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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (proposals).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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E-mail Users reform

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

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

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

Just to echo (with minor differences that come to mind) what I said in the ANI thread: I think users should have a choice about who can email them, with no particular preference as to what the default choice should be. At the minimum I think users should be able to pick: Anyone (including anon editor), registered editors, autoconmfirmed editors, admins, arbcom/stewards only, no one. We could also implement a filtering system of various complexity - but adding the ability to block IPs/IP ranges and specific users would perhaps be two obvious features to add. Egg Centric 22:46, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
I dislike that idea. The e-mail system is a tremendous convenience, and having some people putting up higher barriers than others is a nuisance. Requiring autoconfirmed, or requiring capchas for non-autoconfirmed, I can understand. Limiting to arbcom/stewards? You might as well just disable email if you're going to be that restrictive. Let me remind you that Wikipedia email has been around for a long time, and the number of serious issues can be counted on what... one hand? two hands? Sven Manguard Wha? 03:36, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
I think the autoblock feature needs to extend to email, given what I see above.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:38, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Sven - a few options might be useful, but "restrict to admins+" should probably be a single option. (Separating out crats, stewards, etc. from each other and from the admins for e-mail availability seems pointless to me.) As far as autoblock goes, at the very least, the ability to e-mail administrators would need to be left unimpaired (for dealing with inappropriate autoblocks). --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:46, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
@Philosopher:We could make a userright called "receiverestrictedemail" that could be very easily delegated to all of those users. I agree that it's pointless to separate it out. Wikipedia isn't a bureaucracy.Jasper Deng (talk) 04:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
That's not at all what I said. Let me be excessively clear: If your email is enabled, anyone who's reached autoconfirmed should be able to email you. If we want to restrict below autoconfirmed, that's fine, but anything else is unacceptable. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
I guess I did misunderstand you. I'm not sure that there's any need to change how Wikipedia handles e-mail presently, but if we changed it, having an "admins+" option would make sense to me, given how easy it is for an account to reach autoconfirmed status. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 04:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)And admins should be able to turn off the option, given its potential for abuse.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:48, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Of course, but admins can already choose to turn off e-mail capability when blocking users. WP:BLOCK specifies that that option is only to be used "in cases of abuse of the 'email this user' feature," but it is available. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 04:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
I think it's a shame that admins. can't just e-mail anyone when the circumstances call for it (assuming the user usually does not want e-mail), but granted, e-mail addresses DO change, and a user not wanting e-mails isn't likely to keep their e-mail updated, thus nullifying that ability in any case.
As for the restrictions idea, I also am not keen on limiting to 'crats and stewards. I think three levels is enough; block all non-autoconfirmed (noting they can post on the user's talk page of course), block all regular members (including autoconfirmed), and block all e-mails (including admin.). There is no need to further separate it. But I don't mind the middle step; that way, a user getting an e-mail from Wikipedia knows it's an admin. and is more likely to take its content seriously than if a regular member were e-mailing. CycloneGU (talk) 04:31, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Missing images in infoboxes

Image requesting an image

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

There was a relevant discussion fairly recently that maybe useful here, see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 75#Image_placeholders. wctaiwan (talk) 14:04, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Support It is a good idea and one I would support.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:38, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Many types of articles typically have non-free images in their infoboxes. It would be quite unacceptable to imply that an article would as a matter of princple be incomplete without such an image and that people should upload one simply for the sake of having an image. A non-free image should only be used if there is a specific, individually motivated need for it. In the case of the specific example cited above, America Now, it doesn't need an image because basically it has no text content to begin with. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose Oh, god, eww. First off, these were depreciated because a) most people don't understand copyright, and 'people trying to help' caused many, many, many, many, many, many more problems than they ever solved, and b) because placeholder images are ugly and unprofessional. As one of the people who deals with the flood of copyrighted crap that gets uploaded, I'd like to kindly ask you to please not needlessly make my job harder. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:16, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Make it easier to get to WikiProject pages

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

Yep your right there are about 2500 give or take a few including taskforces. It seems reasonable that having a shortcut would be useful but many of them already use the WP shortcut appreviation because the WikiProject pages fall under the Wikipedia namespace. So although we could use PJ specificially for projects it might be better to use WP for namespace consistency. --Kumioko (talk) 16:09, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
I don't see the problem. Many projects already have shortcuts - e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography has WP:WPBIO, Wikipedia:WikiProject Iowa has WP:IA, Wikipedia:WikiProject Literature has WP:LIT, etc. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 10:28, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Aliases are currently only for namespaces. See Wikipedia:Namespace#Aliases and mw:Manual:$wgNamespaceAliases. Page names starting with "Wikipedia:WikiProject" is not a namespace, and Wikipedia:Namespace for WikiProjects was a failed proprosal. Is the suggestion that "PJ:X" should be treated as "Wikipedia:WikiProject X"? It would require software changes and could cause confusion. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Well, we could hack it with redirects like is done with the MoS (e.g. MOS:NUM). --Cybercobra (talk) 05:51, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Clean up the edit page notices

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'd support if the bolding were taken out. I think you also have to link the Terms of Use as a requirement, I think. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
I had an idea of linking "CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL" to that page. ViperSnake151  Talk  05:31, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
I recall that the WMF uses the existing licensing language ("you irrevocably agree to release your contribution") to make crystal clear the permanent nature of the licensing, and places that snippet where it does on the page to preclude claims by users that they didn't know they were so licensing their contribution. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:02, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
No, no no.... - that language was written by the office of the General Counsel. It's very specific and legally crafted. You're welcome to propose changes to Geoff (gbrigham@wikimedia.org), but PLEASE don't make changes to that language without doing that. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:18, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
Philippe: is there a reason that it's presented the way it is? Would it be improved without changing what it says by getting rid of its three different formats and two different sizes? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:44, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
Simply because IANAL, I'm gonna say that I'd strongly prefer that any changes go through the legal department. This stuff is too important to mess around with. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:53, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Did tweaks. Still gonna be bold though. ViperSnake151  Talk  23:39, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

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

Aesthetic changes

At the moment, it looks something like this:

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

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

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

Please note:

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

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

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

Please note:

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

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

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

How about we keep the by clicking the save page button notice, add the first suggested update at the top to where the current please note notice is now. We should also keep the If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, etc. notice below the save page button. Does this solve the legal problems? --Nathan2055talk - review 20:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Courier New

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

MediaWiki / Vector does not style text areas by default (at least, I'm not aware it does). The font is inherited from the settings in your browser. For Wikipedia, you can easily change the preference by adding something like
textarea {
font-family: "your desired font here";
}
to vector.css (or whatever your theme is) in your userspace. Respecting browser settings in text areas is fairly standard, and I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to overwrite that by default, or to spend development time on allowing this type of customisation. wctaiwan (talk) 06:19, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
The Editing tab at Special:Preferences#preftab-3 has "Edit area font style" to choose between a few types of browser defaults. If you want to get more creative then you have to change the browser default in your browser settings, or edit a skin file like Special:Mypage/vector.css. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:26, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

High Contrast / HIDEF appearance

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

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

Regards,

Marc *Going Blind b/c there ain't no High Contrast Options* Noon — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mnoon (talk • contribs)

I just turned on high-contrast mode on my laptop and it seems mostly everything is visible. What are the elements that you want improved? I'm interested in this. —Designate (talk) 20:52, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

use of the dagger symbol.....

Hi all, see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Icons#Proposals_x_3 for some discussion on the use of the dagger symbol in articles (scroll up for the discussion or just look at the poll...) Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:34, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

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

Previous discussion about this can be seen at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 74#Really short Wikipedia URLs.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:19, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
For practical purposes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page can be shortened to http://enwp.org/Page (as described in that thread linked above). However, this is not official or operated by Wikimedia / Wikipedia. wctaiwan (talk) 11:39, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
What we need is one that does the same thing for secure. --Σ talkcontribs 07:35, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Other Language Talk Pages

When you look at an article, you can see links to îts versions in other languages in the sidebar. So how come when we go to a talk page, we cannot jump to the talk pages of other languages? I would like to propose these links. I don't think this is nitpicking; it is very conceivable that a person may want to post the same message to the talk pages of multiple languages, or may want to see what improvements to an article are being discussed in that language. Interchangeable|talk to me 18:19, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose: It would probably be constructive, but less than half the number of people who view articles view the talk page, and even less than quarter would want to see the talk page in another language. Interlanguage links are intended for easy linking to the same article in a different language; the content of talk pages usually vary.  Hazard-SJ  ±  03:42, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
See bugzilla:26085. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

View wikipedia as it was on yyyy-mm-dd

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

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

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


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

An interesting idea. Since you can already view pages as they were by using the compare pages feature in page histories, all that would be needed would be a user friendly tool to streamline the process. I've been thinking of floating a similar idea, "see this article as it was when it got promoted to GA/FA/etc., which could be achieved through the same tool. Shouldn't take too long for someone to rig up if they use the method I described, would take longer if some other method were needed, as it'd have to be developed. I support this. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:54, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
And there's also the issue that old reviews transclude the most recent version of templates. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:56, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
And the newest versions of files, if there are multiple uploads under one name. I forgot about both of those things, good catch. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:09, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes it'll necessarily have to parse the entire page to work out all dependencies, as the extant media will have to be used too. It won't be trivial but at the same won't be hard either. Egg Centric 19:59, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Would be a cool gimmick, but I don't think it would be useful or cool enough to spend developer time on it. –xenotalk 20:21, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Wayback Machine seems to already do it for us, but they don't seem to crawl all of Wikipedia, just select articles that have been requested through the site before. I wonder if we could strike a deal with them or something. Equazcion (talk) 20:42, 22 Aug 2011 (UTC)
Hmm... I seem to remember that being requested before. Something about becoming an archive partner? Sven Manguard Wha? 21:17, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
It would actually be very useful in cases of suspected category emptying. At the moment there is no practical way to find out what was in a category at some given time. The only thing you can do is look at the contributions of accounts you suspect of doing the emptying, if you can figure out which ones they are.
But saying something would be nice is different from saying it can be done. I don't know how hard it would be; my guess is "kind of hard". --Trovatore (talk) 21:42, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Ah sheet, I hadn't considered categories. I have no idea how Mediawiki keeps track of them but if it does so how I would imagine it does then reconstructing them for a given date would be very expensive. Having said that, an appropriate data structure could be implemented to go forward where tis very little trouble at all. Doesn't help us for wiki-2008 though. Egg Centric 21:55, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
...another reason I think Wayback Machine is the way to go. Category listings are generated on the fly from querying the database, I think, though probably with a caching layer that still won't really help. Generating periodic snapshots of all pages rather than trying to finagle a way to use our internal history system beats all the problems, and Wayback Machine already does this. We'd just have to get them to do it for all of Wikipedia. Equazcion (talk) 22:02, 22 Aug 2011 (UTC)
Agreed that it would be cool - and that it probably isn't worth wasting much developer time on. I like the idea of asking the folks at Internet Archive if it's something they would be interested in doing, since they presumably already have the infrastructure up - perhaps this is an idea that could be proposed over at meta:, even? On the other hand, the opposite idea - preventing the Internet Archive from archiving us at all - has come up before (apparently unsuccessfully) at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 57#Disabling Wayback Machine archiving on Wikipedia. Perhaps this is the earlier conversation that y'all were remembering? --Philosopher Let us reason together. 01:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Oversight issues would still be a relevant concern, though, as we wouldn't have any control over removing things from the histories. But that issue applies to any Wikimedia mirror anyway... --Philosopher Let us reason together. 02:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


I don't think this is a terribly good idea; caching snapshots of webpages is a brute force method, which we should not have to resort to given that the user interface content is underlain by a database. Given that we have pretty comprehensive history (albeit with some holes and disjunctions), it should be computationally tractable to recreate a version of, for instance, en-wikipedia based on the history data. This includes category content as a page is place in a category by one of a small number of methods, the most prevalent being addition of [[Category:{some category title}]] to a page; for most categories, an article content timeline should be able to be reconstructed through clever parsing of page histories. I would much prefer to see a computational slice generated on-demand rather than a complete frozen state mirror of every page in every wikipedia for every edit instance (or even for a particular time point each day). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Any particular reason why you'd rather that? It seems hard drive space is cheaper than processor time these days, and your method would be more demanding on the latter; plus it would require adding a lot of database queries to the existing db servers for each page request (what with all the different transcluded content to find and retrieve through the transcluded pages' histories). Snapshots seem much simpler and less demanding, especially if a third-party site handles it of course. Equazcion (talk) 03:40, 23 Aug 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Main Page history has daily snapshots of Main Page in 2011 but doing something similar for millions of pages sounds impractical to me, and the interest in other pages would probably be very low. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:12, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
That long tail effect is a prime reason to go for a computational approach rather than a storage approach. The demand for looking at past snapshots of page sets would, in my opinion, be low. People already have the ability to look at past versions of single pages, which satisfies the vast majority of demand, I think. Storage space is cheap compared to computational power (not in my neck of the woods, but in general it is), but just because something is cheap is no reason to effectively waste it by storing material that will never (or very seldom) be accessed. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:50, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Another somewhat more serious issue is deleted images and deleted templates - these show up in old revisions of articles as redlinks, resulting in a very odd-looking article. Dcoetzee 03:55, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Shorter message when contesting deletion

When someone clicks on "Click here to contest this speedy deletion" they are offered a pre-filled message, for example "this article should not be speedy deleted as being about a person, animal, organization or web content but which fails to assert the importance of its subject, because...". Can we please trim this back to the original version: "this article should not be speedily deleted". There is absolutely no reason to reproduce the CSD wording - it just makes it a bit harder for the admin reviewing the message to extract the actual reason to keep the article (if any!) that the message contains. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 09:18, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I understand why it was done, but I also see how it might not be useful. The post about the account creation project above suggests placeholder text. Might that not be a solution in this case as well? (Assuming it is technically possible ofcourse). Yoenit (talk) 10:39, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
I find the new longer messages unwieldy too. Just for the record, the crucial edit was apparently this one [2]. The original text is called in from {{Hangon preload generic}}, and the new longer messages are in a series of templates called "Template:Hangon preload Xyy", where Xyy is the usual speedy criterion number. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Unwieldy? Unwieldy to whom? Are you having trouble understanding it? Of course not, you know the CSD. Are you blinded by its length? This is not for us, it's for the contesters who more than half the time leave contest messages that have nothing whatsoever to do with the CSD an article is tagged under. Tagged with A3 or G4 or A7 or whatever, we see constantly contests of "it is true subject" or "is entirely factual" or some other misfire. Apparently, and I can only understand it like a person studying aliens, but most people don't read, and so they end up on the talk page with only a vague notion that the article they created is marked for deletion without a clue as to the basis. The whole purpose here is to focus them. When people are going to add to this pre-formatted sentence, tailored for each criterion, they are essentially forced to read that sentence, and lo and behold, they will actually be informed of the basis in doing so. I find it hard to believe any admin will find this text preceding a contest as any sort of barrier "to extracting the actual reason to keep the article". Really?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:35, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Well, some of them do get a bit unwieldy syntactically. Take for instance the one for A7: "This article should not be speedy deleted as being about a person, animal, organization or web content but which fails to assert the importance of its subject, because ..." – actually, it's syntactically inconsistent, because there is no grammatical antecedent for the "which". Perhaps it would be better if the sentences were reworded in such a way that they don't just negate the condition named in the CSD, but lead to a positive assertion of the actual counterargument. So, something like:
"This article should not be deleted according to WP:CSD#A7, because it does in fact state how the subject is important. It is important because ..."
Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:48, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
I like that idea, but two observations. I originally had the criterion name in each of the preloads, but others thought having the name of the CSD would just be meaningless jargon to people. More importantly, people only come to these contest pages in edit mode. In other words, they never see "WP:CSD#A7", they see "[[WP:CSD#A7]]". I am running and cannot comment back here probably for about 10 hours.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

User rights

my proposal is that user rights for specific admin actions (deleting pages, protecting pages, blocing users, editing protect pages) for user who how have experiences in those areas. For example a user who makes a lot of good AIV request can block users.--Breawycker (talk to me!) 20:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Breawycker. Please see Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Hierarchical structures.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:51, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Transform WP:IB into something more useful

See WP:IB/Proposed. This page seems to have a huge backlog, is ill formatted (some of the entries use Template:Infobox Proposal, while others do not, there is no consistency) and there seems to be no clear guideline on how to respond to proposals. Other boards like WP:MCQ or WP:AFC contain instructions for those who want to respond there. This page does not contain any advice on how to review these proposals. I suggest we transform this page into something more useful with clearer instructions. Also, contrary to many other boards or pages, this page never seems to get archived. There is a section "Proposed but not implemented" that seems to be intended to remain inactive, so shouldn't this be archived somehow? Also, it says at WP:IB/Proposed#Subpaged proposals "Finally remove from this proposal page the subheader & the {{Infobox Proposal | ...}} template." As nobody seems to do any maintenance, shouldn't there be a bot for automatically doing this removal? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 21:32, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I propose that what you have said appear to be valid criticisms of the page, and I further propose that you boldly take it upon yourself to write instructions for the page's use and re-organize it in the manner that makes sense to you.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:55, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. Added to my ToDo list. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 02:10, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Account Deletion

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

The merging of contributions from multiple users to one account I don't think is technically possible. Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 22:31, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Will you please elaborate? Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 22:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Teechnically, that could easily be done (changing a value used in the SQL table(s) is relatively trivial), but doing this would make our license meaningless. The way that I understand it we can't go changing the contributions history at all, especially for the GFDL license. Of course, they're all pseudonyms anyway, but... I don't see anything like this standing a chance of gaining acceptance (I'm certainly willing to be proven wrong, I just doubt that it'll happen).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
See also bug #17265 and mw:Extension:User Merge and Delete. Helder 22:44, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
This would cause huge administration problems should ever the allegedly vanished user return as a sockpuppet (or be suspected of doing so). I wouldn't mind it in cases of extreme harassment or some such thing, but for general hissy fit + vanish, there is too much potential for abuse. --B (talk) 22:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't quite understand how a user who returned under a new name would pose a problem - it is mentioned in WP:ADMINSOCK. The process for account deletion would work much like username changes do now - a user must give a valid reason why they want their account deleted, and the process would have to be reviewed - perhaps they would not be able to delete an account after a certain number of edits (fewer than 50 000)? I also don't understand how there is potential for abuse - as long as the account never actually makes edits of its own, everything should be fine (but I don't understand the system all that well, yet). Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 00:01, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Suppose some user is under arbcom sanction. They say, "delete my account, I'm leaving". A month later, a new user appears who edits the same topics as the old one. The new user should obviously be subject to the same arbcom sanctions, if, in fact, they are the same person, but because the old account's edits have been added to the slush account, investigating it is no longer possible. This has nothing to do with admin accounts. "Administration problems" != "problems with admin accounts". --B (talk) 00:35, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
A simple solution is that no one under arbcom sanction may delete his or her account. Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 02:56, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Another problem is looking for systematic bad edits by a former editor in order to fix them. This would be impossible if the edits could no longer be distinguished. Imagine a user creates a large number of copyright or BLP violations and then vanishes before it's cleaned up. It should be possible to see edits by an account whether it's active or not. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:57, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
This actually wouldn't be a problem, as I envision approval being required to delete an account (though things are starting to look grim). Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 02:49, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
All of this is irrelevant, regardless. L i c e n s e.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 07:33, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
By deleting their username, then, users must agree to forfeit all copyrights to every edit they have ever made. Or is this a bit more complex? Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 14:27, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
And what if they come afterwards and claim somebody else accessed their account and illegally forfeited their rights? Or that they were in a bad mental state and not competent to make legal decisions? And I still think my earlier objection is a serious problem. People approving requests for account deletions would get an unreasonable burden if they had to check there were no edits which would later require investigation, and they could still easily overlook something. This proposal has a lot of drawbacks including legal issues (though I'm not a lawyer) and very little benefit compared to renaming the account to a name unconnected to the old name. If we want edits by vanished users to stand out then we could rename the accounts to something systematic like Vanished1729. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:47, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Policy descisions are frequently willing to take into account extenuating circumstances already. There doesn't really need to be an exception for some hypothetical case like this. i kan reed (talk) 15:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
You can already have the account renamed. Why do the contributions need to be merged with some other vanished user's work? Why isn't it good enough to have a User:Vanished1, a User:Vanished2, a User:Vanished3, etc.? What's the benefit of merging them into one enormous User:All-the-users-who-ever-vanished? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:24, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
It makes identification virtually impossible. By the way, User:Alltheuserswhohaveevervanished is a great idea for the account's name! Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 19:43, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, but that sounds like a very good reason not to do this, from where I'm sitting. We have a problem with liars who say that they're going to WP:LEAVE, but then come back days or months later with a new account name and/or as an unregistered user, and cause the same problems. We need to be able to associate individual "vanished" (ab)users with their future abuse.
And, no, you can't really say "we'll only do this for people who aren't abusing Wikipedia", because it is exceedingly rare for an editor with a perfect track record to vanish. Many simply stop editing, but very few have their accounts renamed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose There is no good way to implement this. I could, like the people above, try to show examples of why this is a bad idea, why it creates more problems than it could ever possibly solve, but it would all be a waste of time because this is never going to happen. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:00, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose We already have revision deletion that could remove usernames for a limited amount of edits. But the editor has already granted a license to make what they contribute available. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:27, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - it's really not clear to me what problem this is trying to solve. Never mind the issues raised with the solution - what's the motivation here? Rd232 talk 12:51, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
    My question as well. This is a solution without a problem. Resolute 13:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
My motivation was seeing that very passage in WP:UNAME listed above. I tried to think of a way to delete accounts while still assigning edits to something, and this was my idea. Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 14:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
I suspected as much. You came up with a technical solution for what seemed a technical problem - but as the discussion here shows, it's not just a technical issue. Rd232 talk 14:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose You can delete accounts on meta! ~~EBE123~~ talkContribs 23:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
    •  Wrong. I'm guessing you're referring to either 1) global account locking, which isn't deleting and can be undone - it's just like a "more powerful" site-wide block, 3) deleting global accounts, which is only to delete the SUL binding info associated with an account - the local accounts are left in place. — Kudu ~I/O~ 23:35, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose - as Ohm's Law says, this would be problematic for our license. Other problems have also been pointed out, and there is little benefit over the current vanished user situation. LadyofShalott 01:22, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Support for accounts which have null edits and no SUL. mabdul 17:18, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
    Actually, that's a great idea. Accounts with zero edits could easily be merged in to the slush account. Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 21:20, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
    Support this suggestion — agree that this is a pretty good idea. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
    Why would an account with no edits need deleting in the first place?--Jac16888 Talk 03:00, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
    So that the name could be reused (hopefully by someone that will actually edit). Sven Manguard Wha? 05:20, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
    Yes, that and that if - for example - a user is requesting an account at WP:ACC with a "similar name" the helpers with tool-access don't have to check for accounts and thus unflagged users (so not having the WP:accountcreator-flag) are able to handle these requests. Since the "conflicting" account is already deleted.
    I would also propose for accounts, which should be deleted, get a mail(if they have a mail address saved) with - say - one week time to "reactivate" their account and rescuing it for deletion. mabdul 12:54, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
    Which begs the question, what about accounts without email addresses set? Interchangeable|talk to me|what I've changed 01:34, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
    This would would only make sense if restricted to accounts that haven't logged in for years. I believe there is a large number of users who don't want to edit (yet?), but who are logging in regularly because it's the best way to change the way various aspects of Wikipedia are displayed. E.g. it's the only way to change how mathematical formulas are displayed. Anyway, a week's notice is way too short for inactive users. There are numerous good reasons (e.g. hospitalisation; international travelling in countries with poor infrastructure) why someone may be completely offline for a month or two. Hans Adler 04:30, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Support this idea. This would ideally be done at the global level, by a bot. It would be integrated to Special:CentralAuth, as "delete global account and all local instances" or something of the kind. The requirements for bot deletion could be, for example, that the account must have been created at least 2 years ago, have 0 edits (including deleted) globally, and have not logged in the past year. — Kudu ~I/O~ 23:37, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Support - The CC BY-SA specifically states (in the short version, at least) that "the above conditions can be waived if one gets permission from the copyright holder (or something along those lines)". The license will not be rendered meaningless. Agreeing to the deletion of an account simply means that you agree to waive your rights to your contributions, which is perfectly in line with CC BY-SA. It's a good way to free up good names that have been seized, although we'll have to keep some obvious ones like JarlaxleArtemis from being deleted. --Σ talkcontribs 04:02, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
    • This is simply incorrect. Vanishing users do not (currently) agree to waive all rights to their contributions. The requested attribution may change but the license does not. Dcoetzee 15:04, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
      • You are correct. The users who have vanished in the past did not agree to waive their rights. However, if we could require that all users who wish to vanish after this day waive their rights to their contributions, it would be in line with the license. If they refuse to waive their rights to their contributions, they can take the old method of renaming to "User:Vanished 480,904,054". Already-vanished users can be emailed and asked if they would like to relinquish their rights to their contributions, maybe. --Σ talkcontribs 02:35, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose A solution in search of a problem. There's a virtually infinite number of names available for usurped accounts, and it would take about the same (minimal) amount of work to merge accounts in a new process as it currently takes to simply rename to a "vanished" or "usurped" name. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:52, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Due to licensing concerns. However, I would have no problem deleting old accounts (>1 year old) with no edits at all. Many of these are sockpuppets or just long-forgotten accounts. Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:40, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I think that we should implement account locking as well, which would be especially effective with sockpuppets.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:56, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
    It already exists here. Reaper Eternal (talk) 12:40, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
    I mean, for local users, not just unified ones.Jasper Deng (talk) 21:50, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
    What do you mean? I don't see how locking is any different from a block with emailing and editing the user talk page disabled. If anything, blocks are more flexible and can be set to expire. — Kudu ~I/O~ 23:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't think so - will makes things far too confusing. From a bureaucrats' perspective, people are usually satisfied with the explanation that accounts cannot be deleted - but that we can rename them to some (unique) random string of characters. –xenotalk 12:44, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
    • It's for a different reason why I'm proposing it. I'm sure that accounts like the socks of Grawp and other LTA users should be locked, to avoid even a chance of server overload from the user clicking Preferences and changing things over and over again.Jasper Deng (talk) 21:50, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose — Without thinking really deeply on the matter, I think that the content at Wikipedia:UNAME#Changing your username, WP:VANISH and WP:CLEANSTART adequately cover the matter, but perhaps for the need for some more clearly worded language at Wikipedia:UNAME#Changing your username; for instance, the section could be rewritten to reflect the reasons for changing a username and the ensuing options for retaining original identity vs. anonymizing the account. Further, if the "deleting" subsection is retained, then providing a better accounting of why an account can't be deleted would be helpful. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:13, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose again After considering this further I've come up with a much stronger justification for not doing this, and its name is Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations. If a departed user is later shown to be a serial copyright violator, it's important to review all their past contributions for copyvio problems. Without access to this information, cleaning up the mess is virtually impossible, especially if they used primarily offline sources. Dcoetzee 06:13, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Move request to make China about the modern nation state

There is a Move request to make "China" the title of the article about the modern nation state, the People's Republic of China, rather than about the Chinese civilisation. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:44, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Remove help section from Community portal

Please see Wikipedia talk:Community portal. — Pretzels Hii! 00:30, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Humble Request for a template heading this section

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

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


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

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


Many thanks - that looks very neat. Again, thank you for your help, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 

23:18, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I see that there is a tag that says "I want.." heading the village pump, which does give people option of logging on to the "Help desk" - that is very neat. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Wikify tag

There is a RfC going on, and I would greatly appreciate it if editors would take the time to comment there. The question is, roughly, does AWB have enough judgment to remove the {{wikify}} tag. Nolelover Talk·Contribs 13:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Can I get some eyes on this? Nolelover Talk·Contribs 21:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Add the ability to override the default "this page is protected" edit notice

This is in reference to the box displayed by MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext, which is be seen by non-admins when trying to edit any protected page.

While the default text is certainly useful for articles and most other pages, it is really not helpful for some. For example, at Template talk:Reflist we often get people who presumably try to edit a reference by opening the "References" section of an article, make their way to Template:Reflist, and then try to edit the template itself in order to change a reference on the article they came from. The helpful "Submit an edit request" link generated by MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext then leads to this and this and this and this and this and this and so on. Help talk:Section seems to have the same problem to a lesser extent. Template talk:Citation needed did at one point too (see Archive 10), but this has died off recently.

For these pages, it would be more helpful to replace the standard box with one explicitly telling newbies to go back to the article they are trying to edit, and either edit it directly or discuss it on the talk page there. One simple way to do that would be to allow "Template:Editnotices/Protection/Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 77" to override the protection notice in much the same way that "Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 77" specifies an editnotice for the page. The required change to MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext is quite simple (although it could probably be prettied up some), but consensus is needed. Anomie⚔ 15:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

This makes sense to me and your suggested approach sounds logical. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:42, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Script to compensate for nationality differences in articles

I realize that this is both a proposal and technical but I thought I would put it here to maximize visibility. I am seeing more and more arguments about what nationalities spelling should be used in articles and IMO wasting too much valuable time arguing over symantics so I would like to propose a simple script or feature to fix some of it. It seems like we should be able to create a simple if then switch that would recognize what nationality a person is in and then display the spelling of certain words to match that. This should not change how it appears in the text of the actual article if in edit mode but I think it would cut down on some of the drama. Here is what I was thinking:

There are several ways we could do this including if the person has a certain category (such as United States user), if the user was coming from a certain IP domain, if a certain template was placed on the users page, etc then the switch would 'display certain words differently if viewing the article.

A couple that seem to be commonly argued about would include:

  1. Honor & Honour
  2. Color & Colour
  3. Meters & Metres
  4. Fueled & Fuelled
  5. artifacts & artefacts

So in summery if I am viewing the article as a United States user then I would see it as Honor but if I was viewing it as a British user I would see it as Honour. --Kumioko (talk) 15:44, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The immediate problem I see is you'd have to turn it off in case of quotes and titles. For example, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is full of quotations and titles that use the spelling colored, and it would be incorrect to change those to coloured even in British spelling. Or any article about someone who won a Medal of Honor. Or anyone in a Labour Party in any country. You'd need some kind of superfluous markup surrounding every word, or you'd need an opt-out template that affected the whole page. That'd probably spread to hundreds of thousands of pages. Sounds like more trouble than it's worth. —Designate (talk) 16:01, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Oppose - Thîs is very similar to Perennial Proposal 1.5. In general, we have only three options if we want only one language variety in Wikipedia. We can enforce one spelling throughout the encyclopedia, but that would make the losing side unhappy and be very difficult to enforce. Another option is to split Wikipedia into American English and British English, but that would be a huge shift and a shock to many unregistered users. The third option is what you are proposing. The technical restrictions are one thing (I'm going to assume that this is nearly impossible), but this point is another: does spelling really matter? Are Americans and the British really so at war with each other that simple spelling differences warrant this massive upheaval in Wikipedia? I don't believe this, but I am Canadian, so I can't truly weigh in on the matter, but I'd like some Americans or Brits to support me in this. Interchangeable|talk to me 16:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Good point Designate, although I think it could be set to ignore quotes, html markup and templates which would solve much of the problem. You do bring up a good point that it would be very hard to reduce the false posiives.
Interchangeable you also bring up good points and you touched on one very important one and that is does it really matter. To you and me, perhaps not. But I see on a daily basis one or 2 discussions, arguments or edit wars over this very thing. We spend too much time here arguing about what spelling and date formatting are used in articles and I thought this might be a way to fix some of that but perhaps the technical and cultural requirements of such a thing are outside our control. --Kumioko (talk) 16:42, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Interchangeable, I'm an American and I think it's ridiculous. I wouldn't care if the whole site changed to British English overnight.
Kumioko—where are you seeing one or two discussions a day? I can't even think of the last time I saw one. —Designate (talk) 17:17, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Well part of the reason I see so many is because I have so many articles on my watchlist (over 21,000) so they pop up rather often. One recent one was LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin. If you review the edit history of the article and the discussion page there are various signs of English differences, date differences (as well as some just blatant stupidity IMO). This is just one example though but I see them all the time. --Kumioko (talk) 17:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Oppose I commend the intention, but I can foresee confusion for those that do not realise that scripts are in operation. There is also the issue that a lot of the differences between British and US varieties of English are not just in spelling (for example formal and notional agreement). The suggested script will not address these issues and it will be confusing to have articles with say US spelling and British grammar. British spellings are also quite complex, for example, a large number of British users tend to assume that the suffix -ize is American and -ise British, but in fact the origin of a word in Greek or Latin is more important. I really do not see users of respective forms of English as being at war. Most of my experiences of this tend to follow the form of US users (usually IPS) adjusting British "mispellings" on neutral of British-focused articles and then British users changing it back. A link to WP:ENGVAR tends to end the issue. I see less of this the other way around, probably because users of British English tend to be more aware that American spelling is different (perhaps because they encounter a lot of American cultural products). My feeling is that experienced editors from either side of the pond are well aware of the issues, although like me they may slip up occasionally out of habit. I am a British editor and I am happy when editing US articles using US English spellings. I would like to think most editors work in the same way. The fact is that in the real world there are varieties of English (and remember there are more than two). Wikipedia probably currently has the only possible solution: acknowledge it and work with it.--SabreBD (talk) 16:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
We have had this proposal before and it is not technically feasible. We would end up with Lorry Greenberg becoming Truck Greenburg and a myriad of other confusing substitutions. Best I can think of is a template that would contain the various spellings and switch based on the user setting, which is not possible right now as there is not way to read the language setting with a magic word.
Let me point out another issue: The English Wikipedia uses a myriad of message pages in the MediaWiki namespace. For example, when you upload a file and your language is set to en, you see the message at MediaWiki:Uploadtext. However, if your language is set to en-gb, then you will see MediaWiki:Uploadtext/en-gb. The en message has been customized, as have thousands of other messages but very few en-bg messages have been updated to match. We have had many issues where a user has set en-gb and reported a message that has taken ages to figure out because it is not the en message. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:59, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

As far as the technical side is concerned, this is feasible. The Chinese are already doing it. Even though there are two ways of writing Chinese (traditional and simplified), they have only one Wikipedia. What is more, I believe they are also handling lexical variations through systematic replacements.

Assuming that we would only be using the to major variants British and American English, it would work as follows:

  • Each article would be tagged somehow for the variant it's written in.
  • There would be a small number of rules for regular transformations, e.g. -our <-> -or, -isation <-> -ization.
  • There would be a long central list of specific translations e.g. lorry <-> truck.
  • Each article would have its own translation list for exending or in some cases overriding these translations.
  • There would be rules for determining what should not be translated, e.g. everything in quotation marks and words that are lower case in the translation list but appear upper case in the article without starting a sentence.
  • There would be rarely used markup for explicitly coding both variants.

The resulting overhead would be noticeable but feasible. Problems would only lead to a mixture of British and American English, something we already have in many articles, and which is generally not a big problem. But we are not doing it because given the effortless mutual comprehensibility of British and American English there is a lot less incentive for bothering with all this. Hans Adler 19:17, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree it's not worth it to make an elaborate system, but a few simple substitutions for only the most clearcut words might be beneficial in avoiding all those mini-edit-wars. Aside from quotes and proper names, there's no place where color and colour, or honor and honour, would be substituted accidentally. Quotes are easy to parse and exclude automatically; proper names might need their own tag (on the rare occasion when those words exist in proper names and go untagged and get unwittingly substituted, it still isn't the biggest of deals). Equazcion (talk) 23:05, 28 Aug 2011 (UTC)
I admit that the effort seems to negate any gains on this suggestion. It seemed as though it would be a rather easy thing to do but it seems that is not the case. --Kumioko (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:13, 28 August 2011 (UTC).
  • Oppose, agreeing with opposition above.
    Strong Oppose if done by relying on user IP domain without providing an option to override or disable this in preferences of logged-in users. I'm a monolingual English speaker residing in the Philippines, and I strongly dislike Google's tendency to presume that I wish to use the Tagalog language. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
  • 'Oppose right now, without prejudice to later implementation, because the "obvious" words like "color/colour" aren't the problem - we all know that's a regional variation, it is words like "foetid/fetid" where a difficulty arises. However I do support using spelling neutral words where it is not clumsy to do so - and also using a spelling that is acceptable in both US and UK/Commonwealth English, rather than the most common in one that would be an error in the other. Rich Farmbrough, 15:42, 29 August 2011 (UTC).
Partial Support. There may not be a war as such, but I must say that, in my opinion, article with words spelt as the other side of the pond spells them are a tad distracting and irritating, albeit still perfectly legible — I assume this is true whatever side of the pond one finds him/herself. My support is partial as from what I gather (from my limited knowledge) any change would have to come from wikipedia coders and not a users, so this may be a futile pontification... --Squidonius (talk) 00:42, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose I'm neither side of "the pond" presuming your referring to the North Atantic Ocean not one of the Great Lakes. This primary presumption that english speakers have to be one or the other is a falacy, there are many enlgish speakers that have no issue with which version of en is used and would not want to have the spellings or words changed to suit either. Going into details like changing truck/lorry when many UK spelling countries use truck will only add to the confusion, also truck doesnt necessarliy equate to lorry even between US and UK usage of the terms. What I see is a proposal that going to take a lot of effort to impliment with each of the current 3.5 million articles needing their own english interpretational database, add to that significant impact on the toolservers to perform the spelling shift to what end just so that a reader can read the the red colored truck instead of the red coloured lorry and somewhere in there my Ford F100 becomes a Freightliner. Gnangarra 01:18, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose the technical requirements to code something that would account for American, British, Canadian, Australian English, etc., would be ridiculous. Additionally, it would necessitate the addition of template and code syntax directly into thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of articles. This would greatly bloat articles for no real benefit. Resolute 02:56, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose what a waste of time. People can cope with the differences. I wouldn't oppose a tag on pages saying what variant of English they are using though. Perhaps then we could have any text editor automatically use that variant for spell checking new contributions. Dmcq (talk) 08:05, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm an American who is still mad at Scholastic Press for what they did to J.K. Rowling. Oppose LadyofShalott 01:35, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose We should just be aiming at education. What irks me more than "wrong" spelling is edits such as in this diff[3], particularly the Edit summary. The article involved is about an Australian, so should ideally stay in Australian English (closer to UK spelling), but that's not the point. The editor involved seemed unaware that other spelling variants existed. HiLo48 (talk) 02:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Many, if not the majority of feature proposals are to aid in dealing with the uneducated, in one aspect or another. It's a reality that has to be dealt with, and fixing it can't be relied on as a solution in the shortrun. Pursue society's underlying problems but implement short-term solutions in the meantime. ...Just an aside; not saying this is so much of a problem that it must be dealt with now. Equazcion (talk) 02:34, 31 Aug 2011 (UTC)
    • In the interests of education, a friendly note on the editor's talk page pointing him or her to WP:ENGVAR can be useful. I've just done so for the editor who made the edit you cite. LadyofShalott 02:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose, at least until you can explain how it will deal with table versus table versus table. --Carnildo (talk) 23:13, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Far too much trouble to implement for only a small benefit. WP:ENGVAR works well in my experience, and quickly resolves problems when drawn to editors' attention. The differences are too many and often too subtle for any automatic solution, for example, "lorry" and "truck" are both correct in British English (but with different nuances), "-ize" and "ization" can sometimes also be correct in BrE. See American and British English differences for more examples. --NSH001 (talk) 17:53, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Language Converter Implementation in JavaScript

For those interested, there is a draft of how to configure the modernization script from Portuguese Wikisource (which is based on this one from fr.wikisource) as an user script, so that it can be used for conversion between English variants (analogously to its use on pt.wikipedia, for Portuguese variants), instead of modernization of old texts (which is its purpose on Wikisources). See:

The current version of the dictionaries are just drafts based on WordSubstitution list from Ubuntu wiki and would need to be reviewed by someone with a better understanding of the English language (removing conversions which may cause lots of false positives, adding missing conversion rules, etc...). Helder 15:22, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Allow users to delete subpages with their Userspace

I would like to suggest a modification to allow a user (even a non admin one) to be able to delete subpages from their User space. It seems like a lot of requests for deletion are for User space page deletions (myself included) and it seems like it would be perfectly fine to allow a user to delete pages within their own namespace without problems. --Kumioko (talk) 16:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok thanks. --Kumioko (talk) 16:57, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
After reading the instructions linked above something struck me. Why on earth are we even allowing a non admin user to do a cross namespace move? IMO We should not be allowing just anyone to move whatever page they want out of the main and into their namespaces. --Kumioko (talk) 17:08, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Imagine some well-meaning newbie accidentally created their userpage in mainspace. You should move it to their userspace and tag the redirect from the mainspace for G6. –xenotalk 17:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Thats true but it still seems like thats something that could be done by an autoconfirmed user or something. Maybe tie it to another right like File mover. I think thats kind of a week reason to allow anyone to move things to their userspace. --Kumioko (talk) 17:18, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
It's not a good reason, you're right, but there's no logic in a place where the status quo is considered to be inviolable. Malleus Fatuorum 17:21, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
As regards moving pages, the status quo has shown itself not to be inviolable - as autoconfirmed users no longer have the ability to automatically move subpages of a page during a move. –xenotalk 17:26, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps. But what's striking here is that the knee-jerk reaction to any proposal is "no, we can't do that", when the reasons against are at best historical. Malleus Fatuorum 17:30, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
The proposal is advanced partly on the basis that it will reduce work for admins (e.g. allow users to do simple U1 deletions in their own space) but in order to implement it, we would create work for admins (as we would need to restrict XNR moves to admins prevent the new feature from being abused). The offset might be slightly positive, but I don't think it would be enough to request developer time on it. –xenotalk 17:40, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
People are encouraged to mess around in their sandbox until they are ready to move stuff into mainspace. Having the system differentiate "to" and "from" would be tedious. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 17:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Well I don't agree that it would be hard. It would just be a simple namespace switch. Maybe im just making a mountain out of a mole hill but it seems like some intrepid vandal would have figured that out by now. --Kumioko (talk) 17:23, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Tedious for whom? I'm not aware that software gets bored. Malleus Fatuorum 17:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
I would be interested to know how often a page was moved to a Userpsace though, especially the subpage of a userspace area. --Kumioko (talk) 17:26, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

"users could move any (non move-protected) pages into their userspace and delete them" It should be the case that if the user in question is the only contributor there should be no problem. AD 17:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

And if they weren't the only contributor? The developers are not going to design a very complicated system with all these checks when there isn't a pressing need. –xenotalk 17:32, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
The truth is that the packaging of "rights" was ill-conceived, and Wikipedia has to live with the consequences. Malleus Fatuorum 17:54, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Questions about nominating pictures

There are some pictures I would like to add in WP:Featured pictures candidates but they all have a major flaw (either in their encyclopedic value or in their quality), so I need to consult before nominating them there.

  • Urginea maritima near Mitzpe Ramon, Israel. Good quality and EV (encyclopedic value) (because there are barely any pictures of that plant in the English Wikipedia) but there is no article for that plant on the English Wikipedia.
    Urginea maritima near Mitzpe Ramon, Israel. Good quality and EV (encyclopedic value) (because there are barely any pictures of that plant in the English Wikipedia) but there is no article for that plant on the English Wikipedia.
  • Very high EV (because it shows clearly what difference in barometric pressure does to clouds) but a low quality (taken from an iPhone).
    Very high EV (because it shows clearly what difference in barometric pressure does to clouds) but a low quality (taken from an iPhone).
  • Ducks in Reykjavik, good quality but I don't know what specie of ducks it is in the picture and its EV isn't really high
    Ducks in Reykjavik, good quality but I don't know what specie of ducks it is in the picture and its EV isn't really high

Thanks for assisting.-- Someone35 (talk) 15:18, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Please see WP:PPR. This page is the village pump for discussing proposals relating to Wikipedia policy or process, not pictures. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 15:37, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
k, posted it there

Image filter results

The results of the plebiscite regarding the personal image filter have been announced and can be read here.
For the election committee,
Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 06:24, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Add "add to watchlist" option to wikilove extension

Not sure if this is a proposal, per se, but I think it would be wise to add a tickbox to the wikilove extension which, if selected, will add a talkpage to ones watchlist much like the ones that exists when making a standard edit. Egg Centric 16:21, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you should file a bug for it. --Yair rand (talk) 04:20, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
And so it is done Egg Centric 21:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Bot for welcoming new users (again)

As the heading implies, I am aware of the fact that this has come up multiple times in the past and I know this is listed at WP:PEREN#Use a bot to welcome new users. The reasons listed there for this proposals rejection however are in my opinion not valid. I will provide some further details:

  • "If a bot is used, it is cold and impersonal, and the bot is incapable of mentoring and assisting newcomers."
True. However, how are the welcome templates we slap on new users any less cold or more personal? After all, I cannot really see the difference between a templated welcome message delivered by a bot and a templated welcome message delivered by a human user. Furthermore I think it would be no problem to include a prominent link to a place such as the help desk or perhaps a list of links to the talk pages of users who are willing to answer the questions of newcomers (for example those listed at Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/members).
  • "Many vandals are exposed when an edit made by them receives extra scrutiny, because one user page or another shows as a redlink."
I completely fail to see what the fact that the welcomed user is a vandal has to do with this. As far as I am aware ClueBot NG in fact delivers welcome messages, so this point does not make sense.
Regarding the bot welcoming vandals, see above comment. Regarding accounts that never make an edit, I guess it would be technically possible to prohibit a bot from welcoming users with no edits.

So in my opinion a well coded bot could in fact be used to welcome newcomers. I welcome all critical comment to this. My main concern simply is that the reasons for the rejections of this proposal are horribly flawed and if someone can bring up other convincing arguments against the creation of such a bot, these arguments should perhaps be added to WP:PEREN. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 18:17, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Aren't we already "welcoming" new users (albeit via the interface, rather than an edit to their talk page) with the new account outreach project? –xenotalk 18:21, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
I've complained about that (the welcome not being on their talk page(. I will say though that I'm uncomfortable with the thought that a vandal, perhaps a racist vandal, might get a kind welcome after their vandalism. Not only that, but we have a number of specialist templates (I'm thinking of the ones in Twinkle for new editors which may bey problematic) which I think are useful but have to be placed by hand. Dougweller (talk) 18:27, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, with the account creation process in mind I agree that such a bot might not be necessary. However I still think the reasons listed at WP:PEREN are not valid and should perhaps be replaced by something like "There is a process that looks more promising than a bot (see Account Creation Improvement Project)." Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 18:58, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Just a comment, the second bullet is talking about recent changes patrollers looking more closely at edits made by users with redlinked talk pages. It's an easy way to discern who is new (and therefore has a higher chance of making a "poor" edit if not outright vandalism), but if a bot welcomed everyone it would be one less tool in the vandal-fighting arsenal. — Bility (talk) 19:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

As far as ACIP is concerned, many new users just use the boilerplate creation (including the "Hello, my background is in biology, with a main interest in snakes." spiel) It depends on your perception as to whether or not this makes it harder to for RC patrollers to detect the more obvious vandal accounts; on the other hand, there are still a lot of new accounts with redlinked userpages that makes it that much more difficult to detect such accounts – every bit as much as ACIP's boilerplate userpages. –MuZemike 23:46, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
ClueBot NG creating a talk page for a vandal. --Σ talkcontribs 05:45, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposed cleanup cat/bot

After all these years here, I'm still not sure whether this is the right place to suggest this... I'd like to propose the creation of an extra cloeanup category, to be populated by a bot which simply scans all articles looking for mismatched square brackets, curly brackets, and parentheses. There's no real reason why any article should have a mismatch in any of these things, and it usually indicates a faulty link, template addition, or punctuation. It should theoretically be possible to sort articles within the maintenance category under C (curly bracket), S (square bracket) or P (parenthesis). I suspect it would be a useful addition to the other cleanup resources around WP... Grutness...wha? 01:40, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

It would need a list of pages where a single pair of those is deliberate, like bracket or emoticon. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:24, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Mmmm, true - though it seems unlikely there'd be a huge number of them. More to the point, if all articles with a mismatch were simply put into a category for human editors to check, it would be very simple to add a commented-out matching SB/CB/P to those which should have it so that it's not reported again - either that or add those articles to a list to remove from the bot's next sweep as they're discovered. It wouldn't really be much difficulty to do either of those things. Grutness...wha? 10:39, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
You should probably drop this proposal by WP:BOTREQ, since that board is watched by bot-ops, and this one may not be. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:13, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Will do - thanks. Grutness...wha? 01:02, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
You would have to check with templates expanded as the opening bracket to a table is often supplied in a template. Keith D (talk) 19:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

"You've got talk" email?

It seems to me that there's a need for a tool to implement the functional reciprocal of {{YGM}}: Registered users who are not under block should be able to originate an email that says something like

Your talkpage on the [English-language Wikipedia] has a new message from [username] as of [today]. Please log in to check it.

Such an email would not need to disclose the originator's email address to the recipient, so presents less privacy problems than the current scheme. The scheme could, if necessary, be throttled to, e.g. one email per day.

At present, users may opt-in to notification emails on their preference page, but that approach does not handle pressing matters well, nor does it distinguish general notifications (e.g. Signpost) from messages for a specific user.

Any reason this couldn't or shouldn't be done? Ideas on how to do it? LeadSongDog come howl! 16:15, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

  • This exists already in your preferences. If you want your talk page to trigger emails when changed you can set that preference under the "user profile" tab. Protonk (talk) 16:40, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Ah, just re-read your post. The reason the user preference is preferable is it allows me to control when I receive email, not you. If I have email enabled and you feel something is urgent enough to email, email me. Otherwise the last thing I want is someone else determining what on wikipedia is a pressing matter for me. Protonk (talk) 16:42, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
How does forcing the sender to give up his email identity change that? If you don't wan't any intrusions, you don't need to enable email. By doing it this way, the content of the discussion remains in talkpage histories, where it belongs, instead of scattered email logs that are inaccessible to users. If someone abuses the system, it's on the record. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:51, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
I think, as an encyclopedia, no matters are so pressing as to require a user be emailed to check in on them in a timely fashion. --Golbez (talk) 16:55, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
I rather see the reverse. Many deletions (speedy or not) are done in the absence of a response from the contributor. We see contributors go away for months or years after creating substantial content. That doesn't mean they aren't entitled to know if that content is challenged.LeadSongDog come howl! 18:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
The email address you give wikipedia doesn't need to be your primary email address. Most emails I get from WP are sent by one-off accounts (even if they are used for years by established owners, e.g username.enwiki@gmail or something). Giving an email address to wikipedia and clicking on the sidebar before emailing me is not a high bar. And my response was meant to highlight the asymmetry of preferences. I should control when I get email through the mediawiki interface, not someone else. Protonk (talk) 16:57, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
There is obviously a difference between disclosing an address to WP and giving it to any or all wp users. The former is reasonable, the latter is not. Wikipedia is not "the encyclopedia that anyone with a disposable email address or infinite tolerance for spam can edit". LeadSongDog come howl! 18:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
I have my email enabled (the same username on gmail) and I don't receive any spam. I don't think a tool to enable semi-automatic email through talk page updates really comports with a desire for less spam. I also don't know where "anyone can edit" enters into the equation. you don't even need an account to edit, let alone an email enabled account. You certainly don't need either of those things to get in contact with someone on their talk page but you need both in order to email someone. Protonk (talk) 19:49, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree with Protonk. Users who have chosen not to receive email updates about their talk page should not have to receive email updates about their talk page because someone thinks their message is particularly important (except when that person is willing to use Emailuser). –xenotalk 19:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm missing something on my prefs page. How do I set it so that I only get email notifications when I haven't been logged on for a long time, or when my contributions are about to be deleted, without getting many emails every day when I am logging on? LeadSongDog come howl! 21:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
You're certainly missing some tact in replying to good faith comments. Protonk (talk) 21:05, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Not sure that I follow, but if I offended, please accept my apology. That is certainly not my intention. I still, however, see no way that userprefs can be configured to meet the need of communicating just the time-sensitive entries by email without generating a lot of unneeded and unwanted email traffic. If they provided for a periodic digest email, that might suffice, but they presently do not. Neither do I see merit in requiring the sender to disclose an email address to the recipient as a precondition of what should be on-wiki communication. We require notification of users as part of numerous administrative processes, and the messages are not always welcomed by the recipients. The exchanges should not be hidden behind the obscurant effect of email when they can be kept onwiki in the clear light. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:55, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, you have no guarantee that the poster of a time-sensitive message will check off the relevant box to generate a one-off email notification to you. Perhaps a bot that could monitor your talk page for deletion notices and generate an email to you would suffice? –xenotalk 22:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm not offended. You haven't said anything to me which merits complaint, but your reply to Xeno is needlessly snarky and pointed (and adds little to the conversation). If the question is broadened to "does the user notification system need an overhaul" my answer is a resounding yes. However at the core of such an overhaul the theme should be that I retain control over how I am notified. My chief complaint with your specific suggestion is that it farms this preference out to you (speaking generally). Offering an easy way for someone to escalate a talk page discussion to email without my knowledge or consent doesn't fit that model. As for the "obscuring effect" of email, that is another discussion entirely. If you want to email me and copy your email to my talk page (or email me with a note that you left a message on my talk page) that is your business, but I would rather you didn't. The current email system is primitive but nice insofar as I can reply to the message immediately without leaving my email client. Protonk (talk) 22:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Apparently, I'm the one who's missing something. Here's my assumption: If you don't log on to wikipedia for weeks or months, you're not interested in what's going on. If you are interested, check your talkpage. — no? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 22:07, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't have a problem with LeadSongDog's suggestion as long as I can opt out of those messages too. From his more recent postings, I am gathering he is proposing this most to be the recipient of such email notes; as long as users can opt out, I wouldn't have a problem if such a checkbox were made available. –xenotalk 22:08, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Users wishing to receive these special emails could opt-into a bot; and as people left them a message, they could add {{YGT}} (you've got talk) and the bot could email them a note, keeping the editor's email out of the equation. Said bot would might also detect certain keywords or links (xfd, etc) in the message to notify you about matters of import according to your preferences. See WP:BOTREQ? –xenotalk 22:23, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
@Xeno, sure, something of that sort could serve the purpose too, perhaps even better for some users. Of course it is already possible to opt out of email entirely (iirc, one presently opts-in to email from the default opted-out condition), but that's a rather coarse-grained control. Users should of course retain control over the behaviour of their accounts so far as is practicable, but we all get busy with other things.
@Seb, many of us edit various projects other than en:wikipedia more (or less) frequently and may go a while between checking the ones we're not actively working on. Then of course RL sometimes intrudes on the truly important too :-) I figure that a tickler email saying something like: "Pssst! Remember WP? You've got talk there." would in any case be much less intrusive to the recipient than an ongoing stream of detailled copies of emails every time someone updates a talkpage. It would also be less vulnerable to more serious abuse by senders. Without getting too wp:BEANS-ey, we all know that socks could easily make one hesitant about letting their children use WP. LeadSongDog come howl! 23:19, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
The reason I suggested a bot is because I don't think a bugzilla requesting the feature you've described would be acted upon very quickly, if at all (at least not without far greater demand). YMMV. –xenotalk 13:29, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
True 'nuff. And it should be all that's needed. :-) LeadSongDog come howl! 20:35, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Account Creation Improvement Project: Test results, one clear suggestion and some vague ones

Hello,

After being busy off-wiki for a while (including being at Wikimania), I can now finally show you the results from the Account Creation Improvement Project: there is one method of introducing new users that leads to a definite increase in editors starting editing. Implementing the most successful method would mean that 9 more people each day would make at least five edits, compared to the current account creation process. No surprise, then, that I recommend that we implement that process now.

To do that, all we have to do is copy the pages in the new account creation process onto the pages in the current ones. That work is trivial, but we should have consensus on that first.

However, the most successful process is of course not perfect, and I would suggest that we continue work to make it even better. My feeling is that we can increase the percentage of people who start editing after they have created their account even more. On an average day, only 7% of newcomers make 5 edits. I believe we, with very little effort, can increase that number to perhaps 10%! Here's how:

  • the winning account creation process is not operating system neutral. There have been some problems. Ironing this out may help.
  • welcoming the new users in this category may inspire more of them to keep editing. (By substing the template that includes that category on the new users' userpage, we can keep track on who created their account when. That is not done now.) Try finding new people for your cool projects there and invite them.
  • changing the placeholder text so that it disappears when the new user clicks on it, may lead more of them to present themselves than if they can just click save on the placeholder text. There is a suggestion on how to do that here.

And I think we can probably tweak the text here and there, too.

One proposal that will decrease the initial barrier to people actually creating an account is to make it easier for them to find out if the username is already taken. In the report (pdf), I have outlined how to do this. Please take a couple of minutes to at least skim the report.

Last of all, I want to thank everybody who didn't block me when I probably deserved it. The work was done a magnificent team of volunteers and staff, so a great thanks go out to them, too. Best wishes//Hannibal (talk) 13:11, 29 August 2011 (UTC) (I will gladly answer any questions and help out if and when the community wants to implement the changes.)

Deployment discussion on WP:AN 1
Deployment discussion 2
I agree that Wikipedia needs to attract new users who go on to make useful edits and support your efforts in principle. I note that there is something important missing from your analysis -- whether the extra edits actually improved the encyclopedia. To that extent:
  1. What portion of these new edits are to mainspace?
  2. What portion of these are constructive? (e.g. neither vandalism, self-promotion, nor spam) How does this compare to using th eold form?
  3. What portion of these are deleted?
  4. Some of the ACIP tests did not explicitly quote the username policy. For those that did not, was there an increase in inappropriate usernames compared to the original sign-up form?
  5. Did the project result in a relative increase in inappropriate userpages?
I'm supportive of interface changes that attract constructive editors but not if the cost in terms of more incoming crap is too high. MER-C 04:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
"the winning account creation process is not operating system neutral" I skimmed what seemed to be the relevant part of the report and could not figure out what you're referring to. Could you elaborate on this issue? --Cybercobra (talk) 04:52, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
@MER-C: Yes, there are significant points of analysis missing. That was due to the relative short time frame, but I would love to have some those results as well. The first question I can answer: all of them. We only measured mainspace edits. When it comes to 2-5, I'll have to refer to more technical people than myself to see if there's any way to determine that (I'll email them now). I agree that we should experiment further with directing people to make good edits. Cf Jimmy Wales closing "State of the wiki" speech at Wikimania 2011.
@Cybercobra: Apparently, some OS have problems with the form. They don't "carry with them" the information you added from the form to the text area. But apparently there is a solution. However, I don't know how to test it, since I only have Firefox.//Hannibal (talk) 07:24, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Just a note to say that I can't see the crap factor being too high; some Community Department research showed a vast majority of edits made by anonymous people are good. Since these are (presumably) the people we'd be attracting through streamlining the account creation process and making it more useful, it seems unlikely that a veritable horde of trolls would turn up. Ironholds (talk) 09:03, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Has anyone checked to see how many of these accounts turn out to be vandalism accounts? I know I've found several. One big problem for me is that nothing is put on their talk page. Normally we hope new users will get a talk page welcome message. Looking at the timing of one I just blocked, the user page message was added before their first edit. But when they edited, they will not have seen any banner telling them they had a user page, right? But if there had been a talk page message tailored towards new users, the new message banner would have flashed up when they edited. And when I say tailored towards new users, I mean something that kindly and tactfully says what are constructive edits and what are not, and maybe even gently says non-constructive edits lead to editing priveleges being withdrawn. Dougweller (talk) 05:33, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Judging from the response to my questions, that's most likely a no. This is really unfortunate, because such data is absolutely critical to deciding whether this trial should be continued. There is no way that a talk page message will reduce the number of edit(or)s that are blatantly non-constructive but could help improve the quality of marginal edits (for those who actually bother to read it). There is no harm in trying, though, and it makes sense to do so as part of this process. (P.S. Don't forget to nuke the userpage or blank it with {{indefblockeduser}} if you block indefinitely). MER-C 07:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, MER-C, I was detained in other business. Anyway, I would recommend that we would go from having this trial to actually make this the standard account creation process, even if certain data is missing. There is no reason to believe that more new users than usual are vandals, and one good argument for that is that the vandalism patrollers would have been more vocal - like they have been in the past. They haven't now. So for me the choice is between two methods that have the same level of trolls and vandals, while one of them encourage 9 more people a day to start editing (make more than 5 edits). And as you can read above, I also encourage people to experiment and finetune the new process. Are people actually behaving better with the user name policy, for instance, or is that something we only think will make them behave better? I don't know, and neither does anyone else at this point. But let's check it out. We can continue with the tests and have people go different routes and see who behave better. Or we can test whether people become more active if we write to them on their user talk, like Dougweller suggested. Just design your own version of the process (we can start with a text version, and work our way up from that), and we'll test it together. Like before, the results will be public.//Hannibal (talk) 07:57, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I think it's important that some sort of welcome with links is on their talk page. I thought it was generally agreed that new editors should be welcomed on their talk page (with an explanation of what the page is for please), and it seems a bit odd that this system doesn't do it. I take you point about the vandalism patrollers. Dougweller (talk) 17:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
Does that research (I must have missed that somehow) show whether that depends on the welcome message, or is that true for any message they get? And how many percent of the newbies hate this? How much? Enough to make them stop editing? I am very curious about the results here.//Hannibal (talk) 21:31, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Continuation

I hope that this thread doesn't die out, because there is still the matter of actually changing the account creation process. I suggest that:

  1. we start by making the change to the new account creation process
  2. we then experiment with it further, including the proposals suggested above.

How about that? And remember, this has been shown to increase the number of new editors.//Hannibal (talk) 11:47, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The above text is all about "the winning method" and "copying the pages", but no information about what the method is or what pages need to be copied. Could you tell me what the winning method actually is? Does it involve flying pigs? Chickens sacrificed under a full moon? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:18, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. If you read above, I have written an extensive report on everything you need to know about the tests, including answers to your questions, but here are the answers anyway:
The winning method is the one that asks people to enter some information about themselves, which is then carried over to their user page. You can see the first page of the process here, and an example of a user who has completed the process here
"Copying the pages" refers to copying a series of MediaWiki namespace pages, including some that are presented on my user page (a few Mediawiki:common.js and Mediawiki:common.css code parts are also needed but they are already taken care of). I hope that clarifies things a bit.//Hannibal (talk) 22:10, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. "An extensive report" is exactly what I don't want to be reading right now. So it appears that getting users to put a little bit of information about themselves on their userpages (via a script) results in them making more edits. This doesn't sound like something that anyone could object to. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing:  :-) I don't know, though, when I can consider this discussion to have reached a consensus. So let me pose this question: would anyone have a problem with me changing the account creation process to the one described above in one week?//Hannibal (talk) 09:09, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with changing the account creation process. Anything that helps us gain more good contributors is a good thing. Having said that, I do have a concern. As Wikipedia is a very public place and is rightly concerned about our editors privacy, I think it might be healthy to warn our new editors about privacy issues, and not let them give out too much personal identifying information about themselves while they are this new. For instance, I would remove the ability to add a picture of themselves. New editors might not realize the permanent nature of the information put on Wikipedia. If a new editor mentioned their real name and that they had cancer, they might find it difficult to get a job because an employer found this information and decided to hire somebody without cancer (that's probably a bad example, but you get the idea). I'm not certain new editors would fully understand this and so I think we should try to protect them from inadvertently harming theirselves. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 03:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
Interesting. Do you think we would get this done by a link somewhere during the process? I agree that the photo is something that we should experiment more with, to see whether that get newbies into more trouble or less. And I definitely see the danger you sketch out. However, where do we draw the line in protecting people? I grant that we should problably not get everyone to state their full name, and I can support some sort of idea to get people to be more careful with their personal information, but the system will not be 100 %.//Hannibal (talk) 21:31, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
I think a general notice anywhere during the process would be fine—just enough to make new users aware of the issue. Perhaps using the in a nutshell section from either Wikipedia:On privacy, confidentiality and discretion or Wikipedia:Wikipedia is in the real world would be sufficient. Just a quick note: I didn't want to change the focus of this thread from attracting new users to privacy issues. I think it is important for us to seek new users as they are the future of the project. IMHO, the ACIP is very important part of the solution to increasing our user base. I was actually hoping more users would be involved in this thread as I think attracting new editors should be very high on our priority list. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 09:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposal of additional bullet point at top of Special:NewPages (while CorenSearchBot is down)

Back on August 30th, I started a discussion on the above propoal at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol#Proposal of additional bullet point at top of Special:NewPages (while CorenSearchBot is down). In hindsight, I should have probably raised it at this board instead. In any event, there wasn't really any discussion about the main proposal: adding a comment to Special:NewPages.

Given the discussion there didn't take off, and the issue may have been re-opened with the Op-Ed piece in the latest Signpost, I though I would re-raise the proposal here and see if there's any consensus one way or another.

CorenSearchBot is still down. There is definitely a problem with new editors creating articles that are copyright violations, and there is currently no automated process to deal with it. I have often looked at recently patrolled new pages to discover that the articles are copyright violations. Other times, I see an article tagged for A7 or G11, an admin decline the speedy deletions, only for me (or another editor) to discover afterwards that the article should have been tagged with G12. Therefore, while CorenSearchBot is down, I would like to propose an additionl bullet point at the top of Special:NewPages, which will say the following:

  • CorenSearchBot is temporarily not working; there is no current automated process for detected copyright violations. Therefore, when reviewing a new page, please consider 1) for single reference articles, comparing the article's content to the reference and looking for copy/pastes or close paraphrasing, and 2) running a random passage of text from the article through a search engine (such as Google) for that exact phrase to see if it has been copied from anywhere. If appropriate, tag an article that is a blatant copyright violation for speedy deletion under G12.

Thoughts? Singularity42 (talk) 19:36, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

This may be helpful too. --Σ talkcontribs 23:22, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm ambivalent on the addition (to watch out for copyvios), but I think the message is too long. I don't think the reference to CorenSearchBot is needed (I've definitely caught copyvios before this month, and I wasn't aware the bot existed), and I'm not sure we should go into such detail about the steps for checking in the message itself, instead of linking to the relevant part of WP:NPP. wctaiwan (talk) 02:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
We have an epidemic of copyvios and I would discover them daily even when the searchbot was working. In retrospect, we've always needed something here. I have boldly added the following text:
Please consider checking new pages for copyright violations. One can copy and paste one or more segments of unique text from the article into a search engine in quotation marks. For pages with a single online reference or external link, compare the content to the external site and look for copy/pastes and close paraphrasing. Blatant violations can be tagged for speedy deletion under CSD G12. Otherwise, see {{copyvio}}.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:25, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
I think the addition is great, and a definite improvement over my initial proposal. Singularity42 (talk) 17:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
Great. I just tweaked your language and it was a great idea that would not have gotten done without your broaching of the subject.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:37, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Search results could have a languages section like the article pages

I'm bilingual, and I guess many Wikipedia user are. Sometimes I accidentally search for a dutch or german word in the English Wikipedia. The search results then suggests some word that resembles the word I searched for. But it doesn't offer me an option to search the word in another language Wikipedia. Wouldn't it be nice if the search result page had a languages section in the left frame, that offered me to search for the word in a different language Wikipedia? The list would potentially be long, but that is another issue.

  • Comment - That may be convenient for you. But are there other bilingual users who would agree with you? Interchangeable|talk to me 19:52, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment I know the problem and found my own solution: When you search in the wrong language, go the the adress bar. That should read http://en.wikipedia.org/... and swap it with nl or de, then press enter. I am pretty sure it will possible to make a userscript that uses the same method to make a languages section in the left frame if you prefer clickable buttons. That way you could actually select which language links you want, rather than get all 150 (or something like that). Yoenit (talk) 09:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Show magnify glass icon when pointer hovering over images

To emphasis that a reader can click on an image to see a larger version of the image, the pointer should transform itself into a magnify glass icon when hovering over the image. A little bit of css is all that's needed. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 02:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit conflicts

Edit conflicts can be extremely frustrating and annoying. I suggest that, if Wikipedia already knows the location of my edit/s, it'll automatically add both my edit and the other person's edit instead of asking me to find all the placed I edited-- Someone35  17:28, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The problem is, what if your edit and the conflicted edit both target the same passage of text? That's better fixed by a human than to have the software do something funky with word order or the like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by C.Fred (talk • contribs) 17:53, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Then make a mechanism that only asks you to combine your version with someone else's version only when they're written in the same part of the text (while automatically editing all other words in your edit that weren't changed), it's shouldn't be too hard to program-- Someone35  18:04, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
The edit conflict handler already tries to gracefully handle edit conflicts. When it fails, it gives you the edit conflict screen. –xenotalk 18:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
I was going to say...doesn't the edit conflict screen show a diff of what you're trying to edit versus what another editor is trying/has already edited? I haven't been as active so I haven't had an edit conflict come up for quite some time. JguyTalkDone 19:27, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Some time ago, a Wikipedian pointed out (and I agreed) that it can be frustrating to get the message "Another Wikipedian has started to edit this page since you started editing it, resulting in an edit conflict". I was wondering whether this issue might even smack of perennial proposal territory. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:11, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not listed at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals, if that's what you're trying to ask. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 21:45, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
MediaWiki has the ability to automatically combine certain conflicting edits, but only when they fit a narrow set of circumstances. There's an old debate at Bugzilla regarding whether or not edit conflicts can be eliminated altogether. I think the developer community has resigned to waiting for LiquidThreads to make the issue more or less obsolete, since talk pages represent the main brunt of the edit conflict problem. Equazcion (talk) 22:17, 13 Sep 2011 (UTC)

Swedish WIkipedia/News needs help - Parliament opening

Swedish Wiki needs help, both for Wikipeia and Wikinews. The thing is that the swedish parliament opens on thursday, after the long summer holidays. It opens of course with all the splendour of the democratic society, so that means the king and queen will be there, as well as performers. I have a press ackreditation for making photos at the entrance, however what the parliament would really like is of course that the news spread around the world.

Is it possible to get somebody to write something, maybe for Wikinews? The important part is to spread the news, and the free pictures. Maybe tell news agencies, that would spread the word. There will be some nice pictures of the royalties arriving, as well as of course the politicians, and many more important people. It would be really good if some newspapers/websites used the photos and text, and say 'source wikipedia wikinews' or something like that. Is there anyone that has a lot of contacts with the media? Is there anyone who can spread the word?

It is also possible to update the articles in Wikipedia about the swedish parliament. However, the most important part is if the message can be spread, with free text and pictures, as a news flow. --Janwikifoto (talk) 21:09, 13 September 2011 (UTC) (in Sweden)

It would be better to post this on the village pump (or community portal) in sweedish. ~~Ebe123~~ (+) talk
Contribs 21:07, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
I have refered the Geman wikinews editors to this post. Agathoclea (talk) 09:11, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

confused - please help! map request

Hi!

If you have worked with world maps before, please help! I want to make one. I am so confused and helpless in this part of wikipedia. I have been editing Muammar Gaddafi, and I want to put up a map of nations he's visited, warred with, tried to merge with. I have a list of nations, sourced, ready-to-go, but i don't know how to make the map. If you can help, I'm offering you a barnstar for your hard work. And please understand, Gaddafi's 40+ yrs in power have created an interesting list of nations. I think you'll find it exciting and intriguing when I share the list with you. Anyway, send me a message to my talk page and I'll send you the list of countries. I like the map of Nations visited by Pope John Paul II and I think it's a great example of what we can do. Again, thank you so much for your help!

Sincerely,


Screwball23 talk 19:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Please consider posting this to the Help desk, and the Reward board. Anyway, I will see. ~~Ebe123~~ (+) talk
Contribs 20:17, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
May you post the info on your user page? ~~Ebe123~~ (+) talk
Contribs 21:05, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
I believe that User talk:Lokal_Profil is one of our experts on this sort of map. You might ask him for help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:14, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Capitalization of common names of animal species

An option to allow an editor to put his sessions in "read only" mode

It would work like this. An editor would turn this option on in "preferences" and it would replace the "edit" tab on every page he views with a "view source" tab as if every page were protected. For most editors this would only prevent him from "accidentally" editing a page or be another way to self-enforce a wikibreak but it would be most useful to editors blocked for a short period of time as it would prevent them from accidentally triggering an autoblock when trying to view a page's source or hitting the edit tab accidentally. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 20:01, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

  • Question; if we're talking about blocked people, you mean "when they are logged out, they would be prevented from accidentally triggering an autoblock". when they are logged out. How, precisely, do you provide a preferences system for IPs? Ironholds (talk) 20:30, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
    "when they are logged out"? What? Autoblocks don't work that way - an autoblock happens if a blocked user logs on with any IP which is not already autoblocked. Ajraddatz (Talk) 22:35, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
  • It's my understanding that it works like this. Whenever a logged on but blocked user clicks the "edit" tab, the software records his IP address and autoblocks it for 24 hours. So let's say that User:Foo, an otherwise good faith user, who is blocked for 24 hours for 3RR clicks the "edit" tab on any page 1 hour before his block expires. That starts a new 24 hour clock on that IP address so if he tries to edit 10 hours after the block expires he will get nailed by the autoblock. If he tries to make that first edit from a friend's computer, a library, or a cybercafe, then that computer's IP address will be autoblocked. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:45, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
There are many editors who do not keep track of time or may forget that they were blocked. The obvious possible consequence is that a user who has learned the error of their ways after a 24-hour block will click the edit icon, hoping to resume their good-faith edits, but will suddenly find themselves blocked for another day. And even users who attempted to edit one minute before the expiration of the block would be blocked another day. This would cause more outrage than lesson-teaching. Interchangeable|talk to me 01:09, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Seems the me the real problem is autoblocks extend beyond the time period of the original block. If you are still blocked for 5 minutes you should get autoblocked for 5 minutes. Yoenit (talk) 21:53, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Maybe so but that's another discussion. I was just using it as an 1 example of where my proposed feature would be useful. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:26, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Replacing the editing tab with a "view source" is very easy to do, and can be done with a bit of js. It could even be made a gadget. I personally don't think that this should be added to preferences, though, or that admins should be using autoblock on users editing in good faith. Ajraddatz (Talk) 02:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
I know I tried to "downplay" the autoblock thing but your response made me think of a question about it. When an editor clicks the "view source" tab on a protected article, it's still an "&action=edit". If said editor is blocked, would that still trigger an autoblock? I would also think that a js hack would present the same problem as it would still need to do an "&action=edit" in order to retrieve the source and show it to the editor as "read only". --Ron Ritzman (talk) 02:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
If autoblocks kick in when the "edit" button is pushed, that's silly anyway. It shouldn't kick in until the "Save page" button is pushed. As for the rest, it seems like a modification of UserTabs could provide this functionality? I'm not sure that it should be listed under Preferences as a new Gadget, though. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 05:43, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Additonal Search Box location

Greetings I frequently use Wikipedia, and I have a proposal for an additonal search box location that will improve the experience of the readers:

Often, by the time I've finished reading a Wikipedia article, it the article has given me an idea about something else I'd want to search for. But...

But: It is botheringly time-consuming to always scroll up to the top of the page to get back to the Search Box. So: I propose that an Additonal Search Box be placed near the bottom of each page. Indeed, that's a natural place for one, as I'd bet that many people want to search for another item, once they've finiished reading an article---without the bother of scrolling up up up again to the top.

Sincerely submitted, Seth Joseph Weine

  • Comment Without venturing an opinion on your proposal I would like to point out that if you press the "home" key on your keyboard you are immediately moved to the top of the page and vice versa for the "end" button. Yoenit (talk) 09:38, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
  • See Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts. On my Mac, ctrl-f is the command that takes you directly to the search box. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:08, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose as written based on others' alternatives. But also because I might read half-way through (or read the body but not want to have to scroll through the mile of footnotes and such)...still want the feature but am not "near the bottom" of the page. Feels nonstandard to have a bottom-positioned searchbox anyway (unlikely to look there even if it's the idea I want). And what if instead of reading and wanting to search to learn more, I want to comment on the talk-page about it? Have to scroll to the top for some things anyway. A more generally useful approach IMO would be to have the whole toolbar remain fixed at the top even while the article itself scrolls. DMacks (talk) 11:05, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Watchlist Feature

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

Why don't you just edit your own watchlist and remove them? --Jayron32 04:16, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
If the pages aren't going to change, they won't give entries on your watchlist anyways.Jasper Deng (talk) 04:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I don't think automatic removal would be a good idea, while closed discussions should not be edited, it has been known to happen, and there is some value to them lingering in watch lists. That said, it would be great if there was a way to set a time before something is automatically removed from your watchlist. There are a decent number of pages I want to keep watchlisted, but most of my list is consumed by pages I want to watch for a few days after doing something, in case anyone objects or has any comments, but then would be happy to forget. But I guess that is really outside the scope of the suggestion here. I would mention that excessive watchlist bloat will cause your watchlist to load much more slowly, though it takes many times more pages then 14 before it becomes an issue. Monty845 04:32, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I seem to recall that the recommended upper limit for a Watchlist is 9,800 pages, so rather more than 14! And even then, I believe that figure dates back to 2006 and one can easily imagine - though it's not necessarily so - that the technical infrastructure can now handle a great deal more (though whether the user can is a different story). --bodnotbod (talk) 07:56, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I am at about 5000 at the Moment, and don't see any particular timelag. I have to filter by namespaces if following something in particular. Altogether though you will find quite some spattering of chatter on old - closed - pages. Agathoclea (talk) 09:04, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I think that automatic housekeeping of watchlists has too many potential downsides, in return for modest benefits. You'd need an opt-out for the kind of people who want to be notified of a change to some page on an issue which ought to be buried. (As well as old AfDs, My watchlist also contains a few redlinks: Problematic articles which got AfD'd but I think there's a risk that the problem might return). bobrayner (talk) 12:12, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
If it helps any I have around 21, 000 pages and it works just fine. --Kumioko (talk) 13:30, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Showoff. TeleComNasSprVen (talk • contribs) 13:44, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
21,000!? How do we know if your watchlist is really working fine or whether, in fact, you have simply been driven insane by your demanding overlord and cannot now bring yourself to say anything about its flaws? --bodnotbod (talk) 14:50, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
LOL, its really not that bad, I usually scan it for certain things (blanked references tags and the like). Besides for me insanity is a short trip. :-)...--Kumioko (talk) 14:56, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

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

I personally like the idea of a Wathclisthelperbot to do some things and I think that it would be fairly easy to do both of the suggestions. I think that coding abot to do some of the following things would be fairly easy and there are probably a couple of existing bots that are capable of it with minor coding. Here are a few things that it might be useful for but should be opt in only:
  • Remove redlinks
  • Remove redirects
  • remove closed MFDs, RFD's and other for deletion type things
  • Remove FA, A, GA and other for review candidates
Heres the problem with this though and this is very important. Once an article is removed from the Watchlist there is no undo. Its gone. So I would recommend if a bot removes something it leave a message on the users talk page of the action taken so the user can decide if it was correct. The user can always burn after reading from the talk page but that will give them a recod of what the bot did that they can fix. --Kumioko (talk) 14:36, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
This would be necessarily opt-in, as it would require editors interested in this service periodically posting their watchlist somewhere accessible by a bot, and then copying the edited list back into their private watchlist. –xenotalk 14:38, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
True, I figure the watchlist is stored somewhere on the server and if so it should be accessible via a bot on the toolserver (although perhaps not a Wikipedia run bot). I agree it should be optin.--Kumioko (talk) 14:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
See m:Watchlist#Privacy of watchlists. –xenotalk 14:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I have also noticed another thing that I find annoying when it comes to watchlists. If I add a category, template, etc It will display on my watchlist but if I try and edit the list to remove it I can't. I have to go to that template, category, etc and select unwatch. It would be great if I had some visibility of that on my watchlist. --Kumioko (talk) 15:02, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Xeno so that rules out the use of a bot. It would have to be a user run script of gadget then I guess. Although, here is a twist. Although I see why some would not want to share that info I for one could care less who sees my watchlist and I suspect others feel the same way. If a bot edited it, there could be a parameter to prompt the user if they wanted to be notified of the modification. If they say no then it wouldn't post the change to the talk page. I wasn't aware of the privacy factor though and I find that interesting. I would be curious how much space that takes up no the server for Users who have been gone for more than a year. I imagine its quite big. --Kumioko (talk) 15:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I do not think the devs would take time to modify the software to allow bots to access the watchlist on an opt-in basis, but a clever bot might be able to use the watchlist token if the editor were willing to disclose it. A bot could also act on a list posted to someone's userspace (i.e. special:mypage/Watchlist) or something. Then the user could copy the list back to their private watchlist. (Useful side effect would be that the history would provide a useful record of pages trimmed by the bot.) –xenotalk 15:16, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Your probably right about the developers not wanting to spend time but I wonder if they would be willing to allow a person to optin use of a subpage in their userspace rather than the hidden watchlist. I wouldn't think that coding in a user preference switch would be too difficult or time consuming. They would just need to prompt the user that the information would be visible and the normal privacy settings in use on the watchlist are nullified by using a subpage. In the meantime (and likely forever) a user could follow your suggestion and create a subpage that could be tweaked but then they still have to update it manually. For very large lists like mine it would be helpful, for short lists of less than 100 I don't know if it would save much time. --Kumioko (talk) 15:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Maybe an option that would be a workaround would be some easy way to filter the watchlist beyond the simple namespace separation there is now. Redlinks, redirects, AFDs, etc etc could all be filtered in or out to make it much easier to trim things as needed. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 16:14, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Please, people! I'm just asking for a feature that automatically removes closed discussion pages from watchlists. There's no need to become so complex! Interchangeable|talk to me 18:14, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
You are right there is no reason to make this complicated. From your watchlist click edit and remove the ones you don't want. Simple. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.252.21.147 (talk) 18:32, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Well I for one really WOULD like that filter, were it possible. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 19:53, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
You forgot to sign, whoever posted that reply. Why is it not possible? Interchangeable|talk to me 02:13, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
I don't think Melodia meant to imply that it was not possible, just that they would support it as long as it was. —Akrabbimtalk 02:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
The relevent section that xeno cited said nothing about ruling out the use of bots. It just said administrators weren't allowed to view watchlists. Interchangeable|talk to me 17:30, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
It ruled out everyone that didn't have system-level access to the database holding user watchlist data: this includes bots. –xenotalk 01:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Melodia, one suggestion would be to cut and paste your raw watchlist into an WP:AWB list. Then, you can filter the list by, for example contains for deletion. Once you are done all the necessary trims, copy it back. Another solution is to simply declare watchlist bankruptcy from time to time. –xenotalk 01:00, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I can see the reprocussions and the benefits from this all at the same time. On one hand, you have the users who want stuff like this to be automated and love stuff like that. Why have a page on your watchlist if it was deleted? If you have to go on a Wikibreak and some pages from your watchlist were deleted, then you would never know until you maintained your watchlist. Having this automated for those users might be beneficial. On the other hand, there are users who want none of this to be automated and find that a feature like this might be obtrusive. Perhaps a suggestion to MediaWiki to add this as a selectable feature in the 'Preferences' of each user? JguyTalkDone 16:49, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Oh, absolutely. I can see no problems with a user preference - does anyone else have a comment? Interchangeable|talk to me 19:42, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
I said, does anyone else have a comment about making it a user preference? Interchangeable|talk to me 22:20, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
Weak oppose: Sorry, I can't even support making auto-deletion a user preference, as I don't think the extra effort to add it programatically and to explain/understand it equal the benefit you hope to get from it. If it were a user preference, it would have to default to no change from the current behavior, in part because I like having a list of what AfD discussions I participated in. They're listed alphabetically in my watchlist, so if I want to remove them, I can. And in general, I don't like the idea of my watchlist being programmatically changed (behind my back, as it were).
In summary, it's IMHO a solution too expensive for the problem it's supposed to solve. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 12:30, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
So if you like a list of your AfD discussions, you don't have to make it your user preference. I do agree with your point that it would have to default to nothing. However, I do not care for having a long list of AfDs and FACs that I will never visit again, and that no one will ever edit. If I understand what has been said correctly, all we need to do is make a bot that can see watchlists even though its operator can't. Interchangeable|talk to me 17:24, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Appearance of Village Pump pages

I suggest removing most of the direct links to archives from the headers of these pages. I don't think that an user remembers that a particular discussion was in archive 26, and would thus either search or be prepared to consult (with one more click) the full list of archives. Recent archives would be included. I've gone back five months here.

At the moment:

« Older discussions | Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77

Suggested:

« Older discussions | Archives: 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77

This would clear up the header a fair bit (up to four lines on some thin screens); it would also make people more likely to read the rest of the header. This would apply to the four Village Pumps for now (although the Idea Lab would not yet be affected). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 10:59, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, working on a technical change for this. It might take a few days to work out the template-fu required. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:52, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Think I've achieved what I meant to do (with the exception of the comma, not sure how to fix that). For the record, "start" indicates the first archive wanted, minus one. Welcome to tweak. The idea lab will need this parameter adding when the time is right to have at least one omitted archive. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 22:04, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Functionality on "my contributions"

On the "my contributions" page, there's a box to check for "Only show edits that are latest revisions". I've never felt the desire to check this box, but I've often wanted just the opposite. I want to see pages that have been edited by someone else after my last edit.

I close a lot of move requests, you see, and I like being able to go back and check whether any post-closing objections have been raised on the talk pages where the closures occurred. Could this function be easily added to the page? -GTBacchus(talk) 18:34, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

It would also be nice to be able to hide minor edits on "my contributions", like we can on "my watchlist" and on "recent changes". -GTBacchus(talk) 18:35, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
I agree, the inverse of this would be much more useful, at least to me. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:33, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
User:Markhurd/hidetopcontrib.js adds an option to a "contributions" page to hide any line marked "(top)", leaving only the pages that have been edited since. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:39, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Cool. What do I have to do to implement that for myself? I'm completely ignorant of this sort of thing. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:12, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
...and I find our help page on the topic completely opaque. Can someone please explain to me in small words how to make this work? -GTBacchus(talk) 01:43, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
If your using Vector, add the text "importScript ('User:Markhurd/hidetopcontrib.js');" to User:GTBacchus/vector.js. If you're using Monobook, add the same text to User:GTBacchus/monobook.js. Graham87 13:03, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
I use Monobook, so I did what you said, and then I did ctrl-shift-R to clear my cache in Firefox. I don't see any change on "my contributions", though. Is there something I'm still missing? -GTBacchus(talk) 14:01, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
It just adds a tab to the top called "show/hide top" which you click to toggle the contributions. Keith D (talk) 15:04, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
Got it! :D Thanks very much. -GTBacchus(talk) 15:30, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
This sounds like a very nice tool, but it doesn't seem to work for me. I've added it to User:Gadfium/vector.js, and cleared my cache, but I see nothing saying "show/hide top" (nor does that appear when I ^F search for it, or search the page source). I'm using Firefox 6.0.2 and yes, I am using vector.-gadfium 01:56, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Do you see an extra triangle at the top of the page, to the left of the search box? Click on it to see the "show/hide top" option. I don't see this text in the page source either - I've no idea how this sort of thing works. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:55, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, thank you. It seems to work well now that I see that option.-gadfium 23:19, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

RFC on Community Portal

Please come and give your opinion [| here] regarding a proposed change to the community portal. @-Kosh► Talk to the Vorlons►Narn (Loyal Bat Squad Member)-@ 11:11, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Merge WikiProject Status templates

Moved to Template talk:WikiProject status

I would like to propose merging the different WikiProject Status templates into one template. Currently there are templates for Defunct, Inactive, Semi-active and Project header which would also determine active. This Suggestion would accomplish several things.

  1. It would combine like usage templates into one easy to use template.
  2. It would combine the documentation for these templates into one allowing a cleaner, centrally located document that can be understood without having to go several places to get all the context.
  3. It would create a category for "Active projects" which is currently difficult to determine which are active without having to dig.
  4. It will make it easier to update the status of a project. If the projects status changes, just change the status.
  5. It would allow us to eliminate at some point these other templates for Semi-active, defunct, inactive, Project header and potentially a couple others as well.

I have already created the template for WikiProject Status for those that say its too hard its already basically done. Although it could probably use some more testing. I think I have designed it well enough to make it easy to determine coding problems and fix them pretty easily by separating each of the (fairly complicated) statuses into subpages. Just to be clear I didn't write all of it I just gathered the different bits and incorporated them into one template.

I am suggesting this here rather than the merge board because of the high usage of these templates to allow the maximum possibility of discussion. Additionally because it would create a new category and also the creation of a whole new template its a little beyond a simple merge.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about this idea. --Kumioko (talk) 15:01, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Ill give it a few more days for the discussion but since knowone seems to care one way or the other I will go ahead and start transitioning the templates over into this new one once I wrap up some other tasks later in the week. --Kumioko (talk) 14:11, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. I've done some work on the code. Few comments

  1. Couldn't understand what the on parameter was for, because it seemed to call the same template again which would cause a template loop error.
  2. Please move the existing templates to the subpages rather than copy-pasting them. This will preserve the history. For example, Template:Semi-active could be moved to Template:WikiProject Status/Semi-active. You will need some administrative help with this, as you have already created those subtemplates.
  3. I would prefer Template:WikiProject status rather than Template:WikiProject Status. (Unnecessary capital.)

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:33, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the help and good ideas. Not the greatest at coding so I'm glad you reviewed it. I hope you don't mind I changed the bullets to numbers. I agree on bullet three, On #2 I wasn't sure if I could move them but I can do that. On #1 I think that was from the original template. It may not have been needed in it either. It may not be needed if we are merging them into one. --Kumioko (talk) 16:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Since this has been open for so long in this public place I am going to go on a limb and start implementing this. I am going to first fix the template title as suggested above and move the other templates to the subpages to retain the history. I will then also create a category for the Active projects. --Kumioko (talk) 01:44, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
I've moved {{inactive}} over. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Admit it, you like society

this was a post at User:Jimbo Wales/Edits a long time ago that never went anywhere... Apparently, you like the social networking in Wikipedia, why not make Wikipedia a social networking encyclopedia site? Like that, people can edit the encyclopedia, while they also socialize and befriend other users. IMO, less bad faith edits will occur when the people know Wikipedia is also letting them interact freely with each other, and also more users will register. Plus, the internet traffic will be through the roof and believe me, if u implement actual ads, you'd make a killer revenue which could be utilized for the non-profit charity of Wikipedia. Feedback ☎ 22:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think ads is the way to go , I filter all my adds.(Off2riorob (talk) 18:37, 1 April 2009 (UTC))
I disagree and agree. I think Wikipedia would be nice as a social-networking site/web encyclopedia, but I don't believe ads should be on Wikipedia, let alone anywhere! Goldblattster (talk) 01:31, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately, ads are what make the world go round, if donations aren't cutting it. Take youtube for example. Youtube is a site that is massively useful to the day to day user, and they are able to do that due to ads. Only a minority of internet users filter their ads, and if they choose to do so, by all means, go ahead, but if an organization that provides a free service to the internet chooses to place ads, so be it, you must deal with it, and be glad that the site is there, and free for you to use! Laytonsmith14 (talk) 16:18, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

My original point two years ago stands. Wikipedia should not frown upon becoming a social networking landscape. Almost every social networking website like Flickr, Flixster and others have guidelines and pages to update just like Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is the only one that frowns on social interacting. Why not invite users to create user pages, chat and socialize with people who have their same editing interests? The encyclopedia won't change. It could even grow stronger. I think we should look at things into perspective and realize that the Internet is growing due to social networking and unless we should capitalize on it. Feedback ☎ 18:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

We had an RFC on this in March that was listed on {{cent}} and although it was never it closed it should be obvious that there is strong opposition to allowing any type of socializing in wikipedia. You might also wanna search the archives of this village pump, as I remember it being discussed several times before. Yoenit (talk) 21:28, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
  • The problem is this is a false dichotomy; Wikipedia is already a social network, using the standard definition. The distinction is that the social network aspect is a necessary (and very, very important) requirement of the overarching goal (to create an encyclopedia) and not the goal in and of itself. In regards to ads, we have a long-standing consensus that ads will never be permitted. Ironholds (talk) 13:41, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
  • To what end to we need ads? The purpose of money is to buy things you need, and Wikipedia doesn't need to buy anything more than it has; the annual fundraiser and other donationas are enough to cover operating costs and capital expenditures. It doesn't need any additional revenue streams for any purpose. --Jayron32 05:13, 15 September 2011 (UTC)


It will not do to use a car as a boat! If you go to Wikipedia: What Wikipedia is not, you will see that it is clarfied (I think it is under sub-heading 2.5) that Wikipedia is not a social networking site. There are such functions on the web, such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo or Twitter, but Wikipedia needs to maintain its personal identity as an online encyclopeadia. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 15:51, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Reasons for proposal:

  • to reduce the number of near-duplicate articles with different names, and
  • to mitigate the effects when redirects and merges have been overdone

A related topic was previously discussed here, but it seems that no strong consensus emerged.

When an editor adds a link to "ABC" then at present Wikipedia tells the editor, "There isn't an article called "ABC", do you want to create one (if such an article doesn't exist). I feel that it would be better if the message were, "There isn't an article called "ABC", but there is a category "ABC". Do you want to **view the category "ABC"** (this would link to the category search results page) or create a new article "ABC"?

Justification: There are many nearly-identical articles with different names on Wikipedia. A major reason for this is surely that basic search does not search category names by default. So if you search for "ABC" you probably won't find category "ABC" unless you are one of the few people who know that you need to do an advanced search to find category names that include "ABC".

So the key issue of this proposal is that basic search should include category name (keyword) search by default.

If this were the case, then it would also mitigate the effects of redirects and merges that have been overdone. The whole focus of Wikipedia should surely be to help people to quickly find and jump to an answer to their specific question, not on redirecting them and forcing them to read through a humongous article to see if it contains something related to their question. The "Emergency Management" article seems to be a case in point: It seems that somebody with a fixation on "Emergency management" merged or redirected just about every remotely-related topic under the sun to "Emergency management", so there's no way that you can go directly to the specific topic you're looking for without wading through "Emergency management" (discussion). If the "Emergency management" article were an overview, with links to major articles on subtopics under "Emergency management" (rather than a humongous article that few people will have the patience to read all of) then it would be more useful. Most people with a specific query will simply give up and never find all the articles in "Category:Disaster (Emergency) preparedness", or "Safety" (education related to "Accident prevention") for example. Someone with a specific query like "(links to official web sites about) emergency preparedness precautions recommended in America" will probably give up and never find an answer. This problem would surely be greatly mitigated if category (keyword) search results were displayed below article title search results by default. LittleBen (talk) 01:45, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

  • I think this idea has a lot of promise. Finding a category page could be quite helpful to readers, and would make category pages more widely useful than they are now. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:42, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oh, there's so much that could be improved with our Wikipedia search. I would list them if it meant someone was going to do something about them. I'm still waiting for the winner of the Greplin search design contest to be announced so I can see what people think is wrong. Back to this discussion: sure, yes, good idea. Commons does it for images and it's very helpful to me. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 22:52, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't you find the category if rather than type in "Go", you typed into the "Search" box? You should still see this if you have kept Wikipedia's old skin, which you can do if you are logged in. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 15:54, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The search box with the magnifying glass and the one with the Go button are surely just two different skins on the same functionality. If you try a null search, you will see this. Category search isn't included in basic search according to this. LittleBen (talk) 23:40, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Non-administrators, run for ArbCom election!

Gerardw and Dougweller have agreed with me that this thread does not belong here. Closed per consensus. ╟─TreasuryTag►draftsman─╢ 17:21, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Please note that there was no "consensus" here, just a a three-two majority.--Kotniski (talk) 06:35, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The ArbCom has never had a non-administrator member. This has made the Arbcom an unfair court, as its user right group makeup has not reflected the true range of Wikipedia users. If we get more non-administrators to run, we have a greater possibility that many ArbCom case parties get judged by their peers. Though you might not believe that you have the chance to get elected, it is a signal that more and more non-administrators and more "regular" Wikipedia users are involved and interested in the ArbCom!

And perhaps an even better reason to include non-administrators: The ArbCom is the court that deals with admin (mis)conduct. Today, admins are judged by their fellow admins! Wouldn't it be more fair if the true independent memebers of community also would have a vote about the condcut of Wikipedia Administrators?

If I am elected to the Committee, I will be the independent voice in the Comittee who investigates from and represents the average user's point of view. I will be the one who will dare to bypass the other Committee members' opinions if I believe they are wrong.

But I want more non-administrator candidates to run! Run for the Committee if you're a non-administrator, and use your vote to vote for an independent voice in the ArbCom! Vote for a non-administrator candidate! WIkipedia deserves it! PaoloNapolitano (talk) 09:17, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I certainly get the feeling the ArbCom and its hangers-on have become something of a self-satisfied and inward-looking clique. Not sure why it's relevant whether someone's an admin, though.--Kotniski (talk) 10:50, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm also rather disturbed that there are people trying to suppress discussion of this topic by declaring the thread "closed" - if you disagree with what's said, then why not present counter-arguments?--Kotniski (talk) 12:43, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Because it's not a proposal. It doesn't belong here. It shows a lack of respect for the WP community by posting an ad where it doesn't belong and wasting everyone's time having to parse it. See WP:DICK. Gerardw (talk) 12:48, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Why would anyone want to see WP:DICK? This is not an ad (apart from arguably one bit in the middle) - it's a perfectly reasonable proposal or suggestion, namely that one of the things wrong with Wikipedia is too few admins on ArbCom, and proposing a possible route to solving the problem (non-admins standing in the elections).--Kotniski (talk) 12:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Which they have done in the past, at least two in the last election, so how does this belong here? There's no proposal, just someone announcing they are going to run for office. I'm tempted to discuss some of the other statements made by this does not belong here so I won't. It can't be a proposal for something we already have as part of the system. Dougweller (talk) 13:33, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
A regular editor going directly to arbitrator, would cause recentment in the community, among administrators & non-administrators. It's simple human nature, that over-achievers tend to be disliked. GoodDay (talk) 13:37, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
This editor has 299 edits not counting deleted edits. His 7th edit was to call for Admins to give up their tools while they are on ArbCom. A few edits and 2 days later he's calling for "Editors in good standing who have never been a committee member (perhaps more than 500 edits and half a year of registration) may enlist to be a lay committee member." who would be chosen randomly, two at a time, for ArbCom cases. Three days ago he was calling for mandated places for non-adminstrators on ArbCom. He's also taken part in one ArbCom case, the Tree-shaping case. But you can't 'propose that more non-Adminstrators should run' as his edit summary says, you can only encourage them to run as they can already, and that as I've said doesn't belong here. Dougweller (talk) 13:45, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
I think that absolutely belongs here. Where else would it belong? It's a general proposal addressed to the community as a whole, that we get more non-admins onto ArbCom. We might disagree with it or not hold any particular views on it, but unless this is a blocked user, I don't see any reason to censor it (or to raise the question of his edit history, unless you are proposing that he be blocked or something). --Kotniski (talk) 14:19, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, if they are going to campaign on the VP, then their edit history is certainly relevant. I have no opposition to voting non-admins to Arbcom, but there is no way I would support an editor with 300 total edits on this account. And given an editor with that few edits is unlikely to be deeply interested in Arbcom, the very first thing I wondered was if they have another account, and if so, why they aren't running under that one. Resolute 14:25, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
The editor who started this, or his suitability to be a member of ArbCom, assuming that he intends to be a candidate at some point, is not the topic of this thread (at least, it needn't have been).--Kotniski (talk) 14:35, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Discussion of how to encourage editors to run for arbcom elections belongs there. Here, it's SPAM. Gerardw (talk) 14:47, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

New deletion discussion venue

So WP:MfD is clogged, and the majority are WP:Userboxes. I think that we should create Wikipedia:Userboxes for deletion (WP:UfD for short.) It would be useful as MfD already has lots of deletion requests without userboxes. ~~Ebe123~~ (+) talk
Contribs 10:40, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Do you know how many more of these are in the pipeline? It looks like one editor is conducting a prescribed burn in this area. Other relevant discussions include Wikipedia talk:Miscellany for deletion#Unused userboxes and WT:CSD#New CSD - T4 Unused userbox that is more than 30 days old. MER-C 13:47, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
I know. ~~Ebe123~~ (+) talk
Contribs 15:15, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
I think the whole userbox-deletion project is just silly from the start. The editor who's pushing it should just drop it, and they should be mass-kept. --Trovatore (talk) 03:52, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I fail to see the point in this proposal. I can only assume that your concern is some sort of backlog, the answer to which is to have more people participating. Splitting into another page does nothing to address backlogs. → ROUX ₪ 18:04, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

+1 (in support of ROUX's comment) --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:07, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
The point is some people don't care about userboxes either way, and it's a niche subject, it may be that it could be usefully hived off for the attention of userboxers only, whi would go through them like a dose of salts, whilst other miscellaneous discussers could have more miscellaneous fun. Not supporting or opposing, just saying there is a point. Rich Farmbrough, 14:16, 25 September 2011 (UTC).
I endorse Roux's statement. — Kudu ~I/O~ 00:01, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

RfC: Structure WP:WQA conversations

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
SNOW closure as community is opposed to the proposal. -- DQ (t) (e) 05:39, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

After the process of WP:BRD failed to raise significant input, I am bringing this forth to broader discussion here.

Background

WP:WQA is generally considered the lowest level dispute resolution board, but a number of problems have made it ineffective in the view of a lot of the community. Recently, a good step in the direction of improving the board was made, which was renaming it from "Wikiquette Alerts" to "Wikiquette Assistance". In addition a more structured board,Dispute Resolution Noticeboard was created to start structuring dispute resolution discussions. This model uses a template with significant syntax.

Problems

There have been, through the years, a number of qualms with WQA, particularly the issue of "pile-ons" and of the difficulty of following discussions. The proposal is intended to address these issues.

Proposal

Posting once the bot lists the RfC, so the RfC lists are not flooded.--Cerejota (talk) 02:58, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

The new Dispute resolution noticeboard added this [[4]] as the way to structure their discussions.

The WP:WQA has had a less structured one since 2010: [5] Recently, I proposed and included this [6] as a half-way proposal. It provides some structure and formality, but not at the level of DNR. The idea is to separate the information of the initial report, and the initial responses, from the discussion. Also to remove what are proposals for resolution from the discussion itself. The idea Because of the refusal of an editor to accept these changes, we can see reports using both formats and see the difference in quality in handling and flow. THe proposals is to discuss and adopt the format here, as part of the creation of a softer, kinder WQA that tries to make people better, not pile on them. Sometimes, it is inevitable, regardless of how structure things are, but I think we owe it to ourselves to at least try. I find the current format too similar to WP:ANI, which means in creates the expectation of quick resolution, something a good faith effort at resolution seldom is.--Cerejota (talk) 03:51, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Discussion of RFC on WQA structure

Oppose Proposals should not be posted without actually posting the proprosal, and proposals for WQA should be on the WQA talk page. Gerardw (talk) 03:23, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I found out about this through WP:FRS so presumably the RFC has been listed. I agree that this discussion would really best take place at WQA's talk page, but here are my thoughts. Is it necessary to have both WQA and a DR noticeboard? hare j 03:42, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
The issue is that WT:WQA is avoided like the plague by many editors. I agree that if WQA is not structured and fixed, it might just be better to declare it historical, but that is a separate issue. My proposal is geared towards trying to fix the underlying issues that make WQA such an awful thing for many, but if that is not fixed by the community, then declaring it historical might be a good idea.--Cerejota (talk) 03:56, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
WP:DRN was originally proposed to take over both the content noticeboard and WP:WQA. However, when proposed, shutting down WQA was overwhelmingly rejected. The system that Cerejota is trying to change is precisely the reason WQA wasn't absorbed by the DRN. Swarm u / t 18:11, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose - A) This should have been proposed on the talk page. B) The current system does work. C) Yes, WQA can be an unpleasant place sometimes, but that's not caused by a lack of "structure". D) There is not a major issue with "pile-ons" at all. E) I overwhelmingly disagree with the notion that the proposed template will improve WQA at all. F) The proposed template will: 1) make WQA unnecessarily complex and rigid; 2) destroy the system of informal discussion that is essential at WQA; 3) create a TOC mess with five different headings per request(!); 4) strongly discourage me from contributing (which probably means other users will be discouraged from either assisting or seeking help as well). Regards, Swarm u / t 04:28, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose WQA is difficult because, by definition, the issues discussed involve misunderstandings of how Wikipedia should work, and ramping up the bureaucracy is unlikely to suit the kind of people who need to be discussed there. If an editor comments on an issue, would they later be entitled to police the proposed structure (for example, by deleting or moving comments)? A proposal, particularly one regarding WQA, should not include "Because of the refusal of an editor to accept these changes". Johnuniq (talk) 04:37, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose. WQA has room for improvement, but I don't think that this would help. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:50, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Let's just scrap WQA. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 19:15, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose One of the benefits of WQA is its "informalness". One of the things I hate about the "newer" attempt at low-level resolution is the structure. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 21:23, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose As one of the DRN (Not DNR) volunteers we've been improving how the board works to get to the point that WQA could be closed down and pointed at DRN. The problem is that in most experienced editors minds WQA is an intermural spitball fight. It's postings are "They wrote something mean to me" or "I can't get the other editor to understand policy." If it's informal unstructured discussions that keep this page going, then leave the page flow as is. Want to improve the page, start by improving people's behavior on the age to not allow postings to devolve into fights that are more appropriate for children. Hasteur (talk) 12:07, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
  • There is no support for and little interest in this proposal; I am removing it from WP:CENT. I suggest future proposals are first worked up on Wikipedia talk:Wikiquette assistance before requesting wider community input. SilkTork ✔Tea time 10:54, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Dispute resolution

There is a current discussion at Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal discussing possible changes to the DR process. The discussion can be found here. The input of the community would be appreciated. Best, Steven Zhang The clock is ticking.... 09:02, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Redirects from userspace to mainspace

Obviously, when I create a draft in my userspace and move that draft into mainspace, a redirect from my userspace to mainspace is created. I almost never go back to my userpace to request deletion of the redirect. Therefore I think when moving a page from my userspace to mainspace the redirect should be automatically deleted. After all, that redirect really serves no purpose once the article has been moved into mainspace and if someone wants to find out where the article comes from they can take a look at the history. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 13:35, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

It is often helpful to leave the redirect in place. For example, it may have been linked from somewhere else and someone clicking on that link would otherwise reach a dead end. There is no harm at all in leaving the redirect there - why are they bothering you? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:06, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Cross-namespace redirects contains a summary of prior discussions on the matter. There has never been much a consensus on the subject; it is generally agreed that we should avoid redirects that lead from the main (article) space into other namesspaces, to avoid confusing article material with project material, but redirects in the other direction (from the userspace to the article space) are unlikely to cause problems for our readers, and I don't think there's ever been much opinion on those. --Jayron32 20:40, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
There is a way to make it a bit easier to request deletion. A new line in MediaWiki:Movepage-moved (with condition {{#ifeq: {{NAMESPACE:$4}}-{{NAMESPACE:$3}} | {{ns:User}}-{{ns:0}} | ) could say something like "To request the deletion of userspace redirect click here". That link would go to edit mode with editintro= page containing "Click <charinsert>{{db-self}}</charinsert> and then click Save page and this redirect will be removed by administrators". — AlexSm 20:46, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Sure, but why? As MSGJ pointed out, such redirects aren't harmful and may often be useful. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 11:41, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
If there are no incoming links or very few of interest (in the latter, they could be manually changed), I don't see any other reason not to. As an admin, I would normally make such pagemoves without redirect; the same applies when I sometimes move pages to and from the article incubator in the case of obviously abandoned userspace drafts. –MuZemike 13:08, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I generally cancel the redirect by changing #REDIRECT to Moved page to. This negates any need to delete, clarifies the page location if someone ends up at that page, and seems to provide a best resolution. My76Strat (talk) 14:13, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Arbcom elections

I'm fairly sickened by the way the previous thread has been repeatedly censored over objections, so let's try to raise the matter again in a way that will satisfy the thought police. The ArbCom elections are coming up, and something that has been raised as an issue in the past is that those elected to ArbCom are somehow unrepresentative of the Wikipedia community as a whole. Do we think this is a problem, and if so, what can we do to encourage a greater diversity of candidates? (Candidates with a reasonable chance of being elected, that is.) Or perhaps we should be looking at ways to reform the arbitration process so that it produces more valuable results and wastes less time and nerves?--Kotniski (talk) 06:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Of course they're unrepresentative. Most editors don't have that much time to spend on WP. It is not a problem. Gerardw (talk) 10:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
It strikes me that the ongoing RFC about the 2011 ArbCom elections is the ideal place to discuss this, not to mention centralise discussion about the same topic. --Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 10:34, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Ah, well now you mention that - yes, I agree that that page would be a good place to continue discussion. (But please don't try to collapse this thread like the last one - leave the link on view so that people are made aware of that discussion.)--Kotniski (talk) 10:41, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I personally think that the ArbCom base should be expanded from 18 to, maybe, 30 members, some of which are not administrators. This would not only get a broader range of opinions and representation for doing ArbCom stuff, but it would also make it less of a "big deal". Ajraddatz (Talk) 23:17, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I would dare say some of the problem here is the incredibly high bar that is being placed on becoming an administrator... if this issue is being brought up. Becoming an administrator "should be no big deal", to paraphrase a certain well-known Wikipedian who was involved with creating the concept in the first place. If there is a reason why "ordinary editors" who don't have admin privileges are feeling left out of the decision making process, it sounds like there has been a basic violation of WP:AEAE in the structure of Wikipedia. I'm not denying that it is a problem here either as there seems to be a definite hierarchy of users... at least among some who claim various "super-user" privileges.

For me, at least, Arbitrators ought to be active in trying to rectify this particular problem and especially to rein in admins who are certainly crossing the line from time to time. I agree this is a problem, but the issue is how that problem ought to be addressed. Elitism is an issue for any organization, where there simply exist some who think they are better than others. Wikipedia in particular was supposedly set up with policies to combat elitism... explicitly as a way to encourage more people to participate in the development of Wikipedia and to grow the number of editors.

This also strikes right at the heart of why Wikipedia is failing to draw in more new editors and how Wikipedia is stagnating as a project. I don't buy for one minute that everything that anybody could write about has been created and fleshed out to completion on every topic that can be legitimately created on Wikipedia. If Wikipedia really is complete, then this elite attitude perhaps could be justified. If you want a diversity of people on ArbCom, try to find out why people are leaving Wikipedia and what can be done to bring back the "troublemakers" who get things done. --Robert Horning (talk) 13:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

There is no 'bar' on en.Wiki for administrators, and it's one of the few Wikis that doesn't have one. What we have is a core of fairly regular participants at RfA, most of whom !vote intelligently, and who have published their !voting criteria in their user space essays. The bar is thus set anew for each RfA depending on who turns out to !vote. However, there's little we can do about the trolls, short of of setting a bar for who is eligible to vote!
The drop in new users is due on one hand to the walls of text of policies and instructions they are presented with, and on the other hand, the bitey templates we welcome them with when they then innocently get things wrong.
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:43, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I think you are onto something there, Kudpung. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:00, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
The lack of politeness by some long term editors doesn't help either. 10:08, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
These points have been made before many times. But do we ever do anything about them?--Kotniski (talk) 10:11, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
If people are continually uncivil they should be blocked indefinitely. End of story. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 12:45, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I tend to agree with that, but there is also the other side of the coin - sometimes people are pushed into incivility because (and I'm not saying this is an excuse, but it's human nature) they get so frustrated at the way WP insists on treating everyone equally, even those whose motivation is clearly just to push or suppress some particular point of view. While generally we want to be inclusive and all that, there are some types of editor behaviour that do not necessarily involve incivility, but nonetheless have a net destructive effect on the community, and we need to find efficient, relatively drama-free ways of reforming or eliminating those behaviours.--Kotniski (talk) 08:02, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
@OP Kotniski, ArbCom is going to be composed based upon two simple metrics. First, who nominates themselves or accepts someone else's nomination. These are generally going to be very active users who have a lot of experience in quite a few areas, and hopefully a good deal in dealing with conduct disputes. Second, who the community is willing to elect. This, again, will have to do with experience in dealing with conduct disputes and (hopefully) clue. Based on these two metrics, the vast majority of the community is eliminated. Most of Wikipedia's user population doesn't perform well on these metrics, so they (or we) have basically zero chances of getting elected. ArbCom is going to be made of some of the most active people who resolve disputes, which by necessity means that people who concentrate in other areas are not as likely to be represented. There probably isn't anything we can do about this short of a complete restructure, which isn't probable itself and is more likely to make ArbCom implode than solve any problems.
It's also very possible that, due to the fact that ArbCom largely gets to deal with the most convoluted and complex disputes here on Wikipedia, the mindsets of Arbs drifts away from that of the community at large, just like users who frequent AN/I too much start to believe Wikipedia sucks because they lose touch with the massive parts of it that work, or users who do a lot of WP:NPP start seeing spam in every article about a company or product. We could probably solve this by not allowing Arbs to serve multiple consecutive terms, but that is probably more problematic itself. Anyway, just a couple of thoughts. Cheers. lifebaka++ 04:30, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Making Disclaimers more visible

OK, I know this is very similar to the very first thing on Wikipedia: Perennial proposals, which says why the proposal that certain disclaimers have been rejected is that "All Wikipedia pages contain links to the general disclaimer page". However, as I do not seem to see the link to disclaimers unless I click on "My contributions", I wondered whether there was a possibility of making these disclaimers more visible. If they are there on every page (in fact, the page of perennial proposals did not seem linked to the disclaimers!) perhaps some one could point out how we could access them before I repeat a proposal I made in the past about having disclaimers. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 23:09, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Look at the very bottom of your page, third link from the left. Yoenit (talk) 23:19, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


Thank you for the guidance, I have seen it now! Many thanks, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 11:03, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Poll notification

Propose a bot to notify potentially interested editors that a consensus poll will be taking place on a policy talk page. The bot would go through the history of the particular policy talk page and project page, and notify the contributors that a particular poll will be starting on the talk page. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:52, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a way to limit it? WP:V, for example, has had almost 2,000 separate contributors over the years. At the moment, we'd have to notify the top 100 editors on that page to reliably notify you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:59, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Could you clarify your last sentence? There may be some miscommunication. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:36, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
If editors are interested they'd have it on their talk page. Don't think it's a good idea, but if implemented it should have an easy opt-out feature. Gerardw (talk) 21:56, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
I expect that it would have an opt-out feature. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:36, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
To add, it should really be an opt-in feature. Top contributors are more than likely already watching those pages, and those who contributed less or don't watch it can opt-in for notifications. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:28, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Re watchlist: 1) When perusing a watchlist, an editor may skip a page on the list if not currently active or semi-active on the page, not knowing that a poll of interest to him/her is being held. 2) The watchlist only shows the last edit, which may not be about the poll when the editor views the watchlist. 2) Editors may only put the page on the watchlist if currently involved in the page, although they might want to be involved if they knew of a poll that was on a topic that they were interested in from their previous involvement on the page.
Re opt-in: That would require an additional bot to notify editors of the choice to opt-in and it would have to be ongoing because of editors that first come onto the page after the initial notification of the other editors. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:36, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Bob, I'm not sure how to make it clearer. Two thousand different editors are named in the history for WP:V. If "the bot would go through the history of the particular policy talk page and project page, and notify the contributors" for WP:V, then the bot would be notifying two thousand different editors.
I assume that we can all agree that two thousand separate user-talk messages is unreasonable. The obvious next step is to say that the bot will only notify the most frequent contributors. Fine: But you personally are not one of the top contributors to WP:V, so you wouldn't get notified, even though the whole point of this proposal is (I assume) to make sure that you are notified (without having to bother with actually paying attention to the page).
So it won't work: either we spam too many people, or we agree that moderate contributors like yourself do not get notified.
(If you'd like to know the existing solution, by the way, it's to keep an eye on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines, where what you call "polls" are normally announced.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:25, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
1) What is the problem with notifying 2000 editors? (Not to argue, just asking.)
2) What is the highest number of editors that you think would be reasonable?
3)There are 237 watchers of your link and, for example, there are 1327 watchers of Wikipedia talk:Verifiability, so it isn't clear to me how posting an rfc at your link would help much for a poll at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability?
--Bob K31416 (talk) 03:21, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Three objections to this notification scheme that immediately come to mind is that many of the contributors (most?) fall into one of two categories: 1) They were either notified about or stumbled upon one or two discussions and then stopped participating, 2) They were only sporadically active on the page, or 3) they have contributed to many policy pages over the course of their wiki-careers. I can't imagine that either group would be happy to be receiving constant talk-page spam. A 4th) comes to mind as well - those who watch the pages would also likely be annoyed by this, as they are already aware of discussions.
An opt-in system would be fine, but we already have one of those - {{Centralized discussion}}, which can be easily appended to a user or user talk page, as can User:X!/RfX Report. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:14, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced?

I oppose the proposal as it gives first hand information on the topic. Though it may not be accurate, it must stay if at all any part of its content is not objectionable.I suggest rather to remove the objectionable part of the content instead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joyanithottam (talk • contribs) 14:53, 29 September 2011

Joyanithottam, which proposal are you trying to comment on? -- John of Reading (talk) 19:07, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

OTRS member group

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There does not appear to be consensus to implement this proposal at this time. While several of the editors opposing expressed a willingness to reconsider if the permissions were trimmed from both deletedhistory/deletedtext and undelete to simply deletedhistory/deletedtext, even accounting for those views there does not appear to be a sufficient level of support for a new OTRS member group. 28bytes (talk) 07:58, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
parallel discussion on Commons

It's been brought up on the OTRS-permissions mailing list and I've experienced it myself, where OTRS agents who work at both Commons and Wikipedia on getting validation for media and text content at either location have to deal with the difficulties imposed by deleted content referenced in emails. If a file is deleted the OTRS agent cannot check to see whether conflicting information was placed on the description page for comparison to the email that has come in regarding the file. And for both files and articles deleted for copyright violations or lack of permission, OTRS volunteers must continually pester at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion, remember which files/articles were requested, keep coming back to check for a restoration, then finally add the proper tags before emailing that the restoration was performed. OTRS agents working with permissions do so for both en.wiki and Commons but in many cases are an admin on one but not the other, despite the fact that files can be uploaded to either. I personally received a suggestion to apply for adminship so I would stop placing OTRS-related requests for undeletion (see entry).

In order to expedite the process, reduce the workload on the limited number of admins, and acknowledge the trust already placed in individuals considered knowledgeable enough with the projects already to answer emails to our readers, it is proposed that an OTRS member group be created here, analogous to the one at Commons. First and foremost this makes it so that the OTRS userbox can point to the user rights display here for verification of OTRS member status. Secondly, this allows for an edit filter to check for addition of OTRS tags by non-OTRS members on files and article talk pages. Thirdly, the following rights are proposed to be associated with the group to facilitate the operations that OTRS agents would need to perform as part of their duties and which are hindered when content has already been deleted:

  • Undelete a page (undelete)
  • View deleted history entries, without their associated text (deletedhistory)
  • View deleted text and changes between deleted revisions (deletedtext)

Please note that the above does not include the ability to delete in the first place. – Adrignola talk 15:08, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

If they are trusted to work on the OTRS system, they should be fine in passing an RFA. And if they don't pass the RFA, they probably shouldn't have OTRS. AD 15:36, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Wrong, Commons has repeatedly shown this is not the case. How many OTRS volunteers on enwiki don't have admin rights on Commons because an RfA based on "I need it for OTRS" failed? Go see for yourself. How many Commons-based OTRS volunteers don't edit enwiki enough to pass RfA? Most. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 15:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Nobody needs admin rights, especially for OTRS. Anyhow, I'm sure we make exceptions when it comes to exceptional candidates. As for Commons, that's none of our business. If they want a user group for OTRS they can make one, but we don't need one here. AD 15:45, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
Somebody needs them, to keep Wikipedia running. And could you back up what you're "sure" of with examples? Lastly, you obviously don't know how OTRS permissions work because Commons is not the only place that deals with them. We get many tickets relating to enwiki permissions (text and images) and having an OTRS userright here would expedite the oft-backlogged process. Now, if you aren't going to volunteer yourself for OTRS, then I'd ask why you're trying to inhibit those who have. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:56, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
I think you're also forgetting that OTRS is a cross-project effort, and that the volunteers who handle tickets in English may have a different home wiki - another language, or another project, or another project in another language - and that they may fail an enwiki RfA because they don't do enough here. - Jredmond (talk) 18:52, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • This opinion was in regards to the content that violated copyright or was libelous. Such content is not oversightable. Ruslik_Zero 18:06, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree this seems like a reasonable request. If they can be trusted to be an OTRS volunteer then they should have access to the tools they need to do the job. Even Jimbo has stated in the past that being an Admin is no big deal. --Kumioko (talk) 16:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
  • What if we just made them admins on (simple non-RFA) request, with the instruction that they should limit their use of the tools to OTRS related matters until they pass a regular RFA? Monty845 17:30, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
    I like this idea. An OTRS admin could request the enwp +sysop for the OTRS volunteer on the 'crat noticeboard, and the 'crats then make the final decision - thats what we pay them the big bucks for. John Vandenberg (chat) 18:00, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
    This would violate the principle of least privilege. –xenotalk 21:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm good with this IFF it's reciprocal. Me being on Arbcom and needing to verify en.wiki user misconduct on Commons was not considered admin-worthy by commons, even though the stated need would have been covered by this level of access. Jclemens (talk) 20:28, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
    I dont follow you. This proposal doesn't relate to Commons. its OTRS and English Wikipedia. fwiw, Commons already has an OTRS-member role, however it is used for role based edit-filters and (afiak) doesnt grant any additional permissions. John Vandenberg (chat) 21:09, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
    If I can get access to deleted files on Commons, by virtue of being an OTRS agent, then I'm willing to allow non-en.wiki-sysadmin OTRS agents who may already be Commons admins to see deleted materials on en.wiki. If that's not on the table, then I'm not inclined to support anyone else going around local approval processes just because they're trusted elsewhere and/or identified to the foundation already. Jclemens (talk) 22:10, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
    I don't think anything we agree on here can affect Commons. Would need to have a parallel discussion there. –xenotalk 22:25, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
    Oh, absolutely. In fact, I would favor a WMF-wide discussion on the permissions accorded to cross-wiki OTRS volunteers. I think it appropriate to give OTRS editors the ability to view deleted (not suppressed) material on alternate projects that they need to deal with is entirely appropriate, and I have no particular problems handing out view (not change) permissions far more liberally than the current RfA process treats cross-Wiki admins. Jclemens (talk) 23:42, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
    Ah, thanks for the clarification. There is now an identical discussion on Commons. Also, a global permission to see deleted files (only) has been already 'approved' a long time ago and is waiting on coding (see meta:Global deleted image review). It is currently designed to be granted to Commons admins, which wont help you as such, but will allow more liberal granting of the ability to view deleted files. John Vandenberg (chat) 03:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • If you ABSOLUTLY need to do that, ask an sysop without giving details or ask for the researcher right on meta. Also, you can defer to a sysop on OTRS. Finaly, who's in OTRS but isn't an sysop? If we need an special group for OTRS, wouldn't commons already have one? ~~Ebe123~~ (+) talk
    Contribs     22:04, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
    Indeed, if a special group for OTRS was needed, Commons probably would have one. Oh wait... :p Happy‑melon 23:38, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I support this proposal partially because I support unbundling the tools in general but also because a lot of OTRS work would be benefited by being able to see (and possibly restore) deleted revisions. "they can go to RfA" is a decidedly sub-optimal answer. RfA is an overly political process and is overkill for the needs of most OTRS volunteers. Rather than sending people doing a tough job into the grinder in order to make their job marginally easier, we should support routing around RfA where possible. Protonk (talk) 23:49, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
  • If this proceeds, I would suggest that holders of this userright be required to submit a ticket number into a viewdeleted log to ensure the rights are being used for the purpose for which they were granted. –xenotalk 00:49, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
    There is no 'viewdeleted' log. Ruslik_Zero 10:31, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
    Indeed - which is why I said a viewdeleted log instead of the viewdeleted log. The suggestion would require developer assistance. –xenotalk 13:43, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I might be convinced that deletedhistory is reasonable when investigating a ticket, and there is something to be said about a "visible" bit for OTRS volunteers, but I can't think of a valid reason to be able to view deleted revisions' text or undelete anything while handling a ticket that cannot be just as easily achieved by asking someone who has the right. — Coren (talk) 00:57, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
    • ... except that asking someone who has the right is another step. In OTRS, there's already what I perceive to be a large bias in that simple tickets with straightforward boilerplate responses are handled more quickly than serious, but involved tickets. The big deal about deleted revisions was based on a legal ruling that said no, under no circumstances would "average" editors ever be given the ability to see them. Now that we have wider use of suppression, the average sensitivity of a deleted but unsuppressed edit is lower, and the vetting process for OTRS is sufficiently strong that I suspect distributing the right more widely would pass legal muster. Jclemens (talk) 01:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. If OTRS volunteers are trusted to handle private and personally identifying information then certainly they can be trusted to view deleted material. Also, per jclemens's point about suppression, perhaps we should see about getting an updated legal opinion from our general counsel. One last point, I can't help but wonder if this proposal came about because of me "waffling" on this refund request from an OTRS volunteer. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:33, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
    • See [7] for the "updated" opinion. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:03, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
      • And I have emailed Geoff to get a specific analysis on this particular situation, given the trust and access to sensitive information that OTRS personnel already have. As for the "waffling", mere coincidence. Neither myself nor the OTRS agent involved in that particular request for restoration originally brought up the issue prompting this proposal on the mailing list. – Adrignola talk 15:49, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support - If they need the tools, they should have them as OTRS volunteers are highly trusted members of the community that go through a sufficient screening process to become members. There exists a process to handle issues in the event of abuse, which, I expect, would end in a volunteer having their membership removed. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 07:01, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose to anyone except administrators elected via the RFA process being able to undelete anything. Viewdeleted is another matter. However, it would be far more useful to create a global group for them. Ruslik_Zero 10:36, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • View deleted stuff seems quite reasonable to give to OTRS people. I understand that they are all identified persons to the WMF, and are somehow vetted. However, I do not see why the ability to undelete is requested. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Undeletion is required for images or articles deleted as copyright violations and for which release under an acceptable license has been received from the copyright holder. This avoids the need to try to find an active admin who also has OTRS access to assign a ticket to or constantly post requests at WP:REFUND, which then ask admins without access to OTRS to blindly restore content based on the OTRS member's word (not much different than the OTRS agent restoring it themselves). – Adrignola talk 15:49, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
      • I would offer view deleted permission to any reasonable request from an OTRS member. I believe that there is already a "researcher" group with this permission. I would not support unbundling undelete from delete, and together they should be limited to admins. If commons won't promote enough admins from the OTRS corps, that is a commons problem, and it shouldn't be overridden by creation of a global group against the wishes of the people at commons. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Since Adrignola is the most frequent requester at WP:REFUND perhaps adminship should be considered. I have not notices other OTRS volunteers requesting refund. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:34, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Not convinced & comment on identification to WMF I'm an Admin on en.Wiki and an OTRS volunteer. I don't believe I was ever asked to identify to the Foundation. I've no objection to all OTRS volunteers being given the ability to view deleted material, but that isn't the request here as it's specific to en.wiki. If the power to view is given it should be given to everyone everywhere, not just a few, although I sympathise with the problem. The request should be for a global group. I don't see a need to undelete, it should always be possible to find an Admin who will help. Dougweller (talk) 14:18, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - most OTRS agents are not identified to the Foundation. They are required to be willing to identify on demand, but rarely have we requested that. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:10, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support this is just for viewing deleted material--a very minimal one among the admin rights, as it has no effect on the actual content of the encyclopedia. I'm a member of both , and I trust the judgement and discretion of OTRS people as a group more than I do that of the other. DGG ( talk ) 18:44, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose undeletion and viewdeleted for anyone who hasn't passed the minimum trustworthiness standards that an RFA represents. The comments from Wikipedias' lawyers at this discussion makes very clear why this is important, and what loosening it might mean for wikipedia and the foundation. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 02:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Wait—do you mean RfA and not AfD? (Also, given that all OTRS volunteers must be willing to identify themselves to the WMF if requested, and being allowed to deal with private information on a regular basis, I think that's putting in a lot more trust than we do in most admins.) /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support I have been an OTRS volunteer in the past, and I support this simple proposal that will make their job easier. -- Donald Albury 11:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. OTRS volunteers are subject to more scrutiny than admins are and this proposal would grant them fewer rights, but enable them to do their job more efficiently. Thryduulf (talk) 14:41, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure how useful these would be - but I don't see a major problem handing them out per se. I think the "legal opinion" is misdirected, because there are far more admins than OTRS agents with access to deleted material. And we hand them that bit at pretty much the whim of the community & with little oversight. --Errant (chat!) 15:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Viewdeleted is okay. Undelete probably not. Basically read access but I'm hoping that transactions can become audit-able (similiar to CU log) - Mailer Diablo 16:33, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm going to need to say yes. OTRS peoples are trustworthy, and this shouldn't be a big deal making their lives easier. Ajraddatz (Talk) 18:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Opposed because of the inclusion of the undelete right. Without that right, I would likely support. My second and subsidiary concern is project autonomy - with the exception of a few global groups, I can't think of a particular instance where one group of people (in this case, OTRS admins - and let there be no mistake, they are among our best and brightest and are people I respect highly) select people who will be granted rights on a project upon which they may or may not be active. In my capacity as an administrator, OTRS agent, and volunteer, not as an employee action. - Philippe 18:38, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I will oppose this as it's written.
    1. If we want to give individual volunteers extra bits for their OTRS-related work, that's fine, but OTRS volunteers are not a single contiguous group: there are many different roles, which handle many different sorts of things, and which may or may not overlap. We grant those roles individually, based on demonstrated tact and ability rather than some minimum criteria, and skill on OTRS does not always correspond with trust on-wiki.
    2. OTRS is not a badge; outside of the permissions queues, on-wiki OTRS-related admin actions should stand on their own merits rather than on a ticket number. I realize that this proposal is thinking specifically of permissions queues, but one we grant the extra bits then there won't be an easy way to tell between the two.
    3. Finally, as I mentioned above, OTRS is a cross-project endeavor, which can draw volunteers from any language version of any WMF project. OTRS is not an extension of enwiki, and many OTRS volunteers have never edited enwiki. Wherever possible, the enwiki community should be the ones to dispense special bits on enwiki; you shouldn't hand out bits here just because I think someone would do a good job with e-mails.
I'm fine creating a separate OTRS bit here for edit-filter tracking (like what they have on Commons). I just don't want OTRS-related actions to become unquestionable, and this proposal tends in that direction. - Jredmond (talk) 18:52, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
They're not unquestionable. There's a whole section on WP:OTRS about disputing or querying OTRS actions, and this proposal deals mainly with copyright verifications, which is among the least controversial tasks OTRS agents perform. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. (Rationale copied and pasted from my comment on the identical proposal at the Commons VP). This comes up very frequently in the OTRS permissions queues. There are a few dozen OTRS agents, many of whom are admins either here but not on the English Wikipedia (as in Adrignola's case) or on the English Wikipedia but not on Commons, and it's a royal pain in the arse trying to deal with tickets relating to deleted content on the project where you can't see it. A lot of people who email OTRS don't realise the distinction between WP and Commons, and there really isn't that much difference and the difference isn't that much—OTRS agents do much the same job on Commons as they do in the enwiki filespace, and allowing them to view and restore deleted images on both just makes everybody's lives easier. The other clear advantage is that OTRS agents take personal responsibility for the undeletions, rather than asking admins to take responsibility on the basis of a ticket the admin can't see. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:32, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose because of the undelete right. I could support otherwise, assuming there are no legal concerns (maybe get the OTRS volunteers who get the right to identify themselves) and the WMF approves. However the undelete right does affect encyclopedic content and anyone who is given it should be subject to scrutiny and accountability measures as administrators are. Hut 8.5 19:33, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
    • The undelete right is kind of the point, and what basis do you have for suggesting that OTRS agents who aren't admins but have the ability to undelete pages (and only those pages that have been deleted because of copyright concerns, but whose license has been verified through OTRS. As for identifying to the WMF, admins don't have to, so why should an editor with less privileges? We're talking about simplifying a very common admin action, not checkuser data. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
      • The only reason I mentioned identification is that in the past Foundation legal counsel have expressed severe concerns about proposals to allow trusted registered users to view deleted revisions (link is somewhere above). I thought that if similar concerns were expressed about this proposal then identification may be enough to address them. Hut 8.5 12:05, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm an OTRS agent of about two and a half years, and an OTRS admin for about 14 months. Shortly after joining OTRS I started processing image requests and found sysop on Commons would be useful. My RfA was shot down in flames. I respected their decision, and moved on to another aspect of OTRS in answering info emails. If I need something looked into or done on commons, there are plenty of users I can contact on-wiki, by IRC, or email, or by OTRS. I'd prefer to do it myself, but the commons community prefer I not. No big deal.
Now, I neither support nor oppose this idea of a set of permissions, this is simply my opinion: I don't really see the point on en.wp. I see the need on commons, it would be nice if an agent asking me for opinions on a ticket which I cannot access the history could be settled. It's quite a stumbling block. That need isn't as necessary in dealing with photosubmission and the English Wikipedia. If it has been deleted as a copyvio and permission is given to release CC-by-SA it does not have to be restored locally but instead reuploaded to commons. Simple as that. 99% of OTRS tickets related to the English Wikipedia do not require editing the article solely on ticket reference. My rule of thumb is that if an edit based on a ticket cannot be performed within policy/guidelines and can be justified without OTRS even being mentioned, it's probably not healthy for Wikipedia and the person writing us should be educated on the community process instead.
Additionally, we have (statistically) few agents answering tickets related to the English Wikipedia who are not admins. Those select few have been scrutinized for selection based on their ability to assist people contacting us, and part of that is knowing that sysop tools should never really be needed when handling requests for editing articles from inanimate objects to BLPs. Being a sysop is considered a general standard since the agent has been through a community review, but it is not a requirement.
Long story short: this userright would be granted rarely, and rights are not a golden ticket. Keegan (talk) 04:32, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
You're conflating permissions and photosubmissions. Of course images are already attached to the emails when people submit photos, but when they're wanting an image restored that was deleted as a copyright violation, that's normally not the case. Sure, we could ask them to attach the image, but that not only hides who originally uploaded if we re-upload, it is also annoying to the contact if we already sent out replies trying to figure out which image is being discussed (then seeing it's deleted) and/or trying to find out the licensing. (Leading to them saying "screw it, enough with your bureaucracy" and losing images). You're also conflating the info-en queues and the permissions queues. This proposal relates to those handling the latter, and cases handling the latter are the ones non-OTRS members are familiar with, with the tags on article talk pages and image pages showing the orange OTRS tag. Yes, those with access to info-en queues are normally en.wiki admins; those accessing the permissions queues that apply to Commons and en.wiki, not so much. The people in this proposed group would be the same ones that are members of the OTRS-members group on Commons currently. – Adrignola talk 15:44, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • For disclose I have access to OTRS and am also an admin. OTRS is split into language queues and access for each queue is on a need to access basis so a German wikipedia OTRS volunteer cannot access info-en and wouldn't get access unless they were specifically vetted for access to that queue. That means for us that there are not OTRS volunteers working on tickets relevant to us who are not members of the english wikipedia community so access doesn't go to all and sundry. I believe the exception is for the permissions queue where I have access to the non-english tickets and vice versa. For info-en tickets - the blp vios and why was my article deleted stuff I can see that access to deleted revisions and deleted pages would be very useful but I cannot image any circumstance where a volunteer would benefit from undeletion. For permissions, I can see that being able to check the images and the licenses for deleted images would be exceedingly useful but there are no problems for getting stuff undeleted at REFUND so the tags and licenses can be sorted. I'm uncomfortable with a global undelete button for permissions users as I believe that its not just a question of getting the tags sorted but sometimes there are local policy issues for volunteers to get right and volunteers unfamiliar with en might easily create an inadvertent faux pas and raise the drama level. In other words, I fully support the proposal as long as the undelete function is excluded from the proposal, otherwise oppose. Spartaz Humbug! 16:22, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
    Perhaps it would make sense to clarify whether the proposal is seeking a global group (where projects are typically asked to opt-in) or a local group that would be requested and assigned locally at WP:RFPERM. –xenotalk 16:30, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
    I think that's a valid question. I wouldn't like a global group. If a user thinks they could or would use the flag they can apply for it at REFPERM. Not every OTRS volunteer wants to be easily identified as such so a global user-right would be unwelcome. I also think holders of the flag need sufficient understanding of English to be able to explain and defend their actions so this should be a status granted by an EN admin/'crat. The more I think about it, the more I wonder about the scope of the proposal - how many users here would need it??? Spartaz Humbug! 17:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
    Thought it should be clear that this is a local group, that would only encompass those with access to permissions queues (permissions-en@wikimedia.org, permissions-commons@wikimedia.org—OTRS members handling one can access and handle the other). Otherwise I would have expected the proper location to be at Meta. I would expect that English-language ability would be taken into account at WP:PERM (certainly it would hard to request it otherwise). As for how many, it would be anyone in this list, minus any en.wiki admins, minus any non-English speakers, minus anyone inactive. – Adrignola talk 18:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
    That's a historical list and its not entirely clear how many of those users are still editing. Spartaz Humbug! 02:39, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
    Which raises another question. Would this apply even to an OTRS member who rarely did any OTRS work? Who would monitor to see when the permission should be removed and what would those criteria be? Dougweller (talk) 08:29, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
    If this userright were to be created, it should be 1) approved by the Foundation; 2) locally assigned on a need basis; 3) withdrawn when no longer in use; 4) configured such that viewing of deleted revisions by these users requires a log entry (where they will enter a ticket number). Otherwise there is no way to effectively monitor that it is being used appropriately. –xenotalk 13:04, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
  • With the undelete, this is a Strong Oppose, because after all, OTRS membership means, well, access to OTRS, not a golden ticket to miscenallous "useful" rights everywhere. Yes, OTRS members are trusted. So what? We might as well give every Wikipedia admin admin rights on Commons, since they're trusted. If a user needs to regularly perform duties related to OTRS queues and such, I may accept that as a valid reason for putting forward a candidacy for steward. On the other hand, I wouldn't like to make en.wikipedia a "special case". As for a group allowing only to view deleted history/text, I would be leaning towards supporting, but I'd rather have it done globally, rather than making en.wikipedia, as I mentioned earlier, a special case. I hope that was clear enough - if it wasn't, do tell me so. — Kudu ~I/O~ 23:24, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
    No, it's not clear. I keep seeing this "golden ticket" mentioned, but it's not clear why a limited number of rights needed to perform necessary duties would be opposed in favor of having people need to go all-out and request adminship or (in your case, a first that I've seen) request stewardship (that's admin/bureaucrat actions on every project without local admins/crats). Regarding your comment on en.wiki admins getting admin rights on Commons, I proposed a similar proposal there for the same rights proposed here (undelete and deleted revisions) which gives OTRS volunteers who may only be admins here and not at Commons the tools they need to work with files there. It seems to me that if I felt OTRS volunteers had a "golden ticket", I'd have asked for OTRS volunteers to be made admins with all possible actions including deletion and blocking, even for those who aren't admins anywhere. Not asking for the world here. – Adrignola talk 15:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose to having approval processes outside of en.wikipedia grant user-rights on en.wikipedia. Support the unbundling of user-rights. jorgenev 16:53, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose; the inclusion of the viewdelete right sways it for me. Ironholds (talk) 19:30, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose While I agree that this would make certain OTRS tasks more useful, undelete is a sticking point for me. Also of issue is that we need to decide what to do if something goes wrong ahead of time. If needed, can someone lose access to this while still being on OTRS? Can someone be given OTRS access but not this at the discretion of the OTRS admins? ect. Sven Manguard Wha? 09:52, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Conditional support I support minus the undelete tool. Usergroup, viewing deleted pages, and viewing deleted revisions is fine with me. There should be a board under WP:PERM for this though. The user should have to go through the OTRS approval process but also a local (enwp) approval process. Since many tasks at OTRS can be done without the permission, I think request that gives enwp community a chance to review a user's contributions is fair. Could be redundant though, I havent spent a whole lot of time thinking this through.--v/r - TP 15:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose. OTRS is an interface for answering messages, not a userright of its own. AGK [•] 11:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Despite the fact this proposal doesn't seem likely to pass, I just want to state that I support the unbundling of rights. —stay (sic)! 09:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Quite pointless, I think. Stifle (talk) 13:08, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support seems like a perfectly sensible step forward. Why we want to create extra bureaucracy where none is needed is really beyond me. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 11:55, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose - As a former OTRS volunteer, I don't see the need. One potential abuse is the joining of OTRS with the agenda of becoming an admin. As flawed as it is, the Rfa process acts as a community forum that requires consensus to create new admins. Arguments in favor of this proposal fail to convince this is truly needed. Jusdafax 01:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

I raised this in the parallel discussion on Commons, but that proposal seems much more likely to pass than this one: Would those opposing on the basis that only admins should be able to view deleted content feel any more comfortable if this permission was limited to OTRS agents who are already admins on Commons, but not here? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:35, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Account Deletion Revisited

In this thread I suggested the creation of an account to which users could have their accounts merged upon request, effectively deleting them. That proposal was defeated due to licensing concerns. In the middle of the thread, User:Mabdul proposed that such an account be for the purpose of merging accounts with no edits in to it, so that the usernames would be able to be used by someone who is willing to edit. This would also greatly decrease the length of the list of registered users through which anyone who wishes to change their username has to trawl. Mabdul's proposal never received much comment, but all of those who did comment supported it. In addition, he suggested that an email be sent to accounts that have registered an address to ensure that they do not wish to resume editing. I think these are all very good ideas - comments, anyone? Interchangeable|talk to me 22:53, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

This essentially already exists. See WP:USURP. → ROUX ₪ 23:02, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
The idea is to merge all accounts with no edits, without waiting for them to be usurped, in order to reduce some burden on WP:CHU/U. Interchangeable|talk to me 19:23, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm unaware of WP:CHU/U being backlogged or having a major burden. Perhaps you have examples showing the opposite, but I doubt it. → ROUX ₪ 20:10, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you're crediting an individual for this. At least one other person (me) suggested that zero-edit year-old accounts be automatically pruned, with a log left behind and a possibility for easy reversion. — Kudu ~I/O~ 23:26, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
Heh, easy to answer: I was the first with this idea ^^
USURP is really bureaucratic and thus more work for our 'crats and admins; and most users (especially new ones who want to create a new account) are not aware of this procedure. mabdul 13:30, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget that some readers create an account so they can set preferences, use scripts, or whatever but do not actually edit. And then there are some bot accounts that exist so the bot can make queries using the apihighlimits right, but do not perform any on-wiki edits. All of these proposals about automatically deleting or merging "inactive" accounts would also delete the account out from under these readers.

Also, do not forget that deleting the local account makes no difference if the SUL account still exists, as the local account will just be recreated the next time that user visits and no other user could create it. And an SUL account is automatically created for all new account creations. Anomie⚔ 20:02, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Add doppelganger accounts to the list of common reasons for creating zero-edit accounts.
Additionally, when the WMF sent e-mail to a bunch of accounts a while ago (a year ago, now?) to ask people why they left Wikipedia, they got a lot of responses that said the user still wanted the account and still planned to edit in the future. So "hasn't edited for a while" does not mean "will never edit again", and deleting an account out from under someone (especially for so dubious a benefit as reducing the length of an automatically generated list) is about as WP:BITEy as you can get.
I still think this is both a bad idea and a solution in search of a problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I would support accounts self-terminating after 10 years of complete disuse (i.e. registered but never did anything at all, user_touch older than 10 years), so the username is automatically released for use. Other than that, I don't see a pressing need for this. –xenotalk 20:33, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'd support pruning 2-year-old accounts (by user_touch, not last edit/log action), and deleting the associated SUL account, if it isn't attached anywhere else. — Kudu ~I/O~ 00:06, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

This issue has arisen before and was rejected. There are a couple reasons why, but primarily:

  1. Non-editing accounts are used to maintain preferences
  2. Non-editing accounts are used to maintain watchlists
  3. Non-editing accounts are used to view Pending Changes

The question is really not "why should we do this?" but really "why should we not do this?" and there are more reasons not to do it, I think.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 00:58, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Using user_touch data as a tool to measure if accounts are being used sort of defeats all those points. I don't particularly care one way or the other about this proposal as long as it goes by user_touch data as mentioned above. I am against it if it goes solely on edit/logged action history. Killiondude (talk) 07:55, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
That's actually not very good, either. user_touched gives false positives on activity - especially if someone interacts with them.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 16:11, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Which means we would be erring on the side of not deleting accounts? How is that a problem? –xenotalk 16:14, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Well. I'm not really the one to argue about this; I just wanted to point out that this has been suggested before and rejected before. I'd suggest talking to someone with deep MediaWiki experience, such as Brion or Tim.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 17:18, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
How about user_lastlogin ? mabdul 02:33, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
As was mentioned earlier, this is unacceptable given the large number of accounts that have been untouched but that the users have indicated that they are merely taking breaks and will be back eventually. --Jorm (WMF) (talk) 02:57, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
My suggestion is to terminate accounts that were registered but never used and have not been touched in 10 years. These are not accounts of users who are 'merely taking breaks'... –xenotalk 15:40, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Wow. I'm nonplussed that I, the least technical person to post on this page in eons, actually know the reason why this was turned down in the first place, and why it is not possible now: SUL. It was in the early development stages back during the original discussion, and is now pretty much automatic when a new account is registered. As SUL-account editors go from project to project, even just reading, an account is automatically created for them on each project. Messing with people's SUL is just not on. Now someone more techie than me can figure out how deleting a SUL account on one project will mess things up, but there's little doubt it would: either it would screw up the SUL account holder, or it would release an account on our project that can't be used because there's an existing SUL account. So no, this is not a good proposal. Risker (talk) 03:43, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
    I don't think deleting a local account would mess up the SUL, it will just mean the account will be automatically recreated again when the user visits again. Simple solution is not to delete accounts attached to an SUL - but in any case, my suggestion (10 years of complete disuse) would not even reach SUL accounts until 2018. –xenotalk 15:44, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
    What's the point in even that though? Is there evidence that we're losing potential contributors because they can't get the exact user name they want? What is the benefit in this proposal? --Onorem♠Dil 15:47, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
    The benefit is releasing desirable usernames for use without users having to leverage the usurp procedure. This means that new users don't have as hard a time finding an acceptable username, and also means that SUL holders don't have to figure out our local usurp process if their SUL name happens to be already registered here. –xenotalk 15:53, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
    To be honest I don't feel like that's a huge benefit; if anything it points to inconveniences in the system and is just begging for a proper resolution such as "allow for multiple people with the same name and have sane ways to distinguish them, so nobody has to worry about username conflicts as a general case". One high-profile example of a site dealing with this very differently is Facebook; there can be thousands of John Smiths in the system, but each has a distinct identity, their own avatar, their own circles of friends and activity. The only place you actually have to conflict for resources is on shortened URLs to your profile page -- an optional feature you have to opt in to anyway. I'd rather see effort on moving towards taking these things out of peoples' way, and making sure that we still have a good identity system that distinguishes between people with similar names. --brion (talk) 18:50, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
    Well, even just being able to have an SUL containing accounts with different usernames would be a decent bandaid to situations like this one. –xenotalk 18:55, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

PLEASE Make PWV ranking

At Academic studies about Wikipedia, I see PWV ranking.

"Editcount ranking by bot" is aleady exist.

Make "PWV ranking by bot", please. -- Bonafide2004 (talk) 04:41, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

How would that help us in our task of building an encyclopedia? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:47, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Styling for titles disambiguated by parentheses

As part of the renewed Ireland-naming discussions, an idea was raised about the formatting the titles of disambiguation pages. One suggestion was to remove the disambiguating terms in the title displayed on pages. Another was to put the disambiguating terms onto a second line.

I'd like to post another (fairly moderate) idea here. That is to reduce the size of disambiguating terms when they are displayed on page. I've mocked up two examples here:

[Never mind how this technically achieved on these example pages, it could be done much more gracefully in real life, including automatically formatting titles in this way.]

There are some possible benefits to doing this (before this is called a solution looking for a problem).

  • Disambiguating pages can be contensious. Putting disambiguating terms in small letters may reduce those tensions (small font = less of a big deal).
  • It may allow the common-name disambiguation to be used more frequently. At present many people avoid parenthetic disambiguation because it is "ugly". Using small letters may avoid that "ugliness".
  • It emphasizes the actual title of the article, which the term in parenthesis can distract from.
  • Finally, I also think it looks prettier.

Other view? --RA (talk) 21:29, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

  • Support A common-sense improvement. Any professionally designed site would separate them in some way. It might also look good if you use a very dark gray like color: #444444;. Either way, you'd have to make sure there was a way to override it when the parentheses are part of the article title, but we already have this for album titles so it shouldn't be an issue. —Designate (talk) 23:31, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I also support this idea - when an article is about a thing with a name (and hence we expect the article title to be a name of that thing), we should be separating out the part of the title that isn't part of the name, but serves only to fulfil the technical requirement of uniqueness. Of course editors will be confused at first, and possibly start making wrong links (due to not realizing what the full technical title of the page is), but these will be dab links that will get corrected, and people will soon get used.--Kotniski (talk) 06:35, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm not convinced. I'm concerned that pages will be loaded with an extra template for a very small, if any, benefit. It's already in brackets, which reduces the impact. I think your idea could lead to requests for "Republic of Ireland", and I think such a suggestion is unlikely to lead to a reduction in tension or mitigation of offense. DrKiernan (talk) 07:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
    I would not be convinced by a template approach. It would be very messy. I think a software-based approach would be better. The basic algorithm being, if page title is of format "XXX (yyy)" and the page "XXX" exists then apply styling (plus a few other considerations, I'm sure). An extension to do this would be relatively trivial. --RA (talk) 09:47, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
  • A similar proposal... --Yair rand (talk) 08:26, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Solution in search of a problem. The parentheses make it clear that part isn't part of the "proper" title, while the uniform size makes it clear it's part of both the local pagename and the URL. Also, if someone objects to the term in a normal-size font, why on earth would they oppose the smaller font any less? A title is equally accurate/inccurate, etc. regardless of its size. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 09:28, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, parentheses don't always indicate that it isn't part of the proper title, as in the example given above. And we ought to be aiming to present information encyclopedically, and not worry so much about conveying information about internal technicalities like local page names and URLs.--Kotniski (talk) 09:38, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Isn't the proposal at hand just such a solution? Or are you saying you'd like it to look more elegant? I'm sure the exact formatting can be discussed at length, if the general concept meets with general approval.--Kotniski (talk) 10:52, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
What I mean is that the implementation would not be elegant because there is no way to apply it to all articles. Suppose you make the software "smallify" parentheses automatically. Then you need to scour all articles that don't have parentheses in them and fix them with a template. If you don't, then you need to scour all articles that do have parentheses, and apply the "smallification" on a case-by-case basis via template. You either get plenty of articles inappropriately smallified, or plenty of articles inappropriately "bigified". Bots would help yes, but there would still be an unfathomable number of cases that bots could not handle. Creating a very puzzling and jarring style difference, and a backlog of articles in need in smallification/unsmallification, for no real benefit, and yet another thing to edit war over. Should it be USS Wisconsin (BB-9) or USS Wisconsin (BB-9)? Should it be Monkton, Kent, [[Monkton, Kent]], or Moncton (Kent)? I fail to see any real benefit to this, and zillions of problems. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:35, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. Sure, why not. Don't know where the last proposal ended, but I though it was decent. The dab part is not the title in most cases, and we can help distinguish that, even if it is obvious in most cases. But this needs a manual check for what is a dab and what isn't a dab. Page heading matches page location and this proposal does not change that, only adjusts formatting; so I don't see a problem with having different formatting in the title. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:24, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. I'm a broad minded bloke, so let's put RA's proposal into action. GoodDay (talk) 12:48, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support. This is an excellent idea (and easy enough to undo if there are unforeseen problems with it). I'm surprised this hasn't been done already. 28bytes (talk) 16:20, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support but there would have to be some way to turn it off for the rare page title which actually does end in a parenthesized word/phrase (User:Philosopher's rule above helps but does not necessarily eliminate all possible exceptions). Dcoetzee 06:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
    • It wouldn't need to be automatic. Something like this could probably be implemented with a template like {{italic title}}. If it's wanted, you'd add the template, and if it wasn't, you'd leave it out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
      • While I don't support this proposal, if it was to be implemented, it would be best for it to be implemented on a global (not article-by-article) basis. Using a template like {{italic title}} could be good, but it'd need to be clear it was being done on all appropriate articles (those where the parens are for disambiguation, but not for those where the parens are part of the proper name), not just on the articles where it was "liked". --Philosopher Let us reason together. 09:36, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
        • I Concur with Philosopher. For consistency across Wikipedia, it would need to be the automatic default, with an opt-out template for those few articles whose subjects contain non-disambiguatory parentheticals. --Cybercobra (talk) 10:10, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support Preferably implemented through a template like {{italic title}}, so the information is also available in machine-readable form. —Ruud 20:38, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose - IMHO it is ugly Bulwersator (talk) 07:44, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Support Seems a very sensible idea and I think it makes Wikipedia look more professional and is more attractive. I agree it should be universal, with opt-outs for appropriate articles. It's not so much a solution seeking a problem than it is an all-around good idea. Sir Tobek (talk) 15:18, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per my above comments. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:35, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

As a bystander that uses wiki alot, i like knowing alot about bands ect .... I believe that on wiki without advertising you should be able to say where to get certain bands or even brands merchandise, because some is hard to find.

Band articles typically link to their web page(s). If they aren't willing to advertise their band or their band's brands on their website, then that's not our problem. We're not the Yellow Pages. Rklawton (talk) 14:59, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
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