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I am making this proposal because I believe the indefinite tenure of administratorship is a long-term threat to the quality of Wikipedia. Before anything else I think I should make clear that I am not arguing for a time limit for administrators. Thus I am not arguing that valuable administrators should simply be forced to renounce their powers after a defined period of time. Rather, I am arguing that there should be an automatic review process for all administrators every so often (every year? every couple of years? something like that).
We should not forget that Wikipedia is still only a few years old, and problems which appear minor today may become major in ten or twenty years. It is often stated that there are a small number of administrators when compared to the number of overall users. Nevertheless, there are risks associated with an increasing number of administrators, regardless of the ratio to users. These risks include: that gangs of likeminded administrators may form and act in a concerted way to achieve counterproductive goals; that the longer administrators hold on to their powers, the longer they have to forget how to be a good Wikipedian, but the more entrenched their "status" may become; that when a certain threshold of poor administrators is reached, it will become virtually impossible, with the processes presently in place, to remove them.
If one day there are several thousand active administrators, which seems eminently possible, it will only take a very small percentage of these to be poor administrators for Wikipedia to have a very large problem. It might be thought that administrators will drop off at more or less the same rate they join Wikipedia, however I do not believe this to be the case. Those who gain administrative status enjoy its rewards, and it does not appear that they drop out of Wikipedia very quickly. There is no reason to doubt that a great many present administrators will continue to be active in ten or more years.
If the rate of drop-out is slow, there is another factor contributing to the growth in the number of administrators. Processes as they currently stand make it far easier to gain the status of administrator than to lose it. It might be objected that gaining the status of administrator can only be the outcome of diligent editorial practice garnering the approval of fellow editors. I must make clear that I am not criticising the process of appointing administrators, nor am I claiming that the appointment process is too easy. But what I am saying is that it is very difficult to strip administrators of their powers. I am, in fact, saying that it is currently too difficult for administrators to lose their powers.
My proposal is thus that after a definite period of time administrators should be obliged to undergo a review process to determine whether they should retain their status as administrators. The process could be quite similar to the RfA process, where retention of administrator status requires a consensus (75% or thereabouts) of support. Such a review process would provide a readily-accessible forum for discussing poor administrative practice. Furthermore, rather than having to initiate a long process with no certainty of outcome, those aggrieved by administrative practice will have a definite place and a definite time-period in which to present their views. Finally, if a review determines that an administrator should retain their status, others would then know that this administrator will retain their powers until it was time for the next review. Administrators who lose their status after a review may be able to initiate a new RfA for themselves, perhaps after a certain period of time has elapsed (a year, say).
There are very few positions of responsibility in the world where it is possible to avoid a review process for years on end. Wikipedians may have a tendency to assume good faith, not only about the behaviour of users, but about the Wikipedia project as a whole. This good faith is well-founded, but it should not substitute for an effective review process. That it is presently such a difficult and protracted process to strip administrators of their powers does not only mean that poor administrators can continue to edit, but that groups of poor administrators who feel justified in their poor practice may arise. When one administrator sees another administrator get away with bad behaviour, there is the potential for a culture of poor administration to develop. Acting against poor administrators will then become progressively more difficult over time.
I suspect that this proposal may encounter resistance from some current administrators, who, having achieved their status for an indefinite period, are reluctant to submit to such a review process. This reluctance would not necessarily stem from a wish to conceal their own administrative record, but could simply be a wish to avoid unpleasurable bureaucratic procedures. As such, this resistance is entirely understandable. I think it is important, however, for current administrators not to think in these personal terms, and I certainly do not believe current administrators need to feel defensive about this proposal. This proposal is definitely not intended as an attack on current administrators, the vast majority of whom behave very responsibly. I have no doubt that the great bulk of good administrators would have no trouble passing any review process. I am therefore hopeful that current administrators will be able simply to reflect on what problems there currently are, and consider the question of how these problems may develop in the coming years, and what can be done about them.
The fact is (or, at least, my opinion is) that some administrators are far superior to others. This may be because the wrong person was chosen to be an administrator in the first place, or because, having achieved the status of administrator, they enjoy the benefits of this status a little too much. It is sometimes said that the powers of Wikipedia administrators are quite small. Nevertheless, it should not be imagined that Wikipedia is immune from the fact that "power corrupts."
There will always be poor administrators on Wikipedia. My reason for making this proposal is not that I imagine it is possible to stamp out the evil-doers. But those who care for the Wikipedia project should nevertheless ask what will decrease the chances that poor administrators will be able to persist for years on end as a negative influence. I believe this is a potentially serious long-term problem for Wikipedia, but I also believe that changes such as the one I am proposing will substantially ameliorate these concerns. FNMF 08:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
perennial proposal -- Kim Bruning 10:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC) Where did that page go, and is this on it already?
Look, I'm talking now as an administrator. First, what about the Voting is evil concept? Then I agree with you about that a review process would be recommended. But - to take my example - in the past few weeks, I haven't been able to participate strongly in the deletion procedures (had a lot of works on the medical topics), so now I'm ineligible to keep the mop and the bucket? NCurse work 11:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Punish the bad, don't make the good jump through hoops. That's like asking a citizen to go before a court every two years and prove they shouldn't be thrown in jail. ^ demon [omg plz] 19:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Ah great. Time for the misnomer to bite us. Of course, the "admin bit" is actually supposed to be more akin to a drivers license. Just like drivers licenses, people with admin bits aren't one hair better or worse than people without one. But people try to keep ascribing magical properties to this admin bit thing. If we could drop that, the role of admins would be much clearer.
The way culture is at the moment though, is that admins are actually locked up in a gilded cage, and people get to randomly poke them with sticks. Most unpleasant. (That's why I'm a big proponent of people being allowed to leave adminship honorably, after a year of having "served their time".)
Of course, if by some event everyone suddenly realizes it's just a "drivers license" (but for wikis), then it would also be clear why "admins" should be allowed to keep the dang thing indefinitely. :-)
-- Kim Bruning 21:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I seriouly don't think that this should work. The high number of admins makes it simply a lot more work to do. If admins are behaving in a bad way, it is not too difficult to un-admin them. So many do such great work and we need more, not less, to work on backlog and vandal blocking. With more admins, it is easier to check up on others. IMHO, the RfA process should be even easier than it is now. Reywas92 Talk 23:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps at some point we'll need to implement a "reconfirmation" system for adminship, but as it stands right now, we have neither the need nor the manpower to do so. ^ demon [omg plz] 00:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm glad your experience turned out well. But as I say, that things work well most of the time is not really the question. You are of course free to suspect that I have interpreted situations within my own experience incorrectly. But I feel I have to point out that I am not making any "accusations" here: I just answered your question. FNMF 01:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Other mechanisms for dealing with these problems should certainly be considered as well. FNMF 01:18, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
A long while ago (many many months ago) I posted an idea to protect the validity of Wikipedia articles which many of you took as a communist like approach to the problem. Looking back on it, I kind of agree.
Anyway, I have a much better idea that will still allow everyone to use Wikipedia just as it is being used now, but will make it become a reliable source. (I know, it sounds too good to be true)
My idea, is that Wikipedia initiates a quality and sound article system. It works similarly to the way quality articles are put up for nomination for the CD version of Wikipedia.
Nominations Anyone can nominate an article as quality and sound. There could be a button or something to that effect as well as an option for the person to put some comments on why they think it has quality and is sound.
Then, a staff or board of some sort that is well qualified (possibly the Wikipedia staff), or even just people who have proven themselves to be people who improve Wikipedia's quality; will judge the article and do any other minor clean up.
Putting an article into place
If they approve, then that version of the article will be saved as the qualified and sound version of the article. But this is not permanent.
Firstly, I suggest Wikipedia adds a new tab between the main tab and the discussion tab that is labeled 'Complete' or something to that effect. This tab allows the user to access the unaffected version of the article that was nominated and judged as a sound article with quality. This version, without going through the process of nomination and judging again, cannot be changed - making that version a reliable source.
Everything else will stay the same, everyone can still edit articles, view them, and access the most recent version as they are now. Though I do also suggest there be an option that allows users to open the 'complete' articles on default, just to make it a little smoother.
Updating the 'complete' version
Information changes over time, and new findings can make old information invalid. Thus, an article that already has a quality and sound version can be renominated when the normal version is edited and updated. If the new version is judged to be better and have more information, the 'complete' version is simply changed to that one. Its as simple as that.
Conclusion
This still allows Wikipedia to be "The Free Encyclopedia" while making it a reliable source for academic citation, reference, and research. I can't imagine it would be very difficult to add this feature into the system, and it would certainly be a worthwhile function. 23:46, 30 March 2007 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.36.84.119 ( talk • contribs)
Right now, a page with no categories except stub categories is automatically tagged by Alaibot (and perhaps other bots as well) for being uncategorized. Based on the point made at this talkpage, I have raised the question of whether this is how things should be done, most recently on the Stub types talkpage.
The mixed responses to this question have tended towards the feeling that yes, a stub category is still not sufficient categorization, largely because when the stub template is removed, the page will have no categories left. So, for example, it's not only an OK but a necessary redundancy for a basketball player stub to have both Category:Basketball biography stubs and Category:Basketball players. (Yeah, I know that such articles are technically organized by team and nationality, etc, but this is for argument's sake.)
Therefore, my proposal is to make this notion "official" by having it stated overtly on all relevant project pages, including Category:Uncategorized (and subcats), Template:Uncategorized, Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting, and its stub types subpage, in addition to any other pages people feel make sense for this. Lenoxus " * " 05:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Have made a set of protection templates now. I think they are the only one needed, and are in line with the protection policy. → Aza Toth 00:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Type | Full | Semi |
---|---|---|
Dispute | {{
pp-dispute}} |
— |
Vandalism | {{
pp-vandalism}} |
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}}
|
High visible templates | {{
pp-template}} |
{{
pp-semi-template}}
|
User talk of blocked user | {{
pp-usertalk}} |
{{
pp-semi-usertalk}}
|
Spambot target | — | {{
pp-semi-spambot}}
|
Generic (other protection) | {{
pp-protected}} |
{{
pp-semi-protected}}
|
Office | {{
pp-office}} |
— |
Move protection | ||
{{
pp-move}}
|
{{
pp-dispute}} |
|
{{
pp-vandalism}} |
|
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}} |
|
{{
pp-template}} |
{{pp-template}} |
{{
pp-semi-template}} |
{{pp-semi-template}} |
{{
pp-usertalk}} |
|
{{
pp-semi-usertalk}} |
|
{{
pp-semi-spambot}} |
|
{{
pp-protected}} |
|
{{
pp-semi-protected}} |
|
{{
pp-move}} |
|
{{
pp-office}} |
{{pp-office|category=none}} |
Protection only matters to editors, though. Shouldn't most of these have icon-only versions? Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 01:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I changed the colors of the protected padlock to skyblue, available padlocks is as follow:
→ Aza Toth 15:35, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
At a glance, here is the color... erm, matrix:
Type | Full | Semi |
---|---|---|
Dispute | {{
pp-dispute}}
|
— |
Vandalism | {{
pp-vandalism}}
|
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}}
|
High visible templates | {{
pp-template}}
|
{{
pp-semi-template}}
|
User talk of blocked user | {{
pp-usertalk}}
|
{{
pp-semi-usertalk}}
|
Spambot target | — | {{
pp-semi-spambot}}
|
Generic (other protection) | {{
pp-protected}}
|
{{
pp-semi-protected}}
|
Move protection | ||
{{
pp-move}}
|
Pretty predictable, no? So we have three flavors: protected, semi-protected, and move-protected. I suggest these respective images: , , , if the currents ones are disliked. By the way, great job converting the images to svg, AzaToth. My only suggestion is to set vertical-align:middle for the table cell in which the image is located. Gracenotes T § 02:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I also have an idea to add this code {{#ifexpr:{{#if:{{{expiry|}}}|1|0}} and {{#time:U|{{expriy|}}}}} > {{#time:U|today}}|[[Cetegory:Protected pages expiry expired|{{PAGENAME}}}} → Aza Toth 16:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I think it's very pretty. The King of Rocking 03:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I have now added {{
pp-office}}
and added the code for the expiry category. Following is a mapping of old templates to the new ones.
From | To | From | To | From | To |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
{{
protected}} |
{{
pp-dispute}}
|
{{
vprotected}} |
{{
pp-vandalism}}
|
{{
P-protected}} |
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}}
|
{{
protected template}} |
{{
pp-template}}
|
data-sort-value="" style="background: #ececec; color: #2C2C2C; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="table-na" | — | {{
pp-semi-template}}
|
{{
usertalk-vprotect}} |
{{
pp-usertalk}}
|
{{
usertalk-sprotect}} |
{{
pp-semi-usertalk}}
|
{{
IPtalkblanking}} |
{{
pp-semi-usertalk}}
|
{{
unblockabuse}} |
{{
pp-usertalk}}
|
{{
sprotected}} |
{{
pp-semi-protected}}
|
data-sort-value="" style="background: #ececec; color: #2C2C2C; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="table-na" | — | {{
pp-protected}}
|
{{
privacy protection}} |
— |
{{
moveprotected}} |
{{
pp-move}}
|
{{
Spambot}} |
{{
pp-semi-spambot}}
|
{{
Uprotected}} |
{{
pp-usertalk}}
|
{{
Tprotected}} |
— | {{
Mprotected}} |
TfD | {{
C-uploaded}} |
TfD |
{{
M-cropped}} |
TfD | {{
protected2}} |
{{
pp-dispute|small=yes}}
|
{{
sprotected2}} |
{{
pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}
|
{{
SprotectedTalk}} |
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}}
|
{{
Sprotect-banneduser}} |
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}}
|
{{
protected image}} |
{{
pp-vandalism}}
|
{{
Protected-blocked}} |
{{
pp-usertalk}}
|
I think we could now move on to replacing the old templates. → Aza Toth 15:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Have updated the template {{
Protection templates}}
, I will not deprecate the old protection templates unless you object to that. →
Aza
Toth 18:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Four complaints have I:
Gracenotes T § 19:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
GregInCanada 02:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I would like to see a page Wikipedia:Pinhead. That way, when someone is being overtly obstinate, and recalcitrant in the face of reason, you can ask them to stop being a pinhead. -Just call me zippy 03:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Referring a person to Wikipedia:Don't Be a(n) X in reference in reference to their present behaviour amounts to saying “You are a(n) X right now.” Given that X is something such as dick or pinhead, this is simply a personal attract thinly disguised as a reference to quasi-policy. The only legitimate use of WP:DICK — on any Wikipedia page — is in contexts where no identifiable editor is being thereby described. Given that Wikipedia:Pinhead is proposed as a way of slapping “someone [who] is being overtly obstinate, and recalcitrant in the face of reason”, I'd say that it should be seen as fruit of a very poisoned tree. — SlamDiego 18:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking for some pages on wikipedia could we have a way to show the Weather for that location using the Governments Weather reports that are free [1] it also provides Warnings & Forecasts stuff about the Air Quality (good to know if you live in CA). the weather information could be automaticly updated every hour or some thing like that, This may need some complex wkik language code, but I would not know Many pages have there location all ready in place making it easy in my mind to enter the information and get the weather for that location, this would be helpful for pages about Air ports or sports stadiums, I was just thinking it would make Wikipedia a little bit larger in the knowlege it holds, this is not very encyclopedia like, but I like to know what others think about this idea (Sorry for the bad spelling a am dyslexic), Max 06:30, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Hey,
I’d like to suggest an idea. I know it may sound a bit “odd” at the first glance, but believe me if implemented properly it’s an entertaining stuff that involves rapid reading, rapid thinking, general knowledge and fast mouse movement. It’s something me and my friends do at home every now and then. Simply put, it’s a word hunting game mainly based on wikipedia interface. I randomly choose two totally different and unrelated words in mind (for instance, Presbyterianism and sonar) and try to jump from the first word (Presbyterianism ) to the target word (sonar) within the shortest period of time, just by clicking only on the shortcuts on the page. With a little bit modification (a chronometer, nickname of other participants or contesters), it'll attract other user’s interest and will also help people improve their general knowledge (both a contest and a source of knowledge on any topic). Users may be given a rest period at the end of each stage to look at what those words actually mean (Transcendental Idealism?? :)))
Well, I hope it will attract your interest.
Thank you
Gunhan Pikdoken, 30, Turkey e-mail removed
Why doesn't Wikipedia have a feature that would allow search suggestions to come up for misspelled words? Almost all search engines have it, so wy doesn't wikipedia? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.101.30.99 ( talk) 11:43, 7 April 2007
Recently the Spanish wikipedia has surpassed the swedish one, so maybe the order of these two should be changed in the logo page Zidane tribal 18:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm in fact talking about http://www.wikipedia.org/, i would apreciate if anyone could tell me the proper place to discuss it Zidane tribal 01:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Is true that it can change even in a couple of weeks but i`ll try anyway. Thanks Zidane tribal 19:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
This proposal relates to the list of Categories at the bottom of articles. Maintenance categories like those attached to maintenance or stub tags tend to be wordy, and because of the position of the tag at the top of the article, these categories show first on the list. This distracts from the actual subject categories which the article is in. Would it be possible to separate these two types of categories, so that the subject categories show up first, followed by a second list of maintenance categories, that non-wikipedians can simply ignore? Thanks. ::Supergolden:: 11:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Lots of admins are bothered by little incidents, bickerings and disputes. A complaining user might cry "mommy" and bother the admins. This happens a lot and it makes Wikipedia suffer because Admins spend their time on solving these little disputes, when they could be spending time on more important tasks. I propose that if any user bothers an admin about a small issue, they should be replied with a template that basically asks them to go through the DR and RfC - the usual method. And if they have done that already, only then they should bother the admin. This will save admins a lot of time. Yes its nice to have admins freely available to talk to but that doesnt mean they should spend their time resolving disputes that should have been resolved themselves by going through DR and RfC. Stop people from bothering admins over little issues and let admins spend their time on more important matters. This is equivalent to having an organization where the top level managers spend a lot of time resolving small cubicle disputes, rather than tend to more important company issues.-- Matt57 16:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
We need like a Userbox discussion page similar to WP:UCFD. - Patricknoddy TALK (reply here)| HISTORY 15:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
To help with referencing articles, perhaps we should construct a list of sources (i.e. books and magazines) that editors have access to. I know some WikiProjects (such as the Alternative music WikiProject - here) do this already, so such a list would link to WikiProject-specific lists. It would help immensely with referencing articles and encourage the use of more written sources. What do you think? CloudNine 17:03, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to request a page be made that is dedicated the the Anthony Wayne Suspension Bridge in Toledo, OH. I'm sure that people would like to know more about it however I am no good at making a page for it. I don't understand HTML and the whole process of making a page. Someone please help me out with this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Caesar2286 ( talk • contribs) 18:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
The shortcut WP:EA currently redirects to the inactive Esperanza main page. I realise that changing a commonly-used and established WP shortcut is likely to be very controversial (which is why I'm posting it here, rather than just doing it), but I think the shortcut should redirect to Wikipedia:Editor assistance. Surely an active project (albeit a very new one) merits a shortcut more than an inactive one does? Wal ton Vivat Regina! 19:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Esperanza was deactivated four months ago and already there are phalanxes of new users who have never heard of it. It does not seem right that a dead organisation should supplant a new and active one. SatyrTN has calculated the links and is happy to use his bot to change all current EA links to Esperanza ones so we can change the redirect. Is that ok with everyone? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
We should remove all of the false new messages links from pages. You know, the ones that go to pages that say "Fooled You!", etc. - Patricknoddy TALK (reply here)| HISTORY 12:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
I think it's time to throw in the towel and admit defeat about allowing anonymous users to edit wiki articles. Far too much valuable time is taken up undoing acts of vandalism done by anon edits, especially with the number of articles growing at such a rate as they do. It's far too easy and tempting, and on rarely trafficked entries the changes can sit for months before being noticed. Every time the subject of an article becomes newsworthy the number of vandals skyrockets until the page gets protected. It's a mystery why this is even a point to be debated: registered users are still more or less anonymous. RoyBatty42 00:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Perpetual proposal. Try a different project? -- Kim Bruning 01:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with RoyBatty42. I would not have started editing Wikipedia if I had not been able to do so without registering for an account. — Armed Blowfish ( talk| mail) 01:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
The appropriate place for this thread is Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals). Durova Charge! 03:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Great idea, but it'll never happen. Even if the community got behind it, the bottom line is that Jimbo doesn't want it. Raymond Arritt 03:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
If no one justifies why this thread is here I will be bold and move it where it belongs. Durova Charge! 05:47, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
People who edit from a static IP are in some ways easier to track than those who hide behind pseudonyms. Editors with throwaway accounts are a lot more "anonymous" than those who make their IP address public. Kusma ( talk) 12:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with the sumitter, I do a little vandle patrol now and again and I just end up checking anon edits. Its a nightmare. Also, much of the vandlism is kids at schools saying x, y, and z is gay. Since we dont want to go around banning school networks, and contact the school in question is too time consuming, if we could just ban user accounts 9 times out of 10 we wouldnt have to consider blocking 200 pupils from wikipedia for six months. Renski 16:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
So in other words, this is just a pointless discussion seeing that the Wiki foundation and Jimbo Wales both oppose it. RoyBatty42 18:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Purely in the interest of statistics, I've gone through recent changes and looked at the 15 IP edits to see if they were vandalism or good faith. My results:
Keep in mind that these are only 15 edits, and they will NOT reflect the whole of IP editing. It would be impractical to do a large scale observation unassisted.
That comes up with 40%-46% vandalism (depending on how you count the talk page edit of a guy saying he's gay) and 60%-54% good faith. Even if we did have the power to stop IP edits, we'd eliminate the petty vandals, but the crafty ones will remain with accounts. Besides, any edit that blanks the page and fills it with "omgloldongs" isn't exactly the end of the world for the encyclopedia, as the great RC people will come along in a second and get rid of it. PTO 20:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I can't recall out of the top of my head but some studies have shown that anonimous editors are significant contributors of valuable content to this project. Plus many editors first start as anons and than convert to registered. Strong oppose to this proposal. Anons should be allowed to edit at will.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 03:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Please consider the causation vs correlation falacy. Just because you see vandalism by usernames that are IPs doesn't mean removing the ability to edit with an IP username will cause vandalism to go away. There's probably a large correlation between redlink usernames and vandalism, but that doesn't mean requiring all edits be made by bluelink usernames will make that set of vandalism go away. It'll just make it harder to identify it. — Quarl ( talk) 2007-03-25 02:09Z
It sounds to me like a number of the above commentors might be interested in joining Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies. We are trying to develop studies to specifically explore the various levels of contributions, vandalism, and reverts by different types of edits. Feel free to stop by and aid us in our attempt to answer these important questions. Remember 21:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm initiating a new personal user award called Wikipedia's triple crown for editors who achieve all of the following:
Two special edition triple crowns are also available: the imperial triple crown jewels for editors who qualify for multiple triple crowns and the valiant return triple crown for editors who satisfy all three triple crown requirements after an arbitration sanction or a lifted siteban. Editors who think they qualify are welcome to petition me at User talk:Durova and I'll keep an honor roll at User:Durova/Triple crown winner's circle. Durova Charge! 01:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I am amazed that today's featured article (as of April 17 2007) - that on the U.S. Marine Corps - has been put in the category "Articles with unsourced statments". Should Wikipedians be less liberal, and declare that articles put in this category should not be allowed to become featured articles? ACEOREVIVED 18:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering if anyone would oppose the creation of an English Wikipedia and an American Wikipedia, only it seems a little unfair and very misleading that the American language has taken over the English Wikipedia. Thanks! Whiskey in the Jar 10:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
British and American spellings can be used interchangeably. Typically we use the spelling the article was started in. -- Kim Bruning 11:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Kim Bruning is right, and plus there is no "American language" it is called "American English". - Patricknoddy TALK (reply here)| HISTORY 11:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I can accept that this may be construed as a single-purpose account, though i do intend to be of some other uses. And I'm not going to run off and change all the American spellings back to the Queen's English - unless I'm given permission - :-P Whiskey in the Jar 12:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
While you're at it, why not a City-of-London-English Wikipedia? — SlamDiego 14:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
All I know is, unless we open an Ancient Aztec wikinews soon, I'm quitting. ^ demon [omg plz] 16:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
I would like to propose a Large print Wikipedia where the font size would be larger than the normal Wikipedia allowing the eldrly and those with poor eye-sight to read Wikipedia with ease. I have made it but it was deleted and requested that I propose it here. Thank You. P2me
We have an awful lot of "in popular culture" sections, and the comprehensiveness of some of these can be controversial. For example, does every cartoon that makes a passing reference to a piece of classic 19th century literature really deserve mention in the article? Perhaps we should develop a Wikibibliography project, similar to Wikiquote. This, probably more importantly, could also provide an NPOV guide to literature on a given subject, like an Open Directory Project for printed books. This isn't a formal proposal yet, just an idea. Thoughts?-- Pharos 18:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Recently, I sent an email to info-en@wikimedia.org of a suggestion to improve Wikipedia. I received the reply and according to the advice, I decided to post my suggstion here.
This is what I have written in my email:
I am STM. I would like to make a suggestion on Wikipedia because I'm quite upset about the fact that I cannot view certain pages. The reason is said to be because of my IP. I read the FAQs on the matter but I would like to make a suggestion to make Wikipedia a better site.
I suggest that Wikipedia articles, although edittable, it has to go through certain members of Wikipedia, preferrably one of the staff. If the article contains no spam, the staff would then allow it to be posted up. This is so that the edits made by the public are properly done and not filled with spam. Then, IP Bans would not be neccessary, because IP Bans would also annoy innocent users who need to research on important things with wikipedia.
I hope you would consider this suggestion and tell me what you think of it. Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.186.8.10 ( talk) 07:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC).
I am proposing a Wikipedia:Replaceable fair use image debates area - a place to move the informal deletion debates about replaceable fair use pictures. Currently, if people object, they create an image talk page, and it goes back and forth until the admin either decides to keep or delete. The remaining debates are either deleted by that said admin or are later getting speedied via G8 (despite the fact that they contain deletion discussion that hasn't been logged elsewhere). The new area will prevent this loss of deletion debates. Hbdragon88 04:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi there. I'm always having to fire up my browser to search Wikipedia. Now, sure it doesn't sound like much effort, but how good would it be to have a small desktop app, maybe one that sits on top of my windows, with a small textbox that i can can just chuck queries in and hit enter to go straight to the relevant article? Has anyone considered creating this? Does anyone know of such software? I've searched SourceForge to no avail. Cheers, Papa.bear 22:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC) 12/4/07
Especially Wikipedia:Tools/Alternative_browsing Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 03:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
A proposal to explcitly limit the use of fair use images in Featured Lists is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Featured list criteria#Fair Use images. Your input would be apreciated. Tompw ( talk) 21:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Appearance and readability could be better if the text was justified to fill the whole lines in the same way as most books. 86.135.212.93 11:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Justified text looks much better. Thanks. 86.135.210.91 23:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I've heard a lot about the Wikipedia:Release Version, and I thought, why not release a CD containing all the featured articles? Or maybe a DVD with all the featured content? It could be released as a stand-alone version, or in a double-disk with the currently proposed release version?
Please respond at Wikipedia talk:Featured articles#Should we publish a compilation of featured articles? — Jack · talk · 18:47, Friday, 16 March 2007
Wikipedia has a lot of comparison pages that are very useful. In most a lot of products, ideas, topics etc are compared on a single page. The proposal is to make each of those pages more interactive. Some of the interactive tools would be:
-- Tmarios 16:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Instead of allowing newly registered users to create horrible new pages that will soon have a CSD tag on it and create backlog and work for admins, why not semi-protect article creation to four day-old users? 10 of the first 12 articles I found needing speedy deletion on Special:Newpages were created by users less than two days old. Making people wait four days before making a new article would greatly lessen creation vandalism. Semi-protecting creating new articles would easily cut CSD backlog by at least two-thirds, and also help reduce new articles from being badly made without markup, etc. by users who have not yet learned the tricks of the trade. AfD listings would also be reduced because users with good intentions may learn some notability guidelines, etc. before submitting an article. I absolutely hate repeatedly adding CSD tags to bad new articles, but unless something is done about it, someone has to. As an added bonus, the article count on the main page can be more realistic without these! Thanks!! Reywas92 Talk 19:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Maybe four days is too long and two or even only one will suffice, but bad article creation has gone on for too long. The (unfortunately) failed policy Z-man suggested seems to have my idea down pretty well, and supporters of it gave some good arguements. I really don't see how we can make them read some advice before creating articles. What I want to stop is for the same reason as the four day rule for other semi-protected pages. We don't want all the crap articles made by some newbies. Rob has it right on the nose here (except the extra commas). If it deters potential authors from joining, that may be something we'll have to sacrifice. Thanks, Reywas92 Talk 20:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
My personal suggestion to prevent CSD backlog is to triple or quadruple the number of admin promotions per week. Kusma ( talk) 20:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I think restricting article creation to non-new accounts is The Way Forward for en.wikipedia and will become necessary at some point. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen any time soon in the current climate. And that's a shame, because the time (and people put a lot of time into NP and CSD patrol) that's currently spent deleting someone's vanispamcruftisement could be put to much better use. – Steel 21:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I am more than positive someone is going to shoot down this idea with an amazing response, but I really think it would be a good idea if users could have their own @wikipedia.org email addresses with their username before the @, so for instance Ryanpostlethwaite@wikipedia.org. I'm saying this because it's far more professional when emailing people outside wikipedia (or internally for that matter) with an organisational name as the email address. This is particularly true with the unblock mailing list, where people probably think they've been blocked by a bunch of amateurs. Maybe after gaining adminship people could gain their own email address? I don't know, but I would prefer to see all users given the chance to have their own Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/ talk 15:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking for some pages on wikipedia could we have a way to show the Weather for that location using the Governments Weather reports that are free [5] it also provides Warnings & Forecasts stuff about the Air Quality (good to know if you live in CA). the weather information could be automaticly updated every hour or some thing like that, This may need some complex wkik language code, but I would not know Many pages have there location all ready in place making it easy in my mind to enter the information and get the weather for that location, this would be helpful for pages about Air ports or sports stadiums, I was just thinking it would make Wikipedia a little bit larger in the knowlege it holds, this is not very encyclopedia like, but I like to know what others think about this idea (Sorry for the bad spelling a am dyslexic), Max 06:30, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Has anyone ever raised this proposal? Why don't we change the move button to rename button as it'd be more familiar for newbies. Some wikis have already done that change. NCurse work 08:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi there. I have been using wikipedia under a user account for quite a while and i was wondering if there are any new skins being developed at the moment? My favourite is Monobook (default) because i find it very easy to use. I was thinking perhaps of a new slightly more colourful skin, as most of the current ones are quite plain? Please bullet point any answers or comments under this. Thanks -- Matthewcl375 12:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
RE: Thanks for that information! Also, do you know how to change the background colour of your page? -- Matthewcl375 16:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
I think we should create a wikielf. All the information about it can be seen at here. Wǐkǐɧérṃǐť (Talk) (Contributions) 20:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
1. Different versions that go much or not into detail.
> categorization (currently 'categories'. this is a mess) keywords (currently 'see also'. 'mind-'map it? timelines?) simplification (first sentence of each article is a try) interpretation.. (too big of a leap)
2. A multimedia scripting language that allows presentation and interaction.
> flash toolkit and conversion (low bandwidth)
sorry thats all (consider it trash). dont tell me this has been said before or is not of interest/value please. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.218.158.120 ( talk) 11:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC).
I have found a lot of different calculators/converters (like one for windchill factors, converters between pressure, temperatur, speed etc.) I would be nice if there was a large collection in one place on the net. I think it would be pretty easy to make it in Wkipedia (wich I love to use). I don't know how to write codes myself, but there has to be some Wiki-fan who knows how to.
Here is a couple of links to some converters that i like to use:
http://danskbjergklub.dk/tools/meteo.html (Danish)
http://danskbjergklub.dk/tools/styrt.html (Danish) —The preceding
unsigned comment was added by
212.242.219.8 (
talk) 10:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC).
I have created a new proposal, hoping to garner support for the declassification of disambiguation pages from article status. Please contribute at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages aren't articles, thanks :) — Jack · talk · 16:50, Sunday, 15 April 2007
Despite being used by a least 13 editors in the last week, and still being part of the official dispute resolution process, Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts has just been "retired", after a discussion on WP:ANI involving just four editors, lasting under 12 hours, and with, apparently, no consultation elsewhere. I'm concerned not only that the page should not have been retired; but mainly that due process was not followed. Andy Mabbett 19:46, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
There should be a system for notifying people of articles that have not been edited for a very long time but are still in need of editing or updating. There are many articles (stubs class or otherwise great need of updating) that have not been edited for years. I'm sure this has been said, but I don't think that such a system exists, or, at least, is comprehensive.-- Dark Green 15:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
What do you think? Nothing starts my day off better than a clever, witty, humorous or cynical quote. Niubrad 18:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
(cross-posted) This seems very simple. Already with page protection, they've managed to make the tag automatically time out after a certain period (e.g. here), after which, I presume, an adminBot comes along, deprotects, and rms the tag. Surely, we can have a one month timeout on current event tags too? I was working on the back log yestday but only got through Z,X,Y and half of W. -- Kendrick7 talk 06:49, 13 April 2007 (UTC) plus, no one would have to feel like a mortician when removing someone from being "recently deceased."
Well, I thought the Protection tags would time out automatically. but looking at this example I can see that's not actually the case. I guess that makes sense since I suppose we don't want a bot running around with admin priviledges if it goes amok. But I still think this idea is good over all. -- Kendrick7 talk 02:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC) of course, I'm more of an idea rat
I think Wikipedia would be helped greatly if there was a way to include template messages that would only be displayed when the article or section was actually being edited. Currently, we put certain messages at the top of the article's Talk page, but this is often missed by editors, especially newbies. Occasionally this problem is worked around by putting notes inside HTML comments so the editor will see them during page editing. What I'd like to see is a special tag such as <editmode></editmode> which could be added anywhere in the page. Nothing inside the EditMode tags would be displayed on the main article page, but it would be displayed above the edit box when the page was edited. — Jonathan Kovaciny ( talk| contribs) 14:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi, is there any way we could stop redirects showing up during searches? Take a look at this search for "bonner" — 90% of the first page are redirects! This may be because up to 50% of the words in each are "Bonner", fooling the software into thinking they're extremely reliavent. — Jack · talk · 21:31, Monday, 16 April 2007
I am amazed that today's featured article (as of April 17 2007) - that on the U.S. Marine Corps - has been put in the category "Articles with unsourced statments". Should Wikipedians be less liberal, and declare that articles put in this category should not be allowed to become featured articles? ACEOREVIVED 18:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Every day, thousands of images are uploaded with incorrect or incomplete licensing information, or that don't meet Wikipedia's image use policy for one reason or another. There are around 10000 images in the various backlogs and at any given time, Category:Non-commercial use only images for speedy deletion has around 50 or so images. On top of all of this, there are over 110 thousand orphaned images and, other than a brief time when a bot was clearing out orphaned non-free images, that number has been steadily increasing.
One of the biggest complaints that I have found when I delete images is that many well-meaning users do not understand our image use policy. I noticed several days ago a page called Wikipedia:Fromowner that makes it very simple for a user to upload an image that he or she created. When they click on the link from Wikipedia:Fromowner, they are taken to a custom upload page [6] with very simple instructions for uploading a file.
I would like to propose that we expand on this concept. We can have as many custom upload pages as we would like. Each page can then give full instructions that are relevant to the user's situation. A page dealing with
I have created a prototype at User:BigDT/upload/Uploadtext. At the bottom is the current upload instruction page we use at Special:Upload. But at the top is a box that invites the user to click on one or more links that will take them to a content-specific form. Each content-specific form gives specific instructions for what the user is trying to upload. The goal here is that a well-meaning user will have instructions geared towards their need, as opposed to being presented with a large number of boxes.
I have no attachment to the particular pages displayed or the exact text on them. If you think there should be a special form for a different content type, that's fine. If you think that having a page for "some website" uploads is to beansy, that's fine too. This is a proof of concept - not something I'm planning on taking live tomorrow.
Please have a look at User:BigDT/upload/Uploadtext and the related pages and give your thoughts on User talk:BigDT/upload. I think that it is important that we do something to stem the tide of ever-increasing image backlogs and helping a novice user understand what kinds of things to upload is an important step.
Thank you. -- BigDT 19:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
At the moment, both premarital sex and pre-marital sex redirect to Fornication.
While fornication is a valid dictionary term, it is a loaded word that is often used in a derogative manner (specifically, to show disapproval or to imply that said act is wrong), and is now avoided in official documents and in education in favor of the premarital sex which is more neutral and more common.
I propose that we reverse the redirect. Sending Fornication to Premarital sex rather than vice versa.
perfectblue 11:45, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
This was prompted by the lack of a clear guideline on how to cite "consensus" in articles, as well as by the appearance of what could be considered "over-referencing" in the Jerusalem article.
See Wikipedia:Citing consensus and please comment. Thank you.-- Pharos 01:58, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I have proposed to add a new rule for speedy deletion, which will cover all user and user talk pages which are devoted exclusively to communicating with other people about topics nothing to do with Wikipedia. It's hard to quantify that, but for something like "Hey Pikeyboy, Where R U? OMG WTF BBQ SOS" (which I tagged for deletion just now), I know it when I see it. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Suggest new criterion for chat pages. YechielMan 23:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
It can often be very useful to know how many pages populate a particular category. For example, Category:Articles with unsourced statements since March 2007 has hundreds, if not thousands of pages. It would be very helpful for it to say how many pages are actually in the category, other than just "There are 200 pages in this section of this category." The same goes for What Links Here pages and the File Links section of an image. No one wants to count all of them or click "Next 200" repeatedly. There must be some way the software can do this, and I am sure that everyone would find a counter helpful. Thanks! Reywas92 Talk 20:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
What a coincidence: the same was just asked at the help desk here!
The status of the WP:FRINGE guideline has been questioned. It has been suggested that an RFC/straw poll could help determine if the guideline has community consensus or not. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories#RFC - Does this guideline have consensus?. Blueboar 12:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
There are nothing like enough yet to have them daily so how about weekly. They could go right under the featured image. Buc 17:04, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
You could have a page that you're simply wanting to see the main namespace non self-referential categories for, with "Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007", "Articles with unsourced statements since March 2007" and "Articles with unsourced statements since April 2007" as well as "All articles with unsourced statements", "Articles lacking sources from March 2007" and "All articles lacking sources" clogging up the category section and making it difficult to read.
Surely the categories "Articles with unsourced statements" and "Articles lacking sources" will do? Why is it relevant to have the month in which someone added the tag? I really don't understand this.- h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 11:38, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
It was created because there is a massive backlog of unsourced articles, as with articles needing cleanup, merging, and other sorts of maintenance. It's a way of seeing at a glance what's been a problem that hasn't been resolved yet, and especially so for articles without sources, because if an article remains unsourced for a long time it may indicate that deletion is in order. I'm not sure what pages are being clogged by this, and the categories are a major help, because there are tens of thousands of unsourced articles and this is a start to prioritizing the backlog (fix the oldest problems first). Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 12:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
If an statement has been tagged for a few days, it is probably reasonable to wait a bit for sources to be added. If a statement has been tagged for a few months, it may be time to remove it altogether. Distinguishing between the two is therefore useful. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I understand why to have the 'since month 2007' part, but why does it also need the 'all articles' part? It seems to me to be quite redundant. I looked through each other and they aren't categories of each other, but it seems rather pointless to have an article included in two categoeries of the smae thing. Reywas92 Talk 19:30, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
What do you think? Nothing starts my day off better than a clever, witty, humorous or cynical quote. Niubrad 18:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
On March 1, {{ Unreferenced}} was changed from
to
based on a discussion on Template talk:Unreferenced, which can be found at Template talk:Unreferenced#Partially unrefererenced. I'm not sure if it was discussed anywhere else (like the Villiage Pump) at the time or not, real life was (and is) keeping me pretty busy. Post change, opposition seems to have appeared (including me). There are other templates (like {{ More sources}}) for articles which are referenced, but are not adequately referenced.
I would like to seek concensus to change it back - it should only be used where there are no references; {{ more sources}} should be used for articles which have at least one reference which is inadequate. Join discussion at Template talk:Unreferenced#Suggestion - earlier change revisited. Thanks. ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) problem solving 20:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, but I want to keep the warning about such material being open to challenge and removal. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 21:02, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't see why this even needs two templates. The second version you showed is good for both cases. — Omegatron 23:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
There should be a system for notifying people of articles that have not been edited for a very long time but are still in need of editing or updating. There are many articles (stubs class or otherwise great need of updating) that have not been edited for years. I'm sure this has been said, but I don't think that such a system exists, or, at least, is comprehensive.-- Dark Green 15:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
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I am making this proposal because I believe the indefinite tenure of administratorship is a long-term threat to the quality of Wikipedia. Before anything else I think I should make clear that I am not arguing for a time limit for administrators. Thus I am not arguing that valuable administrators should simply be forced to renounce their powers after a defined period of time. Rather, I am arguing that there should be an automatic review process for all administrators every so often (every year? every couple of years? something like that).
We should not forget that Wikipedia is still only a few years old, and problems which appear minor today may become major in ten or twenty years. It is often stated that there are a small number of administrators when compared to the number of overall users. Nevertheless, there are risks associated with an increasing number of administrators, regardless of the ratio to users. These risks include: that gangs of likeminded administrators may form and act in a concerted way to achieve counterproductive goals; that the longer administrators hold on to their powers, the longer they have to forget how to be a good Wikipedian, but the more entrenched their "status" may become; that when a certain threshold of poor administrators is reached, it will become virtually impossible, with the processes presently in place, to remove them.
If one day there are several thousand active administrators, which seems eminently possible, it will only take a very small percentage of these to be poor administrators for Wikipedia to have a very large problem. It might be thought that administrators will drop off at more or less the same rate they join Wikipedia, however I do not believe this to be the case. Those who gain administrative status enjoy its rewards, and it does not appear that they drop out of Wikipedia very quickly. There is no reason to doubt that a great many present administrators will continue to be active in ten or more years.
If the rate of drop-out is slow, there is another factor contributing to the growth in the number of administrators. Processes as they currently stand make it far easier to gain the status of administrator than to lose it. It might be objected that gaining the status of administrator can only be the outcome of diligent editorial practice garnering the approval of fellow editors. I must make clear that I am not criticising the process of appointing administrators, nor am I claiming that the appointment process is too easy. But what I am saying is that it is very difficult to strip administrators of their powers. I am, in fact, saying that it is currently too difficult for administrators to lose their powers.
My proposal is thus that after a definite period of time administrators should be obliged to undergo a review process to determine whether they should retain their status as administrators. The process could be quite similar to the RfA process, where retention of administrator status requires a consensus (75% or thereabouts) of support. Such a review process would provide a readily-accessible forum for discussing poor administrative practice. Furthermore, rather than having to initiate a long process with no certainty of outcome, those aggrieved by administrative practice will have a definite place and a definite time-period in which to present their views. Finally, if a review determines that an administrator should retain their status, others would then know that this administrator will retain their powers until it was time for the next review. Administrators who lose their status after a review may be able to initiate a new RfA for themselves, perhaps after a certain period of time has elapsed (a year, say).
There are very few positions of responsibility in the world where it is possible to avoid a review process for years on end. Wikipedians may have a tendency to assume good faith, not only about the behaviour of users, but about the Wikipedia project as a whole. This good faith is well-founded, but it should not substitute for an effective review process. That it is presently such a difficult and protracted process to strip administrators of their powers does not only mean that poor administrators can continue to edit, but that groups of poor administrators who feel justified in their poor practice may arise. When one administrator sees another administrator get away with bad behaviour, there is the potential for a culture of poor administration to develop. Acting against poor administrators will then become progressively more difficult over time.
I suspect that this proposal may encounter resistance from some current administrators, who, having achieved their status for an indefinite period, are reluctant to submit to such a review process. This reluctance would not necessarily stem from a wish to conceal their own administrative record, but could simply be a wish to avoid unpleasurable bureaucratic procedures. As such, this resistance is entirely understandable. I think it is important, however, for current administrators not to think in these personal terms, and I certainly do not believe current administrators need to feel defensive about this proposal. This proposal is definitely not intended as an attack on current administrators, the vast majority of whom behave very responsibly. I have no doubt that the great bulk of good administrators would have no trouble passing any review process. I am therefore hopeful that current administrators will be able simply to reflect on what problems there currently are, and consider the question of how these problems may develop in the coming years, and what can be done about them.
The fact is (or, at least, my opinion is) that some administrators are far superior to others. This may be because the wrong person was chosen to be an administrator in the first place, or because, having achieved the status of administrator, they enjoy the benefits of this status a little too much. It is sometimes said that the powers of Wikipedia administrators are quite small. Nevertheless, it should not be imagined that Wikipedia is immune from the fact that "power corrupts."
There will always be poor administrators on Wikipedia. My reason for making this proposal is not that I imagine it is possible to stamp out the evil-doers. But those who care for the Wikipedia project should nevertheless ask what will decrease the chances that poor administrators will be able to persist for years on end as a negative influence. I believe this is a potentially serious long-term problem for Wikipedia, but I also believe that changes such as the one I am proposing will substantially ameliorate these concerns. FNMF 08:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
perennial proposal -- Kim Bruning 10:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC) Where did that page go, and is this on it already?
Look, I'm talking now as an administrator. First, what about the Voting is evil concept? Then I agree with you about that a review process would be recommended. But - to take my example - in the past few weeks, I haven't been able to participate strongly in the deletion procedures (had a lot of works on the medical topics), so now I'm ineligible to keep the mop and the bucket? NCurse work 11:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Punish the bad, don't make the good jump through hoops. That's like asking a citizen to go before a court every two years and prove they shouldn't be thrown in jail. ^ demon [omg plz] 19:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Ah great. Time for the misnomer to bite us. Of course, the "admin bit" is actually supposed to be more akin to a drivers license. Just like drivers licenses, people with admin bits aren't one hair better or worse than people without one. But people try to keep ascribing magical properties to this admin bit thing. If we could drop that, the role of admins would be much clearer.
The way culture is at the moment though, is that admins are actually locked up in a gilded cage, and people get to randomly poke them with sticks. Most unpleasant. (That's why I'm a big proponent of people being allowed to leave adminship honorably, after a year of having "served their time".)
Of course, if by some event everyone suddenly realizes it's just a "drivers license" (but for wikis), then it would also be clear why "admins" should be allowed to keep the dang thing indefinitely. :-)
-- Kim Bruning 21:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I seriouly don't think that this should work. The high number of admins makes it simply a lot more work to do. If admins are behaving in a bad way, it is not too difficult to un-admin them. So many do such great work and we need more, not less, to work on backlog and vandal blocking. With more admins, it is easier to check up on others. IMHO, the RfA process should be even easier than it is now. Reywas92 Talk 23:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps at some point we'll need to implement a "reconfirmation" system for adminship, but as it stands right now, we have neither the need nor the manpower to do so. ^ demon [omg plz] 00:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm glad your experience turned out well. But as I say, that things work well most of the time is not really the question. You are of course free to suspect that I have interpreted situations within my own experience incorrectly. But I feel I have to point out that I am not making any "accusations" here: I just answered your question. FNMF 01:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Other mechanisms for dealing with these problems should certainly be considered as well. FNMF 01:18, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
A long while ago (many many months ago) I posted an idea to protect the validity of Wikipedia articles which many of you took as a communist like approach to the problem. Looking back on it, I kind of agree.
Anyway, I have a much better idea that will still allow everyone to use Wikipedia just as it is being used now, but will make it become a reliable source. (I know, it sounds too good to be true)
My idea, is that Wikipedia initiates a quality and sound article system. It works similarly to the way quality articles are put up for nomination for the CD version of Wikipedia.
Nominations Anyone can nominate an article as quality and sound. There could be a button or something to that effect as well as an option for the person to put some comments on why they think it has quality and is sound.
Then, a staff or board of some sort that is well qualified (possibly the Wikipedia staff), or even just people who have proven themselves to be people who improve Wikipedia's quality; will judge the article and do any other minor clean up.
Putting an article into place
If they approve, then that version of the article will be saved as the qualified and sound version of the article. But this is not permanent.
Firstly, I suggest Wikipedia adds a new tab between the main tab and the discussion tab that is labeled 'Complete' or something to that effect. This tab allows the user to access the unaffected version of the article that was nominated and judged as a sound article with quality. This version, without going through the process of nomination and judging again, cannot be changed - making that version a reliable source.
Everything else will stay the same, everyone can still edit articles, view them, and access the most recent version as they are now. Though I do also suggest there be an option that allows users to open the 'complete' articles on default, just to make it a little smoother.
Updating the 'complete' version
Information changes over time, and new findings can make old information invalid. Thus, an article that already has a quality and sound version can be renominated when the normal version is edited and updated. If the new version is judged to be better and have more information, the 'complete' version is simply changed to that one. Its as simple as that.
Conclusion
This still allows Wikipedia to be "The Free Encyclopedia" while making it a reliable source for academic citation, reference, and research. I can't imagine it would be very difficult to add this feature into the system, and it would certainly be a worthwhile function. 23:46, 30 March 2007 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.36.84.119 ( talk • contribs)
Right now, a page with no categories except stub categories is automatically tagged by Alaibot (and perhaps other bots as well) for being uncategorized. Based on the point made at this talkpage, I have raised the question of whether this is how things should be done, most recently on the Stub types talkpage.
The mixed responses to this question have tended towards the feeling that yes, a stub category is still not sufficient categorization, largely because when the stub template is removed, the page will have no categories left. So, for example, it's not only an OK but a necessary redundancy for a basketball player stub to have both Category:Basketball biography stubs and Category:Basketball players. (Yeah, I know that such articles are technically organized by team and nationality, etc, but this is for argument's sake.)
Therefore, my proposal is to make this notion "official" by having it stated overtly on all relevant project pages, including Category:Uncategorized (and subcats), Template:Uncategorized, Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting, and its stub types subpage, in addition to any other pages people feel make sense for this. Lenoxus " * " 05:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Have made a set of protection templates now. I think they are the only one needed, and are in line with the protection policy. → Aza Toth 00:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Type | Full | Semi |
---|---|---|
Dispute | {{
pp-dispute}} |
— |
Vandalism | {{
pp-vandalism}} |
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}}
|
High visible templates | {{
pp-template}} |
{{
pp-semi-template}}
|
User talk of blocked user | {{
pp-usertalk}} |
{{
pp-semi-usertalk}}
|
Spambot target | — | {{
pp-semi-spambot}}
|
Generic (other protection) | {{
pp-protected}} |
{{
pp-semi-protected}}
|
Office | {{
pp-office}} |
— |
Move protection | ||
{{
pp-move}}
|
{{
pp-dispute}} |
|
{{
pp-vandalism}} |
|
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}} |
|
{{
pp-template}} |
{{pp-template}} |
{{
pp-semi-template}} |
{{pp-semi-template}} |
{{
pp-usertalk}} |
|
{{
pp-semi-usertalk}} |
|
{{
pp-semi-spambot}} |
|
{{
pp-protected}} |
|
{{
pp-semi-protected}} |
|
{{
pp-move}} |
|
{{
pp-office}} |
{{pp-office|category=none}} |
Protection only matters to editors, though. Shouldn't most of these have icon-only versions? Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 01:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I changed the colors of the protected padlock to skyblue, available padlocks is as follow:
→ Aza Toth 15:35, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
At a glance, here is the color... erm, matrix:
Type | Full | Semi |
---|---|---|
Dispute | {{
pp-dispute}}
|
— |
Vandalism | {{
pp-vandalism}}
|
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}}
|
High visible templates | {{
pp-template}}
|
{{
pp-semi-template}}
|
User talk of blocked user | {{
pp-usertalk}}
|
{{
pp-semi-usertalk}}
|
Spambot target | — | {{
pp-semi-spambot}}
|
Generic (other protection) | {{
pp-protected}}
|
{{
pp-semi-protected}}
|
Move protection | ||
{{
pp-move}}
|
Pretty predictable, no? So we have three flavors: protected, semi-protected, and move-protected. I suggest these respective images: , , , if the currents ones are disliked. By the way, great job converting the images to svg, AzaToth. My only suggestion is to set vertical-align:middle for the table cell in which the image is located. Gracenotes T § 02:08, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I also have an idea to add this code {{#ifexpr:{{#if:{{{expiry|}}}|1|0}} and {{#time:U|{{expriy|}}}}} > {{#time:U|today}}|[[Cetegory:Protected pages expiry expired|{{PAGENAME}}}} → Aza Toth 16:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I think it's very pretty. The King of Rocking 03:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I have now added {{
pp-office}}
and added the code for the expiry category. Following is a mapping of old templates to the new ones.
From | To | From | To | From | To |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
{{
protected}} |
{{
pp-dispute}}
|
{{
vprotected}} |
{{
pp-vandalism}}
|
{{
P-protected}} |
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}}
|
{{
protected template}} |
{{
pp-template}}
|
data-sort-value="" style="background: #ececec; color: #2C2C2C; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="table-na" | — | {{
pp-semi-template}}
|
{{
usertalk-vprotect}} |
{{
pp-usertalk}}
|
{{
usertalk-sprotect}} |
{{
pp-semi-usertalk}}
|
{{
IPtalkblanking}} |
{{
pp-semi-usertalk}}
|
{{
unblockabuse}} |
{{
pp-usertalk}}
|
{{
sprotected}} |
{{
pp-semi-protected}}
|
data-sort-value="" style="background: #ececec; color: #2C2C2C; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; " class="table-na" | — | {{
pp-protected}}
|
{{
privacy protection}} |
— |
{{
moveprotected}} |
{{
pp-move}}
|
{{
Spambot}} |
{{
pp-semi-spambot}}
|
{{
Uprotected}} |
{{
pp-usertalk}}
|
{{
Tprotected}} |
— | {{
Mprotected}} |
TfD | {{
C-uploaded}} |
TfD |
{{
M-cropped}} |
TfD | {{
protected2}} |
{{
pp-dispute|small=yes}}
|
{{
sprotected2}} |
{{
pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}
|
{{
SprotectedTalk}} |
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}}
|
{{
Sprotect-banneduser}} |
{{
pp-semi-vandalism}}
|
{{
protected image}} |
{{
pp-vandalism}}
|
{{
Protected-blocked}} |
{{
pp-usertalk}}
|
I think we could now move on to replacing the old templates. → Aza Toth 15:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Have updated the template {{
Protection templates}}
, I will not deprecate the old protection templates unless you object to that. →
Aza
Toth 18:48, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Four complaints have I:
Gracenotes T § 19:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
GregInCanada 02:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I would like to see a page Wikipedia:Pinhead. That way, when someone is being overtly obstinate, and recalcitrant in the face of reason, you can ask them to stop being a pinhead. -Just call me zippy 03:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Referring a person to Wikipedia:Don't Be a(n) X in reference in reference to their present behaviour amounts to saying “You are a(n) X right now.” Given that X is something such as dick or pinhead, this is simply a personal attract thinly disguised as a reference to quasi-policy. The only legitimate use of WP:DICK — on any Wikipedia page — is in contexts where no identifiable editor is being thereby described. Given that Wikipedia:Pinhead is proposed as a way of slapping “someone [who] is being overtly obstinate, and recalcitrant in the face of reason”, I'd say that it should be seen as fruit of a very poisoned tree. — SlamDiego 18:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking for some pages on wikipedia could we have a way to show the Weather for that location using the Governments Weather reports that are free [1] it also provides Warnings & Forecasts stuff about the Air Quality (good to know if you live in CA). the weather information could be automaticly updated every hour or some thing like that, This may need some complex wkik language code, but I would not know Many pages have there location all ready in place making it easy in my mind to enter the information and get the weather for that location, this would be helpful for pages about Air ports or sports stadiums, I was just thinking it would make Wikipedia a little bit larger in the knowlege it holds, this is not very encyclopedia like, but I like to know what others think about this idea (Sorry for the bad spelling a am dyslexic), Max 06:30, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Hey,
I’d like to suggest an idea. I know it may sound a bit “odd” at the first glance, but believe me if implemented properly it’s an entertaining stuff that involves rapid reading, rapid thinking, general knowledge and fast mouse movement. It’s something me and my friends do at home every now and then. Simply put, it’s a word hunting game mainly based on wikipedia interface. I randomly choose two totally different and unrelated words in mind (for instance, Presbyterianism and sonar) and try to jump from the first word (Presbyterianism ) to the target word (sonar) within the shortest period of time, just by clicking only on the shortcuts on the page. With a little bit modification (a chronometer, nickname of other participants or contesters), it'll attract other user’s interest and will also help people improve their general knowledge (both a contest and a source of knowledge on any topic). Users may be given a rest period at the end of each stage to look at what those words actually mean (Transcendental Idealism?? :)))
Well, I hope it will attract your interest.
Thank you
Gunhan Pikdoken, 30, Turkey e-mail removed
Why doesn't Wikipedia have a feature that would allow search suggestions to come up for misspelled words? Almost all search engines have it, so wy doesn't wikipedia? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.101.30.99 ( talk) 11:43, 7 April 2007
Recently the Spanish wikipedia has surpassed the swedish one, so maybe the order of these two should be changed in the logo page Zidane tribal 18:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm in fact talking about http://www.wikipedia.org/, i would apreciate if anyone could tell me the proper place to discuss it Zidane tribal 01:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Is true that it can change even in a couple of weeks but i`ll try anyway. Thanks Zidane tribal 19:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
This proposal relates to the list of Categories at the bottom of articles. Maintenance categories like those attached to maintenance or stub tags tend to be wordy, and because of the position of the tag at the top of the article, these categories show first on the list. This distracts from the actual subject categories which the article is in. Would it be possible to separate these two types of categories, so that the subject categories show up first, followed by a second list of maintenance categories, that non-wikipedians can simply ignore? Thanks. ::Supergolden:: 11:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Lots of admins are bothered by little incidents, bickerings and disputes. A complaining user might cry "mommy" and bother the admins. This happens a lot and it makes Wikipedia suffer because Admins spend their time on solving these little disputes, when they could be spending time on more important tasks. I propose that if any user bothers an admin about a small issue, they should be replied with a template that basically asks them to go through the DR and RfC - the usual method. And if they have done that already, only then they should bother the admin. This will save admins a lot of time. Yes its nice to have admins freely available to talk to but that doesnt mean they should spend their time resolving disputes that should have been resolved themselves by going through DR and RfC. Stop people from bothering admins over little issues and let admins spend their time on more important matters. This is equivalent to having an organization where the top level managers spend a lot of time resolving small cubicle disputes, rather than tend to more important company issues.-- Matt57 16:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
We need like a Userbox discussion page similar to WP:UCFD. - Patricknoddy TALK (reply here)| HISTORY 15:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
To help with referencing articles, perhaps we should construct a list of sources (i.e. books and magazines) that editors have access to. I know some WikiProjects (such as the Alternative music WikiProject - here) do this already, so such a list would link to WikiProject-specific lists. It would help immensely with referencing articles and encourage the use of more written sources. What do you think? CloudNine 17:03, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to request a page be made that is dedicated the the Anthony Wayne Suspension Bridge in Toledo, OH. I'm sure that people would like to know more about it however I am no good at making a page for it. I don't understand HTML and the whole process of making a page. Someone please help me out with this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Caesar2286 ( talk • contribs) 18:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
The shortcut WP:EA currently redirects to the inactive Esperanza main page. I realise that changing a commonly-used and established WP shortcut is likely to be very controversial (which is why I'm posting it here, rather than just doing it), but I think the shortcut should redirect to Wikipedia:Editor assistance. Surely an active project (albeit a very new one) merits a shortcut more than an inactive one does? Wal ton Vivat Regina! 19:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Esperanza was deactivated four months ago and already there are phalanxes of new users who have never heard of it. It does not seem right that a dead organisation should supplant a new and active one. SatyrTN has calculated the links and is happy to use his bot to change all current EA links to Esperanza ones so we can change the redirect. Is that ok with everyone? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
We should remove all of the false new messages links from pages. You know, the ones that go to pages that say "Fooled You!", etc. - Patricknoddy TALK (reply here)| HISTORY 12:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
I think it's time to throw in the towel and admit defeat about allowing anonymous users to edit wiki articles. Far too much valuable time is taken up undoing acts of vandalism done by anon edits, especially with the number of articles growing at such a rate as they do. It's far too easy and tempting, and on rarely trafficked entries the changes can sit for months before being noticed. Every time the subject of an article becomes newsworthy the number of vandals skyrockets until the page gets protected. It's a mystery why this is even a point to be debated: registered users are still more or less anonymous. RoyBatty42 00:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Perpetual proposal. Try a different project? -- Kim Bruning 01:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with RoyBatty42. I would not have started editing Wikipedia if I had not been able to do so without registering for an account. — Armed Blowfish ( talk| mail) 01:37, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
The appropriate place for this thread is Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals). Durova Charge! 03:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Great idea, but it'll never happen. Even if the community got behind it, the bottom line is that Jimbo doesn't want it. Raymond Arritt 03:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
If no one justifies why this thread is here I will be bold and move it where it belongs. Durova Charge! 05:47, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
People who edit from a static IP are in some ways easier to track than those who hide behind pseudonyms. Editors with throwaway accounts are a lot more "anonymous" than those who make their IP address public. Kusma ( talk) 12:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with the sumitter, I do a little vandle patrol now and again and I just end up checking anon edits. Its a nightmare. Also, much of the vandlism is kids at schools saying x, y, and z is gay. Since we dont want to go around banning school networks, and contact the school in question is too time consuming, if we could just ban user accounts 9 times out of 10 we wouldnt have to consider blocking 200 pupils from wikipedia for six months. Renski 16:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
So in other words, this is just a pointless discussion seeing that the Wiki foundation and Jimbo Wales both oppose it. RoyBatty42 18:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Purely in the interest of statistics, I've gone through recent changes and looked at the 15 IP edits to see if they were vandalism or good faith. My results:
Keep in mind that these are only 15 edits, and they will NOT reflect the whole of IP editing. It would be impractical to do a large scale observation unassisted.
That comes up with 40%-46% vandalism (depending on how you count the talk page edit of a guy saying he's gay) and 60%-54% good faith. Even if we did have the power to stop IP edits, we'd eliminate the petty vandals, but the crafty ones will remain with accounts. Besides, any edit that blanks the page and fills it with "omgloldongs" isn't exactly the end of the world for the encyclopedia, as the great RC people will come along in a second and get rid of it. PTO 20:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I can't recall out of the top of my head but some studies have shown that anonimous editors are significant contributors of valuable content to this project. Plus many editors first start as anons and than convert to registered. Strong oppose to this proposal. Anons should be allowed to edit at will.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 03:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Please consider the causation vs correlation falacy. Just because you see vandalism by usernames that are IPs doesn't mean removing the ability to edit with an IP username will cause vandalism to go away. There's probably a large correlation between redlink usernames and vandalism, but that doesn't mean requiring all edits be made by bluelink usernames will make that set of vandalism go away. It'll just make it harder to identify it. — Quarl ( talk) 2007-03-25 02:09Z
It sounds to me like a number of the above commentors might be interested in joining Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies. We are trying to develop studies to specifically explore the various levels of contributions, vandalism, and reverts by different types of edits. Feel free to stop by and aid us in our attempt to answer these important questions. Remember 21:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm initiating a new personal user award called Wikipedia's triple crown for editors who achieve all of the following:
Two special edition triple crowns are also available: the imperial triple crown jewels for editors who qualify for multiple triple crowns and the valiant return triple crown for editors who satisfy all three triple crown requirements after an arbitration sanction or a lifted siteban. Editors who think they qualify are welcome to petition me at User talk:Durova and I'll keep an honor roll at User:Durova/Triple crown winner's circle. Durova Charge! 01:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I am amazed that today's featured article (as of April 17 2007) - that on the U.S. Marine Corps - has been put in the category "Articles with unsourced statments". Should Wikipedians be less liberal, and declare that articles put in this category should not be allowed to become featured articles? ACEOREVIVED 18:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering if anyone would oppose the creation of an English Wikipedia and an American Wikipedia, only it seems a little unfair and very misleading that the American language has taken over the English Wikipedia. Thanks! Whiskey in the Jar 10:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
British and American spellings can be used interchangeably. Typically we use the spelling the article was started in. -- Kim Bruning 11:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Kim Bruning is right, and plus there is no "American language" it is called "American English". - Patricknoddy TALK (reply here)| HISTORY 11:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I can accept that this may be construed as a single-purpose account, though i do intend to be of some other uses. And I'm not going to run off and change all the American spellings back to the Queen's English - unless I'm given permission - :-P Whiskey in the Jar 12:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
While you're at it, why not a City-of-London-English Wikipedia? — SlamDiego 14:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
All I know is, unless we open an Ancient Aztec wikinews soon, I'm quitting. ^ demon [omg plz] 16:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
I would like to propose a Large print Wikipedia where the font size would be larger than the normal Wikipedia allowing the eldrly and those with poor eye-sight to read Wikipedia with ease. I have made it but it was deleted and requested that I propose it here. Thank You. P2me
We have an awful lot of "in popular culture" sections, and the comprehensiveness of some of these can be controversial. For example, does every cartoon that makes a passing reference to a piece of classic 19th century literature really deserve mention in the article? Perhaps we should develop a Wikibibliography project, similar to Wikiquote. This, probably more importantly, could also provide an NPOV guide to literature on a given subject, like an Open Directory Project for printed books. This isn't a formal proposal yet, just an idea. Thoughts?-- Pharos 18:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Recently, I sent an email to info-en@wikimedia.org of a suggestion to improve Wikipedia. I received the reply and according to the advice, I decided to post my suggstion here.
This is what I have written in my email:
I am STM. I would like to make a suggestion on Wikipedia because I'm quite upset about the fact that I cannot view certain pages. The reason is said to be because of my IP. I read the FAQs on the matter but I would like to make a suggestion to make Wikipedia a better site.
I suggest that Wikipedia articles, although edittable, it has to go through certain members of Wikipedia, preferrably one of the staff. If the article contains no spam, the staff would then allow it to be posted up. This is so that the edits made by the public are properly done and not filled with spam. Then, IP Bans would not be neccessary, because IP Bans would also annoy innocent users who need to research on important things with wikipedia.
I hope you would consider this suggestion and tell me what you think of it. Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.186.8.10 ( talk) 07:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC).
I am proposing a Wikipedia:Replaceable fair use image debates area - a place to move the informal deletion debates about replaceable fair use pictures. Currently, if people object, they create an image talk page, and it goes back and forth until the admin either decides to keep or delete. The remaining debates are either deleted by that said admin or are later getting speedied via G8 (despite the fact that they contain deletion discussion that hasn't been logged elsewhere). The new area will prevent this loss of deletion debates. Hbdragon88 04:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi there. I'm always having to fire up my browser to search Wikipedia. Now, sure it doesn't sound like much effort, but how good would it be to have a small desktop app, maybe one that sits on top of my windows, with a small textbox that i can can just chuck queries in and hit enter to go straight to the relevant article? Has anyone considered creating this? Does anyone know of such software? I've searched SourceForge to no avail. Cheers, Papa.bear 22:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC) 12/4/07
Especially Wikipedia:Tools/Alternative_browsing Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 03:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
A proposal to explcitly limit the use of fair use images in Featured Lists is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Featured list criteria#Fair Use images. Your input would be apreciated. Tompw ( talk) 21:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Appearance and readability could be better if the text was justified to fill the whole lines in the same way as most books. 86.135.212.93 11:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Justified text looks much better. Thanks. 86.135.210.91 23:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
I've heard a lot about the Wikipedia:Release Version, and I thought, why not release a CD containing all the featured articles? Or maybe a DVD with all the featured content? It could be released as a stand-alone version, or in a double-disk with the currently proposed release version?
Please respond at Wikipedia talk:Featured articles#Should we publish a compilation of featured articles? — Jack · talk · 18:47, Friday, 16 March 2007
Wikipedia has a lot of comparison pages that are very useful. In most a lot of products, ideas, topics etc are compared on a single page. The proposal is to make each of those pages more interactive. Some of the interactive tools would be:
-- Tmarios 16:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Instead of allowing newly registered users to create horrible new pages that will soon have a CSD tag on it and create backlog and work for admins, why not semi-protect article creation to four day-old users? 10 of the first 12 articles I found needing speedy deletion on Special:Newpages were created by users less than two days old. Making people wait four days before making a new article would greatly lessen creation vandalism. Semi-protecting creating new articles would easily cut CSD backlog by at least two-thirds, and also help reduce new articles from being badly made without markup, etc. by users who have not yet learned the tricks of the trade. AfD listings would also be reduced because users with good intentions may learn some notability guidelines, etc. before submitting an article. I absolutely hate repeatedly adding CSD tags to bad new articles, but unless something is done about it, someone has to. As an added bonus, the article count on the main page can be more realistic without these! Thanks!! Reywas92 Talk 19:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Maybe four days is too long and two or even only one will suffice, but bad article creation has gone on for too long. The (unfortunately) failed policy Z-man suggested seems to have my idea down pretty well, and supporters of it gave some good arguements. I really don't see how we can make them read some advice before creating articles. What I want to stop is for the same reason as the four day rule for other semi-protected pages. We don't want all the crap articles made by some newbies. Rob has it right on the nose here (except the extra commas). If it deters potential authors from joining, that may be something we'll have to sacrifice. Thanks, Reywas92 Talk 20:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
My personal suggestion to prevent CSD backlog is to triple or quadruple the number of admin promotions per week. Kusma ( talk) 20:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I think restricting article creation to non-new accounts is The Way Forward for en.wikipedia and will become necessary at some point. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen any time soon in the current climate. And that's a shame, because the time (and people put a lot of time into NP and CSD patrol) that's currently spent deleting someone's vanispamcruftisement could be put to much better use. – Steel 21:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I am more than positive someone is going to shoot down this idea with an amazing response, but I really think it would be a good idea if users could have their own @wikipedia.org email addresses with their username before the @, so for instance Ryanpostlethwaite@wikipedia.org. I'm saying this because it's far more professional when emailing people outside wikipedia (or internally for that matter) with an organisational name as the email address. This is particularly true with the unblock mailing list, where people probably think they've been blocked by a bunch of amateurs. Maybe after gaining adminship people could gain their own email address? I don't know, but I would prefer to see all users given the chance to have their own Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/ talk 15:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I was thinking for some pages on wikipedia could we have a way to show the Weather for that location using the Governments Weather reports that are free [5] it also provides Warnings & Forecasts stuff about the Air Quality (good to know if you live in CA). the weather information could be automaticly updated every hour or some thing like that, This may need some complex wkik language code, but I would not know Many pages have there location all ready in place making it easy in my mind to enter the information and get the weather for that location, this would be helpful for pages about Air ports or sports stadiums, I was just thinking it would make Wikipedia a little bit larger in the knowlege it holds, this is not very encyclopedia like, but I like to know what others think about this idea (Sorry for the bad spelling a am dyslexic), Max 06:30, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Has anyone ever raised this proposal? Why don't we change the move button to rename button as it'd be more familiar for newbies. Some wikis have already done that change. NCurse work 08:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi there. I have been using wikipedia under a user account for quite a while and i was wondering if there are any new skins being developed at the moment? My favourite is Monobook (default) because i find it very easy to use. I was thinking perhaps of a new slightly more colourful skin, as most of the current ones are quite plain? Please bullet point any answers or comments under this. Thanks -- Matthewcl375 12:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
RE: Thanks for that information! Also, do you know how to change the background colour of your page? -- Matthewcl375 16:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
I think we should create a wikielf. All the information about it can be seen at here. Wǐkǐɧérṃǐť (Talk) (Contributions) 20:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
1. Different versions that go much or not into detail.
> categorization (currently 'categories'. this is a mess) keywords (currently 'see also'. 'mind-'map it? timelines?) simplification (first sentence of each article is a try) interpretation.. (too big of a leap)
2. A multimedia scripting language that allows presentation and interaction.
> flash toolkit and conversion (low bandwidth)
sorry thats all (consider it trash). dont tell me this has been said before or is not of interest/value please. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.218.158.120 ( talk) 11:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC).
I have found a lot of different calculators/converters (like one for windchill factors, converters between pressure, temperatur, speed etc.) I would be nice if there was a large collection in one place on the net. I think it would be pretty easy to make it in Wkipedia (wich I love to use). I don't know how to write codes myself, but there has to be some Wiki-fan who knows how to.
Here is a couple of links to some converters that i like to use:
http://danskbjergklub.dk/tools/meteo.html (Danish)
http://danskbjergklub.dk/tools/styrt.html (Danish) —The preceding
unsigned comment was added by
212.242.219.8 (
talk) 10:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC).
I have created a new proposal, hoping to garner support for the declassification of disambiguation pages from article status. Please contribute at Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages aren't articles, thanks :) — Jack · talk · 16:50, Sunday, 15 April 2007
Despite being used by a least 13 editors in the last week, and still being part of the official dispute resolution process, Wikipedia:Wikiquette alerts has just been "retired", after a discussion on WP:ANI involving just four editors, lasting under 12 hours, and with, apparently, no consultation elsewhere. I'm concerned not only that the page should not have been retired; but mainly that due process was not followed. Andy Mabbett 19:46, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
There should be a system for notifying people of articles that have not been edited for a very long time but are still in need of editing or updating. There are many articles (stubs class or otherwise great need of updating) that have not been edited for years. I'm sure this has been said, but I don't think that such a system exists, or, at least, is comprehensive.-- Dark Green 15:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
What do you think? Nothing starts my day off better than a clever, witty, humorous or cynical quote. Niubrad 18:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
(cross-posted) This seems very simple. Already with page protection, they've managed to make the tag automatically time out after a certain period (e.g. here), after which, I presume, an adminBot comes along, deprotects, and rms the tag. Surely, we can have a one month timeout on current event tags too? I was working on the back log yestday but only got through Z,X,Y and half of W. -- Kendrick7 talk 06:49, 13 April 2007 (UTC) plus, no one would have to feel like a mortician when removing someone from being "recently deceased."
Well, I thought the Protection tags would time out automatically. but looking at this example I can see that's not actually the case. I guess that makes sense since I suppose we don't want a bot running around with admin priviledges if it goes amok. But I still think this idea is good over all. -- Kendrick7 talk 02:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC) of course, I'm more of an idea rat
I think Wikipedia would be helped greatly if there was a way to include template messages that would only be displayed when the article or section was actually being edited. Currently, we put certain messages at the top of the article's Talk page, but this is often missed by editors, especially newbies. Occasionally this problem is worked around by putting notes inside HTML comments so the editor will see them during page editing. What I'd like to see is a special tag such as <editmode></editmode> which could be added anywhere in the page. Nothing inside the EditMode tags would be displayed on the main article page, but it would be displayed above the edit box when the page was edited. — Jonathan Kovaciny ( talk| contribs) 14:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi, is there any way we could stop redirects showing up during searches? Take a look at this search for "bonner" — 90% of the first page are redirects! This may be because up to 50% of the words in each are "Bonner", fooling the software into thinking they're extremely reliavent. — Jack · talk · 21:31, Monday, 16 April 2007
I am amazed that today's featured article (as of April 17 2007) - that on the U.S. Marine Corps - has been put in the category "Articles with unsourced statments". Should Wikipedians be less liberal, and declare that articles put in this category should not be allowed to become featured articles? ACEOREVIVED 18:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Every day, thousands of images are uploaded with incorrect or incomplete licensing information, or that don't meet Wikipedia's image use policy for one reason or another. There are around 10000 images in the various backlogs and at any given time, Category:Non-commercial use only images for speedy deletion has around 50 or so images. On top of all of this, there are over 110 thousand orphaned images and, other than a brief time when a bot was clearing out orphaned non-free images, that number has been steadily increasing.
One of the biggest complaints that I have found when I delete images is that many well-meaning users do not understand our image use policy. I noticed several days ago a page called Wikipedia:Fromowner that makes it very simple for a user to upload an image that he or she created. When they click on the link from Wikipedia:Fromowner, they are taken to a custom upload page [6] with very simple instructions for uploading a file.
I would like to propose that we expand on this concept. We can have as many custom upload pages as we would like. Each page can then give full instructions that are relevant to the user's situation. A page dealing with
I have created a prototype at User:BigDT/upload/Uploadtext. At the bottom is the current upload instruction page we use at Special:Upload. But at the top is a box that invites the user to click on one or more links that will take them to a content-specific form. Each content-specific form gives specific instructions for what the user is trying to upload. The goal here is that a well-meaning user will have instructions geared towards their need, as opposed to being presented with a large number of boxes.
I have no attachment to the particular pages displayed or the exact text on them. If you think there should be a special form for a different content type, that's fine. If you think that having a page for "some website" uploads is to beansy, that's fine too. This is a proof of concept - not something I'm planning on taking live tomorrow.
Please have a look at User:BigDT/upload/Uploadtext and the related pages and give your thoughts on User talk:BigDT/upload. I think that it is important that we do something to stem the tide of ever-increasing image backlogs and helping a novice user understand what kinds of things to upload is an important step.
Thank you. -- BigDT 19:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
At the moment, both premarital sex and pre-marital sex redirect to Fornication.
While fornication is a valid dictionary term, it is a loaded word that is often used in a derogative manner (specifically, to show disapproval or to imply that said act is wrong), and is now avoided in official documents and in education in favor of the premarital sex which is more neutral and more common.
I propose that we reverse the redirect. Sending Fornication to Premarital sex rather than vice versa.
perfectblue 11:45, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
This was prompted by the lack of a clear guideline on how to cite "consensus" in articles, as well as by the appearance of what could be considered "over-referencing" in the Jerusalem article.
See Wikipedia:Citing consensus and please comment. Thank you.-- Pharos 01:58, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I have proposed to add a new rule for speedy deletion, which will cover all user and user talk pages which are devoted exclusively to communicating with other people about topics nothing to do with Wikipedia. It's hard to quantify that, but for something like "Hey Pikeyboy, Where R U? OMG WTF BBQ SOS" (which I tagged for deletion just now), I know it when I see it. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Suggest new criterion for chat pages. YechielMan 23:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
It can often be very useful to know how many pages populate a particular category. For example, Category:Articles with unsourced statements since March 2007 has hundreds, if not thousands of pages. It would be very helpful for it to say how many pages are actually in the category, other than just "There are 200 pages in this section of this category." The same goes for What Links Here pages and the File Links section of an image. No one wants to count all of them or click "Next 200" repeatedly. There must be some way the software can do this, and I am sure that everyone would find a counter helpful. Thanks! Reywas92 Talk 20:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
What a coincidence: the same was just asked at the help desk here!
The status of the WP:FRINGE guideline has been questioned. It has been suggested that an RFC/straw poll could help determine if the guideline has community consensus or not. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Fringe theories#RFC - Does this guideline have consensus?. Blueboar 12:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
There are nothing like enough yet to have them daily so how about weekly. They could go right under the featured image. Buc 17:04, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
You could have a page that you're simply wanting to see the main namespace non self-referential categories for, with "Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007", "Articles with unsourced statements since March 2007" and "Articles with unsourced statements since April 2007" as well as "All articles with unsourced statements", "Articles lacking sources from March 2007" and "All articles lacking sources" clogging up the category section and making it difficult to read.
Surely the categories "Articles with unsourced statements" and "Articles lacking sources" will do? Why is it relevant to have the month in which someone added the tag? I really don't understand this.- h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 11:38, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
It was created because there is a massive backlog of unsourced articles, as with articles needing cleanup, merging, and other sorts of maintenance. It's a way of seeing at a glance what's been a problem that hasn't been resolved yet, and especially so for articles without sources, because if an article remains unsourced for a long time it may indicate that deletion is in order. I'm not sure what pages are being clogged by this, and the categories are a major help, because there are tens of thousands of unsourced articles and this is a start to prioritizing the backlog (fix the oldest problems first). Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 12:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
If an statement has been tagged for a few days, it is probably reasonable to wait a bit for sources to be added. If a statement has been tagged for a few months, it may be time to remove it altogether. Distinguishing between the two is therefore useful. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I understand why to have the 'since month 2007' part, but why does it also need the 'all articles' part? It seems to me to be quite redundant. I looked through each other and they aren't categories of each other, but it seems rather pointless to have an article included in two categoeries of the smae thing. Reywas92 Talk 19:30, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
What do you think? Nothing starts my day off better than a clever, witty, humorous or cynical quote. Niubrad 18:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
On March 1, {{ Unreferenced}} was changed from
to
based on a discussion on Template talk:Unreferenced, which can be found at Template talk:Unreferenced#Partially unrefererenced. I'm not sure if it was discussed anywhere else (like the Villiage Pump) at the time or not, real life was (and is) keeping me pretty busy. Post change, opposition seems to have appeared (including me). There are other templates (like {{ More sources}}) for articles which are referenced, but are not adequately referenced.
I would like to seek concensus to change it back - it should only be used where there are no references; {{ more sources}} should be used for articles which have at least one reference which is inadequate. Join discussion at Template talk:Unreferenced#Suggestion - earlier change revisited. Thanks. ~ ONUnicorn( Talk| Contribs) problem solving 20:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, but I want to keep the warning about such material being open to challenge and removal. Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 21:02, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't see why this even needs two templates. The second version you showed is good for both cases. — Omegatron 23:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
There should be a system for notifying people of articles that have not been edited for a very long time but are still in need of editing or updating. There are many articles (stubs class or otherwise great need of updating) that have not been edited for years. I'm sure this has been said, but I don't think that such a system exists, or, at least, is comprehensive.-- Dark Green 15:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)