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One can imagine that 10,000 years from now, perhaps even millions years from now, information on wikipedia will still be accessed by people (or other intelligent beings) who are interested in our civilization. However, on such long time scales, global disasters are likely to happen which would likely cause irreversible damage to information stored on database servers. Also, even if information could theoretically be rescued, this won't be a priority for the people facing the consequences of such a disaster. One can e.g. think of asteroid impacts, nearby gamma ray bursts, etc.
If the entire wikipedia content is periodically stored on CDs (including some equipment to read the CDs), then the survivors of a disaster (who may not be computer experts) will be able to access the information again. Count Iblis 16:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
WorldCat is a catalog of the works available on 57,000 physical libraries around the world. The catalog is now freely available online. It is far and away the largest such resource. They have recently added a usable "identities" feature. I became interested in WorldCat through the work of User:Dsp13. I have added a template: template:worldcat id
To use this template, first do a worldcat identies lookup. Enter the person's name (e.g, Samuel Phillips.) This will often lead to a list of possible matches. Select the correct link (e.g., "Phillips, Samuel 1752-1802") and click on it. This will lead to the correct page on WorldCat. The id is the string after the last slash in the URL, e.g., lccn-n85-221132. Now, fill in your template as follows:
This yields
Here is my question: should we encourage the use of this template? User:Dsp13 tried to introduce WorldCat links a year ago and got a lot of push-back from the folks who worry about link spam. I think that WorldCat links are perhaps the most useful links there are, and are not by any definition spam. I see this as part of a "grand unification" of two major web resources. but I would like to see a consensus before proceeding.
I feel that the justifications for WorldCat links are clear:
If we reach a consensus that WorldCat links should be encouraged, It should be relatively easy to use a semi-automated technique to add the templates to the articles. Based on User:Dsp13's lists, we have articles on all but 37 of the 1500 subjects with the largest library presence, and I suspect a very large percentage of our pre-1990 biographies have WorldCat bibliographies. I am trying to teach myself how to create a Firefox extrension for this purpose: see User:Arch_dude/worldcat
- Arch dude 00:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be great if we could set up a system by which articles that are exceedingly popular but are determined to be uneneyclopedic via AfD could be archived somewhere? Almost any admin will userfy such an article on request, so why not have them moved to one place? They could be protected so people don't waste time editing them. I think archiving this popular - both on and off wiki - articles would do no harm while providing some good to editors who've grown attached to these sorts of articles, and would probably discourage "plz don't delete it because I like it/it's interesting" arguments from popping up in AfDs. And by moving the pages the GFDL history would be retained, eliminating the need for BJAODN-type copyright problems. Everybody wins. Milto LOL pia 01:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Bad idea. Userfying the odd deleted page at admin digression is basically harmless, however keeping a pile of deleted pages archived somewhere would be disastrous. Deleted pages are not just articles on school bands and essays that don't fit wikipedia - they also include libels, attack pages, copyright violations and other toxic nonsense. We simply can't keep that stuff about. And any proposal that said we want to archive everything but x,y and z, has the problem that it would create another bureaucratic process to differentiate between deleted articles and another wave of people complaining to OTRS about what deleted articles said about them. In short, a lot of work, for little or no gain. Further it might encourage people to post their essays to wikipedia - knowing that one way or another we'd keep them somewhere for them. We are NOT a free webhost. -- Docg 10:50, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Dear wikimedia. I think you've got great programs and services. I've got an idea for a new service. I'm imagining it this way. A new WikiForum, where you can ask each other questions, exchange theories, and gain knowledge from people in other ways. Like this; a student is doing a scientific project for his school, but because he isn't really technical, he gets stuck somewhere. He really cant find a solution, so he contacts other students. They can help him, and he finds his way out. There will probably be another student having the same problem, so the disscussion will be saved on the WikiForum. Or a scientist thinks he discovered some new things, and wants to talk with other scientists about his discoverings. Or a student who wants a explanation from a proffesor about a difficult biology lesson.
In fact, it would be really exchanging and explaining knowledge, and not just writing something in an encyclopedia, wich can sometimes make it even more difficult. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.217.218.115 ( talk) 17:50, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Hello, I was wondering if you could add a search box at the end of articles? I find myself reaching the end of a lengthy article and having to scroll way up to the top to search again. I know it sounds trivial but I think it would be useful. 10/29/07 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.139.137.7 ( talk) 07:19, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Worldcat is a collection of every single reference to avery single work in the largest physical (paper) libraries in the world. I have created three templates:
in support of an eventual consensus to link Wikipedia to worldcat. Despite my desire to create a consensus. use of these templates is already underway. Help! If such linkage is not a good idea, please Please PLEASE comment NOW. If you do not comment then my creation of these templates is likely to be taken as deFacto endorsement for linkage to Worldcat.
I personally think that such links are not only valid, but that they are the very best external links that Wikipedia can ever include. If I am correct, we should expect to eventually add Worldcat links to every Wikipedia article that meets our strictest notability requirements, because a subject that is not noted in the world's 57,000+ physical libraries is not (by definition) notable. This is a radical proposal. Please comment.
In truth, I feel that a worldcat link can establish notability, but the lack of a worldcat link is not prima facie evidence of non-notability.
Please note the radical nature of this proposal: We have in excess of 2 million articles. I propose that most of them should be linked to worldcat. If we achieve a consensus that such links are desirable, I intend to create a project to actually create the links. - Arch dude 04:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
(those are the HTTP links to the non-redirected versions, as the image pages redirect to Wikipedia:Fromowner)
The last discussion got bogged down in wording and colouring discussions, but I think the one point everyone could agree on was that the previous images were hideous and jarring. So for these, I have:
I have not changed the actual image outlines and I have not changed the text (except adding a comma to two of them).
The text issue was that the font was being rendered by MediaWiki's servers as serif, even though the actual image specifies Bitstream Vera Sans. (I don't have Futura here, or I'd have used that. Mind you, Bitstream Vera Sans is Free™.) Making it into just another path makes that not an issue, although it reduces editability. (We can always use a previous version as a base if anyone can ever agree on a wording change.)
Hopefully these look more inviting and less like a spork in the viewer's eye ...
As well as adding hundreds of placeholders, I have been busy on Flickr looking for replacement images and have uploaded quite a lot of them in the past week or so. So I'm trying to help things along in the right direction ;-) - David Gerard 20:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
As for the text itself, for what it's worth, I'm not in favour of one iteration over another at this time. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 14:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Can we please change the hideous wording? If so, please reply here. — Omegatron 02:30, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
How about ones that look like humans, not several cats put in a blender then poured onto the floor -- No Brainer 08:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Dear Wikimedia.
I had an idea yesterday which I wish you to hear and wish to formally donate to you in the spirit of your organisation's values about sharing knowledge around the world.
The idea is of a website on which people can post their good ideas, for free asking nothing in return other than if the idea is picked off the site and developed to do something successful then there is an acknowledgement of the source. If this does not happen then there could be no redress so the ideas are truly donated free to the world.
Entrepreneurs and others struggling to source solutions to problems could pick ideas off the site completely freely. The site content would be arranged in a searchable database, linking issues and problems and solutions and subjects with key words.
I could find nothing similar to this on the web, though I confess I did not spend much time looking, on to the next idea..
Most inventor sites are about how to turn ideas in to products or wealth. It is my view that people with ideas are usually wealthy enough and only wish to ensure good ideas are not lost in their imperfect memories, and usually have too many to develop anyway. Having an impact and bettering the world is all we can hope for in our brief lives so what better way than to publish the idea on the web. And what better company to promulgate this and any further ideas that might flow than yourselves.
Call it Wiki-ideas, Sparkipedia, or something similar.
Kind Regards,
Enjoy,
Mark Williamson MRCGP, MA, MBBS
An editor has requested approval of a bot that is designed to revert the contribution history from an editor en masse. (Presumably to undo the damage caused by vandal-only accounts, vandalbots and socks of banned editors).
Given the very large potential damage from such a bot, I (and I fully expect the other members of the approval group to agree) will not consider approving this request unless broad consensus that such a bot is desirable can be reached. Please comment.
(It is probably preferable to keep that discussion here as opposed to the request page itself to avoid cluttering it. Once the discussion here has reached consensus it will be permalinked into the BRFA for reference). — Coren (talk) 00:05, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your feedback. At this time, the bot request as been denied as redundant. — Coren (talk) 22:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
The most frequently asked of the frequently asked questions is almost certainly 'how do I create a new page?'. This question comes up often enough at the Help Desk and other places (often twice in the same day) that there's even a templated answer to it; this implies to me that there is a usability problem with people trying to create pages. I'm proposing a new project page that could be linked from the sidebar, explaining about the creation of new articles (much like the AFC wizard), but ending in a link to actually create the article, like this one:
Use the box below to enter the title of your new article; this will search for articles with similar titles and content, and if there is no article with that title, and looking through the search results you see no articles about the same thing, you can use the 'create this page' link there to create the article.
(The 'Try title and create article' button is just Go, but it puts up a list of similar page names and a link to create the page on the search results if the page doesn't exist, which is much the desired result.)
I think that this feature would help usability to quite an extent, allowing users who wanted to create articles to more easily find out how to do so, and also educating them on what's important in a new article at the same time and hopefully cutting down on the number of bad new articles in the process. -- ais523 10:30, 29 October 2007 ( U T C)
All Wikipedia users would greatly benefit if upon opening the main page the cursor in the search box would be active (just like when one opens www.google.com) This way typing of the search terms can be started immediately rather than needing to activate the search box by pointing and clicking on it. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.31.52.131 ( talk) 06:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm sure this has probably been discussed before, but how about a consolidation of shortcuts. It just gets confusing sometimes when you see
WP:MADEUP and
WP:NFT used in an Afd (for example anyway). I'm sure it would be even worse for newcommers though, particularly when they find that they both lead to the same policy. Some pages have strange shortcuts that I've never even seen used (granted I haven't been here that long). Template messages in particular is a right little bugger with 6. The first time I saw all the various shortcuts, I was concerned about having to remember hundreds of policies. Now it's just a problem of remembering which shortcut goes to which page.
I understand there would need to be a large discussion as to which to keep and which to lose, but I can't understand why there are so many to begin with.
ARendedWinter 10:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Nevermind. This was a 'me being tired and not thinking straight' idea. Just ignore it! ARendedWinter 11:02, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
With Israel-Palestinian issues, there are many POV-related disputes. The articles are difficult to work on, they don't improve in proportion to the amount of attention they get, conduct accusations are common, and the articles and Talk pages often look like a battleground. I recently made a proposal to ArbCom to launch a modest initiative to monitor some disputed pages. I doubt ArbCom will accept it. Still, more generally, I'm wondering if Village Pump readers might like this idea of an initiative to monitor articles. Specifically, I'd recommend:
Have such mini-projects been attempted before? What problems or advantages would you foresee? Might it have some effect in reducing the POV disputes that cover a range of articles? Who'd like to help out? Thanks for your input. HG | Talk 22:33, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I've written up a (very rough and embryonic) propsal regarding "semi-notability"; any input, comments, throwing of rotten vegetables, and so forth would be very welcome. Kirill 17:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Think maybe Wikipedia could use some new icons? I think maybe we should just standardize around those Tango icons everywhere. They're nice, easy to make, and also I heard there were plans for a WYSIGYG editor? ViperSnake151 13:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I would much rather see the whole thing customizable. I can pick my "skin" in my user preferences, why can't I choose what icons and icon style I want to use for the edit box? The current set, in my opinion, is ugly and generally unintuitive, but I'm sure others like it. Why use a "#R" when an arrow would make more sense? — Jonathan Kovaciny ( talk| contribs) 15:24, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm resurrecting this
essay/proposal. Wikipedia should recognize experts. Experts should get a special userbox on their page. A WikiProject should be formed to accept nominations for new experts and field complaints against established experts. Being an expert editor does not mean one exemplifies the 5 pillars; experts are certainly biased. But, as Wikipedians, we possess a unique openness. If one claims to be unbiased, and then exhibits a bias to a certain other, one can be challenged to defend oneself without the other violating
WP:AGF. Effectively, those
WikiProject:Expert Editors members will be vouching for the contributions of these so-called "experts".
Food for thought: how many folks would apply to become an expert editor? Versus: how many folks would be nominated by their peers and volunteer associates? Probably self-noms should be discouraged, with nominations requiring examples of "expert" edits.
If anybody thinks this is a good idea, or even a potentially good idea, please add your comments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.111.40.194 ( talk) 04:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting an "outside world" hierarchy, but more of a Wikipedia hierarchy. I think each one of you would nominate yourselves to be an "expert editor", if that meant that you were a "professional Wikipedian", and adhered to the faith of the five pillars (while not forgetting WP:AGF, WP:BITE and others). Also, my conception of expert editors are those editors familiar with several Wikipedia processes for handling contentious material and editorial disputes.
I guess another to describe my vision would be to liken expert editor status with FA status. We have stub editors, B-class editors (as I consider myself), GA-editors, and some obvious FA-editors. It would have been in the spirit of Esperanza to nominate a peer for FA-expert status. —Preceding unsigned comments added by 75.111.40.194 ( talk) 23:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
As this is a village pump, I'll ask again if there's enough potential and interest to make this idea grow, and for this discussion to move to the appropriate talk page. 75.111.40.194 23:33, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I've been thinking on creating a symbol for a redirect, once there's a logo for disambiguations. Then I created a graphic representation for #R. If somebody liked it, I would like to make it official. MATHEUS WAHL ▪ 18:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd prefer no more little graphics without good reason. WP has quite enough visual clutter already. When you come up with a graphic, propose to have it adopted officially, but don't know what it would be adopted for, that's a pretty clear sign, I think, that your priorities have got confused. Moreover, if a graphic really were helpful in some way, then I think something like an arrow bent at a right angle or thereabouts would be a lot easier to understand.
There's probably a demand for graphics for some purposes or other. Why not offer your services and then try to respond to actual (or perceived) needs? -- Hoary 06:02, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Lucasfbr, you were talking about
this arrow that appears in &redirect=no
?
MATHEUS WAHL
▪ 15:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
When I saw this, I thought of a caption, as shown on the right. While the logo is kind of fancy, I think an arrow of some sort would be a better choice for the use you're thinking of. — Disavian ( talk/ contribs) 03:28, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
On many important articles, there are one or more sections that branch into related "child" articles, typically using the {{ main}} template. In these sections there is a summary of the child article, usually two or three paragraphs. For example, in the Minnesota article, there are twelve child articles corresponding to various sections (e.g. Geology of Minnesota, History of Minnesota, Climate of Minnesota, etc.). The problem is that the child article and its corresponding summary paragraph in the parent article are not always updated together, so inconsistencies may arise from time to time. Also, people tend to add to the summary instead of the child article, so the summary text grows while the child article does not.
I propose that the summary text be moved from the parent article to the child article and put inside <includeonly> tags, and the whole text of the article itself be put inside <noinclude> tags. Then, in the parent article, instead of having actual text, the parent article will just transclude the child article.
For example, in the Minnesota article, we would change this:
== Geology of Minnesota == {{main|Geology of Minnesota}} Minnesota contains some of the oldest rocks found on earth, ... ... ... (six paragraphs of summary text)
to this:
== Geology of Minnesota == {{:Geology of Minnesota}}
And the Geology of Minnesota article would be changed to this:
<includeonly>Minnesota contains some of the oldest rocks found on earth, ... ... ... (six paragraphs of summary text)</includeonly> <noinclude>(full Geology of Minnesota text)<noinclude>
Thoughts? — Jonathan Kovaciny ([[User talk:Jonathan Kovaciny|talk]]| contribs) 15:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
This looks like an attempt to workaround the lack of mw:Extension:Labeled Section Transclusion. Doing this on articles would be a bad idea for technical reasons at present due to the template limits; I like the idea from a non-technical point of view, though. -- ais523 15:53, 1 November 2007 ( U T C)
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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One can imagine that 10,000 years from now, perhaps even millions years from now, information on wikipedia will still be accessed by people (or other intelligent beings) who are interested in our civilization. However, on such long time scales, global disasters are likely to happen which would likely cause irreversible damage to information stored on database servers. Also, even if information could theoretically be rescued, this won't be a priority for the people facing the consequences of such a disaster. One can e.g. think of asteroid impacts, nearby gamma ray bursts, etc.
If the entire wikipedia content is periodically stored on CDs (including some equipment to read the CDs), then the survivors of a disaster (who may not be computer experts) will be able to access the information again. Count Iblis 16:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
WorldCat is a catalog of the works available on 57,000 physical libraries around the world. The catalog is now freely available online. It is far and away the largest such resource. They have recently added a usable "identities" feature. I became interested in WorldCat through the work of User:Dsp13. I have added a template: template:worldcat id
To use this template, first do a worldcat identies lookup. Enter the person's name (e.g, Samuel Phillips.) This will often lead to a list of possible matches. Select the correct link (e.g., "Phillips, Samuel 1752-1802") and click on it. This will lead to the correct page on WorldCat. The id is the string after the last slash in the URL, e.g., lccn-n85-221132. Now, fill in your template as follows:
This yields
Here is my question: should we encourage the use of this template? User:Dsp13 tried to introduce WorldCat links a year ago and got a lot of push-back from the folks who worry about link spam. I think that WorldCat links are perhaps the most useful links there are, and are not by any definition spam. I see this as part of a "grand unification" of two major web resources. but I would like to see a consensus before proceeding.
I feel that the justifications for WorldCat links are clear:
If we reach a consensus that WorldCat links should be encouraged, It should be relatively easy to use a semi-automated technique to add the templates to the articles. Based on User:Dsp13's lists, we have articles on all but 37 of the 1500 subjects with the largest library presence, and I suspect a very large percentage of our pre-1990 biographies have WorldCat bibliographies. I am trying to teach myself how to create a Firefox extrension for this purpose: see User:Arch_dude/worldcat
- Arch dude 00:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be great if we could set up a system by which articles that are exceedingly popular but are determined to be uneneyclopedic via AfD could be archived somewhere? Almost any admin will userfy such an article on request, so why not have them moved to one place? They could be protected so people don't waste time editing them. I think archiving this popular - both on and off wiki - articles would do no harm while providing some good to editors who've grown attached to these sorts of articles, and would probably discourage "plz don't delete it because I like it/it's interesting" arguments from popping up in AfDs. And by moving the pages the GFDL history would be retained, eliminating the need for BJAODN-type copyright problems. Everybody wins. Milto LOL pia 01:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Bad idea. Userfying the odd deleted page at admin digression is basically harmless, however keeping a pile of deleted pages archived somewhere would be disastrous. Deleted pages are not just articles on school bands and essays that don't fit wikipedia - they also include libels, attack pages, copyright violations and other toxic nonsense. We simply can't keep that stuff about. And any proposal that said we want to archive everything but x,y and z, has the problem that it would create another bureaucratic process to differentiate between deleted articles and another wave of people complaining to OTRS about what deleted articles said about them. In short, a lot of work, for little or no gain. Further it might encourage people to post their essays to wikipedia - knowing that one way or another we'd keep them somewhere for them. We are NOT a free webhost. -- Docg 10:50, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Dear wikimedia. I think you've got great programs and services. I've got an idea for a new service. I'm imagining it this way. A new WikiForum, where you can ask each other questions, exchange theories, and gain knowledge from people in other ways. Like this; a student is doing a scientific project for his school, but because he isn't really technical, he gets stuck somewhere. He really cant find a solution, so he contacts other students. They can help him, and he finds his way out. There will probably be another student having the same problem, so the disscussion will be saved on the WikiForum. Or a scientist thinks he discovered some new things, and wants to talk with other scientists about his discoverings. Or a student who wants a explanation from a proffesor about a difficult biology lesson.
In fact, it would be really exchanging and explaining knowledge, and not just writing something in an encyclopedia, wich can sometimes make it even more difficult. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.217.218.115 ( talk) 17:50, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Hello, I was wondering if you could add a search box at the end of articles? I find myself reaching the end of a lengthy article and having to scroll way up to the top to search again. I know it sounds trivial but I think it would be useful. 10/29/07 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.139.137.7 ( talk) 07:19, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Worldcat is a collection of every single reference to avery single work in the largest physical (paper) libraries in the world. I have created three templates:
in support of an eventual consensus to link Wikipedia to worldcat. Despite my desire to create a consensus. use of these templates is already underway. Help! If such linkage is not a good idea, please Please PLEASE comment NOW. If you do not comment then my creation of these templates is likely to be taken as deFacto endorsement for linkage to Worldcat.
I personally think that such links are not only valid, but that they are the very best external links that Wikipedia can ever include. If I am correct, we should expect to eventually add Worldcat links to every Wikipedia article that meets our strictest notability requirements, because a subject that is not noted in the world's 57,000+ physical libraries is not (by definition) notable. This is a radical proposal. Please comment.
In truth, I feel that a worldcat link can establish notability, but the lack of a worldcat link is not prima facie evidence of non-notability.
Please note the radical nature of this proposal: We have in excess of 2 million articles. I propose that most of them should be linked to worldcat. If we achieve a consensus that such links are desirable, I intend to create a project to actually create the links. - Arch dude 04:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
(those are the HTTP links to the non-redirected versions, as the image pages redirect to Wikipedia:Fromowner)
The last discussion got bogged down in wording and colouring discussions, but I think the one point everyone could agree on was that the previous images were hideous and jarring. So for these, I have:
I have not changed the actual image outlines and I have not changed the text (except adding a comma to two of them).
The text issue was that the font was being rendered by MediaWiki's servers as serif, even though the actual image specifies Bitstream Vera Sans. (I don't have Futura here, or I'd have used that. Mind you, Bitstream Vera Sans is Free™.) Making it into just another path makes that not an issue, although it reduces editability. (We can always use a previous version as a base if anyone can ever agree on a wording change.)
Hopefully these look more inviting and less like a spork in the viewer's eye ...
As well as adding hundreds of placeholders, I have been busy on Flickr looking for replacement images and have uploaded quite a lot of them in the past week or so. So I'm trying to help things along in the right direction ;-) - David Gerard 20:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
As for the text itself, for what it's worth, I'm not in favour of one iteration over another at this time. — pd_THOR | =/\= | 14:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Can we please change the hideous wording? If so, please reply here. — Omegatron 02:30, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
How about ones that look like humans, not several cats put in a blender then poured onto the floor -- No Brainer 08:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Dear Wikimedia.
I had an idea yesterday which I wish you to hear and wish to formally donate to you in the spirit of your organisation's values about sharing knowledge around the world.
The idea is of a website on which people can post their good ideas, for free asking nothing in return other than if the idea is picked off the site and developed to do something successful then there is an acknowledgement of the source. If this does not happen then there could be no redress so the ideas are truly donated free to the world.
Entrepreneurs and others struggling to source solutions to problems could pick ideas off the site completely freely. The site content would be arranged in a searchable database, linking issues and problems and solutions and subjects with key words.
I could find nothing similar to this on the web, though I confess I did not spend much time looking, on to the next idea..
Most inventor sites are about how to turn ideas in to products or wealth. It is my view that people with ideas are usually wealthy enough and only wish to ensure good ideas are not lost in their imperfect memories, and usually have too many to develop anyway. Having an impact and bettering the world is all we can hope for in our brief lives so what better way than to publish the idea on the web. And what better company to promulgate this and any further ideas that might flow than yourselves.
Call it Wiki-ideas, Sparkipedia, or something similar.
Kind Regards,
Enjoy,
Mark Williamson MRCGP, MA, MBBS
An editor has requested approval of a bot that is designed to revert the contribution history from an editor en masse. (Presumably to undo the damage caused by vandal-only accounts, vandalbots and socks of banned editors).
Given the very large potential damage from such a bot, I (and I fully expect the other members of the approval group to agree) will not consider approving this request unless broad consensus that such a bot is desirable can be reached. Please comment.
(It is probably preferable to keep that discussion here as opposed to the request page itself to avoid cluttering it. Once the discussion here has reached consensus it will be permalinked into the BRFA for reference). — Coren (talk) 00:05, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your feedback. At this time, the bot request as been denied as redundant. — Coren (talk) 22:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
The most frequently asked of the frequently asked questions is almost certainly 'how do I create a new page?'. This question comes up often enough at the Help Desk and other places (often twice in the same day) that there's even a templated answer to it; this implies to me that there is a usability problem with people trying to create pages. I'm proposing a new project page that could be linked from the sidebar, explaining about the creation of new articles (much like the AFC wizard), but ending in a link to actually create the article, like this one:
Use the box below to enter the title of your new article; this will search for articles with similar titles and content, and if there is no article with that title, and looking through the search results you see no articles about the same thing, you can use the 'create this page' link there to create the article.
(The 'Try title and create article' button is just Go, but it puts up a list of similar page names and a link to create the page on the search results if the page doesn't exist, which is much the desired result.)
I think that this feature would help usability to quite an extent, allowing users who wanted to create articles to more easily find out how to do so, and also educating them on what's important in a new article at the same time and hopefully cutting down on the number of bad new articles in the process. -- ais523 10:30, 29 October 2007 ( U T C)
All Wikipedia users would greatly benefit if upon opening the main page the cursor in the search box would be active (just like when one opens www.google.com) This way typing of the search terms can be started immediately rather than needing to activate the search box by pointing and clicking on it. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.31.52.131 ( talk) 06:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm sure this has probably been discussed before, but how about a consolidation of shortcuts. It just gets confusing sometimes when you see
WP:MADEUP and
WP:NFT used in an Afd (for example anyway). I'm sure it would be even worse for newcommers though, particularly when they find that they both lead to the same policy. Some pages have strange shortcuts that I've never even seen used (granted I haven't been here that long). Template messages in particular is a right little bugger with 6. The first time I saw all the various shortcuts, I was concerned about having to remember hundreds of policies. Now it's just a problem of remembering which shortcut goes to which page.
I understand there would need to be a large discussion as to which to keep and which to lose, but I can't understand why there are so many to begin with.
ARendedWinter 10:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Nevermind. This was a 'me being tired and not thinking straight' idea. Just ignore it! ARendedWinter 11:02, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
With Israel-Palestinian issues, there are many POV-related disputes. The articles are difficult to work on, they don't improve in proportion to the amount of attention they get, conduct accusations are common, and the articles and Talk pages often look like a battleground. I recently made a proposal to ArbCom to launch a modest initiative to monitor some disputed pages. I doubt ArbCom will accept it. Still, more generally, I'm wondering if Village Pump readers might like this idea of an initiative to monitor articles. Specifically, I'd recommend:
Have such mini-projects been attempted before? What problems or advantages would you foresee? Might it have some effect in reducing the POV disputes that cover a range of articles? Who'd like to help out? Thanks for your input. HG | Talk 22:33, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I've written up a (very rough and embryonic) propsal regarding "semi-notability"; any input, comments, throwing of rotten vegetables, and so forth would be very welcome. Kirill 17:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Think maybe Wikipedia could use some new icons? I think maybe we should just standardize around those Tango icons everywhere. They're nice, easy to make, and also I heard there were plans for a WYSIGYG editor? ViperSnake151 13:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I would much rather see the whole thing customizable. I can pick my "skin" in my user preferences, why can't I choose what icons and icon style I want to use for the edit box? The current set, in my opinion, is ugly and generally unintuitive, but I'm sure others like it. Why use a "#R" when an arrow would make more sense? — Jonathan Kovaciny ( talk| contribs) 15:24, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm resurrecting this
essay/proposal. Wikipedia should recognize experts. Experts should get a special userbox on their page. A WikiProject should be formed to accept nominations for new experts and field complaints against established experts. Being an expert editor does not mean one exemplifies the 5 pillars; experts are certainly biased. But, as Wikipedians, we possess a unique openness. If one claims to be unbiased, and then exhibits a bias to a certain other, one can be challenged to defend oneself without the other violating
WP:AGF. Effectively, those
WikiProject:Expert Editors members will be vouching for the contributions of these so-called "experts".
Food for thought: how many folks would apply to become an expert editor? Versus: how many folks would be nominated by their peers and volunteer associates? Probably self-noms should be discouraged, with nominations requiring examples of "expert" edits.
If anybody thinks this is a good idea, or even a potentially good idea, please add your comments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.111.40.194 ( talk) 04:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting an "outside world" hierarchy, but more of a Wikipedia hierarchy. I think each one of you would nominate yourselves to be an "expert editor", if that meant that you were a "professional Wikipedian", and adhered to the faith of the five pillars (while not forgetting WP:AGF, WP:BITE and others). Also, my conception of expert editors are those editors familiar with several Wikipedia processes for handling contentious material and editorial disputes.
I guess another to describe my vision would be to liken expert editor status with FA status. We have stub editors, B-class editors (as I consider myself), GA-editors, and some obvious FA-editors. It would have been in the spirit of Esperanza to nominate a peer for FA-expert status. —Preceding unsigned comments added by 75.111.40.194 ( talk) 23:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
As this is a village pump, I'll ask again if there's enough potential and interest to make this idea grow, and for this discussion to move to the appropriate talk page. 75.111.40.194 23:33, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I've been thinking on creating a symbol for a redirect, once there's a logo for disambiguations. Then I created a graphic representation for #R. If somebody liked it, I would like to make it official. MATHEUS WAHL ▪ 18:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd prefer no more little graphics without good reason. WP has quite enough visual clutter already. When you come up with a graphic, propose to have it adopted officially, but don't know what it would be adopted for, that's a pretty clear sign, I think, that your priorities have got confused. Moreover, if a graphic really were helpful in some way, then I think something like an arrow bent at a right angle or thereabouts would be a lot easier to understand.
There's probably a demand for graphics for some purposes or other. Why not offer your services and then try to respond to actual (or perceived) needs? -- Hoary 06:02, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Lucasfbr, you were talking about
this arrow that appears in &redirect=no
?
MATHEUS WAHL
▪ 15:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
When I saw this, I thought of a caption, as shown on the right. While the logo is kind of fancy, I think an arrow of some sort would be a better choice for the use you're thinking of. — Disavian ( talk/ contribs) 03:28, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
On many important articles, there are one or more sections that branch into related "child" articles, typically using the {{ main}} template. In these sections there is a summary of the child article, usually two or three paragraphs. For example, in the Minnesota article, there are twelve child articles corresponding to various sections (e.g. Geology of Minnesota, History of Minnesota, Climate of Minnesota, etc.). The problem is that the child article and its corresponding summary paragraph in the parent article are not always updated together, so inconsistencies may arise from time to time. Also, people tend to add to the summary instead of the child article, so the summary text grows while the child article does not.
I propose that the summary text be moved from the parent article to the child article and put inside <includeonly> tags, and the whole text of the article itself be put inside <noinclude> tags. Then, in the parent article, instead of having actual text, the parent article will just transclude the child article.
For example, in the Minnesota article, we would change this:
== Geology of Minnesota == {{main|Geology of Minnesota}} Minnesota contains some of the oldest rocks found on earth, ... ... ... (six paragraphs of summary text)
to this:
== Geology of Minnesota == {{:Geology of Minnesota}}
And the Geology of Minnesota article would be changed to this:
<includeonly>Minnesota contains some of the oldest rocks found on earth, ... ... ... (six paragraphs of summary text)</includeonly> <noinclude>(full Geology of Minnesota text)<noinclude>
Thoughts? — Jonathan Kovaciny ([[User talk:Jonathan Kovaciny|talk]]| contribs) 15:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
This looks like an attempt to workaround the lack of mw:Extension:Labeled Section Transclusion. Doing this on articles would be a bad idea for technical reasons at present due to the template limits; I like the idea from a non-technical point of view, though. -- ais523 15:53, 1 November 2007 ( U T C)