This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (proposals).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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Howdy, folks. I have proposed that we have ombudsmen on wikipedia, similar to universities and governments. I just started the page, located here (apologies for the rough draft it's in) and would love community feedback and development. Thanks, all. Bstone ( talk) 02:53, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for the late reply (previous discussion got archived), but I have finished the test versions of how the formatting may look like for having a Simple English link on our English articles. To the right is what a Simple English section may look like, another version is here, the newest version here, and here is an example of how a template would look at the bottom of an article. I tried hard to make them look as unannoying but viewable as possible. -- penubag 07:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
The image that's displayed is best. You could also have it so the link appears only when a corresponding page exists in Simple English. If a page doesn't exist, it could instead ask the user to start or request one. I've been thinking, maybe rename it Kids Wiki, and have stricter discipline against vandals. Or keep it as Simple English, and apply the stricter discipline as a test model. The simple english is less visited so it'd work as a less controversial testing ground for new policies. And if users get fewer strikes, then editors don't have to spend as much time on vandalism there. Also, a user banned from Simple English is still able to post on regular Wikipedia until violations reach their normal limit. -- Boozerker ( talk) 10:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I find it highly unlikely that a template will be added to every page, but the example in the image seems plausable. A recent change to the main page is that the simple english link was moved to the top of the language bar. Perhaps that could be done, rather than changing the entire layout. Reywas92 Talk 20:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I like this idea in general. Could it be arranged that the left sidebar image shown above appears if the interwiki link to the Simple English wikipedia is added? I do not think it should be added to all. It should be treated exactly as other interwiki links for the editors but appear above the others in a different format. I think the template for the "See also" section should be the same size as the other boxes for interwiki links included in Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects. Indeed one could be added there now. -- Bduke ( talk) 22:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
With the simple English Wikipedia in mind, I recently changed the "in other languages" label to read "languages." I believe that the simple English interwiki links should simply be placed at the top of the list (not separated). I especially dislike the lowercase "e" in "english." — David Levy 22:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
:::I think that just simply moving it to the top of the list is not noticeable enough for young readers to realize it exists. How about this new option I created to the right? This one should address your concern.-- penubag 22:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Am I supposed to submit this to Bugzilla or something? I'm green on these procedures...--
penubag 02:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I see no reason why the Simple English article should receive more recognition than other languages. - Halo ( talk) 00:30, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Is there any chance if Jimbo Wales or other's could restrict IP user's from editing and will have to register an account on wikipedia, mainly because the vandalism lately is becoming a bit Over the top and it would make it a lot easier to identify who vandalize articles or userpages because their username will appear. →Yun-Yuu zhan→ 18:56, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Over on Wikipedia_talk:Television_episodes, a few editors have stated their opinion that wikipedia exists for the benefit first and foremost of the editors who join in, not the readers. Although one would think from the wording of WP:ABOUT that it would be clear that wikipedia aims to be an encyclopaedia first and an editing community second (and as such, the lay reader should come first in all considerations), it seems that enough editors involved in the political discussions on wikipedia consider the editing and politics game to be more vital. Clear consensus on this appears to be needed and set in policy, so as to ensure that all policy discussions properly reflect the intended purpose of wikipedia, whichever one that may be. LinaMishima ( talk) 20:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
There's a lot of silliness involved in playing with funny tags. Don't pay attention to the tags, pay attention to actual current consensus instead.
As to the actual point: do note that wikipedia is a read/write website, so all readers are potential editors, and all editors are potential readers. (So you're shooting yourself in the foot if you claim the other side shouldn't be taken into account ;-) ) -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 23:28, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
A wiki is social software, and its purpose to bring contributors together to collaboratively accomplish a task. An interesting quote from C2:WikiPedia: "My question, to this esteemed Wiki community, is this: Do you think that a Wiki could successfully generate a useful encyclopedia?" ( Jimbo Wales). The response: "Yes, but in the end it wouldn't be an encyclopedia. It would be a wiki." ( Ward Cunningham). The means by which we collaborate is just as important as the product of that collaboration, in my opinion. Readers shouldn't forget that we're both a wiki and a valuable source of accurate information. It's a mistake to turn a blind eye to one function to exclusively service the other. Forgetting the former might stifle participation and cause us to become out-of-touch with our readers as we incorrectly assume what they want and don't want. Forgetting the latter will turn us into an anarchic collection of trivia – this may be what some readers want, in fact, as shown by the "You can try, but you can't stop Wikipedia from becoming a massive trivia database!" threads that occasionally appear on the village pumps ( example, example). Now there's an interesting take on how some readers feel about popular culture and Wikipedia: they don't care about how well referenced it is, merely that they're getting the random trivia they want, in the presence or absence of sources. Gracenotes T § 00:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I like to Wiki on my phone, but every time I load a page I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to do a new search or just use the navigation menu. I'm wondering if anyone has already brought up this issue or if anyone is bothered by it at all like I am. I know that Tikiwiki has a mobile version, but I haven't seen anything for Wikipedia other than wapedia, which doesn't let you edit pages. Discussion? -- Vapor One ( talk) 09:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Like featured items (articles, lists, images), I'm just thinking maybe the symbol of GA (
this)
can be put at the top right of every GA.
While for delisted GA, we can put
<- this.
Reason: there may be people who would like to read up some articles yet unsure of the quality of those articles. With a simple glance at the top right, at least this symbol tells him/her that it's good (if it's GA). Anyway, if it's quite a badly-written article, there would've been tags telling the exact problems.
Sorry if my suggestion got into the wrong place (and if someone else has already suggested this before). :S —
Yurei-
egg
tart 06:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Lina: Well, I'm counting raw votes to see the difference (ahhh whatever you can say I'm just bored for doing that). Since the result was delete, it was somewhat obvious that the supporters for deletion had stronger points then. The strong arguement you mention can be overcome with this following suggestion (maybe :/): we can change the current GA nomination process - make it work in the same way as FA nomination process. Suggestion: both nomination processes can be merged or something. Articles are reviewed by several editors and they will judge if the nominee becomes FA. Otherwise, they can determine if it's eligible for GA status. — Yurei- egg tart 15:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Cross posted from Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Please discuss here.
I figured this was the right place to get this discussion going. This is a request that the Labeled Section Transclusion extension be installed on the english wikipedia. This new extension would (it appears) have no conflict with existing extension and have several uses, especially for intermediate to advanced editors.
This extension allows for the selective transclusion of only part of a page or template (defined by <section> tags). Although this can partially be done with <includeonly> and <noinclude> tags, these two do not provide the full capabilities as provided by this extension. In my own editing experience, I have found several circumstances where these tags would have been useful:
These are only a few examples of how this new extension could be used (please feel free to add more). I'm not all "hip" on the mediawiki lingo but from my basic coding knowledge, this does not seem to difficult to accomplish. Happy Editing! -- omtay 38 14:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes one has to remind oneself to go back and look at an article for some reason a week or so later and just having changes show in my watchlist not sufficient. I guess it's probably too expensive or time consuming or disruptive to try to put such a system in wikipedia, but just an idea. Meanwhile, just occurred to me I'll can do it on my ReminderFox!! Carol Moore 15:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC) CarolMooreDC talk
Would someone who is more expert than I am in the area please compare the pages of Margaret Truman and Caroline Kennedy and explain the radical difference in tone:MT the rich city cousin and CKS the poor country cousin of name respect. Thanks! OlympedeCleves ( talk) 16:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I suggest following the above guidelines, but with this twist. The user would specify in "My preferences" what currency he uses (check box). Editors would invoke a template "currency conversion" with dollars or euros or whatever. The currency conversion template would convert (display to the user) to the users currency, yen or pesos, for example. The conversion would be for a limited number of currencies and values for a specific day - midnight Greenwich or something. Student7 ( talk) 15:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
A considerable problem in science is the proliferation of techniques, usually indicated by rather enigmatic acronyms like EBIC or NEXAFS. I don't think anybody in science still has a reasonable overview of all that is available or what can be done with it, what it requires etc. Wikipedia already has a lot of pages about various techniques but there is no well organized entry into what is for virtually all scientists a rather inaccessible acronym jungle. Wiki could really do science a considerable favor bt making the jungle more accessible. I have tried to categorize -admittedly rather roughly..- what I have found and extended the
list of materials analysis methods but I would love to get together people from different disciplines to do this properly. I don't know what would be the best way to proceed. One possibility would be a portal but categories and a more standaridized format for technique pages could also be very useful. I dropped a line
here but have since been told that may not be the best place to suggest a portal. I stand corrected but am unsure where I do suggest such things.
Jcwf (
talk) 21:14, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I suggest following the above guidelines, but with this twist. The user would specify in "My preferences" what currency he uses (check box). Editors would invoke a template "currency conversion" with dollars or euros or whatever. The currency conversion template would convert (display to the user) to the users currency, yen or pesos, for example. The conversion would be for a limited number of currencies and values for a specific day - midnight Greenwich or something. Student7 ( talk) 15:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Since some users sometimes forget that they're under sanctions such as a namespace/topic ban, I would like to propose, in these cases, adding a simple bit of javascript to their monobook.js that pops up a friendly messagebox [via alert()] if they attempt to edit a page they're not supposed to. — Random832 01:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
You mean, something like:
var restrictedNamespaces = []; //fill in namespace numbers
var restrictedPages = []; //fill in, in wgPageName form
function isInArray(array, item) {
if (array.indexOf)
return array.indexOf(item) != -1;
for (var elem in array)
if (elem == item) return true;
return false;
}
if ((wgAction == "edit" || wgAction == "submit") &&
(isInArray(restrictedNamespaces, wgNamespaceNumber) ||
isInArray(restrictedPages, wgPageName)))
alert("Note: you are banned from editing this page or namespace.")
Requiring this for all topic-banned users might be embarrassing, however, as some are perfectly capable of remembering which pages to edit and not, and might want to view the source of a page. A bug report, also, could be submitted to block certain users on certain pages; it's likely one already exists. Another arguably better way to do this would be with CSS: hide a submit button (input#wpSave) contained within body.page-Controversial_article. I wouldn't insert this in the topic-banned user's CSS/JS unless he/she requests it, just as a courtesy. After all, it's a social ban, not a technical block. Gracenotes T § 01:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
A problem I frequently encounter is that disruptive users create multiple accounts to avoid scrutiny. These users often are not banned after being caught. It isn't very nice to make an active user keep a sock puppeteer template on their user page. Nonetheless, we need to know when a user has had sock puppets, because this affects how we deal with future disruption. When assessing a user conduct issue, we need to know the block history of the user, and also the block history of any sock puppets. Currently, I must rummage around to find all the necessary information. This process could be made more efficient with one simple change.
The idea would be to add a link below the boilerplace text at the top of the block log MediaWiki:Blocklogtext. The link would point to the sockpuppet category associated with USERNAME. When looking at an editor's block log it will be very helpful to see whether the link is red or blue, and if blue, to drill down and see the evidence.
For User:ECW500 the link would be:
Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of ECW500
For me:
Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Jehochman
As you see, this won't take up much screen real estate. The change would improve website usability and help the community by making all the relevant information available via links from a single page. What do you think? Jehochman Talk 21:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Greetings. I am a big fan of http://www.blackle.com, not only for its environmental idea but for not burning my eyes out of my sockets with intense brightness either. Couldn't this perhaps be applied to Wikipedia? Or, couldn't a user at least be given a choice whether he wants to see the page in white or black in the user preferences? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Droneriot ( talk • contribs) 08:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
This link Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_13#Black_Wikipedia should point you to some users who know how to do what your looking for. MBisanz talk 08:54, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
A considerable problem in science is the proliferation of techniques, usually indicated by rather enigmatic acronyms like EBIC or NEXAFS. I don't think anybody in science still has a reasonable overview of all that is available or what can be done with it, what it requires etc. Wikipedia already has a lot of pages about various techniques but there is no well organized entry into what is for virtually all scientists a rather inaccessible acronym jungle. Wiki could really do science a considerable favor bt making the jungle more accessible. I have tried to categorize -admittedly rather roughly..- what I have found and extended the
list of materials analysis methods but I would love to get together people from different disciplines to do this properly. I don't know what would be the best way to proceed. One possibility would be a portal but categories and a more standaridized format for technique pages could also be very useful. I dropped a line
here but have since been told that may not be the best place to suggest a portal. I stand corrected but am unsure where I do suggest such things.
Jcwf (
talk) 21:14, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
This would be a simple feature, though a nice one to have. When viewing the history log of an article, you could click a button to skip to the first edit (or creation of the article). This would help find the creators of articles more quickly, instead of having to endlessly "thumb" through the log to see who created the article. This of course would not be a neccessity, but more of a convenience. Polarbear97 ( talk) 02:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Wider audience for commenting requested...
A proposal has started to allow established or trusted editors to edit via Tor, or other anon proxy. This discussion is located at
The proposed policy in its “needs to be worked on” form is located at
project page Mercury at 20:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Using random article, one comes across a lot of stubs and/or just plain bad articles. Should there not be an option to customize this mechanism to only find articles of a particular rating or higher (A, B, etc.)? Please correct me if there already is. I think such an option would allow people to satisfy their hunger for knowledge in unknown areas much more easily. Ryan M. ( talk) 05:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Portal:Featured content allows you find a random article/list/picture etc of featured quality.- gadfium 18:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Random articles in a category are sort of useless, because must article are in very specific sub-categories, and these aren't well-defined. It would be better to do random articles it based on which WikiProject they're tagged for.-- Pharos ( talk) 18:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
A potentially contentious request to move is being discussed at Talk:Burma#Requested move. This is to revert a move made in October, but for which significant discussion had continued since then. I am posting here to reach a broader audience than would otherwise be found from people who have Wikipedia:Requested moves and/or Burma on their watchlists, as I believe this article is "important" enough to warrant such "advertising". — Andrwsc ( talk · contribs) 23:21, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
The amount of times I have almost forgot to check the last edit only to find it is vandalism! But the 'realise an edit is needed' 'check history/ last change' 'now I can edit it safe I am not hiding a vandal' slows my minor edits down.
So for me it would be ideal when clicking 'edit' that the last change is initially shown above the edit box (maybe with an added undo button), as 'when preview changes' is used. This could work for other editors too, would provide another shield against vandalism, so maybe it would work, not just as an option, but as the standard editting method? Leevanjackson ( talk) 00:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I have spent time updating and editing the proposal. Would love for folks to give it a new looking over. Bstone ( talk) 06:59, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
User:Juhachi and I have been playing around with the idea of making a template for track listings similar to how Template:Episode list works. ( User talk:Ned Scott#A proposition). See Template:Track list and Template:Japanese track list. The basic benefit of this is that it allows parts of the data to be meta tagged, which makes future maintenance easier, and would even allow for the data to be machine readable. I'm not aware of any track listings that contain a large amount of different fields, but if there are then the labeling would also make entering the data easier. The templates also use a hack from the episode list template that makes a table cell pop out if a field is listed, but blank. This is to encourage people to fill in incomplete lists without having to place a placeholder to keep the cell open. Thoughts? -- Ned Scott 22:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#Template for track listing for main discussion thread.
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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Howdy, folks. I have proposed that we have ombudsmen on wikipedia, similar to universities and governments. I just started the page, located here (apologies for the rough draft it's in) and would love community feedback and development. Thanks, all. Bstone ( talk) 02:53, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for the late reply (previous discussion got archived), but I have finished the test versions of how the formatting may look like for having a Simple English link on our English articles. To the right is what a Simple English section may look like, another version is here, the newest version here, and here is an example of how a template would look at the bottom of an article. I tried hard to make them look as unannoying but viewable as possible. -- penubag 07:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
The image that's displayed is best. You could also have it so the link appears only when a corresponding page exists in Simple English. If a page doesn't exist, it could instead ask the user to start or request one. I've been thinking, maybe rename it Kids Wiki, and have stricter discipline against vandals. Or keep it as Simple English, and apply the stricter discipline as a test model. The simple english is less visited so it'd work as a less controversial testing ground for new policies. And if users get fewer strikes, then editors don't have to spend as much time on vandalism there. Also, a user banned from Simple English is still able to post on regular Wikipedia until violations reach their normal limit. -- Boozerker ( talk) 10:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I find it highly unlikely that a template will be added to every page, but the example in the image seems plausable. A recent change to the main page is that the simple english link was moved to the top of the language bar. Perhaps that could be done, rather than changing the entire layout. Reywas92 Talk 20:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I like this idea in general. Could it be arranged that the left sidebar image shown above appears if the interwiki link to the Simple English wikipedia is added? I do not think it should be added to all. It should be treated exactly as other interwiki links for the editors but appear above the others in a different format. I think the template for the "See also" section should be the same size as the other boxes for interwiki links included in Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects. Indeed one could be added there now. -- Bduke ( talk) 22:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
With the simple English Wikipedia in mind, I recently changed the "in other languages" label to read "languages." I believe that the simple English interwiki links should simply be placed at the top of the list (not separated). I especially dislike the lowercase "e" in "english." — David Levy 22:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
:::I think that just simply moving it to the top of the list is not noticeable enough for young readers to realize it exists. How about this new option I created to the right? This one should address your concern.-- penubag 22:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Am I supposed to submit this to Bugzilla or something? I'm green on these procedures...--
penubag 02:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I see no reason why the Simple English article should receive more recognition than other languages. - Halo ( talk) 00:30, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Is there any chance if Jimbo Wales or other's could restrict IP user's from editing and will have to register an account on wikipedia, mainly because the vandalism lately is becoming a bit Over the top and it would make it a lot easier to identify who vandalize articles or userpages because their username will appear. →Yun-Yuu zhan→ 18:56, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Over on Wikipedia_talk:Television_episodes, a few editors have stated their opinion that wikipedia exists for the benefit first and foremost of the editors who join in, not the readers. Although one would think from the wording of WP:ABOUT that it would be clear that wikipedia aims to be an encyclopaedia first and an editing community second (and as such, the lay reader should come first in all considerations), it seems that enough editors involved in the political discussions on wikipedia consider the editing and politics game to be more vital. Clear consensus on this appears to be needed and set in policy, so as to ensure that all policy discussions properly reflect the intended purpose of wikipedia, whichever one that may be. LinaMishima ( talk) 20:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
There's a lot of silliness involved in playing with funny tags. Don't pay attention to the tags, pay attention to actual current consensus instead.
As to the actual point: do note that wikipedia is a read/write website, so all readers are potential editors, and all editors are potential readers. (So you're shooting yourself in the foot if you claim the other side shouldn't be taken into account ;-) ) -- Kim Bruning ( talk) 23:28, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
A wiki is social software, and its purpose to bring contributors together to collaboratively accomplish a task. An interesting quote from C2:WikiPedia: "My question, to this esteemed Wiki community, is this: Do you think that a Wiki could successfully generate a useful encyclopedia?" ( Jimbo Wales). The response: "Yes, but in the end it wouldn't be an encyclopedia. It would be a wiki." ( Ward Cunningham). The means by which we collaborate is just as important as the product of that collaboration, in my opinion. Readers shouldn't forget that we're both a wiki and a valuable source of accurate information. It's a mistake to turn a blind eye to one function to exclusively service the other. Forgetting the former might stifle participation and cause us to become out-of-touch with our readers as we incorrectly assume what they want and don't want. Forgetting the latter will turn us into an anarchic collection of trivia – this may be what some readers want, in fact, as shown by the "You can try, but you can't stop Wikipedia from becoming a massive trivia database!" threads that occasionally appear on the village pumps ( example, example). Now there's an interesting take on how some readers feel about popular culture and Wikipedia: they don't care about how well referenced it is, merely that they're getting the random trivia they want, in the presence or absence of sources. Gracenotes T § 00:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I like to Wiki on my phone, but every time I load a page I have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to do a new search or just use the navigation menu. I'm wondering if anyone has already brought up this issue or if anyone is bothered by it at all like I am. I know that Tikiwiki has a mobile version, but I haven't seen anything for Wikipedia other than wapedia, which doesn't let you edit pages. Discussion? -- Vapor One ( talk) 09:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Like featured items (articles, lists, images), I'm just thinking maybe the symbol of GA (
this)
can be put at the top right of every GA.
While for delisted GA, we can put
<- this.
Reason: there may be people who would like to read up some articles yet unsure of the quality of those articles. With a simple glance at the top right, at least this symbol tells him/her that it's good (if it's GA). Anyway, if it's quite a badly-written article, there would've been tags telling the exact problems.
Sorry if my suggestion got into the wrong place (and if someone else has already suggested this before). :S —
Yurei-
egg
tart 06:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Lina: Well, I'm counting raw votes to see the difference (ahhh whatever you can say I'm just bored for doing that). Since the result was delete, it was somewhat obvious that the supporters for deletion had stronger points then. The strong arguement you mention can be overcome with this following suggestion (maybe :/): we can change the current GA nomination process - make it work in the same way as FA nomination process. Suggestion: both nomination processes can be merged or something. Articles are reviewed by several editors and they will judge if the nominee becomes FA. Otherwise, they can determine if it's eligible for GA status. — Yurei- egg tart 15:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Cross posted from Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Please discuss here.
I figured this was the right place to get this discussion going. This is a request that the Labeled Section Transclusion extension be installed on the english wikipedia. This new extension would (it appears) have no conflict with existing extension and have several uses, especially for intermediate to advanced editors.
This extension allows for the selective transclusion of only part of a page or template (defined by <section> tags). Although this can partially be done with <includeonly> and <noinclude> tags, these two do not provide the full capabilities as provided by this extension. In my own editing experience, I have found several circumstances where these tags would have been useful:
These are only a few examples of how this new extension could be used (please feel free to add more). I'm not all "hip" on the mediawiki lingo but from my basic coding knowledge, this does not seem to difficult to accomplish. Happy Editing! -- omtay 38 14:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes one has to remind oneself to go back and look at an article for some reason a week or so later and just having changes show in my watchlist not sufficient. I guess it's probably too expensive or time consuming or disruptive to try to put such a system in wikipedia, but just an idea. Meanwhile, just occurred to me I'll can do it on my ReminderFox!! Carol Moore 15:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC) CarolMooreDC talk
Would someone who is more expert than I am in the area please compare the pages of Margaret Truman and Caroline Kennedy and explain the radical difference in tone:MT the rich city cousin and CKS the poor country cousin of name respect. Thanks! OlympedeCleves ( talk) 16:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I suggest following the above guidelines, but with this twist. The user would specify in "My preferences" what currency he uses (check box). Editors would invoke a template "currency conversion" with dollars or euros or whatever. The currency conversion template would convert (display to the user) to the users currency, yen or pesos, for example. The conversion would be for a limited number of currencies and values for a specific day - midnight Greenwich or something. Student7 ( talk) 15:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
A considerable problem in science is the proliferation of techniques, usually indicated by rather enigmatic acronyms like EBIC or NEXAFS. I don't think anybody in science still has a reasonable overview of all that is available or what can be done with it, what it requires etc. Wikipedia already has a lot of pages about various techniques but there is no well organized entry into what is for virtually all scientists a rather inaccessible acronym jungle. Wiki could really do science a considerable favor bt making the jungle more accessible. I have tried to categorize -admittedly rather roughly..- what I have found and extended the
list of materials analysis methods but I would love to get together people from different disciplines to do this properly. I don't know what would be the best way to proceed. One possibility would be a portal but categories and a more standaridized format for technique pages could also be very useful. I dropped a line
here but have since been told that may not be the best place to suggest a portal. I stand corrected but am unsure where I do suggest such things.
Jcwf (
talk) 21:14, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
I suggest following the above guidelines, but with this twist. The user would specify in "My preferences" what currency he uses (check box). Editors would invoke a template "currency conversion" with dollars or euros or whatever. The currency conversion template would convert (display to the user) to the users currency, yen or pesos, for example. The conversion would be for a limited number of currencies and values for a specific day - midnight Greenwich or something. Student7 ( talk) 15:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Since some users sometimes forget that they're under sanctions such as a namespace/topic ban, I would like to propose, in these cases, adding a simple bit of javascript to their monobook.js that pops up a friendly messagebox [via alert()] if they attempt to edit a page they're not supposed to. — Random832 01:15, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
You mean, something like:
var restrictedNamespaces = []; //fill in namespace numbers
var restrictedPages = []; //fill in, in wgPageName form
function isInArray(array, item) {
if (array.indexOf)
return array.indexOf(item) != -1;
for (var elem in array)
if (elem == item) return true;
return false;
}
if ((wgAction == "edit" || wgAction == "submit") &&
(isInArray(restrictedNamespaces, wgNamespaceNumber) ||
isInArray(restrictedPages, wgPageName)))
alert("Note: you are banned from editing this page or namespace.")
Requiring this for all topic-banned users might be embarrassing, however, as some are perfectly capable of remembering which pages to edit and not, and might want to view the source of a page. A bug report, also, could be submitted to block certain users on certain pages; it's likely one already exists. Another arguably better way to do this would be with CSS: hide a submit button (input#wpSave) contained within body.page-Controversial_article. I wouldn't insert this in the topic-banned user's CSS/JS unless he/she requests it, just as a courtesy. After all, it's a social ban, not a technical block. Gracenotes T § 01:32, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
A problem I frequently encounter is that disruptive users create multiple accounts to avoid scrutiny. These users often are not banned after being caught. It isn't very nice to make an active user keep a sock puppeteer template on their user page. Nonetheless, we need to know when a user has had sock puppets, because this affects how we deal with future disruption. When assessing a user conduct issue, we need to know the block history of the user, and also the block history of any sock puppets. Currently, I must rummage around to find all the necessary information. This process could be made more efficient with one simple change.
The idea would be to add a link below the boilerplace text at the top of the block log MediaWiki:Blocklogtext. The link would point to the sockpuppet category associated with USERNAME. When looking at an editor's block log it will be very helpful to see whether the link is red or blue, and if blue, to drill down and see the evidence.
For User:ECW500 the link would be:
Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of ECW500
For me:
Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Jehochman
As you see, this won't take up much screen real estate. The change would improve website usability and help the community by making all the relevant information available via links from a single page. What do you think? Jehochman Talk 21:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Greetings. I am a big fan of http://www.blackle.com, not only for its environmental idea but for not burning my eyes out of my sockets with intense brightness either. Couldn't this perhaps be applied to Wikipedia? Or, couldn't a user at least be given a choice whether he wants to see the page in white or black in the user preferences? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Droneriot ( talk • contribs) 08:18, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
This link Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_13#Black_Wikipedia should point you to some users who know how to do what your looking for. MBisanz talk 08:54, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
A considerable problem in science is the proliferation of techniques, usually indicated by rather enigmatic acronyms like EBIC or NEXAFS. I don't think anybody in science still has a reasonable overview of all that is available or what can be done with it, what it requires etc. Wikipedia already has a lot of pages about various techniques but there is no well organized entry into what is for virtually all scientists a rather inaccessible acronym jungle. Wiki could really do science a considerable favor bt making the jungle more accessible. I have tried to categorize -admittedly rather roughly..- what I have found and extended the
list of materials analysis methods but I would love to get together people from different disciplines to do this properly. I don't know what would be the best way to proceed. One possibility would be a portal but categories and a more standaridized format for technique pages could also be very useful. I dropped a line
here but have since been told that may not be the best place to suggest a portal. I stand corrected but am unsure where I do suggest such things.
Jcwf (
talk) 21:14, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
This would be a simple feature, though a nice one to have. When viewing the history log of an article, you could click a button to skip to the first edit (or creation of the article). This would help find the creators of articles more quickly, instead of having to endlessly "thumb" through the log to see who created the article. This of course would not be a neccessity, but more of a convenience. Polarbear97 ( talk) 02:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Wider audience for commenting requested...
A proposal has started to allow established or trusted editors to edit via Tor, or other anon proxy. This discussion is located at
The proposed policy in its “needs to be worked on” form is located at
project page Mercury at 20:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Using random article, one comes across a lot of stubs and/or just plain bad articles. Should there not be an option to customize this mechanism to only find articles of a particular rating or higher (A, B, etc.)? Please correct me if there already is. I think such an option would allow people to satisfy their hunger for knowledge in unknown areas much more easily. Ryan M. ( talk) 05:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Portal:Featured content allows you find a random article/list/picture etc of featured quality.- gadfium 18:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Random articles in a category are sort of useless, because must article are in very specific sub-categories, and these aren't well-defined. It would be better to do random articles it based on which WikiProject they're tagged for.-- Pharos ( talk) 18:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
A potentially contentious request to move is being discussed at Talk:Burma#Requested move. This is to revert a move made in October, but for which significant discussion had continued since then. I am posting here to reach a broader audience than would otherwise be found from people who have Wikipedia:Requested moves and/or Burma on their watchlists, as I believe this article is "important" enough to warrant such "advertising". — Andrwsc ( talk · contribs) 23:21, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
The amount of times I have almost forgot to check the last edit only to find it is vandalism! But the 'realise an edit is needed' 'check history/ last change' 'now I can edit it safe I am not hiding a vandal' slows my minor edits down.
So for me it would be ideal when clicking 'edit' that the last change is initially shown above the edit box (maybe with an added undo button), as 'when preview changes' is used. This could work for other editors too, would provide another shield against vandalism, so maybe it would work, not just as an option, but as the standard editting method? Leevanjackson ( talk) 00:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I have spent time updating and editing the proposal. Would love for folks to give it a new looking over. Bstone ( talk) 06:59, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
User:Juhachi and I have been playing around with the idea of making a template for track listings similar to how Template:Episode list works. ( User talk:Ned Scott#A proposition). See Template:Track list and Template:Japanese track list. The basic benefit of this is that it allows parts of the data to be meta tagged, which makes future maintenance easier, and would even allow for the data to be machine readable. I'm not aware of any track listings that contain a large amount of different fields, but if there are then the labeling would also make entering the data easier. The templates also use a hack from the episode list template that makes a table cell pop out if a field is listed, but blank. This is to encourage people to fill in incomplete lists without having to place a placeholder to keep the cell open. Thoughts? -- Ned Scott 22:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#Template for track listing for main discussion thread.