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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (proposals).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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WP:Z

I know this is a very unimportant matter (might also go on miscellaneous ), but I was just wondering what we could have for WP:Z; WP:A,B,C, etc. are complete but there is no WP:Z (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). I'm proposing that we create a WP:Z that redirects somehwere, but I don't know where! ♠TomasBat 01:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmmm.... perhaps Wikipedia:Zeitgeist? -- Boracay Bill 01:48, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I suggest the most boring (zzzz) page we can find. >Radiant< 12:25, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep? Jeepday (talk) 13:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Am I the only person that finds WP:CREEP and WP:IAR incredibly ironic? WP:Z could be useful as an intentional redlink --lucid 14:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Hah... I like this. Thanks for the chuckle. I like the boring page idea too :) But I'll have to think about this one. 14:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
We don't seem to have many pages beginning with Z in the Wikipedia namespace worth linking to. There's Wikipedia:Zeitgeist (inactive), Wikipedia:Zero revert rule (redirect), Wikipedia:Zimbabwe-related regional notice board and Wikipedia:Zap (rejected proposal). Radiant's suggestion looks like the best option here... Hut 8.5 15:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Prerequisites, etc.

Would it be considered too textbook-ish to encourage adding a specific 'prerequisites' section to wikipedia's articles to enhance understanding ? I'm thinking of science/mathematics articles in particular, where things are organized especially hierarchically. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.166.168.141 (talk) 14:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:Manual of Style. I don't know what you mean by hierarchically though--Phoenix 15 18:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you know Wikipedia:Accountability?

Please brush up Wikipedia:Accountability and make it one of fundamental official policies of Wikipedia. Obviously, few persons have edited Wikipedia:Accountability. Probably, for many editors, to achieve accountability is just one of common sense, so they didn't need to read and edit Wikipedia:Accountability from necessity. But it should be established properly by the consensus of many Wikipedians.

Please read Wikipedia:Accountability, and amend it if you can. And please change its status from {{guideline}} to {{policy}} at the good time. -- PBeaver 16:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC), 23:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Accountability was tagged as a guideline without anything that could ever be called a consensus. It reflects the opinions of you and perhaps one or two other editors. I've removed the guideline tag. You need to show a consensus on the talk page, and that talk page is right now extremely short. Most of the comments there seem to be from people who are bewildered as to how and when the page became a guideline. The page is also very poorly written, extremely far from the level of quality usually attributed to guidelines. I fixed the overview paragraph somewhat, but it still needs much more work before you can even think about making it a guideline. 21:17, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Are you OK? You need to show the proper reasons and the clear consensus on the talk page, as far as you have requested others to do so and you had removed the guideline tag without any proper reasons and clear consensus.
  • I have already shown the proper resons and clear consensus on the talk page on the assumption that almost all decent editors in advanced countries needn't have been taught by WP:ACAB, therefore, needn't have brushed up WP:ACAB.
  • Why haven't you still recognized Wikipedia's free-editing policy and Wikipedia's Accountability System?
  • I can't think the page is also very poorly written, extremely far from the level of quality usually attributed to guidelines.
For example, a simple sentence such as the following :

"All editors should achieve accountability in all edit summary boxes and talk pages concerned."

is enough for me and probably almost all decent editors.
  • Therefore, I can't think that WP:ACAB still needs much more work. What much more work do you think WP:ACAB needs?
  • Why haven't you added much more work to WP:ACAB by yourself, if you are really thinking so?


That page makes almost no sense. All it says is "Leave an edit summary and get an account," neither of which are required, and both of which are recommended elsewhere. There's simply no point. Atropos 02:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Don't complain to me. If you find something to really have to be amended in WP:ACAB, Do It Yourself.
  • Which do you think WP:ACAB require you, "Leave an edit summary and get an account" or "Neither leave an edit summary nor get an account"? The former? The latter? I don't know what you are thinking and why you haven't revised them yet.
  • Have you never achieved accountability appropriately in talk pages and Village pump against Wikipedia:Talk pages?
Of course, "Wikipedia:Accountability" are basically different from "Wikipedia:Account."


If you're going to work on it, you might start by cleaning up the grammar. That's pretty bad. Corvus cornix 16:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Please don't complain to me. Please don't complain such a thing here. As far as you said so, all you have to do is to amend WP:ACAB by yourself. -- PBeaver 23:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I have no desire to clean it up as it is a rejected guideline and should stay rejected. You're the one pushing for it to be implemented, you should be the one cleaning it up so that you don't embarrass yourself. Corvus cornix 16:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
PBeaver keeps replacing the rejected tag with a guideline tag. Anyone know what can be done about that? 23:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
What are you talking about? I have already explained it. Please read well or decipher well Wikipedia talk:Accountability#Tagged as one of guidelines again and around it. -- PBeaver 23:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Round 2

  • Who would like to discuss with idiot guys who reject Wikipedia:Accountability as one of policies and guidlines in Wikipedia? I have to say this serious problem here.
  • The most important key point about Wikipedia:Accountability is that it has to continue to exist as a basis of all edit summaries, talk pages, policies and guidlines of Wikipedia, regardless of its contents.
  • At a glance of {{rejected}} on Wikipedia:Accountability, I found that what shouldn't happen in Wikipedia has occured here and there. Therefore, I still haven't interested in its contents. I have been most interested in whether or not the admins of En.Wikipedia are wise enough to make the status of WP:ACAB one of official policies of Wikipedia.
  • The most important goals is that some dictatorial and/or arrogant admins have to achieve their own accountability appropriately. Therefore, admins themselves should amend WP:ACAB with proper reasons.
  • Never forget that the less quantity WP:ACAB has, the better it become, because almost all decent editors in advanced countries can't feel the necessity of reading Wikipedia:Accountability.

Response

Pages generally need to be well-written before they're accepted as guidelines. You can't tell people to fix it themselves yet leave the guideline tag on. And I don't know what your definition of consensus is, but please read wp:consensus for some clarification. In short, consensus in this case means that a lot of people agree that the page should be a guideline. So far, I think you've got 2 people supporting this, including you.

00:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

-- PBeaver 20:55, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Copyrightreview

I have copied commons:Template:Flickrreview and created this. I propose all exisitng freely licensed images undergo this check to review their commons compatibility and the legitimacy of their free license. -- Cat chi? 15:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Why? Flickrreview is there to check against offsite tags. What could we possibly check against for other images? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
If an image is really free it can be tagged with this accordingly. Freely licensed images are quite often not so free. Aside from uploading clearly copyrighted material, some freely licensed images are unfree due to derivative works. People can go through reviewed images and possibly move them to commons accordingly. A dual review has better results. This would be better than the alternative (now). -- Cat chi? 16:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I think this is well intentioned, but it has a couple problems. Admins are not chosen for their ability to review license tags. Requiring admins to do this, without evidence there is a desire among them to do so, is a bad choice. Second, Wikipedia is in the middle of a long process of dealing with nonfree images. Before worrying about images that claim to be free, but may do so incorrectly, we should first resolve the images that already claim to be nonfree and don't meet our requirements for nonfree images.
On the other hand, anyone is free to start checking free images to make sure that they meet our licensing policies. It's a volunteer site. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:08, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The template explicitly states Admins and trusted users. I would expect any admin to have a basic understanding of free licenses and copyright to preform the task (hence why they do not need to undergo the "trusted user" thing).
With this admins aren't required but are allowed to preform the task along with trusted users. Theoretically this task can be handled exclusively by non-admin trusted users since the task does not require the use of any admin tools.
en.wikipedia ideally should contain no freely licensed images as those should be in commmons so that all language editions of wikipedia will be able to benefit from them. The transition to commons is very difficult due to the vast number of fakely licensed images here on en.
-- Cat chi? 09:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Well? -- Cat chi? 11:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Public IP's: An Idea to Limit Vandalism

I, as many of you, have had to battle vandals on a number of pages, and have found that most of the repeat offenders hide behind public IP addresses. Even if no beneficial "contribution" had ever come from one of these vadal's IP's, they are allowed to continue to vandalize or blank pages because the IP is considered "public." This is disruptive and damages the content and reputation of the Wikipedia project, as well as taking a lot of time from editors and admins which might better be spent on bettering or developing articles.

I propose that if an IP considered "public" demonstrates a history of vandalism with little or no beneficial contributions attributed to that IP's history, then that IP should be blocked and tagged in a unique way which shows the would-be editor or vandal the reason the IP is blocked and suggests that because of the history of vandalism attributed to that IP, the user should create an account if he or she wishes to edit and contribute to Wikipedia in a positive way. Admins may then block the vandals on an individual basis. It might lead vandals to make account after account to circumvent the blocks, but juvenile-minded vandals may be less inclined to makes dozens (in some case hundreds) of acts of vandalism if they must take the time to create user account after user account. It shouldn't be too difficult to create a special tag, nor to communicate how to use this tag to administrators. I encourage that this idea or some similar solution to public IP vandals be pursued. TeamZissou 19:20, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Something similar to that exists, Wikipedia:Abuse reports. It also handles public relations aspects of blocking a "public IP". GracenotesT § 14:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

free on-line accredited university

A Free, On-line, Accredited University!!! The idea is simple... create a web-site that offers recorded lectures, public domian e-texts, automated testing, and offer the public at large an education that is free of tuition... Find a way to give students legitimate credit for courses completed and a set standard of awarding degrees(bachelor, associate, etc.)...Foster and encourage the development of on-line and real-life tutors for subjects that present problems through an on-line community... Knowledge is, in essance free, self-education is the ultimate goal of any university, so why not offer that experience for free? This is where I’ve chosen to expand on all that.

The idea, I am sure, is not new, but one that I see hasn’t been developed as yet.

The reason of why is simply this: Students today are burdened with a monumental cost of education in the form of tuition, books, housing, food, and any other amenities that are required. In essence a real college can offer a good education and life-experience, but the costs are prohibitive for a great many people to actually afford to go.

Student loans, scholarships, grants, all of these are designed for one thing: to pay for an education, but when one is unable to get such money, you are barred from a formal education and reduced to unaccredited and uncertain self-education.

In this world of YouTube, Google Video, and MySpace, why is there not yet a Free On-line university?

There are plenty of web-sites ready to offer an education on-line at a discount, so why not take that idea and expand on it? On-line universities still charge students, so the problem becomes one of finances again.

Knowledge is free. So why can’t a person capable of finding a working internet connection, and willing to invest their time and efforts be able to develop their formal education if they so choose?

The idea of offering accredited courses and eventual degrees is one that would foster a competition with real colleges and universities - yes – but this idea can also offer a complementary aspect to real institutions to develop and collaborate on the educational process.

The problems, as I see them now, are many and varied, but here I can start out-lining them for the people to think upon and find solutions:

1. Financing – there would have to be a sponsor for this. Google seems intent on offering a lot, maybe someone like them or the folks at Wikipedia would be willing to offer some support to the project? Adwords and other ideas could be used to finance the costs of running a behemoth of a web-site as this would entail.

2. Courses – I’m sure that there are professionals out there that have thought of offering one or more courses on their own or who would write such a course simply for the credit involved. Gaining such credit wouldn’t be worth much at first, but the idea is to contribute one thing to the overall university as a whole. After some time the cumulative effects could be quite surprising. Lectures could be posted on video sites such as youtube or google video as public domain and broadcast as needed to complete course work.

3. Testing – the internet is a collection of computers… with a basic model of automated testing each course could conceivably offer an automated series of tests to use in completion and crediting each student. Some course-work would require more than automation with things such as essays but a system could be developed to accommodate these requirements.

4. Mentoring and Control – such a community may be developed from the users and enthusiasts to create an on-line community that would serve as tutors, mentors, monitors, and officiates of such a project. Things like Wikipedia with its active and productive communities could be the source of many man-hours of work on a volunteer basis. ALSO, the use of mentoring credits and the like could be instituted for those willing to put in that time and gain their own accreditation for a back-ground in education. The usefulness of such credit is questionable, but someone willing to devote that much time to educate and help others would be invaluable to those seeking more in educational positions such as work-training.

5. Accreditations – somewhere along the line the project would have to be accredited by some official organization so that all this effort is not in vain… I haven’t the slightest idea how a college or university gets accredited, but as the idea grows I’m sure we may find some smaller university or institution willing to help in this process. There are already accredited on-line education sites out there. I’m sure the road is long and arduous but it can be done.

6. Degrees – every college and university has a degree system of some sort… I imagine that this project should offer such things as associates and bachelor degrees at some time. Providing a student does all the work and completes the required number of courses, I see no problem with giving a degree to such a student as time permits. Additionally, I am sure businesses and other markets may be encouraged to offer “internships” and other things to help the project out and help the students with real-world application of the learned knowledge. As long as the Accreditation issues are worked out, the degree should be able to withstand the scrutiny given to other formal degrees offered at brick-and-mortar schools.

7. Reciprocation – there has to be a system where someone’s past credit can be added into their course work for the project. Likewise, the credit built up within the on-line university needs to have a system in place to provide students the opportunity to gain credit at real institutions if or when they apply there. The idea behind this is to offer students a chance to further their education with a masters degree, or a Ph. D. if they so choose. Just like a real university, the only real difference of this project would be that the campus is on-line, but the experience and efforts will yield real results.


There are other things to consider with all this, but if you think of something that doesn’t fall into these categories listed above then let me know.

If you know of anything or anyone trying to do the same thing, then let me know of them, or let them know of me.

My goal is not to profit from this, but to encourage the adoption and promotion of this idea to become a reality. My own formal education is severely lacking and I’ve often wished for something like this to continue my own learning in my spare-time.

Additionally, there is a wide gap in the number of people with the ability and desire to further their education, and the number of people with the financial resources to pursue that goal. This project would be an answer for that one day, and finally offer an alternative to traditional institutions for those without the finances to afford it.

Also, this would not be limited to just the USA. Anyone from any country could participate as long as they could gain access to the web-site. There is no reason that someone willing to take the time and put in the effort should be barred from getting an education due to living in any country. It’s their time and effort involved, why not reward them for their efforts if they earn it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by WAPatterson (talk • contribs) 16:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Please see wikiversity:. ←BenB4 18:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
That's not accredited, and I don't believe they have any plans to become accredited. I doubt the feasibility of something free that's also accredited. There would need to be reliable texts, very little of which exists in the public domain; some method of secure testing, which will be difficult to provide for free; and non-anonymous people to be held accountable for everything (accreditation probably requires this). However I do think it's a great idea, if it can be done.
Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)
18:57, September 10, 2007

Let's switch to CC-BY-SA

I think we should change the license of Wikimedia's materials from GFDL to CC-BY-SA. The how and why of this change are explained here. Cheers, AxelBoldt 23:09, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

It can't be done. You would need to have the explicit approval of everyone who made every one of the 1,251,753,841 edits, and we don't even have a way to prove that we are dealing with the person who made the edit. Also should one person chose to not accept it, every edit made after their's on any page they edited would have to be deleted, since it uses their content. Prodego talk 23:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Answering your points:
  • Implicit approval (i.e. if you don't opt-out you agree automatically) appears to be enough to avoid successful legal challenges; the Internet Archive, for example, also violates copyright on an opt-out basis.
  • If a person can't prove that they have made a particular edit, then they are in no position to object to the material's relicensing.
  • Should we receive a valid objection to the relicensing, then only that editor's contributions need to be removed from the current set of articles; subsequent additions by other editors can stay. AxelBoldt 20:37, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I don't think that would work. The proposal depends on the idea that if someone doesn't disagree to re-license their work, they automatically agree. As far as I am aware, the only perfectly legal way to change the license of a wiki is to ask each and every contributer for permission in advance and make sure that they all agree. Obviously, this would be impractical so in practice you can't change the license, even if the new license is better. Tra (Talk) 23:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
It's possible, but not easy. Since Wikipedia is licensed under the "GFDL version 1.2 or later", the only practical way to re-license it as CC-BY-SA is for the Free Software Foundation to adopt the wording of the CC-BY-SA license as a later version of the GFDL. --Carnildo 01:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, having to replicate the entire text of the GFDL on any distributed versions is a pain in the but for most people who want to use Wikipedia content. And in fact I would go so far as to say that no user would mind enough to have their contributions removed, and that 90% of users won't know the difference. The problem with previous contributions to articles is obvious. I would also like to bring up another problem: images. While text is usually fairly replaceable, and almost anyone can work with it, a lot of images are put under GFDL-self. There's a steeper learning curve there, and it's more difficult to replace material that doesn't qualify. --YbborTalk 01:53, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I think it should be licensed under Public domain, as nothing else is truly "free". -Henry W. Schmitt 04:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
The "share-alike" bit of the license is nice though. If everything was public domain someone could take a large chunk of the content, fix it up a bit and then release it elsewhere under a more restrictive license. With the GFDL (or CC-*-SA and others) anyone who make derivatives of the content must relaese it under the same license, ensuring that anyting based on our content will also be free. --Sherool (talk) 13:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Who cares? That wouldn't prevent anyone from getting the original source here and it still being free. I thought we're all about being free here. -Henry W. Schmitt 20:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
We are all about being free. Thus, we want to use a license such that anyone who uses Wikipedia content must release their versions of it freely as well. -Amarkov moo! 20:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
However, they won't be able to use even some better free license, but would be stuck with GFDL. --V111P 20:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
About the not-free derivatives - if they are fixed only a little bit, then they are not worth much attention. On the other hand if they are fixed a lot, use additional information, etc., we could still cite them and use them as a source (or use the original sources as Henry says). (This works only for text of course, not images.) --V111P 20:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
On the other hand, we may not want to use even some GFDL-free derivatives. Some derivative may want to include an Invariant Section saying "Wikipedia sucks", in which case we probably won't want to use their text, because we will have to include the invariant section as well. We also probably wouldn't want to include "Acknowledgements" or "Dedications" sections if they are too long, and especially if the improvement in the derivative is too small to be worth it, so we won't be able to use such derivatives either. --V111P 20:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Personally I agree that going with public domain would be preferable, rejecting the corrupt copyright system and underlying philosophy altogether. But changing the license now to public domain, after the fact with an opt-out scheme, seems to me to be unethical bait-and-switch, since the licenses are so different. AxelBoldt 23:20, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
  • A major problem with the current license is the need to attribute any derivatives to five of the editors who contributed the most to the work. These five users are difficult to determine, and the rule is usally ignored anyway, for example when moving content from one page to another or when translating into another language, thus violating the license in which case it is no longer legally valid (according to its own text), which means that a lot of the content, especially of the translated articles in the other language versions of Wikipedia, is not really licensed under GFDL and is used illegaly. Would be much simpler if we could just say "from Wikipedia". --V111P 20:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, yes. I think that it's pretty well established that the GFDL is a terrible license for Wikipedia; I was just explaining why some copyleft license was preferable to just sticking Wikipedia in the public domain. The problem is in the difficulty of changing the license at this point. We'd have to compile a list of everyone who didn't want the license changed, and probably oversight every single one of their contributions, after removing those contributions from our articles. So if the person who originally wrote the George Bush article won't change their license to CC-BY-SA, all the rest of the history is a derivative work, so we have to just kill off the entire thing. Further complicating it, an opt-out solution, where people who don't want the license on their contributions changed have to explicitly say so, is likely not legally valid, so we'd have to do opt-in. Meaning that anyone who doesn't say "you may change my contributions to a CC license" causes all of their edits, and all edits to an article after one of theirs, must be thrown out. Since many editors aren't around anymore, we'd lose a whole lot of Wikipedia. -Amarkov moo! 21:12, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
      It would be possible to keep the history under GFDL, and switch only the current (and future) versions to CC-BY-SA. Then we would only have to wipe the contributions of the objecting contributors from the current article version, no oversight necessary. AxelBoldt 23:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
      • I'm afraid not. As long as a new version of the article is in some way derived from a previous GFDL licensed version the new version must also be released under the GFDL, otherwise it's a copyright violation. That's how the license is designed to work, and there is no way around that except getting every previous controbutor to make their versions available under an alternative license alongside the GFDL. So I think we are pretty much "stuck" with the GFDL at this point. --Sherool (talk) 08:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm.... But, as has been previously mentioned, WP contributions are licensed under the GFDL version current at the time of the contribution and under subsequent GFDL versions. A subsequent version might nod towards CC-BY-SA (or whatever) and bring that under the GFDL umbrella (there is probably a better way to say that in legal-speak). If I've got that right, boils down to a political question between WP folks and GNU folks. -- Boracay Bill 09:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Conclusion: Never use a license you do nоt control. (i.e. somebody else's license) --V111P 12:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I've just had a quick squiz of the license. The five principal authors only applies to people who distribute modified versions - most people (answers.com etc) seem to distribute verbatim copies which dont require this. Secondly, wikipedia policies contain explicit guidelines on how to preserve the authorship records when articles are block copied to other articles or translated to other languages. I accept that this doesn't always happen, but so what, you still occasionally get people copying in text from copyrighted sources. The point is that wikipedia does what it reasonably can be comply and has systems which enable it to comply. I still dont see what the problem is, and what the improvement would be? AndrewRT(Talk) 22:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

To illustrate a problem with GFDL

Let's say I expand an article to FA status. It's really good, and people like it. The only problem is, in the original article I worked from, there was a section titled "Dedications" giving praise to Stalin, Hitler, and the like.

The notice about licensing of Wikipedia contributions is very good. It explicitly says that edits can not contain invariant sections, nor front or back cover texts. But it overlooked one little quirk. Any section titled "dedications", although it can be edited, must be preserved, and the original intent may not be changed. So nobody is allowed to remove the praise of various dictators from the bottom of the article, or change it to not be praise. That is not good. -Amarkov moo! 21:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, (although this will certainly never be enforced), we are technically not allowed to ever change any of the disclaimers, since the restrictions on modified copies include reproducing disclaimers verbatim. -Amarkov moo! 21:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry I think you've got the wrong end of the stick here - you're interpreting the license too literally. What the license refers to as a section headed "endorsements, dedications, history etc." is what is implemented in wikipedia via the "history tab" - which gives details of every individual user's contributions. It doesn't refer to a wikipedia section, regardless of what it is called.
On a separate note, I understand GDFL copyright to be additive rather than subtractive. Let me explain. If you have a final article, you should be able to trace, for each sentence/word, who authored it. However the converse is not the case - not every sentence which has at one time been added in will remain in the final version. GDFL limits how you can use someone's edits - their rights disappear if their edits are later removed. AndrewRT(Talk) 22:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Edits to Wikipedia can not contain invariant sections (IS), so we actually can not use any GFDL-licensed texts with IS, but I thought others can take texts from Wikipedia, improve them, and add IS, am I wrong? Because if I am right, derivatives with IS are no longer free for us no matter what these IS say. --V111P 23:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Has anyone ever tried to enforce the "5 most recent authors" or "copy the entire license" portions of GDFL in court? Who has standing to enforce, and what's the mechanism? I suspect these, and many other, GDFL provisions could turn out to be unenforceable and that a derivative re-user who merely links to the license and links to Wikipedia as a source is probably untouchable legally. I'd have to take a harder look at the license migration provisions of GDFL (moving from one license version to another). There could conceivably be a way to engineer it but it sounds very messy and could add to the risk that everything turns out to be void. Wikidemo 22:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, see also Meta:GFDL suggestions for suggestions for a new draft of the GFDL. Garion96 (talk) 22:44, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Watchlist Alert

When somebody leaves a message on your talk page, a message shows on the screen stating that you have new messages. Shouldn't the same apply to watched pages? I know that one can easilly view their watched pages by clicking on the link, but a message would be an added convenience. The message would display which pages have been edited since your last visit, and who edited them. Oddmartian2 18:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)My Talk

Many people have hundreds of pages on their watchlist, so such a feature is generally undesirable, and it would require a big technical change. You can subscribe to a rss history feed of different pages that you want to keep a close eye on though if you'd like. —METS501 (talk) 19:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I didn't know that there are people with that many watchpages. I only have about twenty. Oddmartian2 20:01, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I've got about 30 and when I first arrived I expected that to happen also. It would be a good idea though--Phoenix 15 21:04, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I've over a hundred, but there's quite a few on there short-term. It's normally about 80, and As several are policy pages and their talkpages, they're edited rather frequently. SamBC(talk) 21:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I've got 1300 pages on my watchlist, down from a high of 1800 or so. --Carnildo 21:17, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
A past study indicates that the average watchlist size is around 1000. --YbborTalk 02:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
My high was around 9K something if I recall. At that point the size of it will start causing glitches and make it pretty useless. I've trimmed it down closer to 7K, but I guess I should just wipe it clean and start over with a select few pages one of these days... MediaWiki actualy does have a feature that allow you to request e-mail notification when watched pages are edited. It's just not eneabled on enWiki though (performance issues due to the high edit rate I would guess), but some other projects (such as Commons) will let you eneable this from your preferences). --Sherool (talk) 02:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Policy needed to stop reference deletion

Recently I've seen editors "cleanse" the references in articles. That is, an inline reference suitably verifies the fact that it is intended to, but the reference article also contains other unrelated facts that the deleting editor disagrees with.

There have recently been edit wars, where the article's text has not been disputed, but war was over which inline reference would be used. Editors have recently deleted references from a biography, where the reference article gave an unfavourable treatment of the subject.

Inline references are used to verify one particular fact. Does it matter what else the reference article talks about? I'm talking about references from major newspapers that would normally be considered highly accurate.

There needs to be a policy against the deletion of inline references, and to stop crazy edit war over the incidental content of references. Currently there seems to be no policy against the cleansing of references. It's probably only a problem in hotly contested articles, especially political articles. But I've seen it happen on more than one article recently. --Lester2 23:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you could provide two or three diffs. In general, multiple references aren't needed for a given statement, so using the best reference (e.g., New York Times rather than Podunk Herald) is appropriate. And bviously if a reliable source is used to support a statement that no other source supports, it's inappropriate to delete it. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
If two references are available, both are considered reliable sources, but one of them is controversial (say, worded as an 'attack piece'), then favor the non-controversial one. The important thing is that the fact is cited on Wikipedia. Rather than fighting over which particular reference is used, just drop the one that's controversial. It's not worth fighting over, most of the time. -- Kesh 02:02, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
John (above) mentions The New York Times. A hypothetical example: The NYT writes a 6 page article about a politician. Editor #1 uses that article to reference many non-controversial facts in a Wiki article about that same politician. Some time later, Editor #2 feels that the NYT article was an attack piece on that politician, and deletes all the references from the Wiki article that cite the NYT story.
The New York Times is considered a reliable source for citation in Wiki. We cite major newspapers to verify a fact in the Wiki article. In a polarized political subject, one person may regard the NYT article as a masterful piece of research, while another editor views the same article as an attack piece, and deletes those references from the Wiki article (while not necessarily replacing them with appropriate replacements).
In polarized political articles (eg, bio of a politician during election time) adding multiple references to facts may be the best way to go, as it shows the myriad of different treatments and opinions the politician gets from a variety of credible sources. Multiple sources also demonstrate the notability and weight that a fact is receiving in the media.
Here's the incentive to delete references: Wikipedia is a Top-10 website, the reference is a hyperlink to the newspaper article, raising that article's ranking in the Google search. This is why we're entering into an era where edit wars occur over which reference is used to cite non-disputed facts.--Lester2 21:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) A minor point - Wikipedia uses rel=nofollow so references do not increase a newspaper article's ranking in Google. They would, however, increase traffic to that page. Tra (Talk) 21:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I think that in cases where multiple references are available, there's no harm in using both (up to some reasonable limit, say, 5-10) to reference the fact. Reference redundancy never killed anyone, so removing references is not a good idea as a general rule. Also, Wikipedia uses nofollow tags: external links to most sites do not aid their Google rank. Nihiltres(t.l) 21:55, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't recall anyone ever mentioning Google page ranks. The actual reasons for opposition to the edits is concerns regarding notability to the main subject and BLP. Please stop spreading this discussion around numerous pages and if you have to do this, at least give people the actual facts. Sarah 06:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Lester should be more upfront and explain that he is talking specifically about the bio on the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard. Lester wishes to use an article about investments which John Howard's father made before JH was born and which he had sold when JH was a young boy (about 10-years-old). The implication of the article is that JH's description of his family as people who have certain values is compromised by these legal proxy-ownership investments his father made in some copra plantations in PNG. This information is discussed at length in Lyall Howard which is linked to from the JH bio, but Lester feels it should be included in the main JH bio as well. He is upset because consensus is at an impasse and he has tried to drum up support on ANI but was largely ignored. When the copra edits were rejected, he and his friend continued to restore the copra article link as a reference, edit warring more than 30 times and reverting numerous editors, including a range of admins and an arbitrator. Others removed this link as they considered it an inappropriate article. Apparently one editor had mistaken broken another link when removing the copra reference but he has already apologised and explained that it was an error. Further, the link has been replaced by other reliable sources, so it isn't a matter of information being left unsourced. Sarah 06:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
In general I would say that one editor selecting to remove one or more references because they disagreed with or thought the reference was weighted in the wrong direction would be counter to WP:NPOV {representing fairly and without bias all significant views} and would border on censorship. In the case as outlined by Sarah the editor appears to be attempting to provide undo weight to a specific unrelated incident against the consensus of the greater community. Jeepday (talk) 12:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

New proposal: policy and guideline style

I am proposing a new guideline page, WP:PGS, on how to create, update, and edit Wikipedia policy and guideline pages. The purpose is to keep these pages clear, concise, and effective. This is not meant as a radical departure from existing best practices - it is modeled on the better policy guideline pages, in hopes that the messier pages can be shaped up to their standards.

I hope we will adopt this as a guideline (after suitable improvements and agreement on what the page should say) so that we can have stylistic consistency among all the policy and guideline pages. If not, I'll keep this as an essay for now - and cite it as I go about my work cleaning up different pages, to see if it catches on.

I'm also posting a similar notice Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style and to Wikipedia talk:Policy and guideline style. Thanks for your consideration, Wikidemo 21:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Your page (seems nicely done) didn't seem to mention Help:Modifying and creating policy (which, perhaps oddly, is NOT a transcluded help page from Meta). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll add that (and everyone should feel free to improve the proposal). The distinction is the help page tells people how to go about it, and the proposed guideline shows people what it should look like when they do. Wikidemo 22:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Protect admin-name articles from creation by default

With the number of deletions, blocks, and page protects that we do, some admins continually get pages created in the article space complaining about their actions or bashing them. This is annoying and unnecessary. I propose that for admins whose literal usernames are unlikely to ever become articles, (Sorry Riana (article), Cecropia (article), et al., your names are valid articles) the pages be by default indefinitely protected from creation. I've seen plenty of admin username article spaces be violated with attack pages, and it seems to me like this is an unnecessary evil for many usernames. I doubt that there will ever be a legitimate article at the pages Nihiltres (page log), Dmcdevit (page log), Anthony.bradbury (page log), or Misza13 (page log), for example. Those are just a few of the ones of which I'm aware. It would be nice in this context to therefore create a page on which to cascade-protect administrator names which are highly improbable article names from creation. All the template machinery is in place - it would be a subpage of Wikipedia:Protected titles, say, Wikipedia:Protected titles/Admin usernames. Is there anything I haven't thought of in terms of this proposal? Does it make sense, or am I being obtuse in some respect? Let me know. Nihiltres(t.l) 00:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

There are a number of reasons this shouldn't be done, including:
  1. Promote User:Topaz (just an example of a group) to adminiship, what happens to Topaz?
  2. Nothing prevents Topaz sucks! from being created
  3. Problems with Protection policy.
Prodego talk 00:35, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
To address your concerns:
  1. I already mentioned that this would be only "for admins whose literal usernames are unlikely to ever become articles". Topaz is in that group. The protection would be manual, and any name with even a minimal likelyhood of becoming a valid article wouldn't be protected.
  2. Yes, that's a possibility, but it's impossible to prevent any but the most obvious targets.
  3. I understand that it doesn't quite fit with the wording of the protection policy as it is. I believe, however, that it is in the spirit of the protection policy - this type of abuse is reasonably common, easily preventable for the obvious titles, obvious in nature, and will have virtually no collateral damage as long as the "valid article username" clause is strictly held to. I am proposing this rather than being bold about it because of the clash there.
Nihiltres(t.l) 02:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
This is a bad idea. Suppose for example, a guy with stage name 23skidoo becomes an overnight sensation in the US after a performance on American Idol and launches a successful pop career. But by sheer coincidence we happen to already have an admin named User:23skidoo, and the page can't be created without going through some silly process. This situation could not have been anticipated. It's much too anti-wiki. Dcoetzee 20:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Could become kind of creepy. --Thε Rαnδom Eδιτor (tαlk) 20:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd just encourage Admins to watchlist their mainspace "article" names. If the page gets created, it'll be found quickly. (It turns out that Flyguy649 was created back in February, and I had only just become active as an editor then.) There was a recent similar suggestion to permanently semi-protect the dates of the year, which ultimately wasn't implemented. As a result I watchlisted 10-15 dates, and I revert probably 2-3 of them a day. I think this is the best, non-creepy course of action. -- Flyguy649 talk contribs 20:40, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

How many users online?

I've seen in some websites that there may be a display, which shows how many people are online to view that very same website. I feel that it may be very good if wikipedia display the information, when a user log into a page(article) he may able to see How many users [registered users(with their user names) + unregistered guest users] are currently online viewing that very same page, the pages closely linked to that one, it's family of articles etc. Since wikipedia is the largest ever encyclopedia it may be amazing if such a facility is added to it. Thanks - white dot...!!! 20:26, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that would give this more of a forum kind of feel. This is an encyclopedia first and foremost, not a social networking tool. I think your suggestion sounds "fun" but might go against some of the core principals here.
Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)
20:29, September 10, 2007
That's an interesting idea but the problem is that it would mean that whenever a page is viewed, a log would have to be updated and the page content would be slightly different for each person seeing it. This would interfere with caching, and cause too heavy a performance load on the servers. Tra (Talk) 20:37, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm sure there are stats that already get updated whenever someone views a page. They could probably be used for for something like this. And with all the complex template transclusions that go on in many articles, there's alrady plenty of dynamics going on, so changing a little number with each page load can't mean that much more of a strain. I could be wrong but that's how I see it.
Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)
20:41, September 10, 2007
I don't know much about the technical problems against this. But like to suggest one thing, Yes Wikipedia is ofcourse an encyclopedia but it couldn't be restricted under-estimated to merely an encyclopedia. Being an open project it has it's own dynamics. It's here a collaborative work too. So a discussion btw a colloborative work too sounds little bit as a forum? So IMO, Wiki is neither merely an encyclopedia nor a forum. It maintains its position right btw the both with it's own guidelines. white dot...!!! 20:55, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd say that's a pretty fair assessment. Come to think of it, it would be a pretty cool feature, and give people more of an idea of the magnitude of the project. There are other people who might have better ideas about how appropriate it would be though, I'll wait for them to comment.
Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)
21:01, September 10, 2007
No, there aren't. Wikipedia doesn't keep logs because doing so would put too much load on the servers. --Carnildo 20:58, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
No logs whatsoever? Is that a known fact? Not even a raw access log?
Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)
21:01, September 10, 2007
I'm sure that there's a raw access log, but as has been repeated before, such a feature is prohibitively expensive of server load relative to its worth. Nihiltres(t.l) 21:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
If they do keep access logs, then there would be 100+, one for each server and caching proxy, and simply collating them and determining how many people are online would require an extra server or two. --Carnildo 19:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
What about this stats page? It looks like the kind of processing required is already being done. It looks like those are only database stats, with no page view stats, so they couldn't be used for this.
Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)
19:29, September 11, 2007
This honestly would create a added difficulty, because vandals will start vandalising when fewer users are online. No need for it. --Thε Rαnδom Eδιτor (tαlk) 20:36, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
No need for lots of things. No need for a logo, but we still have one. No need for userboxes, but we still allow them, despite all the trouble they tend to cause. I do see your point about added ease of vandalism, but I'm just not a big fan of the "no need" argument, so I had to point that out. Lack of "need" for something really isn't relevant. Some things are just convenient and/or fun, and those are still valid reasons to propose a feature, and occasionally even to implement one.
Equazcion • argue/contribs • 06:53, 09/14/2007

On-page "What Redirects Here"

I would love an on-page "What Redirects Here" for experienced editors, probably written in JavaScript for use in monobook.js. See Bug 11083 for details. Essentially this would be like Special:Whatlinkshere, but listing ONLY the redirects, and appearing on the same page as the content instead of on a separate page. At the bottom of the list of redirects would be a text field to add a new redirect. This would help editors see a list of the titles currently redirecting to an article, making it easier to determine what useful redirects were missing (a common misspelling, for example) and easily add it. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 17:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I could create an on-page solution but so far I wasn't able to find appropriate command nor in api.php neither in query.php. The only solution that I see is to use What Redirects Here instrument on Toolserver. I could write you a little script that makes an easy link to this tool from every page ∴ Alex Smotrov 19:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I own a couple of sites that run MediaWiki where I'd also like to use this, so the Toolserver script won't work for me. I am glad that someone else sees this as a valuable tool, however. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 20:50, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Splarka put together a nice proof-of-concept for this at User:Splarka/fetchredirects.js. It adds a link to activate it in the toolbox (below the search box) and displays the results below the page title.You can try it out by adding to /monobook.js: 

importScript('User:Splarka/fetchredirects.js');

Thanks for your help, Splarka! Anyone have any improvements to suggest? — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 01:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

There is also What redirects here, though that doesn't use the most current version of Wikipedia. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Good evening

Hello, i'm a french wikipedian. I search someone who lives in Philadelphia. It's for taking photographies ... If he is free, can he take contact with me on fr:user:stef48 ? Perhaps exist a category for find all user living in Philadelphia, but i dont' know ! Thanks, Stef4854 18:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Wikipedia:WikiProject Philadelphia has a massive list of active members who live in or are interested in Philadelphia. Just leave a message on any one of their talk pages and they will be happy to take a photograph for you. Paragon12321 20:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Rename tornado outbreaks to uncapitalized

I could find no place to propose a mass move, and the WP:RM procedure requires tagging all the affected pages which in this case number in the several dozen. Since it is fundamentally a very minor renaming, I am requesting it here:

About half of the articles in Category:Tornado outbreaks by intensity have titles in the form "(Date) (place) Tornado Outbreak". This goes against our naming conventions that say subsequent words in an article title should not be capitalized unless they are part of a proper noun.

I propose that those articles be renamed to "... tornado outbreak" to conform with our title style conventions. ←BenB4 13:05, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I see what you mean. I agree that titles like "Oklahoma Tornado Outbreak" be named to Oklahoma tornado outbreak. If someone had AWB it would be quite simple. Minesweeper.007 (talk · contribs) 16:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Template standardisation

The project to standardise the design of all the article message boxes is in its last stage. That is, all boxes like {{wikify}} etc is going to get a new look. We are just some day from starting to convert all article message boxes to the new standard. So pop over to Wikipedia:Template standardisation and have your say before it is too late. --David Göthberg 12:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Top viewed article list

I had an idea for a top twenty list of the most read articles. I was thinking of a top twenty for each language groups so if you wanted to know what the French readers were interested in over the last twenty-four hours you could take a look. I would imagine it would exclude the acticles of the day since those would always be up on top. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davedowd (talk • contribs) 05:26, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that just such a list exists on another server, but it probably cannot be updated with the frequency that you seek. And to publicise it would be very unwise. Adrian M. H. 12:49, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Porn Wiki?

I know I should probably write a page specifically about the idea if I want it to get any long-term discussion, but I'm kind of new around here and don't know if this sort of idea has already been hashed over several times.

I note that several of our most visited articles are those that specifically relate to sex in some way. This is no real surprise, as several major internet users are regularly reported as, frankly, looking for porn, and if we have articles that tend to show up high on a search for porn in some form, they're likely to look at it.

Personally, I don't have any real objections to this. However, there is a potential problem which could arise. For instance, several actors/performers and artists whose work includes at least some pornographic images. It is a reasonable question whether those images should be included in articles about those actors. I think in many cases, the performers may not be most easily recognized completely naked (actors who played Superman, Batman, or police officers come to mind, as they tend to be in some sort of uniform). However, the same sorts of objections can be made about not using a nude image of someone who is basically most often seen "underdressed".

There is also potentially a very big ethical issue here. Images relating to pedophilia and others come to mind as being potentially reasonably valid for some articles. Unfortunately, many people might see some sort of "slippery slope" argument about allowing them in too often.

The one way that comes to mind to resolve this matter is to perhaps create an "Adult English" (for English) wiki which might be able to include such content without any such restrictions on usage. I think for maximum effectiveness, it might best require some sort of requirement for certifying that the potential user is of age to view such content, and, maybe a small nominal fee, like maybe a $20 annual fee, to "sign up" for the service. The latter is only proposed on the basis that I think 12-year-old Timmy and the like would have some trouble coming up with ways of paying such fees, and it would thus help ensure that those who would sign on to see such material are in fact really as old as they claim to be.

Anyway, just curious as to whether this is an old idea or not. Thanks for your time and attention. John Carter 14:52, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

There are numerous articles here about porn stars, at least most of which don't have nude images. This is not because this site is censored in any way (please see Wikipedia is not censored to address sensitivities), but more likely because such images would generally serve no encyclopedic purpose. In addition, I suspect most images of the nature you're talking about would be copyrighted and therefore inappropriate for uploading here or to any other wiki. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for a good short summary. Here's the long version I was editing...I'll take this seriously even if it sounds like a possible joke. It sounds like a good idea....for Wikia. There are sites outside of Wikipedia that would be more than happy to host a porn Wiki and it probably exists somewhre. There are a few limitations I can think of to putting it on Wikipedia. First, "adult" content would require 2257 notices and age verifications for viewers. We are not set up to perform those legal functions and they are too risky even if we were. They are also expensive to implement. Second, the content would be illegal in various other nations. Our goal is a free content encyclopedia that can be redistributed without restrictions for anyone to use as they wish. Similarly, most of the images you are talking about (stills and publicity photos from the adult industry) are copyrighted, and we disfavor non-free images of living people if we can get a free one. Given the nature of how free / unocopyrighted works are created it's unlikely we would get many naked pictures and even if we do, people would probably choose the less risque one for our encyclopedic purposes. Third, owning, producing, and viewing pedophiliac images is simply illegal outside of vary narrow law enforcement-related purposes. It's also illegal to have sexually explicit images of people whose ages you cannot verify. We don't host illegal content here so that is right out.
You should know that Wikipedia does cover sexuality and the adult industry pretty thoroughly. The focus is providing encyclopedic information and resources, not for the sake of people's erotic amusement. There is Wikipedia:WikiProject_Pornography, a small project. There is also Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and Sexuality. Adult performers of any note usually have a biography article, as do major studios, productions, and industry organizations. See, e.g. Vivid Entertainment, GayVN Awards, Sunny Leone, etc. In that way Wikipedia is already one of the biggest porn resources on the net.
Final note. Some time in 2006, Wikipedia apparently surpassed all of porn on the web put together for total web traffic. I don't have a cite for that.Wikidemo 16:00, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I was fairly sure about the last point above already, which was the reason I proposed it. And I do tend to use less than serious language a lot in general, so my apologies if that obfuscated things at all here. But, if as you said the potentially "objectionable" photos would be very unlikely to be unable to be used anyway, that wouldn't be a problem. Also, presumably, from what you're saying, those projects deal with the subjects already. And the potential of maybe some of the really objectionable, and possibly illegal, content was kind of one of the reasons I was thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to "spin off" any content which might even potentially qualify as such, particularly regarding potentially underage parties, thus avoiding any potential difficulties if some illegal content slipped through somehow. But, from what was said above, I'm guessing the groups involved monitor that sort of thing fairly strictly. Like I said, I'm kind of new around here, and wasn't sure whether the idea was a good one or not. Evidently, based on the info above, it would at best be unnecessary, and probably at least a little counterproductive. Sorry again about the tone of my writing, by the way. John Carter 16:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. That doesn't mean there's nothing to do if you're interested in the subject, quite the opposite. That only means you might have some company and help. You can join up with one of the groups or act on your own to beef up Wikipedia's coverage. You can look for articles of important industry players, directors, performers, etc., that are weak or missing and add them. Are there any AVN winning films or people who don't have an article? If someone doesn't have a photo you could find a free one (I know the porn stars make lots of public appearances, clothed, and you can take their picture). To learn the ropes it's often useful to practice by making small edits to existing articles that need clean-up and expansion, or to copy and then adapt an article for a new but similar subject. Like most wikiprojects the porn project has a list of open tasks where people are requesting help, but also like most that's not even the tip of the iceberg. But if you really want to do a stand-alone project complete with explicit imagery, links, comprehensive coverage, a little more commercial, etc, that seems more appropriate for one of the commercial wikis. But that would be a pretty big project and you might have to get some support. Wikidemo 16:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Back to Bomis, eh? Prodego talk 23:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
The idea of a "porn wiki" is something that's already been done. Playboy/Penthouse model Nikki Nova's site, the (very much not safe for work) nikkiwiki.com, would be one prime example. --carlb 16:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Clarification of what Wikipedia is not (a newspaper)

Can I please beg that the section of Wikipedia on what Wikipedia is not say that Wikipedia is not a newspaper? I have long found one of the interesting things about Wikipedia is that it helps to transcend the boundary between encyclopaedia and newspaper, covering contemporary events in detail, and in some ways, being more up-to-date than newspapers (I first learnt of the death of Jerry Falwell through Wikipedia. Indeed, over the summer of 2007, one could read Wikipedia articles on Madeline McCann, the foot and mouth crisis in the UK of 2007 and the floods in the summer of 2007 in the UK. However, Wikipedians must quicly make up their minds - is this website a newspaper or an encyclopaedia? ACEOREVIVED 19:07, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It's an encyclopedia, however, We have encyclopedia articles on stuff that's in the news. Why not put them on the main page--Phoenix 15 19:55, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
WP:NOT#NEWS is already there. Folks wanting to update current news items should look to Wikinews. -- Kesh 21:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Random Article Within Catagories

Is there a way to limit the articles shown by the Random article button? If not I want one now! It would be useful if you wanted to find something intresting within a certain topic, or just to cut out the amount of stubs shown. Macbi 16:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Not that I know of, you can specify a spesific namespace, such as Special:Random/Image or Special:Random/User talk but not spesific topics or categories. --Sherool (talk) 13:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea, but frankly, I don't understand why there's a "Random Article" link in the first place. Why would anybody want to read a random article? Oddmartian2 18:15, 1 September 2007 (UTC)My Talk
Exactly, only I think it would be good to be able to read something random about dolphins, or maths, or music... Macbi 18:06, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I use that link more than any other--Phoenix 15 18:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Support I love doing Wikisurfing! I also would like to find more actual content pages than articles about some obscure cricket player that retired 30 years ago. But maybe we should use keywords instead of categories, since many categories have only around 10-20 articles in them (from what i've seen anyway). Jedibob5 02:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

COI edit template

How about a "request edit because of conflict of interest" template that would be placed on the top of a section of a talk page that is requesting a change by a person with a COI to attract non-COI editors to look at the suggestions and make the edits if they're an improvement. I'm not sure that this exists, although it seems like it should already exist, but so I'm proposing it here. If it doesn't exist then it should have a parameter to briefly describe the COI, e.g. "I'm the CEO of [company name here]". Jeffrey.Kleykamp 21:49, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

{{COI}} puts articles in Category:Wikipedia articles with possible conflicts of interest you can go there find articles to improve. Jeepday (talk) 13:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
That's not what I mean. I mean that a person with a COI wants to change an article but isn't willing to do it himself because he's not supposed to so he adds this template to the talk page where he suggested the change, and then one of us makes the change for him if it's reasonable. This is different from an article that's been edited by a person with a COI. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 15:45, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I should point out that right now the procedure is to just post a message on the talk page but some articles are so small and unvisited that it could take months before someone reads the request, and therefore we need a template to attract Wikipedians to review and make the edit. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 15:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
This sounds like a great idea, I'd fully support such a template. In a way, it's almost like {{editportected}}. I'd make sure it carries a message with links to all the relevant policies, and reminds non-COI editors to make sure the information is cited. --YbborTalk 19:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I made the template, {{Request edit}}, but I'm not sure whether it adds the pages to Category:Requested edits like it's supposed to and I didn't add all that information that you suggested yet. Also I'm not sure where to add the category so that the users who are interested will find it. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 20:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I tested it and it does add it to the category, however it somehow adds all text you write underneath the template inside the of it and I don't know what's wrong. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 20:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I believe I fixed it. You just forgot to end the table with "|}".
Equazcion • argue/contribs • 23:41, 09/16/2007
Thanks, and I just saw that you added the documentation page too. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 23:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
No problem. Yeah, although the doc page has nothing in it yet :)
Equazcion • argue/contribs • 23:45, 09/16/2007

Cleanup tag organizer

I think it would be useful to have a collapsible template, similar to {{WikiProjectBanners}}, in which all cleanup and similar tags at the head of an article can be placed. Seeing an article start with several (or even one) of these tags in rather ugly and annoying--some articles even have so many that you can't even begin reading the article text without scrolling down. Such a template would make the cleanup tags less intrusive to readers, while still alerting editors to the problems that need fixing. --CrazyLegsKC 02:57, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I think part of the reason for them (although I may be wrong) is to alert readers that what they're reading is not representative of what Wikipedia considers satisfactory. I do agree, though, that they're unnecessarily large and unsightly. —METS501 (talk) 03:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't consider this the ideal solution to the problem of unsightly tags, but—depending on the final form—it might be something that I could support. Yes, Mets501, we realize why they're there, but I don't really think that readers give a hoot. If the article is factualy wrong, then yes, the reader may want or need to know about that. But some articles get cleanup tags for reasons so innocuous that other editors can't even tell what needs to be corrected. To be honest, if I had my druthers, clean up tags would be relegated to the talk pages, or just placed at the bottom of the article. Unschool 03:33, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
There is {{Articleissues}} which consolidates many cleanup templates. Harryboyles 06:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
That's good, but it's still big, conspicuous, and unsightly like all the others. If it could be made collapsible, and "hidden" by default, that might be a good step toward controlling the cleanup tags. Can that be done? --CrazyLegsKC 06:49, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Cleanup tags are supposed to stand out and be visible. If you can't fathom why a particular tag is on an article just remove it and leave a note on the talk page or ask the user who added it to clearify. Most serve a real purpose though and removing them from plain view in the article would actualy be a disservice to our readers. We don't try to hide the fact that many of our articles are incomplete, lacking newtrality, out of date, not properly sourced or otherwise not up to the level of quality we would like. We advertise it and ask people to please help fix those problems instad. That way of doing thing have gotten us to where we are today and I se no compelling reason to change that just because some users find them a bit ugly. It's a temporary problem anyway, the solution is to fix the articles so those notices can be removed altogether. --Sherool (talk) 20:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Periodic deleting of sandboxes?

Has anyone ever suggested periodic deletion or oversighting of sandbox histories? They frequently contain libel or other undesirable stuff and leaving it in history may not be a spectacular idea. --B 23:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like an excellent idea to me. Brian Pearson 02:10, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
The servers would be very upset with having to move that much information to the archive (deleted) table. It shouldn't be oversighted for that and other reasons such as the oversight interface and policy. Prodego talk 02:31, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Maybe it could be done once manually by a developer and then periodically done thereafter? I think it's a really bad thing that there's so much libel that stays around in the page histories. --B 02:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't worry too much about it. Very few readers even know about the history, and even fewer actually look at it, especially on a page like the Sandbox. —METS501 (talk) 02:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Maybe sandboxes could be made to self-delete after a set period of time. They should only be for temporary use, after all. Brian Pearson 04:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Deleting THE sandbox or other major sandboxes would be a bad idea as it would cause a lot of lag (thousands upon thousands of revisions to be marked as deleted). If a libel problem ever comes up, I'm sure any offending edits will be oversighted - there isn't much of a problem here. The sandbox in and of itself is known to be a dumping ground for that kind of stuff anyway, so I doubt someone would really be offended that, say, a month ago, someone said "omg lolz!!one!!11 JOHN DOE IS A DOUCHEBAG" in the Sandbox, which was visible to people who probably already knew it was crap, for maybe a few hours at most. Nihiltres(t.l) 17:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
As Nihiltres points out, we need to differentiate between WP:SAND and user sandboxes. WP:SAND is so large as to make a complete history wipe problematic at best. User sandboxes are much harder to define. I have a separate "sandbox" page for Wiki-links I find useful, for instance. Would that qualify for oversight? -- Kesh 17:40, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
B et al. are talking about the primary sandboxes, including WP:SAND, the Template:X1 through Template:X5 test templates, et cetera. User sandboxes are user pages in terms of this proposal, and should be considered user pages for all considerations for deletion/oversight regardless. They don't matter, and they aren't usually filled with libel. I don't know where I've said anything about user sandboxes... Nihiltres(t.l) 18:28, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
You haven't, they just misunderstood. Another thing to consider is the fact that the history serves absolutely no purpose for the main sandbox. If deleting the sandbox history is so unfeasible (I'm not completely convinced that it is), for libel or other concerns the simplest solution is to hide the history of the sandbox past a certain amount of time, or past a certain number of states. Retain only a day or only 20 states worth of historical links, for example, and hide the rest. Perhaps make the others visible only to admins. We could even disable the history tab for the sandbox altogether.
Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)
19:10, September 11, 2007
Please nobody try to delete Wikipedia:Sandbox, for the sake of the servers. If the consensus is to remove the history, find a developer to do it, rather than an admin trying; last time an admin tried to delete the sandbox, the database was locked while the devs sorted the mess out (dev's log entry). --ais523 17:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
No one's suggesting deletion of the sandbox itself, just its history -- but point taken.
Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)
17:53, September 12, 2007
At present, admins can't delete a page's history without deleting the page itself (and then undeleting the top few revisions, if necessary). --ais523 17:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Well a one-time deletion of the entire history won't do much good. The main idea here is a periodic deletion. Hence my suggestion to simply disable the history tab for the sandbox, or hide the history past a certain period of time.
Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)
18:02, September 12, 2007
That sounds acceptable. My thinking is that some people may even be using sandboxes as storage, or even makeshift websites. Brian Pearson 00:05, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Hiding the history tab from the sandbox would make it a real pain for anybody should they need to manually reset the sandbox header. Without an old revision to revert to, it would be nearly impossible for anything other than a bot to reset the header.--69.118.235.97 11:07, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Does the program 'know' when there is old stuff in a sandbox, or if there is a lot of stuff there? If so, maybe there could be an automatic pop-up message saying "There is old data in your sandbox -- would you like to delete it?" Or, "You have X megs of data in your sandbox, would you like to delete it?" Brian Pearson 22:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Changes since my last review

What the watchlist really needs is a "Changes since my last review" option, so instead of seeing the changes that have happened in the last 3 days, I can see what's changed since the last time I actually read or edited the article. Let's say I start an article on something and add it to my watchlist. Then later I go on vacation for a few weeks, and it is subtly vandalized by someone and none of the WP:RCP people or bots catch it. I come back from my vacation and it's already off the bottom of my watchlist so I don't notice it either. Unless I'm paying careful attention next time I edit the article or happen to check its history, the vandalism goes unnoticed for a long, long time. I'd like to see a button on the History page to mark the current revision as satisfactory. From that point on, my watchlist displays the diff from the satisfactory version to the current version. When I get a chance to check that diff, I can mark it as satisfactory. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 13:45, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I just note down the time and date of the most recent item on my watchlist before I leave, and when I come back I look at any changes listed more recent than that. You can easily change the days parameter in the watchlist URI if you need to look further back (e.g. this will show changes in the last 30 days), or just use the "all" link on the watchlist page. Commons seems to have a feature that will highlight revisions in the page history and your watchlist since you last checked the page, but I've never been that fond of it. Anomie 14:25, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit summary for new section

First, it was Section name for a new section's edit summary. It was recently changed to new section - Section name, which is very useful because it gives a link directly to the new section. Now it it Section name - New Section, which I despise. It took away a very useful link and now it just tells us there is a new section with its name faded away. Where was the discussion for this? If there is a problem with the linking, then the original layout for the edit summary would be best, but the current is horrible. Thanks. Reywas92Talk 18:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I find this very annoying. The old way was more intuitive, and the link was very useful. I don't know when or why this changed but it needs to be changed back.
Equazcion • argue/contribs • 18:34, 09/16/2007
The link is still available, it's in the arrow to the left of the grey text. The reason why the new section - Section name style was changed is that if a new section was made that contained a link, the old format would have broken. Tra (Talk) 19:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I see, thanks! But having the new section's name faded is quite annoying. We should go back to how it was originally. Reywas92Talk 20:23, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

You can easily change the colour of the autocomment. Just add .autocomment {color:red;} to your CSS file, replacing "red" with the CSS colour or hex value of your choice. Adrian M. H. 21:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree that the older way was better; not because of the color, but because of the obvious link, and the similarity to edit summaries for existing sections. Yes, they occasionally broke, but not all that often, and this "solution" is really worse. >Radiant< 11:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Layout of page

I suggest that the boxes at the left of the page with links be shifted to the bottom, so that the article of interest may occupy the entire stretch of the screen. Users may use their entire monitors to read the article rather than see a blank empty strip on the left when they scroll down long articles. Tan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.74.50.85 (talk) 08:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I personaly think the page design is good enough as it is. If we moved the links down we would have to scroll to reach them which would become an anoyance. -Icewedge 17:44, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
MySkin gives full width.--Patrick 23:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Most editors use those links regularly – many of us use them everyday, I suspect – so their position is important. If you were to open an account, you could customise the layout with CSS. Adrian M. H. 12:08, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

AFD organization

I found that the AFD pages organization is poor. I would suggest formatting the discussions like the RFA page where you have a separate section for keep and delete sections with tallies and an ending date at the top. That way it would be easier for everyone to add their opinion and easier for Admins to see the total tally and ultimately decide the fate of those pages. This way, we don't have pages with articles for deletion that the discussion still not been closed after a year or so just sitting around. I would be willing to help reformat the way its laid out, and I would like to know what everyone else thinks about this idea. Regards, Minesweeper.007 (talk · contribs) 16:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree. I think that we need it all merged to facilitate discussion, which is the basis for WP:AFD, not just a delete/keep vote scheme. Many of the most well-known xFD debates have ended with results like "merge", "redirect", "rewrite", "split", and others. —METS501 (talk) 19:01, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
You proposal does not sit well with the fact that it is not a vote count. Since the closing admins are supposed to read the discussion points in full, it should not matter in which order they are arranged. Additionally, it is rarely a black and white list of "keep" or "delete"; where would the comments and other opinions go? Adrian M. H. 21:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I would like to see WP:RFA organized more along the lines of WP:AFD rather than the other way around. CIreland 13:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
It would be nice if there were a way to organize the articles and TOC somehow, but I'm not sure what to suggest. Going through a flat list of 50-100 articles is a chore. Could they perhaps be sorted by type of article (e.g. bio, company, school, etc) or reason for proposing deletion? Wikidemo 11:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Use of "Dictator" in Wikipedia

Please see here for debate, thanks. Tazmaniacs 15:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:CANVAS...
Jeffrey.Kleykamp 22:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Which is totally irrelevant in this regard. Garion96 (talk) 13:20, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
(EC) Bringing discussions to the wider attention of the community is not canvassing. By bringing it here, Tazmaniacs cannot be accused of seeking favourable opinions. Adrian M. H. 13:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, the notice here didn't suggest one response over another, and it's perfectly reasonable, indeed advisable, to link issues at village pump to get a wider participation. SamBC(talk) 13:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
In fact, that's kind of the point of the village pump. Mr.Z-man 16:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Opps, my mistake. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 00:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Special:Suffixindex

There is a request on talk page of Special:Prefixindex for Special:Suffixindex. I have to second that request. This will be invaluable for finding the noun part of names that have various adjectives. I'm thinking "X logic," "X philosophy," etc. Greg Bard 03:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The one page you recommend is depreciated, the other specifically says not to make requests for new features there. So given the title of THIS page, and those notices, something has to give. It seems anti-intuitive, that this is not the place for this request. What's up? Greg Bard 01:09, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps Village pump (technical) is appropriate? SamBC(talk) 13:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The correct place for bug reports and feature requests is the off-wiki website mediazilla:, which is monitored by the developers, not either of the Wikipedia wiki pages that discuss it. --ais523 16:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Contribs tab for user pages

I can see a person's user page and talk page simply by clicking their signature, but to see most users' contribs, I have to first go to a history where they contributed. Wouldn't it make sense to have a contribs tab for user pages, so you can see a user's contribs without having to display a page history?

Equazcion • argue/improves • 02:52, 09/23/2007
When viewing their user or user talk page, a link to their contribs is added to the toolbox down the left-hand side. At least, I don't think that's from any of the scripts I have installed. SamBC(talk) 02:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Hey you're right. I never noticed that. I don't think any of my scripts is doing that either. Although I think a tab makes more sense, but its no big deal as long as theres a link somewhere. Thanks.
Equazcion • argue/improves • 03:15, 09/23/2007
An interesting tool is Wikipedia Page History Statistics. JoJan 05:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

If you do want a tab, though, I've made a user script at your suggestion: 

//adds "contibs" tab to user and user talk pages
if (wgNamespaceNumber == 2 || wgNamespaceNumber == 3) {
    var uname = wgPageName.match(/[^:]*:([^\/]*)/);
    if (uname.length > 1)
        addOnloadHook(function() {
            addPortletLink("p-cactions", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/" + uname[1], "contribs", "ca-contribs", "Contributions");
        });
}

It also appears on user subpages, whereas the toolbar link does not. If you don't like the order of the tabs, I could change that as well. GracenotesT § 15:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow ok, thanks. I just installed this, it works great. As for order, right now the tab appears just after the watch/unwatch tab. I would say it should be further to the left than that, perhaps just after the history tab. You should definitely list this at Wikipedia:Tools, by the way. I think a lot of people may find this very useful. I sure do. Thanks again!
Equazcion • argue/improves • 19:51, 09/23/2007
PS. Is there any documentation on scripting with javascript for Wikipedia, some page that lists and describes existing variables and functions etc?
Equazcion • argue/improves • 19:57, 09/23/2007
Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Tutorial and Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Guide exist, but they seem unclear and/or outdated. To find existing variables, classes and IDs, the easiest way is to see the HTML source ('view source') of any page; for functions, see wikibits.js and MediaWiki:Common.js. Hope that helps! --ais523 14:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is a version that adds the contribs tab after history tab (function parameters indented as so not to be ridiculously long): 

//adds "contibs" tab to user and user talk pages
if (wgNamespaceNumber == 2 || wgNamespaceNumber == 3) {
    var uname = wgPageName.match(/[^:]*:([^\/]*)/);
    if (uname.length > 1)
        addOnloadHook(function() {
            addPortletLink("p-cactions",
                           "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/" + uname[1],                        
                           "contribs",
                           "ca-contribs",
                           "Contributions",
                           undefined,
                           document.getElementById("ca-move") || document.getElementById("ca-watch"));
        });
}

Enjoy! :) GracenotesT § 19:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again Gracenotes, this is a very handy script that I'm already finding myself using a lot. I still think you should post it at the tools page if you haven't already. And thanks ais523 for the info on javascript, I appreciate it. :)
Equazcion • argue/improves • 12:10, 09/25/2007
Have you seen this: http://wikidashboard.parc.com/ ? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
That's not at all what I was suggesting, but it is interesting.
Equazcion • argue/improves • 16:04, 09/26/2007

POV Mini-tag

If a single sentence is POV it would be really easy to just remove or fix it. I really don't think we need another backlog that will just waste drive space. 66.230.86.113 02:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC) ( -Icewedge 02:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC) )
(edit conflict)Seems to me like in most cases those sentances should just be removed, or attributed to a source. In the rare evnt that it's so crticial to the article that you can't take it to talk for a day or two, you can use use {{dubious}}[dubious – discuss] --YbborTalk 02:41, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
There are a few options available: {{fixPOV}}, which adds [POV] and requires a hidden comment; {{POV-statement}} which only adds [neutrality disputed]; and {{POV-assertion}} which adds Neutrality disputed — See talk page] and a link to the talk page. I have found {{fixPOV}} helpful in tagging a list that was introduced by a statement that certain subset of list members were excluded. By tagging the statement, the POV assertion could be bulls-eyed. —Twigboy 18:45, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Ah, so there those tags are! They must be woefully underused, since I have never seen them on a page. This section of the VP can be ignored then. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jedibob5 (talk • contribs) 00:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

For reference, there is a huge list of article tags. Cheers! Vassyana 14:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

LFD

Would lists count as articles?

If there is AFD, MFD, CFD, TFD etc, should there be one on lists, or does this just go under AFD? Simply south 14:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Try clicking on WP:LFD and seeing where the link goes. (It was originally aimed at WP:AFD for just this 'lists counting as articles' reason; I see it's now been repurposed to link to a particular section of that page.) --ais523 14:13, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Business proposal

Hi; I’m a foreigner, looking for a Jordanian partner to establish a new operation here in Amman. This operation is very successful, doesn’t need too much capital to invest and have a high potential returns. For interested business men please contact me on <contact info blanked> My Best Regards —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wael Abd Elbary (talk • contribs) 11:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

This really is the definition of spam, isn't it? I mean, it's like those scam emails... and it appears that the user is going to resist it being removed... <sigh> SamBC(talk) 11:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
I've posted a welcome and a warning at the user's talk page. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Protection templates, new style

The Wikipedia:Article message boxes project has now changed and standardised the styles for most of the message boxes that goes on article pages. We are now planning to change the protection templates to have a matching look when on article pages. But they will keep their old look when they appear anywhere else.

Here is an example of the new look. (Note: Exact colour for the left-side colour bar is not yet decided, and we will of course have the old full text in them, this is just a short example.)

Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled.

Any input is welcome, see discussion and more examples at Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes#Protection Templates and Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes#Next steps.

--David Göthberg 02:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Remove from watchlist option

I am not sure if this is the correct place to put this idea, but I was wondering if it would be possible to place a link next to each page on each user's watchlist to remove it from the watchlist. For example, if Example is on my watchlist and somebody edits it, when the change shows up on my watchlist there is a link that I can click to remove Example from my watchlist (perhaps next to the diff link). --דניאל - Dantheman531 00:07, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

You could always just click through to the article and then click the "unwatch" tab. It's only one more click. -Chunky Rice 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I know, but then I have to wait for my (rather slow) internet browser to load the page before I click unwatch. The fact that unwatching a page no longer opens a new page is a huge improvement, IMHO, but it would be nice if I could just remove it from my watchlist, especially if I wanted to remove multiple pages at the same time. That way, I would not have to sort through my entire watchlist to find what I want to delete, I could just delete it when someone edits it. --דניאל - Dantheman531 00:12, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
User talk:Alex_Smotrov/wlunwatch.js will do it. Anomie 00:54, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! --דניאל - Dantheman531 01:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Good evening

Hello, i'm a french wikipedian. I search someone who lives in Philadelphia. It's for taking photographies ... If he is free, can he take contact with me on fr:user:stef48 ? Perhaps exist a category for find all user living in Philadelphia, but i dont' know ! Thanks, Stef4854 18:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Wikipedia:WikiProject Philadelphia has a massive list of active members who live in or are interested in Philadelphia. Just leave a message on any one of their talk pages and they will be happy to take a photograph for you. Paragon12321 20:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Wiki Visualization

I am trying to connect with individuals in the wikipedia community who are interested in working on an open source programming project to create a visualized interface to map wikipedia. I have started to draft a proposal in my Sandbox, but am not sure where the most appropriate location is to post such a proposal or connect with interested people. Does anyone have suggestions, feedback, comments? Thanks! SlvrDreams 20:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Singular they

The newly written proposal/essay/how-to/whatever Wikipedia:Gender-neutral language and its talk page essentially state that singular they is common practice on Wikipedia, apparently with the intent of promoting this as a good idea, and likewise state that this practice is frequently disputed. Outside opinion is requested on (1) how "common" this practice is, (2) how "frequently" the dispute is, and (3) whether people consider it a good idea. >Radiant< 14:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the article you link to in the subject summarises it pretty well. WP:GNL suggests it as an alternative to gender-specific language but notes that it's objected to, largely because people objected to it during drafting. It could turn into a whole stack of turtles, as some people objected to the objection. This whole discussion was had a week ago, wasn't it? SamBC(talk) 14:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Use of "they" and "their" as singular generic pronouns is almost universal writing and informal speech. It's on the level of using "you" instead of "one" or using contractions. It does not stand out as wrong, but rather informal. We try to be a serious reference source, so I think most people try to avoid it where they can. Using "he" or "his" as a gender-neutral pronoun is even more awkward so people try to avoid that too. You can almost always word things without the need for a singular generic pronoun, so that's what people do for the most part in formal writing, including here in Wikipedia. Incidentally, in the history of English, using "he" and "his" to stand for a person of indeterminate sex is relatively new and never caught on. Before 1850 or so "they" and "their" were considered correct, but some succeeded in promoting "he" and "his." That got written into the rules of formal writing but never completely followed or accepted. I don't think the original intent was to make talking about men the norm, and women only by implication, but that's what happened with the new pronouns, and it's the reason why people are moving away from them today. The best advice for main space, I think, is to do whatever you have to do as long as you don't use "he" to stand for "he and she." You'll find that borne out in the articles. It's rare to come across one that uses male pronouns in the generic sense. Wikidemo 16:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
As a further thought, I'm not sure anyone wants to promote singular they in any general sense, just to give it as a way of avoiding non-gender-neutral language. SamBC(talk) 16:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

There are ways to use non-sexist language without violating plurality, such as using the word "s/he".ACEOREVIVED 19:10, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

If you're going to use awkward constructions like that, how about using my favorite: s/h/it? --Carnildo 02:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Heh, you have a point; "s/he" is pretty awkward. I'd say just go with the singular "they" where it's necessary and avoid it whenever possible. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 14:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree, it's very clunky when a sentence has s/he. To me, it implies laziness to type he or she and is an admission that the three-word pronoun is awkward as well. The singular they is well established, and according to The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, they is more established than he as the gender-nonspecific singular pronoun.—Twigboy 15:32, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
In theory "they" is grammatically accepted now, although I have to admit that I cringe a little whenever I read it in a student paper because it *sounds* so unproper. In philosophy classes I was taught to use "one" but I think people read that as British or pretentious. As a feminist I prefer "he or she" or "she or he" because it establishes that both genders are being taken into account, that their is no bias being implied and it doesn't inadvertantly multiply the number of people being referred to and sound as if the numbers are not in agreement. Using "he or she" / "she or he" tells us that we've at least *tried* to take human/sex/gender rights into account. P.S. I *did* sign my comment! Wiki is being weird! Saudade7 18:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Button on main wiki pages for clean-up ease.

It'd be advantageous to have a button on every wiki page, clearly labelled, that leads to a helpful page showing the code language for the most common alerts: bias, vandalism, doesn't cite references, etc.

Such is needed.

--boozerker 17:30, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

see Wikipedia:Template messages and if your an editor rather than a reader you should treat the Wikipedia:Community Portal as your main page--Phoenix 15 19:59, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I meant have a clearly visible button atop every wiki page, so that cleanup becomes more effective.

Edited my first post to add that one clarification. --boozerker 03:05, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:AFC should be retired

I belive that the page Wikipedia:Articles for creation and affiliate pages should be retired, the only thing it is doing is wasting hard drive space and creating a nuscance for Wikipedians.

The page is not helping to fueling article creation, is just providing a place for spam. I counted 51 articles in the most recent archive, out of all these one single sentance stub was selected for inclusion in Wikipedia.

I belive that having this page actualy is decreasing output as well. If you go to Category:Unreviewed articles for creation request pages and observe some of the pages there, you will see that less than half of all submissions have reviewd. This means that that half the articles we could be getting if we directed IP's to create an acount and do it themselves are getting lost. -Icewedge 02:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I would recommend changing the procedure for handline WP:AFC. Right now, you see a lot of pages containing requests being declined for one reason or another. If a user is certain that an article submission isn't a serious constructive edit, add an instruction to leave a warning message on the submitter's page if appropriate. (e.g. if the article request is an advertisement, leave {{uw-advert1}}. If it's nonsense, {{uw-vand2}}). Blatant spam or nonsense postings could be removed without objection.
There's also room for improvement in how WP:AFC is handled - although that's more of an implementation issue that would probably require a discussion in a wider scope. --Sigma 7 05:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
How many anonymous editors make a suggestion at WP:AFC and then go on to be registered members or continue to improve wikipedia as anonymous editors? Jeepday (talk) 05:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
If you go to Category:Unreviewed articles for creation request pages and observe some of the pages there, you will see that less than half of all submissions have reviewd. This means that that half the articles we could be getting if we directed IP's to create an acount and do it themselves are getting lost. I don't follow that at all. Even conceding that the suggested articles that haven't been rejected may be in a gray area, why does it follow that (a) we want these; (b) no one else subsequently created these; and/or (c) the person making the suggestion didn't try again, but rather was so discouraged that he/she will have nothing further to do with Wikipedia.
I agree that the backlog of unreviewed articles is undesirable, but it seems to me that the solution is something other than (essentially) banning anonymous IP addresses from even suggesting new articles. I'd rather have them do that at AFC than have them spend time getting a registered account so they can post their crud directly to a new article, thus requiring CSD work.
For example, we could (a) try to recruit more editors for AFC reviews; (b) create tools that will make it easier for editors to respond to and close AFC submissions; (c) create an in-between response, where reviewing editors can say "Maybe - do you have more sources?", rather than just "Yes" (and then have to create the article) or "No" (and close the posting). I suspect that a lot of reviewers, when they find something that might be an article, are reluctant to do the research to confirm it is, and reluctant to be the one to say "No way". So they just go on to the next article, and another reviewer looks at the article and also can't decide, and so on, which is a lot of duplication. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
"Even conceding that the suggested articles that haven't been rejected may be in a gray area, why does it follow that (a) we want these; (b) no one else subsequently created these; and/or (c) the person making the suggestion didn't try again, but rather was so discouraged that he/she will have nothing further to do with Wikipedia." I am just saying that out of the sizeable block of unreviewd submissions you can find articles that would be acceptable articles, very few of these acceptable will every be reviewd though because working WP:AFC is such an unrewarding task and no one really wants to do it. If we directed the IP's that submited these to instructions on how to create articles we might be able to get these worthy article into the mainspace instead of having them lost in the vast backlog forever. -Icewedge 16:43, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The first thing to do is stop calling IPusers anonymous users, as they are a lot less anonymous than the registered users. Call them what they are, unregistered users. Second, I have no interest in registering and will continue to contribute in any manner that I can without registering. If I was directed to create a username to create Foo article I could register Foo(followed by a big long random number), create the article and go back to being an unregistered user. That would be unproductive. I like being associated with the articles that I propose and am happy that there is a process that they can be created. Third, as stated above if someone is proposing an inappropriate article there is less overhead to not create it than to delete it and chase down Foo(biglongrandomnumberwhodoesn'tuseitanymoreanyway). Fourth, a lot of contributions to Wikipedia comes from unregistered users who see an article and say wait, they didn't include Foostuff, and click edit this page for the first and only time ever. While figuring out the process to create an article is a bit more involved, it comes up anytime a search is done and the page is not found as a link from "request it" and should be retained. 199.125.109.88 02:51, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The reason so few of AFC articles get created is that only ones that are almost guaranteed to stay on Wikipedia are created. The criteria for what will actually be created is quite strict. If the article would be deleted if it were to be created, it will just be denied. Look in CAT:CSD and CAT:PROD. They are full of articles that, if proposed at AFC would have been denied. AFC is simply like a pre-posting review like newpage patrol is post-posting review. I would agree that we need more people to review articles there, but due to the immense amounts of "low-quality" articles it is easy to grow to hate the task. Mr.Z-man 05:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Non-existent namespaces

If a new user didn't know about namespaces were for, they might try to make a non-existent namespace (ex. Weather:The weather in London). Shouldn't there be something in the MediaWiki that above the edit box? Æetlr Creejl 02:31, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I dont know that might be a bit complicated. It is much easyier just to move the page to an appropriate namespace. -Icewedge 02:49, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
How would you tell an attempt at creating a new namespace (Weather: The weather in London) from a valid article title (Magic: The Gathering)? --Carnildo 03:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
This doesn't seem to be a problem at the moment; posting a warning seems to be a case of WP:BEANS. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
One can't create a namespace like that. Anything that does not begin with User:, Template:, Wikipedia:, Image:, MediaWiki:, Portal:, Category:, Help:, the "talk" versions of those, Special:, or Talk: is treated like an article. Mr.Z-man 05:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Clarification of what Wikipedia is not (a newspaper)

Can I please beg that the section of Wikipedia on what Wikipedia is not say that Wikipedia is not a newspaper? I have long found one of the interesting things about Wikipedia is that it helps to transcend the boundary between encyclopaedia and newspaper, covering contemporary events in detail, and in some ways, being more up-to-date than newspapers (I first learnt of the death of Jerry Falwell through Wikipedia. Indeed, over the summer of 2007, one could read Wikipedia articles on Madeline McCann, the foot and mouth crisis in the UK of 2007 and the floods in the summer of 2007 in the UK. However, Wikipedians must quicly make up their minds - is this website a newspaper or an encyclopaedia? ACEOREVIVED 19:07, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It's an encyclopedia, however, We have encyclopedia articles on stuff that's in the news. Why not put them on the main page--Phoenix 15 19:55, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
WP:NOT#NEWS is already there. Folks wanting to update current news items should look to Wikinews. -- Kesh 21:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

EXIF pseudonamespace

Currently EXIF links from image files both here and on the Commons, point to the mainspace location corresponding to the data, for instance an image from a Samsung camera phone might link to SAMSUNG TECHWIN CO., LTD. Most of the time the resulting {{R from EXIF}} redirects are not a problem. However as can be seen in this RfD these links can clash with encyclopedic redirects.

However, if we create a new pseudo-namespace (EXIF:) we will no longer have this problem. This would require edits to MediaWiki:Exif-model-value and all similar MW files both here and on Commons, but would clear EXIF linkage away from possible competition with encyclopedic redirects (various cameras in Nikon's Coolpix series will likely have this problem). The cost is a new pseudo-namespace populated solely by redirects. I think this could be worth implementing... Thoughts?--Nilfanion (talk) 21:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

AFAICT, this problem was solved for the image discussed in the discussion mentioned above by using longstanding Wikipedia disambiguation practices — this RfD mentions this image, where clicking on the "Camera model" link to E950 ("E950" being a designation contained in the image file which is meant to identify the camera used to produce the image, and "E950" also being used in European countries to designate a particular chemical often used as an artificial sweetener) goes to the E950 article. That that article redirects to Nikon Coolpix 950, and that page (finally) disambiguates the two conflicting usages of the term "E950" by containing "{{redirect|E950|the sweetener|Acesulfame potassium}}", which produces:
"E950" redirects here. For the sweetener, see Acesulfame potassium.
This seems to be a solution in search of a problem. -- Boracay Bill 22:50, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
The problem with that solution is this: The chemical is known as E950 in European countries so E950 → Acesulfame potassium is a sensible redirect. On the other hand, the camera is not really known as the "E950" - Nikon E950 maybe but not just E950. This would dictate the redirect pointing at the chemical and a hatnote there to the camera. But if that was done, EXIF links would point at the wrong thing. Standard practice on disambiguation is that there should be no incoming links to the "wrong" article. That means a technical limitation restricts editorial judgement. I can't just you an example offhand (due to the untrackable nature of EXIF), but its certainly plausible that there are more serious clashes.--Nilfanion (talk) 08:01, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
How about using a similar technique to that used in MediaWiki:Exif-make-value, where the MediaWiki message embeds a template that contains instructions to make certain values link to certain pages. That way, there would be less problems of redirects clashing between different articles. Tra (Talk) 22:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, that sounds like a good solution (it will also make it easy to copy it to other projects). My one concern is that the huge ParserFunction switch which would be required may be hideously inefficient on the servers relative to a ton of redirects. I'll check the devs later, and if I'm being overly paranoid here I'll just be bold and hack at those templates and mediawiki files.--Nilfanion (talk) 08:01, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Automated stub sorting of new articles

I belong to WikiProject Stub sorting, and I have a proposal that would make that project's life considerably easier. Here's how it would work:

  1. When a user goes to create a new article, below the edit box there would be a drop-down menu from which the author could select a broad stub category that fit the article. (Such as {{sci-stub}}, {{bio-stub}}, {{art-stub}}, etc.)
  2. Once they selected a category, the menu would be replaced by another from which the author could select a more specific subcategory that fit the article. Once they selected one of those, they could select an even more specific category, and so on.
  3. When the page is saved, the user's selection from the menu would automatically tag the article with the corresponding stub template, which would put it in a specific stub category.
  4. The system would not allow the user to save the new article until at least one stub category was selected, thus forcing all new articles to be sorted right from the start.

I think this feature would help the project considerably, especially by eliminating the generic Category:Stubs, which is a constant backlog due to the bot that adds {{stub}} to short, uncategorized articles (which is virtually every single one of the thousands of articles created each day). So, what do you think? --CrazyLegsKC 05:21, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

What if when they create the article, it isn't a stub? Mr.Z-man 05:30, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, the majority of newly-created articles are stubs, are they not? But for the few cases where it isn't, the template could easily be removed from the article manually, after saving. --CrazyLegsKC 05:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
How about we simplify it further, and replace all the thousands of specialized stub tags with {{stub}}? --Carnildo 05:41, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
That would take away an important tool in the (often very large) task of identifying and organising articles that need the most work at wikiprojects and taskforces. Adrian M. H. 11:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Stub sorting is not really important. We should encourage people to use the correct (non-stub) categories on all their articles and make categorization easier (perhaps by establishing a systematic category tree instead of the current mess), but should not make it harder for newbies to submit their articles. Kusma (talk) 12:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Are you sure about that last part? So much of the new stuff we get is so arcane and questionably notable that I've often thought we should perhaps make it harder for new articles to be created, which is one reason why I made this proposal. Just two weeks ago, we reached 2 million articles, and since then we've already gotten 17,000 more. Our dedicated user base isn't expanding nearly as fast, so we should really focus on expanding and improving the articles we already have, rather than creating so many new ones, IMO. However, if you don't like that idea, just consider the proposal without point #4. Newbies could still create any article as quickly as they can now, but they'd also be given a way to tag their articles quickly, and the stub sorting project would have less of a backlog. --CrazyLegsKC 14:14, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
FYI, CrazyLegsKC, my bot (which I assume is the one you're referring to) "only" tags up to 1000 articles every three days, when Special:Uncategorizedpages is updated. (And the occasional larger splurge according to the extremely erratic schedule of database dumps, and possibly in future from toolserver data.) The ratio is closer to around half, than 'virtually every': many are tagged with {{uncat}}, instead -- hence the even larger backlog there. Admittedly many of those are probably actually stubs: I'm using the fairly conservative threshold of 100 words for making the stub/non-stub distinction.
Kusma, are you sure about anything you just asserted? And more to the point, do you have evidence to back any of those claims up? As 'Legs implies, it makes very little sense to privilege the ease with which people can create a crapstorm of crappy little articles, over the "not really important" task of organising their 'work' after the fact. The quality curve of those 2m+ articles has a very, very long tail, and if we ever hope to improve that, and not let the "wiki-" means systematically dominate the "-pedia" ends, we have to be willing to considering some of the organisational burden onto those submitting -- often self-indulgent if not outright self-aggrandising -- articles. I'm not sure what your particular beef with the category structure is, but in my judgement it's for the most part about as logical and systematic as one could expect, given the vaguarities of natural language usage, the inherent fuzziness and subjectivity of much of the ontology involved, and indeed the whole wiki-based "do it first, think about tidying it up later" process that gives rise to it.
I can't really see CLKC's proposal being adopted as-is (for all the usual editors-can't-agree and devs-don't-care reasons), but let me see if I can break it down into 'baby steps'. Firstly, the gist of the idea can be implemented client-side, and adopted on a per-stub-sorter basis. It would require drafting someone to write a JavaScript framework for pull-down menus to retag a given stub template with its various descendents, and then populating that on a per-stub type basis (which could be done in a semi-automated manner). For non-stubs, we could at the very least, expand the 'uncategorised-by-topic' cleanup cats, and have a JS menu to populate those. Some of the above might get migrated onto the server-side, as and when. Eventually, once those are in place, there might be general acceptance of the now-perennial proposal to 'force categorisation of new articles', given that we'd now have the means to do at least some initial categorisation fairly readily. Alai 16:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I would oppose anything designed to make articles more difficult for the aim of discouraging new article creation. That's not what we're all about. However, it is useful to categorize things. I don't believe editors should be forced to go through two menus just to create a new article, at least not without offering experienced editors a quick opt-out. We often create articles that are start class from the beginning, plus redirects, disambiguation pages, etc. It would be a pain in the butt if we can't get around a menu-driven article categorization system. I don't know the ins and outs of the stub sorting project, but merely assigning a stub class to an article isn't by itself a big deal. It's a lot more important to assign proper categories, assign the article to the appropriate wikiprojects, and get the basic template right (infobox, header, sections, references, see also, external links, categories). One thing that would be very helpful is more of a checkbox type of thing where one can choose common categories, wikiprojects, and article features, or perhaps a choice of article templates depending on what kind of article someone wants to write -- a film, TV show, BLP, article about a company, food item, etc. If following the menus would add a whole (optional) template and not just a stub template, that might be worth the extra hassle for the user.Wikidemo 16:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
For those of you piling on the "stub sorting isn't important" bandwagon: ask yourself what happens to the many (many, many, many) articles which are created without any of those "more important" elements (as alleged). It's an especially quaint idea to imagine that tagging an article with a wikiproject talk-page template achieves prompt attention to any of the other aspects you allude to -- most especially categorisation. Alai 16:48, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I wat to stay out of the "is stub-sorting important" argument, but I will add that stub categories are the editorial analogy of pemanent categories, and as such are as important to editors as permanent categories are for readers, so if there's a move to remove stub categorisation as unimportant, then all permanent categories of articles should also be removed as equally unimportant. We can probably make do with one large category for stubs - with 400,000 articles - from which editors can easily find articles to work on. Grutness...wha? 04:07, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm a little taken aback to hear people's ideas described as "quaint", an admonishment that people on this page must be unsure of what they say, a challenge to provide evidence for their opinions, new articles called a "crapstorm", etc. It gives me pause as to whether we should entrust a new gatekeeping function to enforcers who have that opinion of the abilities of the great mass of editors writing articles.Wikidemo 17:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
The idea sounds lovely in theory, but I too am worried about the practical aspects, especially for newbie editors, who may well find it quite a instruction-heavy process (whereas at the moment the beauty of WP is the ease of editing and creating articles). A halway idea, however, might well be worthwhile - the automatic tagging of new articles with {{stub}}. At least that will get them into the stubsorting system immediately, rather than stub-sorters having to wait for database dumps and the like for the base stubcat to be replenished. Any new articles which are beyond stub length could be removed from the stub system by sorters at that point. Grutness...wha? 04:07, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Even better, the bots could troll through {{stub}}'s top-level relatively frequently (probably more often than the stub sorters could), and anything over a certain size there would be de-stubbed before making the sorters go through the trouble of sorting it. A win/win proposition, perhaps? Neier 05:56, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
That was my question as I read this string: When is a stub not a stub? Brian Pearson 17:45, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
That's a big problem - there's no hard and fast definition and it tends to be fairly arbitrary at times. The official definition (from WP:STUB) is A stub is an article containing only a few sentences of text which is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject, but not so short as to provide no useful information. It's not directly linked to length - an article with one sentence of text followed by a 32k list is still a stub, whereas an obscure historical character about whom virtually nothing is recorded could be only a few sentences long and not be a stub. It also depends largely on the importance of the subject. To use one of my favourite examples, Croughton, Northamptonshire is not a stub - that's all you'd really need to say about a village of a few hundred people. But if New York or London had an article that length, it would be silly not to call it a stub. That's one of the reasons why automation doesn't always work well. Grutness...wha? 23:39, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Asking IE6 users to upgrade or switch in the sitenote

I think we should put a JavaScript based note in the sitenote to remind XP users with IE6 that they should upgrade to IE7 or (along with IE6 users with older Windows versions) to switch to a different browser ASAP. Yeah it's not Wikipedia's role to go out advertising for any particular browser, but I don't think it would hurt to let IE6 users know that they are using antiquated software and that technology and standards have advanced in the 6 years since IE6 was released (not to mention issues with popups, spyware and other security problems) and that even if IE7 won't run on anyting older than Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed there are several other modern browsers they can download free of charge and use instead even if they are still using Windows 98 or whatever.

It should not be a huge intrusive thing naturaly, just a small note, with a link to some page listing the various alternative browsers out there, and a dismiss "button". If there is no great oposission to the idea I'll take it to the relevant MediaWiki talk pages (we need to put the detection stript and stuff in the common.js and add a "hook" for it to the sitenote and such to make it work). --Sherool (talk) 22:19, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It isn't the job of the library to criticize how old the car that delivers the patron is. This is a self correcting problem, users of older browsers will see degraded performance as the web changes, and if we get into this, it distracts from the core purpose of the site. Just my opinion. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not claiming support or opposition yet, but I'd like to mention that it would be possible to only deliver this message to XP users running IE6 or older. —METS501 (talk) 22:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Problem is most of the remaining "holdouts" are probably "casual" computer users that don't even know other browsers exist, and I think that self correction you mention won't happen for a long while still. IE6 have a big enough market share that most website will ensure that they deploy the nessesary fixes and workaronds to make things work in IE6, thus casual users see no problems (and they don't know what they are missing out on) and so feel to need to go download a new piece of software to view websites, and so the problem perpetuates itself. If such a notice could help "nudge" a few more users into dropping IE6 it would be a good thing for the web all round IMHO. Sure it's not our job to critizise users for theyr choince of browser, but we could at least inform them that they do in fact have a choince and that they are currently using last decade's model. --Sherool (talk) 23:40, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I think that this would be classified as an advertisement. What about the people that can't upgrade to IE7. For instance, Mac users have Internet Explorer 5. It has not been upgraded yet. There are some Windows operating systems that cannot upgrade to IE7. There would only be one condition that would justify, in my opinion, putting this script to upgrade, and that would be to detect the browser and if it's not the up-to-date version of the browser that the person is using, then it would post a link to update it, however, I would disable that script, because I already have enough notifications from all of my browsers telling me to update. I would compare this script to software that installs on your computer and tells you to upgrade your os. Very annoying... --Μ79_Šp€çíá∫횆tell me about it —Preceding unsigned comment added by M79 specialist (talk • contribs) 00:53, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
It's not our concern what browser users use, but the poor web designer (and, in Wikipedia's case, the editors) to use compliant code no matter what. That said, we shouldn't encourage, say, Lynx users to switch because they can't see images. People use their own web browsers for a reason - or for lack of one to change. x42bn6 Talk Mess 04:54, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
You said it best. Try going to http://www.workrave.org/welcome/ in IE. An ad for Mozilla appears at the top of the screen saying "We see you're using Internet Explorer. Try Firefox, you'll like it better." I don't see why people get so obsessed with what browser other people use. -Henry W. Schmitt 05:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Well you can't write standards complant code and make it work for IE6 at the same time. You have to jump though several extra hoops to make stuff work in all sorts of old browsers. Wich is fine up to a scertain point, but there rely is no reason for anyone to keep using IE6. You can either upgrade to IE7 or use FireFox, Opera or Safari or whatever. If someone use Lynx as theyr main browser at least they know what they are doing and are aware that they are not getting the full experience. I suspect however that most of the remaining IE6 users simply are not aware that they are basicaly using the browser equivelent of a black and white television. Sure if they are happy with black and white that's theyr choice, but I think we should at least make sure they know it's possible to get colors now. As for why people care; There are several reasons: webdesigners can't make full use of modern web technology because more than half theyr potential users still use crappy old browsers and would asume theyr site was broken unless they spent a long of time to create a "light" version of theyr site for such browsers. There are also security issies. IE6 is rater notorious for it's security flaws, and a compromised computer is not just a danger to it's owner. Such zombie computers are a major source of spam, Denial-of-service attacks, they become breeding grounds for viruses, used in frauds and other neferious activities. The sooner IE6 is dead and buried the better off everyone will be. --Sherool (talk) 01:33, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) I observe that Google analytics tells me that browser hits in the last 30 days on a website I manage break down as 65.35% IE, 30.84% Firefox, 2.5% Safari, 0.88% Opera, 0.29% Mozilla. Within IE, it breaks down as 69.89% 6.0, 29.66% 7.0, 0.45% 5.5. I would guess that Wikipedia has similar browser hit percentages. So, Pre-7.0 IE accounts for about 100 * .6535 * (1 - .2966) = about half of all visitors. I opine that this information should drive decisions regarding how much effort should be expended in providing compatibility with IE pre-7.0 browsers. -- Boracay Bill 02:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Considerable efforts are already beeing taken to ensure compatablity with IE6. That's not the issue here. I'm just suggesting we inform IE6 users (in a non-intrusive way in the form of a dismissable one line notice at the top of the screen) that they will be better of with a different browser in the hopes of actualy making a dent in those statistics so that in the future we no longer have to expend so much effort on adding JavaScrit hacks to make things work decently in IE6. --Sherool (talk) 14:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I happen to use IE6, both on my desktop and laptop. And probably like any other IE6 user, I really don't like to be bugged by any non-intrusive well-formulated one-line tip of the day. We just don't care. Really. Any time an idea comes to my mind to upgrade to FF or IE7, I just take a very long walk in the park, and it naturally goes away. On the other hand, I don't expect you to put much attention into those JavaScript hacks either. Trick is, if I'll notice that a really, really useful JS ceased to work, I might just upgrade my browser... maybe. Excuse me for being so straighforward! This idea of giving good advice when not being asked for one, this drives me crazy. --Kubanczyk 19:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, I guess that's one opposed. Any particular reason you dislike the idea of upgrading though, is it just a "I'm used to this interface" kind of thing? Anyone else have any thoughts on this topic? --Sherool (talk) 15:15, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Suggestion. There is plenty of room at the left for more links, particularly in the interation section. There is a link to Help, but no link to "Browser difficulties" even in the Help page or in the Browsing Wikipedia page. I would add the link Browser difficulties and make it a page about how Wikipedia is written to work in all browsers, including text only browsers and in browsers used by the blind, and then add that some older browsers such as IE2 and Netscape 1.0 may not render articles as well as newer browsers, and make a list of common browsers and their current version, with external links and instructions on downloading. This computer has IE6 and I thought that it was the latest greatest version. See how easy it is to ignore those nags to upgrade? Like I really want to take an hour to download an upgrade that could be a downgrade anyway. Focusing on IE6 would be a mistake. Even mentioning it would be a mistake. 199.125.109.88 15:44, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Sherool, the thing is, people generally just don't like being nagged to upgrade, or do anything, really. It tends to annoy people. It's patronising, irritating, and just generally doesn't endear people. I generally keep everything up to date, but I'm me and I'm a geek. Most people don't, and it doesn't cause them much of a problem. Plus, wikipedia is not an engine for social change (except in terms of tacitly encouraging free information, of course). SamBC(talk) 15:52, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

As long as we intend to support IE6, there is no reason for us to tell people to switch. If we decide to stop supporting IE6 at some point in the future (which we probably will, but not for at least a year or two, I'd think), that's when we should add a sitenotice telling IE6 users that we intend to stop supporting IE6 and they should switch if they want to continue using Wikipedia effectively. --Tango 15:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Adding to other editions the "Wiki Wiki Schedule" image found on German Language Edition OVERVIEW "Wikipedia: About" page.

I think this image is helpful and should be added to the other "Wikipedia: About" pages: OOPS, I didn't properly copy this picture & credits. Please go to the German Language Edition to see the picture taken at Honolulu Airport that I am proposing be added.

Mahalo, Jerry Mershon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.128.41 (talk) 21:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Cursor in search box upon loading page

Can it be set up so that the cursor is already in the search box when Wikipedia is first opened? This way a user can simply start typing their query once the page loads (like in Google). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.221.3.7 (talk) 14:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Not everyone is going to wan to search... but most people probably will, so that's not a bad idea.
Equazcion • argue/improves • 15:15, 09/24/2007
15:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
That prevents users using the arrow keys to scroll the Main Page, which is something else users expect to be able to do. --ais523 15:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Could we make a javascript keyboard shortcut instead, to put the cursor in the search box?
Equazcion • argue/improves • 15:25, 09/24/2007
Exists already, and not even using JavaScript. It's (some combination of modifier keys depending on your browser)-F; see Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts for more information. --ais523 15:26, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
That takes you to the dedicated search page; it doesn't use the search tool on the left. But I guess it's just as good. Thanks
Equazcion • argue/improves • 15:30, 09/24/2007
It does take me to the search tool on the left in Firefox 2, at least. Maybe it varies by browser? --ais523 15:31, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm using Firefox 2 also. What exactly are you pressing?
Equazcion • argue/improves • 15:41, 09/24/2007
Nevermind, I got it. alt-shift-F does it. Thanks
Equazcion • argue/improves • 15:42, 09/24/2007

Changes since my last review

What the watchlist really needs is a "Changes since my last review" option, so instead of seeing the changes that have happened in the last 3 days, I can see what's changed since the last time I actually read or edited the article. Let's say I start an article on something and add it to my watchlist. Then later I go on vacation for a few weeks, and it is subtly vandalized by someone and none of the WP:RCP people or bots catch it. I come back from my vacation and it's already off the bottom of my watchlist so I don't notice it either. Unless I'm paying careful attention next time I edit the article or happen to check its history, the vandalism goes unnoticed for a long, long time. I'd like to see a button on the History page to mark the current revision as satisfactory. From that point on, my watchlist displays the diff from the satisfactory version to the current version. When I get a chance to check that diff, I can mark it as satisfactory. — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 13:45, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I just note down the time and date of the most recent item on my watchlist before I leave, and when I come back I look at any changes listed more recent than that. You can easily change the days parameter in the watchlist URI if you need to look further back (e.g. this will show changes in the last 30 days), or just use the "all" link on the watchlist page. Commons seems to have a feature that will highlight revisions in the page history and your watchlist since you last checked the page, but I've never been that fond of it. Anomie 14:25, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

What to do with people don't respecting Wikipedia licensing requirements?

It is getting increasing common that TV, internet and printed sources use images from Commons in their work without giving any attribution at all.

Should Wikipedia start with by-lines next to all images? People are not accustomed to clicking the images. They assume that if there is no by-line, the image has no copyright. I have had a couple of images used by a major Swedish newspaper. I didn't complain though because I am worried that in a court of law, they would get right because established practice is to have a by-line next to the image??

And today I saw the image from Olof Palme used on http://www.thelocal.se/ -- again with no attribution.

The problem is not mainly on my behalf because I am a proponent for free knowledge. But it will be difficult to convince others to upload their photos here if they can not be sure of getting their required attribution.

Fred-J 15:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, the fact is that nobody has the resources to sue. Contributors have to expect that, we can only ask that people follow the rules. Those who have asked for photo attribution can take action. Have you tried asking the offenders to add an attribution? ←BenB4 22:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The Free Software Foundation has extensive resources to deal with people who violate the various GNU-related and copyleft licenses. >Radiant< 11:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Ben: No, I haven't requested it (my own photos appeared in a printed magazine). Maybe Wikipedia could start an interest group to send out attribution demands? Anyway, won't image bylines solve the problem? / Fred-J 11:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposing templates indicating use of reliable and reputable sources and procedure for instituting such a template

Just wondering, with all the criticisms about the use of unreliable sources in a number of articles and promotion of pseudoscience etc, how hard is it to create a template or some sort of indication (Like we use the FA star) to indicate that an article may have used publications or peer reviewed journals etc for a substantial part of its contents, and that this should be compared against inline citations.

My Idea is the template will be in the lines of

  • For publications {{Sourced from published|name1|name2|...}}

or {{Sourced from published|This article cites extensively from publication(s). Please see the talk page for a list of reputable publications it has used.}}

  • For Peer reviewed journals (Science or other subjects)

{{Sourced from Journal|name1|name2|...}} or {{Sourced from Journal|This article cites extensively from peer reviewed publication(s) or Journal. Please see the talk page for a list of Journals used.}}

  • A further additional template can be made for reputable websites, (eg, BBC, CNN, Universities etc)
  • These can be added to any article that cites and sources substantially from such references, and does not neccessarily have to be for a featured article only.
  • Another point is, may be a review of sources should be incorporated into the FAC process.
  • The proposed template itself should be added after peer review of the article itself to establish that it indeed meets the criteria.

I think where such publications or journals have been used (I always try and go for published accounts and journals), any reliabillity (or doubts) can be judged for itself.Rueben lys 14:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

We should just focus on removing unreliable sources and providing reliable sources in the articles themselves, and better define reliable sourcing at WP:RS. The templates would just sprawl, adding additional places for people to argue over the reliability of sources. This seems like an additional layer of complication that would add little, but provide more places for dispute. Vassyana 14:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I am saying where obviously peer reviewed journals or published accounts have been used. ie, If it is a journal (like Nature, Science, Journal of Rheumatology, Social Scientist, Pacific Historical review etc), you know that it has been peer reviewed. The point of the template is to outline that such a peer reviewed source has been used.
Again for books, a published book is a more concrete source than a blog or a random website like tripod resource etc, especially when it is a well known book on the subject (eg, Tiger Force, or The last Mughal, etc).
The point is not to say that the article is perfect, but to say that the information comes from thoroughly verifiable and moreover respected accounts. This would allow the reader to make up his own mind on how reliable the article is.Rueben lys 14:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
The reader can make up their own mind anyway, and those proposed templates would be prone to an incredible amount of abuse. Who's to say that the article accurately represents the source given? If the article is that close to a single source, then isn't it pushing the boundaries of copyvio? Can't people see, when they look at the reference list, that it's a book or a journal rather than a random website? SamBC(talk) 15:47, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

New Tab

I have an idea, probably not an original one, but here goes. What if there was, for every article page, another page, similar to the discussion page, but for discussion and debate about the article topic, instead of the article itself. Maybe not linked by a tab like the "discussion" page, maybe just a "bluelink" at the bottom. Definetly a flawed idea, but I think that it would substantialy reduce the violent and inconstructive arguments, which I have, to my great remorse, taken part in myself in the past. Zantaggerung 01:52, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is definitely not the place to debate topics or advocate a particular view of a topic. This is directly against the grain of the wiki. Vassyana 14:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
This one crops up regularly. The internet is overflowing with fora for every conceivable subject; WP is not going to risk joining them, thankfully. Adrian M. H. 21:48, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, these are obvious problems, but my idea wouldn't really be a part of the encycloppedia, it would merely re-direct those people who wish to debate. I think you misunderstand me, probably due to my non-clarification. Zantaggerung 01:28, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course wikipedia should not actually sponsor violent arguments, merely say "Hey, why don't you do that over here instead?"

Zantaggerung 01:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOT#FORUM ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:54, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Rollback function

I believe that the administrator rollback function should be made available to every user with auto confirmed status. The benefits of providing this tool to all users older than a couple of days are many and the drawbacks few and inconsequential.

The most obvious benefit is that it saves time. The manual undo function and script assisted rollback functions like WP:TW are far slower. On my computer which is a relatively new machine with DSL, WP:TW takes 10-15 seconds to revert a page, the administrator rollback takes 1-3 seconds to execute. There are thousands of vandal reverts per day on the English wikipedia ( 24 hrs * 60 min * 5 rv = 7200 ) most of which are done with scripts, if all these were done with the rollback button as much as 16 hours of wikipedian time could be saved each day ( 7200 rv * 8 sec / 3600 sec = 16 hr ).

The rollback function is also far more efficient then scripts in terms of bandwidth. When an admin presses the rollback button a small package of data is sent to the wikimedia server which then creates a dummy revision that points to the revision that was rolled back to. When a script reverts a page it first has to request the data it is reverting to from the wikimedia servers, then the script has to send the data right back to the server which saves the revision under a completely new ID. For a 10,000 byte page the script would use 20,000 bytes of bandwidth and 10,000 bytes of storage space, a rollback would use probably less then 150 bytes of both bandwidth and server space.

As for the drawbacks to this proposal there are very few. The reason that this function was not given to normal users in the first place was because it could potently be used by vandals, or so I assume. This is not a good enough reason to keep the rollback function from the mob in my opinion because if the rollback ability was given to auto confirmed users very few vandals would ever be able to use the function; 97 percent of all vandalism is carried out by IP's and of the accounts used for vandalism very few, perhaps 5% of those ever wait 3 days. That is only 0.15% of all vandals having access to the function.

So, does anyone agree with me, should we give normal users the rollback function? Or is this a stupid proposal that no one will ever care about? -Icewedge 18:58, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not stupid, but there are foreseeable problems. Rollback is a powerful function, and might be a bad idea to give to all users including those who are inexperienced. The good thing about TW is that most people don't become aware that they have the option to install it until they reach a certain level of knowledge with the wiki. I think that's a good natural check against new users (even autoconfirmed users) performing accidental multiple reverts. Autocnfirmed is just based on number of edits and amount of time, so it's not that great an indicator of technical understanding. Editing of monobook.js to install scripts is a better indicator. Plus I myself haven't found TW's rollbacks to be all that slow. They just take a few seconds for me. It probably depends on your connection and computer speed (both of which happen to be pretty darn fast for me).
Equazcion • argue/improves • 19:31, 09/23/2007
There was a proposal a year or two ago to make rollback a feature which could be given to trusted users. It failed to get consensus. There is less need for it now that there was then, because the undo function provides a convenient tool for ordinary users to revert vandalsim, and there are many add-on tools which give rollback-like functionality. I would not oppose a level of trusted user who gets rollback, but the right would have to be able to be removed as some might use it to edit war.-gadfium 19:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Why would having the rollback function in an edit war be a problem? Sure it is faster but in edit warring, unlike the reversion of vandalism, it does not particularly matter if it takes 3 seconds of 15 to revert a page. -Icewedge 20:10, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
If the admin version is better than Twinkle I see no reason not to make it available. Having it available in the same way as Twinkle would provide the same 'natural check' anyway. Richard001 07:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

See WP:RFR for the last time this was proposed (it failed to reach consensus then). --ais523 13:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Not saying I agree or disagree with the proposal, but just to note that failing to acheive consensus previously is of purely historical interest - consensus can change. SamBC(talk) 14:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Don't think that consensus will change on this one. You can try if you wish. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:56, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to a small change to WP:RM

Currently, in a WP:RM nomination, one only need to put a move template on its talk page. However, for nominations of no less complexity, controversy and importance, the nominator of a WP:PROD nomination needs to put a prod template on main article. In my personal experience, a problem would occur when another editor went to the main article, did not realize there is a RM nom going on, and moved the article anyway. Hence, I propose that the move template should be put on the top of the main article during a RM nomination.

But this is just a prelimary thought; I need so opinions to actually raise it.--Samuel di Curtisi di Salvadori 01:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Mobile

Has the idea of creating Wikipedia pages for smart phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices been proposed? Many users want to access information and Wikipedia is a great reference tool or at least a great starting point to gain general information. They want to access it using their mobile devices for quick reference. However, the format that Wikipedia is in right now is not mobile-friendly. Will this be feasible some time in the near future?

Thanks in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shigawire1012 (talk • contribs) 06:51, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

What about http://en.wap.wikipedia.org? Also see Wikipedia:WAP access. --ais523 13:25, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Basic information

I know that a good article would need all the information to comprehend the subject of the article, but certain basics, things that people assume you know, like what the 2 in X^2 is telling you to do, or how to read a graph, would not be able to be mentioned in each article because it would be redundant. However, there is no guaranty that the person reading the article has any idea of what the 2 in X^2 means, or that it's even called an exponent (that alone would make it hard for them to find the article on exponents). That's why I suggest a link to a page that is generated by both pattern recognition for simple things like X^2, and marked images which are marked by the creator or a later contributor to the image. The automatic page would list the original usage of the concept and list different subjects, like Exponent, that a person should know to be able to read it. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 02:37, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

It can be difficult to predict what people do or do not know. For that reason, the reference desk might be useful for what you suggest—but I'm not sure how many people know about it. GracenotesT § 02:44, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
While the reference desk may be useful, it does have three problems:
  1. Like you said, not many people know about it.
  2. It can take a while to get an answer.
  3. Some people don't feel comfortable asking questions to strangers, I know I wasn't my first time.
Also, the list would be automatic and it would just look for very simple patterns, and each pattern would have it's own entry on a special page that people can add to. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 02:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Featured Content

Something just struck me as odd; I realized that on the main page, and also the featured content page, there is no featured quote (there is also no featured quote on Wikiquote)! Perhaps a featured quote template should be developed. --OES23 12:44, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikiquote is a separate project from Wikipedia so there is no reason for a "featured quote" here. Judging which quotes would be good enough to be featured (it's not like you can rewrite a quote for clarity, etc.) would be a pretty POV process. Wikiquote uses a "Quote of the Day" on its Main Page. Users nominate quotes on the related pages: Wikiquote:WQ:QOTD. Rmhermen 14:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

A way to organize items in my "watchlist"

I looked to see if this had been proposed and couldn't find it anywhere. I am unsure if this is a "software" issue that I should post on the Bugzilla site or if the software is already there and just needs to be activated. Here's the thing...I just have tons of pages on my watchlist and I would like to be able to create my own categories to organize them on that page, even if it is just under headings I self-create like "Politics" "Mathematics" "Marine biology" etc. The watchlist is a "special page" that doesn't allow for manual editing, or I could just do it. I guess that its interactiveness with the system as a whole prevents it from being *also* editable? Anyway, any ideas? Because there are items on my watchlist that I put there because I had never before heard of them--I just stumbled across them link-jumping--and I wanted to save them, but now I don't know what they are at a glance. A series of cubbyholes could at least help me sort them, so that I would know their main subject matter.

As a side note I would also request that the "Clear Watchlist" button be moved farther away from the "View and Edit Watchlist" and the "View Raw Watchlist" buttons. I am clumsy and since there is no access to "History" on that page, it is a disaster (for me) waiting to happen.

Merci d'avance, Saudade7 12:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

No opinion on point 2 (seldom uses either function). There is no way as of yet for point 1, though you can create subpages of links (as your categories) then use the link at the side entitled "Related changes". This takes you to a page where it looks like a watchlist, but on it is all the links of that page. You can see an example of my userpage: Special:Recentchangeslinked/User:X42bn6. That is a slightly crude solution - but the only way I can think of. x42bn6 Talk Mess 12:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I would not worry about clearing your watchlist; it is a two-step process that would be difficult to do accidentally. A backup is sensible, though. Adrian M. H. 12:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks x42bn6 Talk Mess and M. H.. I feel better knowing that I cannot erase my list, but I am still alittle confused about the sub-pages thing. I like having everything all clean and on one page. I have to say that I use "watch" more like "bookmarks" and less as a tickertape of recent changes thing. And I didn't want to take up more wiki space. Oh well. Thanks. Saudade7 12:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Inter links, M:TG and ST:DS9

I suggest that interwiki and interlanguage links, at least those with codes less than four letters long, function only if the code is in lowercase. This would accommodate abbreviations such as M:TG and ST:DS9, and I've yet to see an intentional interwiki or interlanguage link that didn't already comply. NeonMerlin 03:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

That problem can be bypassed without anything fancy just use this syntax ; [[:ST:DS9]]. -Icewedge 16:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
In links, that's fine, but what about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST:DS9 (which may, for instance, have worked before the Sesotho-language Wikipedia was established and still have some links left over from then)? What about the link at the top of the search result page (which occurs even with the colon)? I don't think it improves our image if someone ends up at an external site with no idea how they got there and no idea what the page they're seeing says (because it's in an unfamiliar language). Right now, there's a soft redirect back to en.wikipedia or fr.wikipedia (which I made), but what if the Sesotho-speakers decide to delete it, or what if a German-speaker tries http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST:DS9 (in which case I can't make a soft redirect to help them since I don't speak German)? NeonMerlin 00:06, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
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