly rather than make personal attacks.

I will say that as a general rule, the watchlist notice has included matters which are of note or importance to a wide, broad array of Wikipedians. This includes ArbCom elections, steward elections, and more recently, major template standardizations, etc. Adminbots don't seem to fit this particular mold, but that issue can be discussed on this talk page. There's no urgent need to remove the notices this very instant. At worst, there's a bit of clutter for those who choose not to dismiss or hide the messages. It's an extra few hundred bytes -- you'll live. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It is not proper to place advertisements on the watchlist for particular editors favorite projects and pages. "It's just a few hundred bytes" times many thousands of users doing potentially many page views per day. This is poor web site management. The majority commenting here dislike having four notices. I wish you would respect that instead of trying to force something. Please start an RFC as a sign of your good faith in the matter. Editing that template is an administrative action. You should not be repeating an action that has been undone before achieving a consensus to do so. Jehochman ^Talk 03:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how there's a problem with having only 4 messages on there. I also would like to keep the RFC on adminbots in there because it needs more community discussion to be able to get anywhere. --Chet B. Long^Talk/_ARK 03:34, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Like it or not, we've tasted the sweat honey that is the watchlist notice, and we're hooked. Unlike other forms of notices which require you to go and check a page (or notice a few edits out of who-knows-how-many in your watchlist), the notice here is by far the best way to give community notice because it's just there. Even if a specific notice is shown only for a day, or part of a day, that can really help some of these discussions. -- Ned Scott 03:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Can we limit to a fixed number, say 3 maximum, and force removal of the oldest when a new one is added. If not, everyone will be here soon posting their notices and the watchlists will become very cluttered. Jehochman ^Talk 03:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think three should be the max at any one time. Probably one week max per item as well. Also, I think the most important discussions (as determined by conesensus) should be given priority. Since there's just a few of us here, I would say that the Main Page and ArbCom discussions are pretty important, although they may be getting close to their one week limit. The next most important discussion on wiki that I know of, ironically, is this one. I had the hardest time finding this page. I'm pretty sure other editors don't know this is where the discussion happens either. If you want to have five discussions on the list, that's fine with me, as long as one of them is this discussion here. My guess is that once people can find this page, we'll be back under four in a jiffy. So, would an admin please add this discussion to the watchlist? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. Jehochman ^Talk 03:51, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Four? Try five notices (all of which I have dismissed and have since reappeared). I understand trying to get news out to people, but try to use your heads here. On second thought, perhaps I might advertise something.Pacific Coast Highway ^{{talk • contribs}} 04:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Once the pesky varmints are dismissed, why the heck do they have to reappear next time I log on? If I remove a page from my watch list it stays unwatched. I can barely tolerate seeing so much dross once, but repeat screenings are just bloody annoying. WWGB (talk) 04:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

That sounds more like an end-user problem with your cookie settings. -- Ned Scott 04:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Not everyone uses the same machine (or the same browser) to log in every time. Would it be possible to move the information about which items have been dismissed from the browser's cookies to the user's account information? Alexbook (talk) 16:24, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The notices can be easily dismissed. I have found all the notices currently in the watchlist to be informative in some way and all have merit being there. Imposing an arbitrary limit will only cause edit-warring over what should appear there and what should not. Instead of letting the cabal decide what is important, let the end user make a decision over what they want to see by listing items and dismissing what they don't like. ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 04:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, I like the watchlist notices. That's the best and first source I see to update myself on news on the Wiki.  Marlith (Talk)  04:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• Ah, more whining about nothing, I see. It takes one click of the mouse to get rid of a notice. Big deal. I'm going back to write an article, anyone interested in doing that, you know, writing the content? Maybe I'm at the wrong place. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 04:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are (given the fact that this is the talk page for MediaWiki:Watchlist-details).

And it's rather uncivil of you to dismiss others' concerns as "whining about nothing." Some of us believe that this function should be reserved for important, consensus-backed notices (and not crammed full of every advertisement that someone feels like adding, thereby reducing the likelihood that people will continue to pay attention). Also note that the "dismiss" function works only for users with JavaScript enabled (and that dismissed text still momentarily appears for many such individuals). —David Levy 04:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I like these notices a lot, as they are useful but not too intrusive, yet I think they should be strictly limited, with perhaps four maximum as suggested. (I would NEVER have known about this discussion without the watchlist notice....!) Walkerma (talk) 05:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The messages are useful and encourage wider participation in Wikipedia. There shouldn't be an arbitrary limit for useful messages. Perhaps though we could include some option to make the messages appear in a section which the user can chose to hide/show, so that if they don't want to know about the new messages, they won't see them until they expand the section. Rjwilmsi 11:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate getting these messages. Once. If I still see them a week later, it's annoying, but I can accept that as the price of being informed. On a related note, I dislike reading the signpost and visiting the pump, so I depend on watchlist notices for pertinent information. bahamut0013♠♣ 12:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I like them. Watchlisting the pump is annoying as it is constantly updated. I do read the signpost, but really, watchlist notices for the win. I mean come one, you CAN dismiss them. (I don't.) Plrk (talk) 15:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I like watchlist notices. I don't think they are even an issue worth discussion.--Fahrenheit451 (talk) 16:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I too like to receive notices, they are really easy to dismiss and I've never visited the village pump, I only check my watchlist everyday.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 17:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I agreeSmarkflea (talk) 21:47, 11 July 2008 (UTC)...

This is backwards.

Remember when we actually needed consensus to add (or at least to retain) such messages? Suddenly, everyone with the sysop bit is entitled to advertise whatever they please, the the onus is on others to establish consensus for their removal? What happened? —David Levy 03:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Inflated egos? I have no idea, really. But hiding all of them didn't seem like the right call, and if I made the decision about which ones to keep and which ones to get rid of, I figured I'd get bitched at even more. Really a lose-lose situation here. My thought process in restoring them is that surely out of the four, one or two really should be there. But I don't want to be the one to decide which. And the opinions here and elsewhere are varied. Put two Wikipedians in a room and you'll have six opinions.... --MZMcBride (talk) 03:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Have any of the four been discussed and consensus for their inclusion reached? If not, given the existance of significant dissent, they shouldn't be listed until that occurs. Requiring opponents to establish consensus for their removal is backwards. —David Levy 04:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Not that I can find. Though, we didn't necessarily find consensus for past notices. Not that that makes a difference, I suppose.... --MZMcBride (talk) 04:17, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

There hasn't always been advance discussion leading to consensus, but when substantial objection has arisen, the standard procedure has been to remove the notices until consensus for their inclusion was established. —David Levy 04:24, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. If a user isn't already involved enough in the community to wander by the Wikipedia:Community Portal, among other venues, every once and while, it's probably just bad design to express-link them into the middle of some random policy argument. Ideally, the watchlist notice would only be used for items that directly affect everyone, rather than as a lure to attract the odd user who may be interested, and are time-sensitive, so we can't wait for a user to wander into the Community Portal. I'm totally for consensus to post, rather than consensus to remove. - BanyanTree 04:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, I didn't know about Wikipedia:Community Portal despite of having over 1,000 edits. Really useful link, I bookmarked it already.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 04:39, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It's linked in the sitewide sidebar. Many interesting things are! :) -- Quiddity (talk) 05:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This reminds me: it might be nice to have some of the things which are currently in the sidebar, actually placed right above where we keep the "article" and discussion" links, because many people don't ever click on the sidebar. I've sugged before that it would be really nice to make it easier for people to customize their own pages. There is empty space above the "article" and "discussion" links, wherein people could place links to things like the Pump or RfCs. I think it might help. Currently, RFCs languish; proposals are generally ignored... as far as the current issue, I like the notifications, although the MediaWiki tool is not really one that needs to be there. The flashing of the dismissed notifications also needs to be resolved if possible; it is highly irritating. II | (t - c) 06:09, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think Banyan makes a key point here. It's not at all clear to me that these discussions necessarily benefit from the floodgates opened by the watchlist notice. Especially when the discussion is in a very preliminary phase. --JayHenry (talk) 04:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Those tools don't always work out all that well. Sometimes I find myself having to disable RfC tags on discussions that moved to a talk archive, but where no one noticed. It's a great idea in theory to think that people have the time to check these pages every so often, but there's a lot of those kinds of pages. We've got multiple village pumps, multiple RFC lists, the cent template, and more. -- Ned Scott 04:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

If nothing else, I love the irony of a watchlist notice asking whether there are too many watchlist notices. Resolute 04:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't have come here had it not been for the watchlist notice. But really... Not everyone wants to be in the thick of Wikipedia decision making. Where does it end? Those who want to be involved in such things have other appropriate places to go. ChiragPatnaik (talk) 07:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about this. When I clicked on the notice about ArbCom, I did find that I plunged into a discussion that I had absolutely no background for; I was thinking "huh?" through a lot of it. On the other hand, it's nice to be able to see notice of a discussion (like this one, or the main page discussion, without having to wade through the community portal pages (which are 'ipso facto' crowded with information). It can be hard to find things there, even if they're things I might be interested in contributing to. I'd guess that things like Main Page redesign, or any sorts of elections, are things which the community at large should be invited to; RfCs, bot/software discussions, and so on are way too specialized - and I'd hate to see them knocked off the board by imposing some arbitrary limit on the number of notices. MatthewDBA (talk) 16:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

+1 to the extreme irony of this. That's all I have to say, other than that they don't bother me that much. They give me stuff to report on at Radio Wikipedia. =) –xenocidic (talk) 13:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Guys, discussion is what CENT is for. Let's use that instead of crowding people's watchlists with Requests for Comments on varies policies that a minority of Wikipedia's editors know, much less care about. —  scetoaux (T|C) 04:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Except CENT is kind of crap. It's far from being really effective in the community. -- Ned Scott 04:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Enough with the watch-list notices about scripts and crap. I'm sure it's very useful or whatever, but it's really not that interesting to most of us. The old WP:ATT flap was important enough. I suppose the RFC about ArbCom is important enough, but that's about the limit. —Ashley Y 05:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, we're not here to entertain, so I'm not sure how helpful your comment is. -- Ned Scott 05:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you here to annoy instead? —Ashley Y 07:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think there is no consensus (is there?) that the watchlist page may be used thus. We have noticeboards for notices. I do not mind the facility itself, but I think there should have been a discussion for each notification that has resulted in a consensus that it will be of interest to a very large proportion of Wikipedians. If there is such a consensus then the number of such notifications is neither here nor there. I would not be in favour of any watchlist notices at all myself, except about imposition by fiat (Jimbo's or arbcom's) of a change in Wikipedia policy. Sorry if this sounds like instruction creep, but the current use being made of the feature seems to me to smack of galloping bureaucracy. If it is overused (and I regard the notifications about the proposed main page redesign, proposed anti-vandalism measures, admin bots and this discussion as "overuse"), it will be worse than useless as people begin to ignore notifications altogether, and dismiss them without reading them - each time with slightly increasing twinges of annoyance. --RobertG ♬ talk 08:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It sounds to me like a dedicated page for discussing watchlist notice proposals may be in order. I suppose time-sensitive notices can have a deadline posed to discussion. This way, consesnsus by civic-minded editors can decide if everyone needs to see the notice. bahamut0013♠♣ 12:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I say that only discussions of upmost improtance should be added to the watchlist notices. Like the Wikimedia Board Election., that was a brilliant idea to post that on watchlists. But even noting that this discussion is going on is a distraction to me. King Rock (Gears of War) 14:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The irony of a watchlist notification re: this discussion is not lost on me. Someone is a real huckster around here, eh? Shereth 15:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I admit it

I laughed when read this new notification. :-D -- ReyBrujo (talk) 05:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous and out of hand. Most of you guys are regulars here, but think about the typical person who makes an edit once or twice a day but checks their watchlist often. They just get pummeled by watchlist notifications that don't matter to them; I don't know if people typically dismiss notifications that they are not interested in, but I know I do, because I don't like to see them piling up – like they are slowly doing now. Perhaps we need to create a limit here, like a maximum of three, and then at least have some discussion for each one before someone keeps on adding a new one? Gary King (talk) 06:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I am not that much regular (a few edits per day, maybe a hundred per month nowadays), that is why every time I check my watchlist there is a new notification there. What makes it funny is that each of these news has a dismiss link. These notifications should be like disambiguation pages, only the discussion should be linked, all other words should not. Right now there are 16 links (including the dismissal ones) in notifications, when there should be only 5.

Anyways, I laughed :-D It is like the "polls are evil" option that appears every time a poll is created. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 06:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The idea that only the discussion links should be kept is an interesting one. Although, they are the only ones that are in bold, but it's an interesting idea. It really gets the point across easier and quicker when there are less links to clutter the messages up. Gary King (talk) 06:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the ones in bold are arbitrary. In the first and third link, the proposal is remarked, but not the discussion. In the second, fourth and fifth, the discussion is remarked instead. -- ReyBrujo (talk)

Ah yes, excellent observation. I agree that only the discussion should be linked, or at the very least, the only bolded term. Administrators who edit this Mediawiki setting should be extra careful because once a change is made, between that edit and the next, people who visit their watchlist will see it, mistakes and all. There should be guidelines to edits made to this page. Accessibility, people, accessibility! Gary King (talk) 06:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, best watch page notice ever. I laughed, then screen shotted it. --Falcorian ^(talk) 06:31, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I can only imagine the thousands of poor souls who see these messages on their watchlist when they have absolutely no idea what the Arbitration Committee, MediaWiki, or scripts are. Gary King (talk) 06:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Then the watchlist notices are achieving something because they may cause someone to become interested in the Arbitration Committee, MediaWiki, and scripts and if they don't suddenly develop a willingness to involve themselves further in the community, the notice can be easily dismissed with a single click. Using the logic you have just applied, every link should be removed from the sidebar because there is a possibility that some people don't know what they do - do you think everyone who uses Wikipedia knows what "upload file" means? ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 08:42, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• Let's limit it to three at a time, rotating with each watchlist refresh. And yes, I also laughed when I saw this notice. user:Everyme 06:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I laughed a bit, but then the web developer in me cried a little :( Gary King (talk) 07:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The excessive watchlist notice thing seems very recent to me. It's not that big a deal to me, but please do think about whether or not it's important enough to notify millions of people about it when you put it on that list. Some obscure technical details about a new mediawiki anti-vandalism filter/plugin—just post it somewhere people that are interested can find it. And equally obscure politics in the upper echelons of Wikipedia administration, arbitration committees, etc., etc.—does it directly affect Joe Blow user in his editing? (Mainly I edit some articles in Category:Information theory, which is a nice little obscure area that doesn't attract that much undue attention or edit wars most of the time.) Deepmath (talk) 10:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't care less about how many notices there are in the watchlist (as long as there are less than 10), but I will say that I laughed long and hard when I read the bottom one. I came here expecting to see some July Fools joke. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 14:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This notification made my day! It's worth having a cluttered watchlist for the smile this put on my face. :-) --Tango (talk) 16:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Why not make the notices collapsible?

So? The notices could, as a whole, be collapsible and could be collapsed in page load. Any interested person can then click once to see them. Still I think, the number should be limited. user:Everyme 09:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I prefer being able to dismiss them individually. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 09:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to admit that I cannot see what the fuss is about. They're very unobtrusive and, if I want to make one go away, I can dismiss it. Six or more notices might get a little out of hand, but four is a manageable number. --Jenny 09:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Make a single button at the top of the page that can be accessed at any time "Would you like to see the noticeboard?". This would be all everyone sees as default, and when they click it they will be presented every single notice as current. If someone who chose to view notices changes their mind, click hide, they all go away until that person changes their mind. --AeronPrometheus (talk) 10:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

What about 1 collapsible box, with all of the notices which either gets its cookie # changed every time a new notice is added (so it reappaears) or a colapsible box without a dismiss button (not taking up much screen real estate) and every new noticegets added into the box as well as above it with a dismiss. The box contains undissmissable notices - the full notice list. Above the box is the notifications of new discussions - until you dismiss the new one, whereupon it dissapears from above, butremains in the full list in the collapsible box? Viridae^Talk 10:32, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This seems like a grand idea. You can collapse the whole noticeboard if you don't want to see a bunch of the "clutter", but also dismiss items indivisually as you read them (like an email inbox). bahamut0013♠♣ 12:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Building on this a little, how about a collapsible box that contains the dismissable notices in the current format. If the user dismisses all of them, the box disappears too, and doesn't reappear on subsequent loading of the watchlist, regardless of whether it's collapsed or expanded, until there are new notices in the box. The initial default would be collapsed and hence less obtrusive for users who aren't interested. --Athol Mullen (talk) 13:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Very nice solution - I was thinking this exact same thing as I came to this discussion and I'm glad to see it already suggested. One collapsed bar that alerts the user to new notices.. Once expanded each individual notice can be dismissed and after all are dismissed the whole box goes away. Morphh ^(talk) 14:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I think that would completely defeat the purpose of watchlist notices, as people will just get used to the collapsed box being there and ignore it. Resolute 14:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(That was meant as a response to Aeron's comment.) Resolute 14:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous Dissident is truly wise beyond his years. Look how many kb are wasted on yet another discussion about nothing. Of all the notices listed, this one is the only one that is a waste of time and I could have done without. The other discussions need community input to gain consensus. This one needs to be archived as needless drama and a waste of time. LaraLove|Talk 14:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Drama? Also, I beg to differ. We're having a lively discussion about this. May we? user:Everyme 15:02, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree 100% with Lara on this one. This is a totally unnecessary discussion. If you don't like the notices, click on "dismiss" and forget about them. It's not the end of the world. Thingg^⊕⊗ 15:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Did you even bother to read the criticisms? Again, this isn't merely about people who "don't like the notices." It's about a sudden, inexplicable breakdown in a system that's served us well for years. —David Levy 16:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Why then are we attacking the system that has served us so well, rather than drawing up guidelines on when it should be used? The MFD was a speedy close; that is a good sign of dramamongering. If there have been recent notices which havent been appropriate, discuss them. For example, I would like to agree with LaraLove and Anonymous Dissident: this is one of the most silly uses the watchlist notice that I have seen. All of the other ones at this rev were more important. We dont need everyones opinion on this matter in order to make a sane decision. (And yes, I did read this whole discussion (inc. the criticisms) before commenting, for good or ill). John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:07, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Few of us are "attacking the system." I (and others) think that it should remain the way that it was a mere week ago (and for years before that). —David Levy 00:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, well if the system isnt being attacked, then we are discussing some new checks and balances, which makes this discussion irrelevant to most people seeing this notice on their watchlist. This discussion really should be taken to the VP. I am removing the watchlist notice for this tempest. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:34, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

That's fine by me. —David Levy 00:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have to admit I thought the notice was satirical I saw it. Gave me a chuckle anyway ;) EyeSerene^talk 15:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Many, many "discussions need community input to gain consensus." Do you suggest that we advertise all of them on the watchlist (instead of on the pages created for this purpose)?

People have legitimate criticisms, including the concern that jamming the watchlist with relatively unimportant notices will result in the important ones being ignored. Whether one agrees or disagrees, to dismiss this as "needless drama and a waste of time" is downright disrespectful. —David Levy 16:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It should be up to the editor how many notices he whishes to receive and also which subjects.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 17:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The irony! bibliomaniac15 17:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Why is the deletion discussion for this page on there now? This is slowly getting out of hand. Gary King (talk) 17:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Optional notices

What the hell is going on here? Do not want to read alls this ridiculous discussion. Seeing some controversy between creating and abolishing the notices, let us just make them optional - a user could turn them on/off. Period. Or is this possible already???--Kozuch (talk) 17:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not currently possible, and I don't recommend that an option be created to turn them on or off. These notices should be the ones that concern all Wikipedians; fundraisers, for instance, are extremely important and should be sent to all Wikipedians who use their watchlist; those people are usually the ones that are most involved with Wikipedia. Gary King (talk) 17:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I am OK with notices, although if I see more than three then the layout looks cluttered. It would quite irritating too. So, this may be a long shot and already mentioned (I do not have the time or the patience to read through the entire discussion as it is), but would it be possible to create a link on top row, alongside the 'my watchlist' and 'my contributions' etc etc called 'my notifications/notices'? That way, it's a quick link to check up on things that may concern editors and the use of these notifications can be maximised. May also be possible to incorporate the sign post too! Does that sound alright or is it too much? - Erebus555 (talk) 19:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Pheh. It's not that bad, and they probably help things that would not normally be noticed get noticed. =) the_ed17 21:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

And that is a very good idea, Erebus555. At least in my view. the_ed17 21:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I can see why there's a concern. Personally, i don't care, & they don't bother me; if they do, I just dismiss. Suggesting the discussions go to the pump only works for people who go there first. My first look here is my watchlist, & I rarely go to the pump, so if the notices for things like the Main Page redesign (which interested me) didn't show onmy watchlist, I'd never have known. Leave as is, with a "dismiss" or delete option. TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 21:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Why not have Featured announcements where the most important announcements featured, and one or more announcements of the day can play in rotation or in toto on the Watchlist or upon login? Of course, the review period would have to be very short, probably less than a day or the announcement would go stale. Eventually, modify the code so upon login, you saw the last n non-expired featured announcements and/or the last m current non-featured announcements. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Gary King's stance. We should only have notices for the most vital aspects of Wikipedia, and these notices should be made highly prominent. Namely, sitewide mass changes that will affect or concern many or all users. This can also include major changes that possibly concern non-users as well, such as the Main page redesign. Such notices should require consensus, except in urgent cases when the notice is very obviously vital (What happened to this? This used to be the norm and suddenly such a requirement disappeared). A "My notifications" idea sounds good in paper, but I feel it will be abused and just become a spam box. Personally, I feel we need to make Centralised discussion more prominent and improve vastly on that. The CENT template was designed for a lot of current watchlist notices. --.:Alex:. 17:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposals and brain storming

There's several possible ways to go about this, so lets do some organized brainstorming.

Rotating

One or two notice lines that are rotated from a list (notice-pool). We form a very basic guideline on how long to keep certain notices in the notice-pool. And I mean very basic, to keep it manageable. Think of things like having two basic classes like major notice, minor notice. Major stay in longer, minor not as much, etc.

Notices are still discussed before being added, regardless if they're major, minor, or whatever. A max number for the notice-pool should also be set.

Alternatively, have more than one notice, say two, and one notice is fixed with the other rotating. -- Ned Scott 03:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

If anything, that sounds like it would be more annoying (because the current setup at least allows users to read and dismiss all of the current notices at once). —David Levy 03:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Dismissing would still be a part of the system, and I'm sure we could even add a "total dismissal" button, or at least a hide/show button. And this notice-pool can be big or small. We could have a notice-pool of only five or ten messages, for example. -- Ned Scott 03:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The current setup allows readers to read and dismiss all of the current messages (whether one or ten) at one time. It's annoying to read and dismiss one, only to have another (and another, and so on) appear later in the day. I'm not interested in dismissing the notices without reading them (and we already have code in place for users who prefer not to see any watchlist notices). —David Levy 04:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thinking more about it, I'm pretty sure it would be possible to have a "view all" link and have that page also list individual dismissal buttons. -- Ned Scott 04:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

That might work, but I don't like the idea of encouaging the watchlist's use for this purpose. We've gotten along fine before now. —David Levy 04:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

This kind of goes back to my honey comment above. I think the community likes the concept too much to use the watchlist rarely, like we used to. -- Ned Scott 04:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

What evidence is there that the community likes this concept? —David Levy 04:24, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The community likes the concept of getting people to notice these past proposals. The actual visual execution (how many, how often) is another thing. -- Ned Scott 04:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

You said that the community "likes the concept too much to use the watchlist rarely." There is no evidence of that. —David Levy 16:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

There's TONS of evidence that people want to make use of the notice. This very talk page is one peice of evidence. I've seen people mention "maybe we should get a watchlist notice" in tons of other discussions. You're basically asking me for evidence that the community likes the idea of getting other people to notice their discussions, and increase participation.. You really don't see how obvious that is? -- Ned Scott 06:36, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

1. Yes, "people" want to use the watchlist for this purpose. Other people don't. Do you see consensus for that (something implied in the claim that "the community" feels this way)? I sure don't.

2. No, I'm not "asking [you] for evidence that the community likes the idea of getting other people to notice their discussions, and increase participation." I'm asking you for evidence of consensus that this is how we should go about doing that. —David Levy 07:13, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake then. I think that a good portion likes the end result of what happens when something gets a watchlist notice, but there certainly isn't consensus on the actual method. The "honey" comment was more about the desire, which I think will likely lead to more watchlist notice requests. I'm all for satisfying the craving using another method, like the gadget proposal. -- Ned Scott 08:03, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(redent) I don't want to jump the gun, but should we start a vote like "1 at atime," "2 at a time," 3 at a time," (heaven forbid) "4 at a time," etc. Also, "1 hour," "12 hours," 1 week," "1 week," etc. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

That basic idea, hammering out those kinds of things, was what I was hoping this thread would be used for. By all means, lets break down different elements of this and see how people feel about them. -- Ned Scott 04:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. I think some of the main issues are:

Should we ever use watchlist notification (WN)?

How do we decide which discussion warrant WN?

Should we always have some number of discussions present, or should it be used rarely? How rarely?

If we should always have some of the most important dsicussions on WN, how many? 1,2,3,4,5...?

How long should each item remain as a WN?

- Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Feed proposal/RSS

How about creating a preferences option, perhaps on the Gadgets pane, to allow users to see a feed of notices on their watchlist if they want to. There could also be an XML feed that users could subscribe to with a feed reader. Give the user control. Don't force force them to opt out of every single message. That's just plain annoying. Jehochman ^Talk 04:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I also like this idea, and was considering making a userscript request for it. Opting-in would still be far more effective in notifying large groups of editors, than our current RfC methods. -- Ned Scott 04:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

How about a system where users would be able to select one of three options: No notification ever, notification only on very important measures, and notification on all measures? Either the second or third would have to be the default in order for it to not duplicate the current method. Ral315 (talk) 04:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to keep it opt-out instead of opt-in. There are lots of issues we have trouble deciding and this should be our last resort. The WP:ATT thing wouldn't have worked with opt-in, for instance. We just need to be more selective about what we advertise. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. There was no problem until people just started piling on the notices without discussion. —David Levy 04:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should have both? The plain old watchlist notice for major things, and this user gadget for other stuff. Having that as a tool would likely reduce the number of future watchlist notice requests. -- Ned Scott 04:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that Wikipedia has a huge communication problem, and that the watchlist itself should be recreated as a news feed to help deal with this. – SJL 04:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• I find it amusing that a notification about a discussion regarding the overuse of watchlist notices appeared on the watchlist. I do think that an opt-out option would be better than an opt-in system, there are important notices that this notice system can be used for, but some editors really don't care, or find the constant notices irritating, so, they should be given an opt-out option. Steve Crossin (contact) 04:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

So I'm not the only one that found this ironic? ;) Honestly though, I would love to never have to see a notice on my watchlist again. :) If there is some "big" decision in the making that I might care about, I probably already have a related page added to my watchlist to help me find out about it.--Rockfang (talk) 04:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

We do have a communication problem. Optimal use of the watchlist, whatever that is, could help quite a bit.

The "Todays featured article" situation is the closest I can think of to this one; limited time/space. I don't want a TFA director like Raul654 is for that, but more of a community thing. We do need some system. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why the watchlist couldn't be redesigned so that it is a newsfeed that displays stories, but I'm a political scientist and not a programmer. What I have in mind, though, is something like this:

If an article has been modified, a story comes up that says "[X] has been modified. Click here for more information.", and clicking on that link expands a list of all changes made to that article within a user-designated period of time (and maybe have a button beside it so you can stop watching that article if you want to). Similarly, announcements would show up as stories in the feed, with the default set to include high-level administrative announcements that require wide community attention. The user would have the option to opt-out of those if they wanted to, but also sign up to other types of announcements, like from their favourite WikiProject, for example. I am certain that if the watchlist were redesigned as a central hub for real communication and navigation, it would significantly improve the level of participation and efficiency of many editors. I've seen a number of people here and elsewhere suggest something along the lines of 'if people really wanted to participate, they'd be at the village pump', or whatever, but I think that this is completely wrong. Wikipedia has a steep learning curve that requires a level of technical understanding (and often intuition) that many potential editors simply do not have, and often do not have time to acquire. You can't blame people for not participating in a meeting if don't give them directions on how to get there. – SJL 04:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• Again, it should not be cluttered. Allow at most a few notices at a time. G.A.S 04:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

"Disable watchlist notices" option

I agree that there needs to be some sort of opt-out, not an opt-in. I think the simplest thing would be to add a link, similar to the current [dismiss], that would place a cookie that automatically dismissed any watchlist notices that came through. If that cookie were present, then instead of the watchlist notices there would be a link that would allow the user to "enable watchlist notices". What do you guys think?--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 04:50, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea to me, if it's technically OK. Walkerma (talk) 05:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

That would work for those that have no interest whatsoever in any messages. But many (and I'm one of them), think that it is useful as a tool for important announcements. The problem is that the measure of "important" seems to have changed recently so that many more things qualify as "important". -- Whpq (talk) 12:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, if I was confident there would never be a real sitewide announcement of interest to me, I would just block this in CSS. The problem is, firstly, that sometimes there are really important announcements - it used to be the case that there were only such announcements - and, secondly, it's clear enough now that less important announcementcruft will tend to leak back into any system implemented to exclude it. My personal preference would be to limit it to only matters that are of interest to every single user who has a watchlist, and only one two-line announcement (on only one subject) at a time. Any new addition would have to replace any older one, and justify doing so. The well-intentioned feature that adds multiple "dismiss" links, making multiple messages allegedly more convenient for the user, is directly responsible for this explosion (unintended consequences etc.) and ought to go. More importantly, we ought to back up admins enforcing any trimming of the notice, otherwise, we're right back here again. — Gavia immer (talk) 13:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Cookies are a bad solution. Some folks use multiple computers and shared computers where their cookies get cleared when they quit the browser. Jehochman ^Talk 14:36, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

True. I've been bouncing between multiple computers this month, so I have to hit dismiss on each notice every time I move to a new PC.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 05:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Consensus to list

I propose that such notices should first be discussed on WP:RFC or WP:VILLAGE to see whether it is needed to take it to the greater community; and for how long it should be listed. I do find the notices useful, but they are becoming too frequent. G.A.S 04:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think we should probably make a new page to decide things. How about WP:Watchlist notification? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:21, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem with both of these proposals is the same: We run into the Nobody cares problem. For listing the discussion to add {{C-Class}} to {{grading scheme}} (that is, to modify the assessment scale used in 1.3 million articles), I asked twice at WP:AN, which has as high a visibility as it gets. I only got one response, so essentially, I had to be BOLD and list it after the FritzBot poll expired. If that happened in the admins' noticeboard, which has thousands of eyes looking at it daily, what would happen in a new notification backwater? Essentially, the problem is not solved, as the means to get the consensus are already there; just nobody cares to help build it. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 09:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't dispute the need for watchlist notices regarding actual official goings-on or major policy changes - it's pretty much the only way to get information out there. ArbCom elections, Wikimania etc are examples. But a lot of the stuff is completely trivial and shouldn't be on there at all. Orderinchaos 12:47, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

I've found the "dismiss" button to be quite effective in solving this ... er ... "problem." But that's just me... S. Dean Jameson 05:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Making people click "dismiss" is not as good as not bothering them to begin with. Also, we don't want a situation where people automatically click dismiss because they can assume it's something they don't care about. If we choose what to WN carefully, it will have much more impact. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It takes maybe three seconds to read the notice, and click dismiss (or not). Isn't this a solution looking for a problem? S. Dean Jameson 05:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

There are people who are aggravated by having to dismiss clutter. It's like saying that spam should be allowed because it only takes a second to delete an email. But if everybody spams, those seconds add up, and important stuff inevitably gets lost in the noise. Cluttering the watchlist with trivial notices will cause people to develop notice blindness. This ruins the effectiveness for truly important notices. Jehochman ^Talk 12:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Bloody hell. spam? notice blindness? Jehochman, you make it sound like Wikipedia is usenet; discussions like this one are taking it in that direction. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Dismiss doesn't actually work all that well. If you have a largish watchlist like I do, it actually loads, then the page "jerks" suddenly about 2-3 seconds later - very disconcerting when you only want to check your watchlist. Orderinchaos 03:30, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

As long as...

I think a bunch of notices on the watchlist is not that distracting. As long as folks don't insist too much on putting announcements on the main sitenotice which is seen from every article, they can use the watchlist as much as they want. If tens/hundreds of articles on your watchlist don't bother you, why would a few notices bother you? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

A very good point. -- Ned Scott 05:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

If people are bothered, it is not a solution to tell them to change their attitude. The user should have control over what appears on their watchlist page. Jehochman ^Talk 14:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Users have the right to vanish, the right to fork, ... oh yes, .. and the right to control their own CSS/JS. Any user who doesnt want to see these watchlist notices can turn them off in their CSS. Any really important notices will appear in the site notice. If this is worth all of this noise, then some of you are way too botherable, and an attitude change might be in order. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Again, this isn't merely about users who don't want to see watchlist notices. It's about not wanting editor-oriented announcements (for which the site notice is an inappropriate location) of great importance and broad relevance to be buried in a perpetual mass of text that people learn to ignore. —David Levy 00:28, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

This talk page discussion is not moving anywhere near working out how to discern which notices are good and which ones are not wanted. i.e. if your goal is to improve when this page is used, the discussion so far hasnt furthered that goal. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:44, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. It would be nice if we could shift the discussion more in that direction. —David Levy 00:49, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Too many "ongoing discussion" noticeboards

We seem to have at least 4 (including here). WP:CENT and WP:RFC and WP:CBB, and of course the various WP:PUMP's. Some people who know how to "work the system" add their pet project to all of them at once. Can anyone think of a good path to eliminating some of the redundancy? -- Quiddity (talk) 05:36, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by working the system? It's not like it's a secret on how to edit and add a discussion to those areas. -- Ned Scott 05:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to not name names. Some people who are aware of all the noticeboards, tend to add pointers to 3 at once, because they believe that their project is the most important thing since sliced bread. This is because the systems overlap (redundancy), and there aren't clear delineations of what each board is for, or best at.

There's also Wikipedia:Watch and Wikipedia:Requests, which are closely related.

I'm just thinking out loud, and hoping someone will have an epiphany on how to simplify/improve things, so that there are fewer things to check/watchlist continually. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:47, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Categorisation/filtering

I don't know if it's technically possible, but if so would it be a good idea to have some kind of category assigned to each notice? Then each user could, in their user preferences, decide which categories of notice they wish to see (and, perhaps more importantly, which ones they don't wish to see). You could still have site-wide notices too, where necessary. Waggers (talk) 09:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

That's sort of how WP:RFC is meant to work, I believe. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Why cookies?

I don't understand why clicking 'dismiss' (if I understand correctly) sets a cookie on one's computer, and why this is seen as a suitable solution. I use at least three separate computers most days, and on one of them I clear cookies every time I leave the browser because it's a shared computer. Clicking 'dismiss' should mark it as read/invisible in one's login -- isn't this the point of logging in? --Zeborah (talk) 09:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Cookies are the easiest and less-resource intensive way to hide the notifications. The alternative is a range of database tables to accommodate what is hidden. Although an alternative could be to automatically modify the monobook.css when Dismiss is clicked to hide the notification, although I don't know how practical (server intensive etc.) that would be. ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 10:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Universal dismiss

I'd like to see a universal "dismiss all" option so one could remove all the notices with a single click instead of individually removing them. This would lessen the annoyance and likely appease many of the concerns raised. Banjeboi 22:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

"dismiss alert"

How about also modify the alerts, like the rest of the world seems to have done, with an option of "don't show me this message again". Having to see the same ones each time I log in and then one by one delete them over and over is tedious. Many people use several computers or otherwise need to log in several times in a single day. If we could do something to enable that once they click don't show me this message it's gone. That would be just super! Banjeboi 23:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Remove most of these

Putting aside the irony of the appearance of a message advertising a discussion about limiting the number of messages, I think that most of these items should be removed:

• The last Main Page redesign was advertised on watchlists, but only after there was actually some final designs to choose from, since that's the time that it becomes a relevant issue for everyone.
• I don't see what makes the abuse filter proposal different from any of the other technical/policy proposals circulating, and it is likewise in an extremely early phase in development. Again, it starts to affect everyone when it comes time to consider switching the extension on.
• What is special about the adminbots RfC, as opposed to all the other ongoing RfCs that are just as much in need of attention?

Obviously I'm not going to pass judgment on the listing of the arbitration RfC, but I don't think there's a strong enough case for any of the other matters to appear on the watchlist yet. --bainer (talk) 05:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• The mainpage redesign may interest people who want to begin working on a design now, not when designs are posted. If no one knows about the redesign then no one will submit a new design - very simple logic.
• The abuse filter is a very large technological enhancement to the site and requires community input into its implementation. Something that has the capability of banning users and unsysoping users simply for clicking "Save page" needs in-depth discussion from a large audience.
• Adminbots are a very touchy subject in the community and consensus from as many people as possible is needed.

Answer this: are the notices being there harming anyone? No, they can be easily hidden. If they are not there are they harming anyone? Yes, important decisions could be made without an input from a large portion of the community. ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 05:39, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The harm is that important discussions will get lost in the shuffle. Maybe all these discussions are important. I don't think so, but it should be determined by consensus. Maybe they're important, but there are more important discussions not getting WN'd. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I've got to agree more than 2 is too much and things like policy RFCs or background mediawiki extensions are not notable (doh!) enough to be worth inclusion on the watchlist. THe Main Page competition is the closest to being worth it, and even then, interested parties would fin dit if it was listed in the right places. A limit of 2 at a time and no listing of routine processes would be good ground rules to establish. MBisanz ^talk 08:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

That would mean that a small niche group of editors, who already know about the discussions, get to decide on what the general community is informed about. Right now I have 2 of the 5 notices hidden; the mainpage redesign and the ArbCom RfC - everyone finds different things interesting/important and the end user should be left to dismiss what they don't want to see - not forced to find what they don't want to dismiss. ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 09:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Newest addition

{{editprotected}}

Could this edit please link to a specific discussion on this page (using an anchor) rather than linking to the top of the page? Gary King (talk) 05:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Done for you. Please check if I got the right section, though... :P weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 05:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I have no idea which discussion it was intended to link to, but by now there are more than one that discuss the same issue. Gary King (talk) 05:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Question

Since I have been noticing these, and they seem to be sort of random, who has the authority to put these up? The topics I have seen have been so out of the scope of what I do here, (not that they are not important), but I was just wondering why so many come up lately. Craig Montgomery (talk) 08:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It's summertime, so I guess it's the decision-making time of the year? Also, I suppose any administrator can put messages on here, as long as they think that it affects the whole community. Gary King (talk) 08:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I guess I just looked at a few and thought they were nice to be aware of, but some seemed very obtuse. I was just curious. Thanks partner. Craig Montgomery (talk) 08:17, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is trying to fix this. I personally think that it's being overrun, and I'm glad others feel the same. Gary King (talk) 08:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it is cool that I get invited to decision making with these alerts, but I look at some of them and wonder if they are open invites to a problem that can probably get solved another way. Just my thoughts. Craig Montgomery (talk) 08:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Or better yet, for some of them, only a small number of niche editors need to be contacted to form a consensus. Gary King (talk) 08:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

What I would like to see.

I would prefer not to see the requests in my watchlist page. They're also annoying because, although I've dismissed them, they keep coming back, after I've cleared my Browser Cache.

I've no objection if these requests for discussion appear at the top of my talk page, which is a slightly more logical place for them to appear, but I don't want these "requests for discussion" to trigger the pop-up box telling me I've got new messages - that should be reserved for proper messages, not disagreements between Jimbo Wales and ArbCom.Hethurs (talk) 09:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

They're in the watchlist because only registered users have watchlists, so it's essentially a hacky way to show things only to registered users without being otherwise visible. I agree that a way to do this on talk pages would be far superior, but I don't know any practical way to accomplish it - remember, there are registered accounts out there with redlinked talk pages. — Gavia immer (talk) 13:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Show/hide all, and suggested rules

Since some dislike the watchlist notices we could add some options that allows people to dismiss all notices "forever":

• One way is to have a javascript based [hide/show notices] button. However, such a button does not work properly for users that has set their web browsers to delete cookies between sessions. (Unless they explicitly configure their browser to allow cookies from Wikipedia.)
• We could also add a user interface gadget (menu at top of page - my preferences - Gadgets) to make it easy for people to turn on and off watchlist notices. That one can use CSS and will work without cookies.

I suggest we add both, since the cookie based show/hide button doesn't work for all users, while the gadget is hard to find for the users. A third option that would work for all and be easy to find, but involves some extra clicks, is to instead have a link next to the watchlist notices to a page that explains about the gadget and links to "My preferences". (Does any one know how to link directly to the "Gadgets" tab in the preferences?)

And here are my suggestions for rules for notices, similar to current usage:

• Max three at a time, each notice showing one week. But with an exception: Allow more than three for urgent notices. Thus don't remove the three that are there if you need to put up an urgent notice. But for most notices it is no problem to wait some week until there are a "free slot".

• I see no need for a rotating notice system. Yes, some people want to have many more notices, but some want to have less. Thus the current way without rotating notices and about 1-3 notices a week seems to be a good middle way.

• Brand new proposals / projects etc shouldn't be announced as a watchlist notice. Instead they should be announced at the village pumps and other relevant pages for some weeks so they are more mature before they should be allowed as a watchlist notice. Except of course for urgent messages.

• Since some seem to think it is needed: Notices should perhaps be presented and discussed for instance on this talk page before they are put up. But I think we should be lenient about what notices we allow, since after all, announcing things is a way to get more user input on a subject and co-operation is the wiki way.

• Each watchlist announcement should only contain a single link. That link should go to a page that explains the details and that page can in turn link to other relevant pages. That also eliminates the need to use bolded links, thus making the notices less intrusive.

That was my 10 cents on the matter.

--David Göthberg (talk) 10:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with all of this. With suitable editing, the above could be lifted to a page, such as MediaWiki:Watchlist-details/Process that explains how this works. Jehochman ^Talk 13:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist messages - more

Everybody seems to be starting their own heading for this so I'm going to do the same. In principle I'm strongly in favour of some sort of method of presenting important discussions to the community at large, because wiki is such a huge ramshackle place it's practically impossible to keep on top of it all. Whether presenting them on the watchlist page is the right solution I don't know (it doesn't really bother me) but it would be nice if there was some centralized page somewhere that people could go to in order to see a list of all the more important proposals being made.

On the broader issue though, I think wikipedia is desperately in need of a redesign to make it easier to find what you are looking for. There is such a huge plethora of policy, guideline and essay pages that even after two years on the project I still have difficulty finding the page I want. Gatoclass (talk) 11:09, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Misunderstanding

Some of the above comments stem from the mistaken belief that all of this "fuss" is being made by users who don't want to see watchlist notices. On the contrary, such individuals can easily block them by adding simple code to their personal CSS. Others, however, want to see important, editor-oriented notices on the watchlist, and the problem is that it suddenly has been flooded with notices arbitrarily inserted without adequate discussion (let alone consensus).

This isn't merely about aesthetics; it's about truly important notices being overlooked as editors learn to instinctively ignore/dismiss the massive block of mostly irrelevant text. I'm stunned by these discussions about things such as limiting the list to three notices at a time and replacing them with another three on a weekly basis. A week ago, having one watchlist notice was an atypical occurrence, and we got along just fine. What's suddenly changed?

When I see people expressing their fondness for receiving Wikipedia "news" via the watchlist, I'm reminded of those who claim to depend on our main page's In the news section (instead of Wikinews or another news website) as their primary world news source. What's so difficult about looking in the correct places (in this case, the longstanding project pages designated for this purpose)?

Users who aren't aware of those pages' existence are unlikely to know or care about most of the topics being advertised (or the ramifications thereof). They're here to edit articles, so bombarding them with these notices will only serve to annoy/distract them and encourage them to participate in discussions in which they probably aren't knowledgeable enough to take part. —David Levy 11:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

How do we hide these via CSS? Do you really want people to hide all notices forever? Maybe once in a while there is something really important that people do need to see. Jehochman ^Talk 13:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't want people to hide all notices forever. Indeed, we do occasionally have a truly important notice. That's my point.

But for those who choose to do this, the CSS code (already noted above) is as follows:

#watchlist-message { display: none; }.

—David Levy 16:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(Duped from above because it's equally apt here and page navigation has collapsed)Yeah, if I was confident there would never be a real sitewide announcement of interest to me, I would just block this in CSS. The problem is, firstly, that sometimes there are really important announcements - it used to be the case that there were only such announcements - and, secondly, it's clear enough now that less important announcementcruft will tend to leak back into any system implemented to exclude it. My personal preference would be to limit it to only matters that are of interest to every single user who has a watchlist, and only one two-line announcement (on only one subject) at a time. Any new addition would have to replace any older one, and justify doing so. The well-intentioned feature that adds multiple "dismiss" links, making multiple messages allegedly more convenient for the user, is directly responsible for this explosion (unintended consequences etc.) and ought to go. More importantly, we ought to back up admins enforcing any trimming of the notice, otherwise, we're right back here again. — Gavia immer (talk) 13:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Talk page?

I have briefly read over the above and I can see many good ideas including the use of JavaScript but I thought that a simple solution would be a good solution. Why not use the user's talk page (by that I mean an automatic message to each user's talk page)? If they don't want to read it, they can ignore it, or delete it, and eventually it will be archived if they decide to keep the message. Once the message is dismissed or deleted, it is gone but can be easily restored. No limits on the amount of messages, and I find it a better method to place messages than simply filling the watchlist.

As for what messages should be displayed, maybe we should set up some way of deciding what messages are sent by creating a new policy or guideline.

Comments? Onecanadasquarebishopsgate 12:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Important vs less important notices

Perhaps we need to distinguish between "important" notices that should be seen by all, and would have to be individually dismissed, and less important notices that could be bundled into a collapsible section that users can choose to ignore. Of course, admins still have to decide which ones are "important", but I expect that some of the current ones would be clearly seen as not needing to be in that high-priority class. --Athol Mullen (talk) 14:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

No watchlist notices, period

This stuff doesn't belong on the watchlists. The Community portal is for community issues, the watchlist is for watching articles. Doesn't anyone take interface organization seriously around here? Putting advertisements for people's pet issues on everyone else's personal watchlists is called "spam" in my book. Kaldari (talk) 15:02, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. My watchlist page is for me to check up on some of my favorite pages and to help keep them vandal free. I do not care about all of RFCs or redesigns of whatever page or if there is a meetup in a city a few hours away. I DON'T CARE. It wouldn't be nearly as bad if you could just completely dismiss particular ones and never see them again. But no they keep coming back and it is quite annoying. Mikemill (talk) 15:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, people seem to have suddenly forgotten the watchlist's purpose (and that inserting a notice is supposed to be an occasional deviation for extraordinary circumstances). —David Levy 16:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the discussion should center around what constitute "extraordinary circumstances", as well as on how to make some of these issues more visible in the spaces where they belong. I largely agree with you; on the other hand (as I've written elsewhere), I've been directed to things by watchlist notices that I would have never found without them (for example, the discussion of the Main Page redesign - I still can't find that on the front page of the Community Portal; I would have thought an important topic like that would have been prominent there). MatthewDBA (talk) 16:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The proposed main page redesign should have been advertised that way. Instead, someone decided to slap it on the watchlist (despite the fact that the idea was brand new and had generated virtually no discussion). That's what started this mess, as it evidently opened the floodgates. —David Levy 17:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I also agree. It's getting abused and if it continues, people will just ignore the messages and write them off as spam. Pacific Coast Highway ^{{talk • contribs}} 16:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I share this sentiment as well. It's not like the Community Portal is hard to find, either. Nufy8 (talk) 16:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

In my experience, it's sometimes been hard to find particular information in the Community Portal, though. MatthewDBA (talk) 16:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

In that case, we should focus our efforts on streamlining the Community Portal. Nufy8 (talk) 16:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. As a web designer/programmer, I have - to put it lightly - major issues with the page design. Where can I start a discussion about whether or not it should be streamlined? (And would anyone join me in the discussion :-) ) MatthewDBA (talk) 17:09, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Community Portal would be the place for that. Nufy8 (talk) 17:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It's too much lately, for sure. There must be a million little grunt editors like me who only care about our little electrical and and geographic articles and photos or whatever and have no interest in knowing whether Admins get robotic powers or Main Page becomes snazzier. Let the upper ranks get the notices and any common foot soldier who wants to know such things can look for them in Portals or whereever. Jim.henderson (talk) 17:02, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I would also be happy with seeing all of these messages gone or possibly only the absolute most important showing (fund-raising proposals, server and software proposals, things that keep the site running and problem free that without them there would be no Wikipedia). 99% of the time I could care less what is going on Portal/Village Pump-type pages. I am here just to make needed random edits as I see fit and wish to leave those other things to others who care about Portal and Village Pump talk specifically. . . but those people who do care about them visit those pages on their own already without the need for watchlist notices. The flood of these notices that I have seen lately are ridiculous. It is as if a few admins think the discussion will not be settled unless more voices are heard, but the new voices only help to strengthen both sides of the issue getting the situation nowhere. Lay off of the watchlist notices! — CobraWiki ^{( jabber | stuff )} 23:43, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

You guys clearly are unaware of how badly the community portal and other RFC methods are failing us. -- Ned Scott 06:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Failing in what way? Not bringing in a ton of users? I would not have visited this discussion either if not to complain. Ever since I finally found my way around on here, I have seen many things including, for instance, hundreds of images deleted because someone made the IFD proposition, no other person posted a reply at all, and an admin came along and mass-closed then removed a string of them that had been proposed for a week or so because there were no objections. That basically shows that a large consensus isn't needed for anything that has little interest around here (only a consensus of "one"), and at least some admins if not all are always going to do what it takes to keep things moving (that is not a bad thing, by the way). If not enough people speak up and enough of the people in power have the control to do so, things will change regardless when some sort of change is being proposed, so I don't see the need to involve a lot of extra random members who generally could not care less or join to post "Agree/Disagree" without even fully understanding the reasons why a discussion is going on. Therefore, I stand by what I said previously. — CobraWiki ^{( jabber | stuff )} 07:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The point isn't to bring in people who don't care, but rather who do care but aren't aware of these proposals/discussions. If you read my comments you'll see that I think the watchlist method is just one possible option. The more I think about it the more I like the other proposal, to make a Gadget that would allow users to opt in to getting notices. This would likely have the ability to opt into certain categories of notices as well.

Still, I think you miss the point on most of the proposals/discussions that have been featured on the watchlist notice. Most of those are intended to draw in the random editor and see what they think. Some of them weren't even about controversial issues. I agree with you that getting a ton of random faces in on any given discussion will probably not improve anything, but I don't think that's the situation for most of the notices that were given in the past. -- Ned Scott 07:11, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

This page, and the problem is started from...

...are the cancer that is killing /b/ Wikipedia. Seriously, I don't come to Wikipedia for internal politics and strife, or to be bombarded with notices every time I check my watchlist. Things like the abuse of notices and discussions that go on and on like this, without really saying anything, rank right up there with rampant deletionism as something that turns off new users in a hurry, and plenty of experienced ones too. – ɜɿøɾɪɹℲ _{( тɐʟк • ¢ʘи†ʀ¡βs )} 16:31, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it's a plot to troll all of us. Pacific Coast Highway ^{{talk • contribs}} 00:56, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

This one line with two links should be enough

Please also see Requests for comment and Village pump for new proposals regarding the maintenance of and policies and guidelines for Wikipedia. Your comments are wanted and welcome!
Turn on: All Hot topics • RFC Hot topics • VP Hot topics

Or something along those lines. On those pages there could be a revolving "Top discussions" list to point to the most contentious of issues which need the community's help the most. - LA @ 16:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: This message could be turned off by an expiring cookie which would redisplay this message at midnight UTC on the first day of each month as a little reminder that those two areas exist and may be in need of the community's help. The message could be turned off permanently by editing one's CSS file (User:<name>/<skin>.css). - LA @ 19:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Addendum 2: There could also be a way for users to turn on the "Top discussions" on their watch lists. See the expanded example, please. There could then be the pages Requests for comment/Hot topics and Village pump/Hot topics which would act as this current page acts. - LA @ 20:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Now that's exactly what I was looking for. I think there does need to be a redesign of those pages to make active discussions, and those with wide ramifications, more visible and accessible. -- MatthewDBA (talk) 17:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I am fine with that idea. Jehochman ^Talk 16:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Too bad it makes sense. Pacific Coast Highway ^{{talk • contribs}} 17:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

So, where to put this proposed change to make it more visible? - LA @ 18:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps here? -- MatthewDBA (talk) 18:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

"Too bad it makes sense."? :| Gary King (talk) 18:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Nominated for Deletion

To help this discussion reach some sort of official result, I have nominated the page for deletion. See notice and link at the top, and please comment! Jehochman ^Talk 16:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

.... really now... -- Ned Scott 06:40, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion for Notices on Watchlist

I clearly did not read the entire page because let's face it, it's f***ing long so this idea may be up above and I don't know it.

Could you have a link on the top of the watchlist (1 link) that links to a page with all the notifications? The text of the link can be whatever, even a rotating snipet of each notifications (performance dependent, I don't want this thing boggin' down). That way, fi you are interested, you can check it out. If you aren't, you ignore one line of text. Barring that, I recommend that any notifications be limited to things that require input from all of wikipedia, in truth. "Hey guys, I think that before we delete the 'Did you know' section from the main page, we should probably open it up to all wikipedians." Anyway, I am not a huge fan of notifications about things I don't care about at the top of a page I do.

My 2 cents. Dachande (talk) 17:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

What should and shouldn't be here

IMO the only stuff that should be here is stuff that affects absolutly every editor who looks at thier watchlist. Of the current notices (Main Page redesign, ArbCom RFC, Anti vandal extension, Admin RFC) only the main page redesign is of interest to everybody, and that's the only that should stay. There should be requirement that the person who requests it here should be able to proove that their notice needs to be seen by every account on wikipedia.--Serviam (talk) 17:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Not even the main page affects everyone. I never look at it and really don't care all that much what is on it. - LA @ 17:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I don't look at or care about the main page either. SQL^{Query me!} 17:50, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It's become a joke when you turn on wikipedia to be met with :

• A discussion regarding the use of watchlist notices and whether the number should be limited is ongoing. [dismiss]

and

• A deletion discussion is currently underway for the page that allows notices such as this to appear at the top of people's watchlists. [dismiss]

Are these important messages or is this some kind of satire? Totnesmartin (talk) 17:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Satire. And a poor one at that. I think the notices should be ones that a typical visitor can understand; in that regard, the main page design is definitely understandable. There is no technical language involved or anything niche, like "arbitration committee" where a lot of people have no idea what that is and don't care. If a notice mentions that new designs are being proposed for the main page, then most people will understand that right off the bat. Gary King (talk) 18:09, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Editprotected

Remove the bottom-most list item; I can't myself, even though I snowed the MFD. Sceptre ^(talk) 17:45, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes indeed, remove it. This is slowly getting out of hand. Gary King (talk) 17:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. --Deskana (talk) 17:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Damn me for not having the bit! Sceptre ^(talk) 17:47, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Not so slowly in fact. A couple? Fine....5 or 6? Over the top. RxS (talk) 17:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. It just started happening fairly recently. Perhaps it's a slow summer? Gary King (talk) 17:51, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Mainpage redesign

{{Editprotected}} I propose that the notice regarding the mainpage redesign also be removed. It is not any more or less important than anything else that has been removed in the last 24 hours. ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 04:34, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it's important because it affects essentially everyone who will see the main page, and that's a lot of people. Also, the contest is getting a lot of proposals, so it would be nice if each one gets a sufficient amount of comments. Gary King (talk) 04:40, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

It's clear that we won't be having a "contest," and while some promising designs have been submitted, most of the designs contain multiple elements that are technically unfeasible and/or have been overwhelmingly rejected in the past (some on several occasions). This is because the watchlist notice is encouraging people lacking knowledge of this to jump in and propose these unrealistic ideas (some of which don't even relate to the main page, which the individuals in question don't realize). I really hate to see well-meaning users wasting their time like this, and we had plenty of participation in the previous redesign (which wasn't advertised in this manner until we were ready for the final vote). Wikipedia has far more users now than we did then, so if we could achieve better organization (which the watchlist notice is hindering), we probably could draw even more participants this time around.

In short, the watchlist notice is doing more harm than good. —David Levy 04:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, remove it Gary King (talk) 04:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Given my involvement, I'd prefer to leave that to someone else. —David Levy 05:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

(<--) Can an admin do this please? We have consensus from three people (+ the rest of the page) and no opposes after almost 24 hours. ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 02:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Done I'll take a lack of opposition to mean it's uncontroversial. If anyone complains, just stick it back up. Cheers. --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 04:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Yikes

Yes, it's annoying but perhaps a small number is a needed evil. First can we immediately whip up a script so users can dismiss all alerts with one click? That would reduce the pain a bit. Second, how about a modified one, like the rest of the world seems to have with "alerts", of "don't show me this message again". Having to see the same ones each time I log in and then one by one delete them over and over is tedious. Finally I would like to see a limit on the number and size of them. Sadly, I have little doubt we already are limiting the use of these things. The fact that many editors are tired of wikidrama and don't wish to jump into, yet another, long conversation on boring but important issues won't be helped by pestering them that, surprise, yet another one is going on right now. Banjeboi 17:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The same ones shouldn't keep appearing after you dismiss them. I think the reason that's happening is either something is wrong with your cookies, or frankly, what's more likely is that some administrators change the cookie number for a message when they fix a simple typo, causing the notice to re-appear. Which yes, is very annoying, because one usually assumes that a new message means a new discussion, not the same message that we dismissed but slightly reworded. Gary King (talk) 18:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Or like many we visit Wikipedia from more then one computer. It would be better if it was a user setting and not a cookie. Mikemill (talk) 18:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Move them to the bottom

If you want to look, you can. If not -- how often do you look at the bottom of your watchlist? — MusicMaker5376 22:02, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Moving watchlist notices to the bottom of the page defeats the purpose of having notices at all. —Kurykh 22:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Not if you know that they're there. — MusicMaker5376 22:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

If you know that they're there, there would be no need for notices. —Kurykh 22:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Knowing that notices exist at the bottom of a page, doesn't imply that one would know their contents... -- Quiddity (talk) 22:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Let me rephrase. Notices are supposed to be prominent (and somehow also non-obtrusive at the same time). Relegating them to the bottom of the heap defeats the purpose. —Kurykh 22:17, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

So does jamming the watchlist so full of relatively unimportant announcements that people stop bothering to pay attention to them. —David Levy 22:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. If you know they're down there and you care to look, you will. They're still prominent as they're on a page that you visit every day, several times a day. They're just not in your face demanding attention. — MusicMaker5376 22:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the longstanding practice of placing editor-oriented notices at the top of the watchlist (where they're considerably more visible), but only for occasional announcements of great importance and broad relevance. —David Levy 23:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Do we always jam a bunch of announcements on the top of the watchlist? No. It's only this one time (not that I support it). We're blowing a one-time misstep completely out of proportion, like we do this all the time for no good reason. —Kurykh 23:44, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

So far, this is a one-time misstep. But some editors (not you) advocate making it a regular practice. —David Levy 23:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It's becoming increasingly more prevalent. — MusicMaker5376 23:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

—Kurykh 23:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

What is? —David Levy 23:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Then impose limits. Eliminating the watchlist notice tool or denuding the tool of its effectiveness is a disproportionate response given the situation we're in. —Kurykh 23:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. —David Levy 00:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Personally I wouldn't mind having the notices at the bottom of the watchlist. Among other things since I don't think that notices need to reach all editors, only enough editors. I tend to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the watchlist every now and then, but I don't know if enough editors do that. But anyway, currently the MediaWiki software does not support that. We admins can only edit what is shown above the horizontal line at the top of the watchlist.

--David Göthberg (talk) 12:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd hate to see these default to the bottom, but if it could be moved with a gadget or user side script that would be fine. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Wonderful

I had to use the history of the watchlist message to find the link to the adminbots RfC and the link to the abuse filter discussion. However, the main page redesign - which I don't care about - is still there (albeit dismissed). If the end-user didn't want to see the links they can dismiss them, instead two links which I found useful are gone and one I am impartial to and one that I can't see remain. It's simply wonderful that this porcelain-based typhoon has interferred with the convenience of the end-user. ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 22:36, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think "porcelain based" is hyphenated. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:39, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you're right. Fixed. ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 23:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

There are many, many ongoing community discussions that you're blissfully unaware of (because they don't happen to be among those that a sysop arbitrarily deemed watchlist-worthy). It isn't at all convenient for users to be misled to believe that all such announcements will be made via the watchlist, which discourages them (and you, evidently) from utilizing the designated forums. —David Levy 22:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I look at WP:CENT periodically and I can't see anything on there right now that I find interesting that wasn't on the watchlist prior to this latest example of bureaucratic nonsense. ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 23:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

And of course, your interests are sacrosanct. —David Levy 23:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

When it's my watchlist: Yes. And if something blasphemous to my sacred interests appears I will smite it - which is what everyone who didn't like the 5 messages should have done in the first place. ~ Ameliorate _{U T C} @ 23:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Have you bothered reading about the problems with that (noted above)? And what about the stuff that other people care about (but happens not to be listed)? Should we list everything on the watchlist? Did you miss the part about the watchlist notices no longer attracting as much attention if they become a massive, permanent fixture? —David Levy 23:23, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Noticelist

I find each and every notice on Special:Watchlist to be entirely out-of-place and wholly annoying. That page exists so I can watch pages of my choosing and notices are put there as a convenience which I do not welcome. Create Wikipedia:Noticelist and anyone who cares can put Wikipedia:Noticelist on their watchlist JUST LIKE ANY OTHER PAGE and see changes. If people don't care about notices then they won't watch; if people care they'll watch. Policies for what goes on Wikipedia:Noticelist is entirely up to the people who care enough to watch it.

Heck, go to town with Wikipedia:Noticelist/Elections, Wikipedia:Noticelist/Foo, and Wikipedia:Noticelist/Bar which you can selectively watch.

Otherwise any notice on Special:Watchlist better be damned important. Board elections do not count (if you care enough to participate you can watch Wikipedia:Noticelist). "Topic XYZ is up for discussion" do not count. "WP:V is being split" do not count. "Watchlists will be purged for reason X" do count.

Get off my lawn, er, watchlist! Cburnett (talk) 22:59, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Seriously

Am I the only one who thinks the notices are no big deal. They notify people like me who don't have enough time to go around looking at lots of pages about whats going on. If you've read a notice, and want it to go away, just click "dismiss". Duh. How much time does that take, like 10 seconds? 5:15 04:25, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Spammers use that same sort of argument. What's wrong with me sending you an email. It only takes one second to delete... Jehochman ^Talk 19:17, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I happen to think the watchlist notices are wonderful, even four, five, or six of them. I get clued in to discussions I didn't know about. If they aren't important to me, I ignore them. It's no big deal. Not having them there is very risky; people think they don't want them until something is changed that they find important or dislike. "But no one told me!" How many editors know about WP:Flagged Revisions, something that will affect every single editor, like it or not. Foundation notices are for everyone. I looked through the last 30 days of watchlist messages, and this is what I found. There were no more than one or two messages from June 11 through July 8 (except for one time on 6/16 when there was three). On July 9, there were three messages. On July 10, four messages. And on July 11, there were mostly five messages, peaking at six for a short period. Now there is one again. So this is a extremely recent phenomena, and very short lived one. If an admin is convinced that the notice is important enough, then put it up. Every system has to have an emergency/important notification system that can't be disabled. Isn't some of this drama a solution in search of a problem? Keep the system as is. — Becksguy (talk) 02:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

There were a good few people who were significantly disturbed by it, with no clear indication whether the situation would improve (with the list getting smaller) or deteriorate. There were also a number of people who, like you, weren't bothered by the size of the notices. I like Lady Aleena's idea of putting up a generic notice of events, when needed, basically saying "Hey, come on over to the Community Portal/Village Pump because there's something important you might be interested in," combined with a redesign of the CP bulletin board to make those sorts of notices/announcements more prominent when you get there. I'll be working on one such possible revision in the next few days, and anyone who wants to comment or offer suggestions is more than welcome. -- MatthewDBA (talk) 03:41, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Can we please put up the notices again?

A couple of vocal people not wanting it doesn't equal consensus. It was a tremendous benefit to find the 1-3 "big" things to follow on there that can affect a majority of editors. rootology (T) 19:03, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, who gets to decide what those 1 - 3 big things are? Jehochman ^Talk 19:17, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

A discussion here? Maybe how in the news or the Top 5 selection process for Featured Articles by date. Post a suggestion, if one gets consensus, up it goes and the old one drops off? rootology (T) 19:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

A couple of vocal people not wanting it doesn't equal consensus.

A couple? Is that how many you counted?

Again, the onus is not on critics to demonstrate consensus for the notices' removal; there must be consensus for their inclusion.

It was a tremendous benefit to find the 1-3 "big" things to follow on there that can affect a majority of editors.

Most editors have no interest in the ArbCom, abuse filters and automated scripts. —David Levy 19:44, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if the watchlist notice method is the way forward, but we certainly have a lot of people interested in the concept of giving better site-wide notice. Maybe we need to set up a project space proposal page, and discuss all our options, not just this one. -- Ned Scott 07:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Wrapping up

It seems that there are a substantial number of editors who think watchlist notices are spam, and a substantial number who see value in them. I'd like to propose that we create a gadget within user preferences that allows the user to set their preferences:

• Notices on or off
• Number of notices to display

A file can then be set up containing notices, new ones added at the top, old ones being removed from the bottom. This will allow each editor to be happy with the appearance of their own watchlist. Until this is accomplished, I think we should not have any watchlist notices. The burden is on those who want to add something to do so in a way that is not disruptive. Jehochman ^Talk 07:44, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Notices "off" for this new file should probably be the default, and then the Watchlist as it is now would be used for truly epic site-wide stuff. rootology (T) 07:47, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

By default show a link to the gadget so users know it's there and can either turn it on or off. Jehochman ^Talk 07:51, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Good, now as the person shutting down watchlist notices all together, by shouting loudly against anyone wanting to allow even one, I assume you'll be the one putting these technical changes into the MediaWiki software? Not to suggest that you'll just ignore this now you've gotten what you personally want.

It's not as if we've fixed any problems here, since any 'opt out' system will need changes to the MediaWiki system software. Shutting down watchlist notices all together while waiting for something that no one is working on is absurd.

It's like we've had an argument about where to go out for dinner, and since one person refused to eat at any of the local restaurants, now we're not eating at all 'until they build a restaurant that we can all like'.

As much as you and your 'substantial amount of editors' seem to think 'No notices at all!' is best Jehochman, most people who've commented seem to think that a limited number of messages of suitable important is okay. Again, I'd like to remind you that you do not own this process. And you seem intent on generating drama about it to get your way now. You're quickly using up my ability to assume good faith about your actions.

Reducing the original utility of watchlist notices to zero, against the wishes of most editors, in order to keep a vocal minority happy, is not okay. The community consensus in this discussion was clearly that 'a small number of messages is okay for most people'.

Let's not reduce this to lowest-common-denominator politics. --Barberio (talk) 10:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Technical note: Making a gadget that allows to set all notices off is easy. I also think I have an idea how to make two extra gadgets that allows setting the number of notices to show. All done in CSS only and no changes needed to the MediaWiki software. And will work for everyone, no matter if they use many different computers or have set their browsers to delete cookies after each session.

Setting the number of notices to show will need a little more CSS classes on the MediaWiki:Watchlist-details but I might be able to package it neatly in a template or two with good documentation, so it will be fairly easy to add and remove notices for us admins. I'll run some tests of it when I get the time in some days. I think I will do it something like this: Three gadgets in total: One with "show no notices", one with "show only latest notice", and one with "show only latest two notices". Not enabling any of the gadgets then will mean show all notices, no matter how many. This is of course just a suggestion. (And we can of course at the same time keep the current [dismiss] function that works well for most but not all users.)

Extra tech stuff: Not long ago we did have a template for these notices. It had several advantages: It meant we had "template instructions" neatly explaining how to add and remove notices, and it meant the template (and thus the notices) could be added on other pages, like your own talk page. I can make it so that when the template is shown on other pages all notices are visible even if you have enabled one of the notice limiting gadgets. (So I think with a little more work we might be able to combine the {{cent}} template and the watchlist-notices into one list of notices! But not sure about that. I have to think more about that and do some test coding.)

Administratively: There are some admins hogging the gadget process and blocking the addition of any new gadgets. (Probably since they think their gadgets will be less visible if the number of gadgets increase. But they of course will never admit that.) So if we are going to add these gadgets we need massive support from many editors and admins to be able to add these gadgets.

And my personal view: I see no reason to stop using notices (that is to change a long standing tradition) while we wait for these gadgets to be deployed.

--David Göthberg (talk) 12:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

General links to RFC and VP

This is an expansion of my suggestion above.

Please also see Requests for comment and Village pump for new proposals regarding the maintenance of and policies and guidelines for Wikipedia. Your comments are wanted and welcome!
Turn on: All Hot topics • RFC Hot topics • VP Hot topics
[ Dismiss for now ] • [ Dismiss forever ]

On those pages there could be a revolving "Hot topics" list to point to the most contentious of issues which need the community's help the most. This message could be turned off by an expiring cookie which would redisplay this message at midnight UTC on the first day of each month as a little reminder that those two areas exist and may be in need of the community's help. The message could be turned off permanently by editing one's CSS file (User:<name>/<skin>.css) by clicking dismiss forever. There could also be a way for users to turn on the "Hot topics" on their watch lists. There could then be the pages Requests for comment/Hot topics and Village pump/Hot topics which would act as this current page acts. Those "Hot topics" pages could also be transcluded to the Community bulletin board.

For new users having those links on their watchlist upon account creation will show them that those areas exist instead of having to stumble across them (as I did).

Also, each subpage of those areas could have their own "Hot topics" pages which could be transcluded to the main "Hot topics" page. Experienced editors of those areas would be best able to recognize which topics need the most help, so would know which issues are "Hot topics." - LA @ 18:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds cool. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I like the concept a lot. Definitely the right track.

As I look at the top of the community portal, I see this:

You might be looking for...

• Help with an aspect of Wikipedia: see the help page for documentation, or ask a question for assistance.
• Answers for questions about factual topics: please visit Wikipedia's reference desk.
• A place to discuss things with other users: the village pump is Wikipedia's main discussion forum, with sections covering policy, technical, proposals, assistance, and miscellaneous topics.
• A place to resolve disputes: for content disputes, follow the guidelines on this page.

If anything is added to the top of the Watchlist, it should be an abbreviated form of this.

I also think that Template:Cent is useful as well. (I'd rather see links on Cent transcluded here, than to have two separarate lists to edit.)

Just a few thoughts : ) - jc37 00:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

LA (Lady Aleena): Expiring cookies are usually a good idea. But they should not be set to expire at the same date for all users, since that causes a lot of users to see messages and enter discussions at the same day. Cookies should instead be set to expire a fixed number of days from the date they are made, thus spreading things out evenly.

But I don't like this suggestion. Your suggestion means showing more text at the top of the watchlist than we do now.

And your message text is kind of wrong. The village pump and the watchlist notices are about much more than just policies and guidelines.

MZMcBride: You seem to be our resident watchlist-notice+javascript expert: I wonder if javascript can properly detect what skin a user uses? That is, can javascript edit the right user CSS file? And when javascript auto edits pages it looks pretty scary, since it loads and edits a page. I think that might confuse users a lot. I think it would be better if the link turns on a gadget instead of editing the user CSS file, but I don't know if we can make it do it in one click.

--David Göthberg (talk) 07:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

David, the more you are talking about is up to the users. The users would have to opt IN not opt OUT. If the user wants to see a ton of these messages on the top of their watchlists, I say more power to them. If the devs would be so kind, there is already a parser function called #skin that only needs to be installed to make the above css workable. Also, I would take suggestions on the actual wording of the general banner, the current wording was to get the ball rolling. - LA @ 08:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

LA: I think you misunderstand me. I see three lines of text in your suggestion. (In my screen resolution that actually becomes a total of five lines of text. But some notices wrap in my resolution too, so lets disregard that.) Three lines of text is more than when we for instance have 0-2 notices, and equal to having 3 notices at all times. So most of the time your suggestion takes up more space than the current usage.

I assume this is your full suggestion:

---

Please also see Requests for comment and Village pump for new proposals regarding the maintenance of and policies and guidelines for Wikipedia. Your comments are wanted and welcome!
Turn on: All Hot topics • RFC Hot topics • VP Hot topics
[ Dismiss for now ] • [ Dismiss forever ]

---

Compare that to for instance:

---

• A new proposal to redesign the Main Page is now seeking input. All contributors are invited to participate in the proposal discussion.  [ dismiss ]

---

Which is the least intrusive?

And yes, I should have mentioned that I realise that your text of course just is a draft.

--David Göthberg (talk) 10:13, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if another way to go about this would be to give the community portal the redesign it so richly needs? That and/or adding WP:VP and WP:RD to the sidebar directly. - jc37 20:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

An overhaul may be what is needed, though I am not sure about adding something like this to the sidebar. - LA @ 21:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm working on an overhaul, or at least possibilities. MatthewDBA (talk) 01:35, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

David, what I am proposing is something that pops up on the watchlist at a regular interval for users as a reminder of the various processes we have here, unless after the first time the user clicked [Dismiss forever] which would mean that this would never been seen by that user ever again. It provides a way for users to specify which notices that they want to see, if they are only interested in RFC, they click RFC hot topics, the same for VP; and if they want to see them all, they click All Hot topics. The topics will only show up in the watchlist once one of those selections is clicked. Something related to this could be added to Preferences as well. - LA @ 21:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Trying to include everything

You can help! You can see Requests for comment to help resolve article disputes. There is also the Village pump where there are new proposals regarding the policies and guidelines for, techinical problems with, and users with problems using Wikipedia. You could also help by answering users questions about Wikipedia, at the Help desk, or at the reference desk.
Turn on: All Hot topics • RFC Hot topics • VP Hot topics
[ Dismiss for now ] • [ Dismiss forever ]

I am not too sure about the wording, but this should cover nearly everything that is in Jc37's request above. - LA @ 20:38, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, presuming we include all those links (which is not a given, obviously) trying to pare it down somewhat:

• You can help! By answering questions about Wikipedia at the Help desk or at the Reference desk, or by engaging in dispute resolution with others at Requests for comment, or by joining in current community discussions at the Village pump.

It might be able to be pared down even further. In addition, we probably don't need "hot topics" if we're linking to VP and RFC in the text. (Essentially, it should be one or the other.)

And a part of me would like to see the topics listed at Template:Cent merged in somehow, but I really am not seeing a "concise" way how. - jc37 21:28, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I like yours, let's get it up and running. You could maybe say "You can add {{Cent}} to your user page for pressing issues." - LA @ 21:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I replaced the community portal link with a link to Cent. Not usre if that's good or not. Though we probably don't need to link to the CP since it's on the sidebar. What do you think? - jc37 22:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I like it. Now to get it up and running. Don't forget the ability to dismiss for now and dismiss forever links. - LA @ 22:54, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I almost boldly added it, but when previewing, the "You can help! By..." really didn't look right.

"You can help by..." Doesn't really work, since it doesn't explain. It's the answer to a presumed question.

"How can you help? By..." or "How can I help? By..." - both of these seem a bit better, I suppose. Any other suggestions would be welcome. - jc37 05:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Go with the first one then put it up for everybody, IMO. :) - LA @ 08:41, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Not sure which "first one" you mean : )

(And do you have any specific reason for the preference?) - jc37 09:39, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

"How can you help? By..." because the message is to the user, not the user talking to him or her self. - LA @ 09:42, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok. Going to boldly add the text. (Well, "somewhat", since there has been some discussion : )

I'll let you add the dismiss template(s). I'm not certain of the exact syntax, and as an aside, I'm not sure if the discussion above supported or opposed. So I think it's best to leave that part to you. - jc37 20:34, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Jc, this is as much yours as mine. I think we may be done here, job complete, but I may be wrong. - LA @ 21:13, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

← Excellent. There are discussions now about what to add. I just saw the notice and came here immediately because every time it changes I'd like to see the reasons as to why something was added. And I like this. I think the message is very useful to a general audience. Great job everyone! Gary King (talk) 20:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Truth to be told, my first sentiment was...WTF! Actually I still think so. From really important topics, we went to also include minor important topics and now to a "you can help" message. Garion96 (talk) 21:07, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Garion, the point was to have a general message to show where help is needed, and nothing else. After you dismiss it, it is gone forever, never to be seen again, unless the id gets changed. - LA @ 21:13, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Except when you delete your cookies, use another computer etc. Still don't like it, use a welcome message for this kind of info. Garion96 (talk) 22:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your support Gary. - LA @ 21:13, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Eh, guys?

This is not what the watchlist notice is for. It's for big stuff. Arbcom elections, Board elections, creating new policies and such. It's not supposed to be some kind of reminder that you can help Wikipedia by contributing to it. That's what all these links to the left are for. --Conti|✉ 21:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

(meant sincerely) - According to who?

Incidentally, these links should help prevent the myriad of what others might call "lesser" discussions. Since there are now direct links to the lists of those discussions (such as Cent, and VP). That, and I dunno, but I think "big" is subjective. For example, I think the abuse filter discussion is a rather important one, which really affects us all. But then so do quite a few other discussions at Cent. Who decides what's "big" enough? And further, why should we make that distinction when we don't have to? - jc37 21:21, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

According to how we've always done it until now, basically. We decide what's big and what's not by consensus, as always, and until very recently we tried to include only the really big things in the watchlist notice. Some kind of permanent "Hey, you can help!" notice just doesn't seem very helpful to me, and basically.. waters the watchlist notice down, so to speak. People will get used to the fact that there's always some kind of message there, so they can't be bothered to look anymore after a while, even when it has changed or a second one appears. It has a much stronger effect when we use it rarely. So, I'd prefer if we'd add WP:CENT (or some other useful link(s)) to the left column instead, and keep the watchlist notice for the really important things. --Conti|✉ 21:44, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Conti, this specific discussion has been going on for five days now. You could have stated your view on this days ago before it went up to help us tweak it. - LA @ 22:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I simply haven't noticed the discussion earlier, otherwise I would have offered my opinion five days ago, of course. --Conti|✉ 22:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks like something rather close to WP:BRD to me : )

I still think there is a subjectivity to "big", And think that there was/is a value to having such a notice as a "header" of sorts for subsequent links to spcific discussion pages.

In addition, as I said above, an alternative might be to add some links to the left, or perhaps clean-up the community portal (or both).

But that aside, it seems that atm the general consensus is that links to "specific" discussion pages should be posted on this page rather than links to general lists of such specific discussion pages (such as Cent), or even general discussion pages (such as VP).

While I'm somewhat neutral concerning this, I would like to see something codified (even if it's just a top-of-the-talk-page notice), to help guide others in this choice (while noting, of course, that Consensus can change). - jc37 23:38, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I've been telling myself (and everyone else :-/) that I would start looking at a cleanup of the Community Portal; unfortunately work and home have been so hectic I haven't had a chance to do much of anything. -- MatthewDBA (talk) 13:56, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Conti. There is no reason to have such a general notice. We do not need our watchlists to inform us there are discussions taking place somewhere to which we can contribute. The watchlist should be used to get attention of a large number of editors to comment on a specific proposal/event that those who do not actively follow developments everywhere don't see. I also agree with the sentiment that people will get used to the useless message up there, and won't always notice a new message. seresin ( ¡? ) 22:21, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Conti - the watchlist shouldn't be used for generic messages. PhilKnight (talk) 23:16, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Conti as well. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Same here. See section above. Garion96 (talk) 23:48, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I also agree with Conti. I don't see how a generic message would be particularly helpful, but I do see how it could be counterproductive. —David Levy 00:46, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Add me to those in agreement with Conti and Seresin. - auburnpilot talk 03:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Even though it is gone now, I agree with Conti. The message was bordering on useless, since way watchlists have historically been used to deliver targeted, precise messages about high-profile discussions or events. Excessively broad "you can help" messages are not going to help anyone who already knows of the existence of WP:RFC, WP:HD and the pumps (which is everyone but extremely new users), or anyone who has visited the Community Portal. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 08:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

That message is actualy insulting. It will also result in stuff that people actualy need to know being ignored. Well either that or we have to come up with an even more anoying way to inform people. Blank it and leave it blank until say the next arbcom elections.Geni 03:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Where have you all been the past 5 days while Jc37 and I have been discussing this? A generic message was the last resort to keep pet projects off the list. No one issue is greater than any other issue; so this way everyone knows that there are issues, where to go to see the issues, and can click through to see the issues if they care do to so. Having issues on the watchlist is a lot more annoying. (I wonder if ArbCom will survive with as much fire as it has come under lately.) - LA @ 05:01, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

This simply isn't the watchlist's intended purpose; it's something for which welcome messages left on newly registered users' talk pages are far better suited.

For years, we've inserted only occasional watchlist notices for important, broadly relevant, editor-oriented issues. This has served us well, and the addition of a permanent notice stands to jeopardize the longstanding practice's effectiveness (by conditioning users to ignore the text in its entirety). Many, many people often use different computers (including public machines) or routinely clear their cookies, so the "dismiss" option is far from adequate. —David Levy 05:15, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

News feed

How about adding a news feed to the top of all "community forum" pages in the same way as Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga/News is transcluded onto Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga. Add an option to display it on top of the watchlist page per above, alternatively a user can "watch" it in the normal way, or not at all. G.A.S 06:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

A note regarding the title "Hot topics"

An idiomatic name (such as this one) is an inappropriate choice; people (particularly non-Native English readers) cannot deduce its nature from the words' literal meanings. —David Levy 00:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I think overuse of idioms is a very valid concern, but in this case misapplied. This is not, actually, a particularly idiomatic expression. This usage of hot would be literally listed in a dictionary and hot also has this exact sense in foreign languages I'm familiar with; topic is being used completely literally. My guess is that any En-2 (who would struggle to participate in these discussions) will deduce the meaning instantly. Even an En-1 (who is extremely unlikely to be able to participate meaningfully in these discussions) will instantly realize that "Hot Topics" does not refer to topics about physical heat. Even if there are languages in which "hot" could never imply something other than temperature, a single click on the "hot topics link" is going to make it clear. This title should be of no concern. It is barely more idiomatic than "watchlist". --JayHenry (talk) 06:01, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll take your word for the above, but I nonetheless believe that "Hot topics" is an inappropriate title; it seems more like a slick branding effort than a serious encyclopedia page. —David Levy 08:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

How to hide this?

Hi how do I hide these notices to prevent them from appearing in the first place?--Otterathome (talk) 01:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

You can't. There was some discussion on allowing this but I imagine the general consensus is that this is one of the few ways to get the attention of fairly regular editors. Gary King (talk) 04:01, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Otterathome, put the following in your CSS file

.cookie-ID_#41, .cookie-ID_#42, .cookie-ID_#43, .cookie-ID_#44, .cookie-ID_#45, .cookie-ID_#46, .cookie-ID_#47, .cookie-ID_#48, .cookie-ID_#49, .cookie-ID_#50 {display:none;}

Keep adding as far as you want to go. - LA @ 05:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

It's much simpler to use the following code instead:

#watchlist-message {display:none;}

That hides all current and future watchlist notices. —David Levy 05:19, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I put it in User:Otterathome/monobook.css that is correct?--Otterathome (talk) 13:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

You did it right. - LA @ 15:16, 19 July 2008 (UTC)