Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 25

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Village pump (proposals) archive

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (proposals). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Copyright compliance

Per request I am posting a notification of a bot request Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MBisanzBot 2 that will remove non-compliant copyrighted logos owned by the WMF from userpages per our non-free content policy. Please add comments or questions to the Request page. MBisanz ^talk 09:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Stopping search engines from indexing the user talk namespace?

See User talk:Pseudomonas#PseudoBot's warnings for background on this. Many speedy deletion notification templates, such as Template:Nn-warn, include the article title in their output. Removing this would make the templates quite confusing - "Your article, the article-that-must-not-be-named is up for speedy deletion...". The problem is that user talk pages are indexed by Google, and Google ranks Wikipedia quite highly. If I was promoting something, I wouldn't like the top Google hit for it to be some random Wikipedia page about the thing being deleted off the site, especially if I had nothing to do with the article's creation. When I am searching for a conversation, I usually remember which page it is on, so I rarely have to use a search engine to find user talk pages. The user talk namespace can be searched with Wikipedia's internal search engine by typing "user_talk:<Search string>" like this. I can't think of a reason not to exclude user talk pages from search engine indexes. Graham87 10:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

One argument for continuing the present situation is that Google's search engine is better than Wikipedia's internal search engine. But there are clearly good arguments in favor of changing this - see, for example, this Wikimedia Foundation blog posting about privacy in general. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:11, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

On the surface, this doesn't seem like a bad idea. I often find Wikipedia user pages in my Google search results and they are, for the most part, useless. -- Mufka ^(u) ^(t) ^(c) 01:56, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

This proposal makes sense. As for the 'their search engine is better than our search engine' I can only add that their search engine doesn't appear to index talk pages any better than our search engine. :)

Btw, in the foundation blog Cary Bass suggested filing a bug report. Has anyone done this yet? All I could find were requests to exclude talk pages of anon and blocked users (i.e. more reasons to block user talk pages), and to inhibit archiving of all talk pages. -- Fullstop (talk) 02:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I've filed a bug at bug 13890. Google doesn't index Wikipedia talk pages on its own volition - our robots.txt file doesn't mention them. Here's a [permanent link to the blog post mentioned above. Graham87 07:22, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to change the instructions at Requests for Adminship

The proposal and discussion can be found at Template talk:RfA#Proposal to change the following sentence.

The Transhumanist 19:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

feedback from readers?

Argh, I've made a liar of myself now! But this really will be my last proposal for now :-)

I'm just wondering if articles should have a place where readers can submit any concerns they have about them, ie anything from poor spelling/grammar to factual inaccuracy, etc etc (this could potentially be an alternative to my other proposal of offering more information to novices on how to edit pages).

I thought of this as a bit of a spin-off of my concerns re POV tags above, as I was thinking perhaps readers could register concerns about non-neutrality of articles, but I now think it could have a much wider application.

Any thoughts on this one? Jonathanmills (talk) 17:51, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

What do you think of this article?

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Submit comment.

View recent comments.

I think it would be great. Kevin Baas^talk 18:00, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the vote of support, Kevin! :-)

I like your template, although I had in mind something more like:

"If you believe this article contains spelling/grammar errors, factual innacuracies, or a lack of neutrality [etc etc], please register your concerns here." Jonathanmills (talk) 18:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and that should probably be 'spelling/grammatical errors' ;-) Jonathanmills (talk) 18:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The talk page serves this function already. -kotra (talk) 18:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. If you want to "talk about" as page, you go to its "talk page". Simple, really. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 19:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Anyone else remember when Yahoo news stories used to have "discussion" pages? To describe what went on there as trolling would be putting it mildly. I shudder to think what the discussion sections of George W. Bush or Islam would look like. Right now, we can pretty much keep a handle on this on the talk page by cutting stuff out that doesn't seek to improve the article, it would be a much more difficult task to keep a "What do you think" section constructive. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 19:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikinews articles do have discussion pages. I don't think this should be brought into wikipedia though since we are an encylopaedia Nil Einne (talk) 20:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There are times where I wish I could discuss the topic, rather than the article. I think as long as we kept true to WP:CIVIL, it could work. *shrug* EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

~~I agree, talk pages are already a good place to leave feedback for the most part. We don't even need separate section. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 20:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC)~~

Actually, on second thought, I think it might be a good idea to have one for Wikipedia in general. Wait a minute, that's what Village Pump is! What if we were to move Village Pump to Wikipedia:Feedback? GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 20:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

It maybe wouldn't be such a bad idea to have something like that for developers to see. I think it would be a fantastic idea to have something that says "Rate this article" on the side of the screen like the ones at Wiktionary and Uncyclopedia. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 00:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this suggestion could be substantially different from talk pages. That's one reason I suggested the template that i did. If people could have a simpler, more direct means to entire comments about the article, I think we'd get a lot more feedback. My template, above, is for at the bottom of the page - so they can't miss it. And you don't have to browse to another page, you just type right there - and you don't feel compelled to wait for a response. you just type and click. the purpose of it would be completely different. it would be a means of customer review, rather than a means of coordinating changes and improvements to the article. It would be closer to a rating system (how many stars?) than a discussion page - but it would be a free-form system, which could be much more helpful. Kevin Baas^talk 14:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Like I say, my idea was to allow a place to register concerns about actual errors/problems (whether in language, matters of fact or issues of non-neutrality) rather than a general comments page. It could function as a sort of e-form where boxes are ticked and a one-line description of the concern is entered. Does anyone have any thoughts on that idea? Jonathanmills (talk) 00:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

That's really what the talk page is for, though. -- Kesh (talk) 14:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Kesh. Yeah, I think my idea is partly based on what I've suggested in my proposal above ('Explanation for Wiki novices'), in that I do believe there are many people out there who won't even get to that stage (ie going to the talk page) unless it is 'formally introduced' to them (for want of a better expression).

But beyond that, I think it could serve a useful purpose for readers who don't have the time or inclination to go to the talk page but just want to highlight the presence of errors/non-neutrality.

Cheers for your feedback. Jonathanmills (talk) 16:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You know what, one could just put a text box at the bottom of the article like the template above, and when the comment is submitted, it creates a new section on the talk page and puts the comment there. This would solve the argument about the suggestion being redundant w/talk pages. And it would be very simple to implement. It also more clearly shows the intention of it in relation to talk pages: to provide a more quicker and more visible mechanism of getting reader feedback - and thus to get more feedback.

It might, in fact, get too much feedback, filling up the talk page, making it difficult to carry on a discussion. The obvious solution to this would be to have it stored and displayed separately. Hence the original proposal. Kevin Baas^talk 15:20, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Images proposal

I have made a new proposal regarding images here Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#New_proposal_on_images - I would appreciate any comments, suggestions, advice etc. Thanks Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 20:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

"Watchlist" terminology clarification

Wikipedia pages use the term "watchlist" for two very different things:

The list of pages being watched
The list of edits that have been just been done to the pages being watched

I propose that the first be called the "watchlist", as is the case now, and the second be consistently called the "watchlist report". Consider how the "Watchlist" tab in "my preferences" should read (these are six options, each with a checkbox in front of it):

Hide my edits from the watchlist report
Hide bot edits from the watchlist report
Hide minor edits from my watchlist report
Add pages I create to my watchlist
Add pages I edit to my watchlist
Add pages I move to my watchlist

Now remove the word "report" from the first three items. Much more confusing, yes? But that's the way it reads now (note the attempt to make a distinction by saying "the watchlist" rather than "my watchlist"; very subtle). Similarly, Special:Watchlist generates something called "My watchlist", but it should really be called "My watchlist report" (or just "Watchlist report"). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:38, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I never considered it ambiguous, as the first three options refer to types of edits, the latter three refer to auto-add conditions, and they can't be reasonably thought of the other way around. However, if this is a common misunderstanding, I'd support rephrasing the first three to "from watched changes", since that's how the watchlist itself distinguishes Special:Watchlist from its /edit and /edit/raw versions. --erachima talk 00:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

As yes, "watched changes". Somehow I think "display watchlist report" is more understandable than "display watched changes". But at least we agree that there is are inconsistencies in what things are called. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

We should allow original research (with certain constraints)

I propose adding an "analysis" tab to every mainspace article. The purpose of this Analysis page is to have a place where users can write original research about the article topic, however, with the following constraints:

wp:verifiability applied more strictly than on article page. All assumptions made in analysis essays must be verifiable, but conclusions can be original research. Unsourced assumptions should be removed, even if uncontroversial.
Any conclusions reached in the analysis page must be relevant to a specific statement in the article page.
Empirical data must come from reliable sources. Users are not allowed to include surveys they have conducted themselves, for instance.
WP:neutral still applies.

I feel that a lot of useful information has disappeared from wikipedia since it began its heavy-handed crackdown on original research. It's a shame, because three or four years ago the best part of many wikipedia articles was often the original research. It was often the reason I came to Wikipedia and not a traditional medium. So many articles have become so ... dry since then. Often users have made well-reasoned, well backed-up arguments. Why should wikipedia remove those arguments simply because a scholar hasn't bothered to publish them in a traditional medium yet? I know that technically this would go beyond an the scope of an encyclopedia, but wikipedia is not about emulating a paper encyclopedia, it is about spreading knowledge. Cambrasa 02:19, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that such a proposal can really go beyond larval stage, WP:OR has become one of the key policies in terms of content quality, I don't even want to imagine what effect this will have on some articles, particulary the fiction ones. - Caribbean~H.Q. 02:25, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to expand on the above comment, what I meant was that the introduction of a "analysis page" in some fictional topics will undoubtly just leave us with massive forums of endless fanboy theories and other fanfics, it would be a huge mess in those that cover extremely popular characters or shows. - Caribbean~H.Q. 02:30, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

if it meets an even stricter standard of WP:V, how is it original research? Johnbod (talk) 02:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The conclusions are original research, not the assumptions. For example, a study published in a reputable journal would be allowed to be used as a criticism of a statement in the article. There would be no more requirement that the connection has been made by a notable person. Cambrasa 11:35, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:RSs are not required to be produced by the notable, but I suppose I see what you are getting at. Johnbod (talk) 16:26, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

to do this right would require editors of acknowledged competence capable of evaluating the quality and of the article. As our editors are not screened, this cannot be done. There are other projects where the editors are, and this way of working might be appropriate there. DGG (talk) 13:05, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I am opposed to this idea for two reasons. One, it would greatly complicate Wikipedia, adding extra bureaucracy and distracting from our goal. Two, it is beyond the scope of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the sum of all human knowledge, not the sum of all human opinions. This might work on another project, but not here. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 22:10, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems a bizarre distinction to me, that opinions published in journals and newspapers are considered "knowledge" and allowed in Wikipedia, but opinions by Wikipedia users are not. What makes the journal editor so much more trustworthy than the Wikipedia editor? Sure, journals have peer review, but so does Wikipedia, and the majority of "opinions" published in journals are junk too. Cambrasa 15:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I apologise if I seem dense, but if a statement is verifiable (and attributable to a reliable source), then it is not original research — at least as far as I can see. — Thomas H. Larsen 04:29, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Again: The "analysis" page is not simply a collection of verifiable statements, it a page that allows conlusions to derived from those statements. Basically it is a place where WP:SYN should be legalised. Cambrasa 15:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

To respond to Cambrasa's comparison of wikipedia editors and journal editors: while it is true that the WP editor may be as knowledgeable, or even more so, than any given editor in a journal, WP is not set up to prove expertise or even to confirm real-life identities. A significant part of giving weight to, or ascribing merit to, conclusions is the reputation of the person drawing them. WP's "peer review", for example, is often merely a review by any passing editor who takes a shine to the title. "Peer review" in a journal is a review by acknowledged experts in the specific field. WP may have such experts, but has no real way of identifying them. ៛ Bielle (talk) 15:45, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

And, to state the obvious, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia - of human knowledge -- not a journal. There's a big difference.Doug Weller (talk) 23:39, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

You say that the analysis has to be neutral, however that's extremely difficult to achieve. Confirmation bias would be almost unavoidable, I expect. --Tango (talk) 23:45, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a recipe for disaster. We already have enough problems in fiction articles and articles which attract controversy like Global warming and Evolution or even something in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (let alone articles on psychics and stuff). Can you imagine the amount of problems that will occur if people are allowed to add what junk conclusions they want? At the current time, we just have to deal with the often silly conclusions drawn from various sources but these conclusions at least usually come from experts and undue is usually relatiely easy to establish there. Allowing every person in the street to add their own conclusion is just a recipe for disaster. Nil Einne (talk) 09:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Despite my initial sympathy for Cambrasa's proposal to accommodate what might be called "original deductions" (I'm interested in paleontology, where the fossil record is very stingy with evidence; occasionally the academic papers propose ideas that are based on the limited evidence but fly in the face of well-accepted wider biological principles), I oppose the proposal for exactly the reasons that Nil Einne has just stated. Philcha (talk) 10:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The analysis would not simply allow every conceivable conclusion. It would only allow sound, logically consistent, well articulated and well-backed up conclusions. Consensus would decide which conclusions are sound and which aren't. A balance of supporting and opposing conclusions should be presented for a contentious topic. This arleady works in article space, despite people adding junk all the time. Why should it not work in "analysis" space? Remember, 4-5 years ago Wikipedia did not have the clear policies for style, neutrality, verifiablity, etc. that it has now. Yet users still managed to reach an agreement organically, and the policies crystallised over the years. I believe that a similar set of policies would eventually emerge for the "analysis" pages, and those would prevent disaster. Cambrasa confab 08:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, let's play fair and balanced! From the "Wikipedia is not censored" point of view, this fits Wikipedia policy perfectly. However, from the common sense point of view, a policy like this would probably support the unreliability theory; this could potentially open the door for false information on Wikipedia. GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 19:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. I'm against it for all the reasons already mentioned. Let Google Knol deal with this sort of stuff. We can consider admitting original research once we have a reliable encyclopedia and nowhere to go. --Adoniscik^{(t, c)} 04:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

And one more thing

I hope it's not bad form to raise two proposals at once!

But I just wanted to also voice my concern that there appears to be no real sanction on even quite blatant violations of 'Wikiquette'. IE, despite the directives on 'no personal attacks', 'being civil', etc, editors who blatantly ignore them face no punishment (or very small punishment, only when the behaviour reaches a total extreme).

I think the tone of debate would improve immeasurably on certain talk pages if, through judicious use of 24-hour blocks (gradually extending for repeat offenders), editors were made aware that they in fact *had* to stick to 'Wikiquette' rather than choose to ignore it.

And as I said in my previous post, I don't want to adopt a self-righteous tone here. I would be more than happy to receive the odd 24-hour block if I stepped out of line, if it meant others faced the same rules.

Anyone who thinks this isn't necessary IMHO needs to check out the tone on some of the more heated pages, and the quality of article that comes from them.

Again, any thoughts on this from anyone? Jonathanmills (talk) 01:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

My thoughts on this issue are "Welcome to Wikipedia." Its the way the cookie crumbles, and the only solution is to grow a thick skin. In the long run you'll be respected for it. Incidentally, this page is not the right place for your questions :) You can either ask on your own talk page and add {{help}} (someone will be along shortly), or ask at Wikipedia:New contributors' help page. -- Fullstop (talk) 02:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Erm... not sure about this Fullstop. I thought this was a proposal page? I am making a proposal, not just asking for clarification... But I beg your pardon if I've misunderstood what you're saying.

As for the 'welcome to Wikipedia'... hmm... I don't know why allowing poor behaviour (stuff that is specifically, but toothlessly, warned against) is, or should be, integral to Wikipedia. If editors have to be 'thick-skinned', as you put it, it is inevitably going to diminish the number who will bother (at the very least), which seems to me a fairly bad outcome.

I don't consider myself thin-skinned at all, but I believe the quality of articles suffers (not least in terms of neutrality) when personal attacks, uncivil tone etc are allowed to flourish.

And now I REALLY have to go to bed. ;-) Jonathanmills (talk) 02:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

We have a page for Wikiquette alerts, and administrators frequently get reports of harassment and attacks there and at WP:ANI. We do block users for blatant and/or repeated civility breaches, especially after they've been warned to stop. If you're having problems working with users, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution or report the situation to one of the pages linked previously. However, Fullstop is to some degree correct - things frequently get heated, and as I said, we only apply blocks in severe situations, not to cool situations down. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 04:02, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, Hersfold.

When you write, "Fullstop is to some degree correct - things frequently get heated, and as I said, we only apply blocks in severe situations, not to cool situations down", I know that, and it is that policy which I am suggesting needs changing -- ie, punishment needs to kick in at a much lower level than currently, and get more progressively more severe for repeat offences.

This is because I think one of the most glaring flaws in today's Wikipedia is that it is far too easy for articles on controversial subjects to get 'hijacked' by a group of like-minded editors who have no interest in writing things in a neutral, encyclopaedic manner, and a hostile, bullying tone on talk pages means people lose interest in trying to improve them. It also means those *without* thick skins are basically unable to participate, and I don't think this is particularly desirable either.

This seems a fairly poor outcome to me. If you want specific examples, I'd suggest any number of articles on recent Balkan history (where Serbs, Croats and Muslims/Bosniaks are at each other's throats), but I'm sure there are many other similar areas. Jonathanmills (talk) 17:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)