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This isn't so much an explicit proposal as a request for people to chime in with ideas. I am concerned over the recent de-featuring of Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace. While there are many concerns about this article, the use of the "readability" requirement for featured articles concerns me. In particular people seemed to interpret this criterion as requiring that FAs be readable by lay readers (there is a similar requirement for good articles as well). I've been worried about this for a long time, and I would like to address it. I use wikipedia as a specialized encyclopedia in my research. Many of the pages I look at contain material that is not accessible to the lay reader. If it were, it would be useless to me because I need highly technical information. I think it's a shame that we have no way of recognizing good articles which are too technical for readers. I really don't want to introduce yet more categories of articles, so I don't want to suggest the creation of Technical Good Articles, or some such thing. Instead I would like to find a way to recognize these articles in one of the existing systems. Either, could we expand FA to include technical articles that are not widely accessible (they probably should never be put on the main page) or could we expand GA to include articles which are not readable by the public (this might require a change in the GA review process). Maybe there is an easy way to deal with these articles that I'm not considering... Thoughts? --best, kevin kzollman][ talk 22:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me while I will not delve into the above discussion nor keep this page on my watchlist and thus not respond, but I just wanted to drop in my 3 cents. I understand the issue is that Kzollman refuses to accept that Wikipedia articles should be accessible to non-specialist readers. Well, they should - this is a general reference encyclopedia, not a specialist one, so the interests of the "general" reader should take precedence. While I appreciate the efforts of editors of some specialist articles that made them good enough to be cited in professional work, and it conflicts with their readability, then perhaps separate specialized Wikis for given disciplines could be set up, to serve the needs of given professional communities, while the articles in Wikipedia could be reworked to serve the needs of the "casual reader".
That said, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of creating an article that would be both a suitable for professional and "casual" readers, and I would strive to achieve that in the first place. But, as I said, the needs of non-specialist readers should take precedence.
Bravada,
talk - 23:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Here's a more general and interesting case though. The philosopher Brian Weatherson once remarked on his blog that he was intersted in transferring some of his, outstandingly well-written but extemely specialized, articles from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy onto to Wikipedia under a free license. Of course, having read the stuff he has written, I would immediately post it for FAC (after adding in-line cites and so on). It would almost surely be shot down by people with weak reading comprehension skills, anti-elitists or what have you. I'm sure Weatherson would not be particularly offended by this, but it is would be an intersting relection on the standards at Wikipedia for what qualifies as a "Good" article!! The current guidline is: "A good article must be non-technical even when it deals with an inherently technical subject". Photon polarization must be held to the same standards of readability (a subjective phenomonen if ever there was one) as Pokemon. Come on, let's get serious here please. -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I think the FA and GA stuff is all tied into ego. When it comes down to it, who cares? If you want to write a really good technical article that professionals will recognize as really good, then go for it. That is the type of validation you should go for. Do you really need validation from a VERY SMALL group of editors who control the FA and GA process? If that small group of editors want to deem articles that are more "readible" to be worthy of their little club tag, then who cares? Let them tag all the little articles that they want. It doesn't increase or diminish the value of YOUR article. It not like your article is going to be deleted because it is not FA or GA. 205.157.110.11 00:24, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes, on FAC and FAR/C, we find that no attempt is made to open a technical topic to educated but non-specialist readers. This is possible, no matter what the topic; non-specialists can cope with patches of highly technical text as long as they know where it's going. The point of departure for each section is important in this respect. I have to agree with Sandy that much of the problem lies in poor writing. Why make a difficult topic even more difficult? Tony 01:27, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
WP:PRO is used almost not at all and isn't even listed at the top of this page, so I've stolen it for Wikipedia:Practical process. You've got two more ;-) - David Gerard 16:54, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
From one of the above discussions: any page that goes unwatched for a year should probably be deleted anyways. --Arcadian 04:35, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
It actually leads on to something I've been considering for a while. Very often advertising, non-notable, or minor " current event" articles get created by users (to forestall any questions, I'm specifically NOT talking about MAJOR current event articles). These articles are mostly "hit and run" affairs, with very few subsequent edits. If they are not immediately caught by NP or RC Patrollers and are not CSDed, PRODed, AfDed or tagged in any way, these articles can lie for months without anyone discovering them. My idea to have something like a Special:Neglectedpages (or some sort of bot?) which would list all pages that have not been edited in 3 months (or some other suitable length of time. or maybe you could specify the time like you do on watchlists.). This would allow the articles to either be improved or deleted as necessary. False positives would be few, I doubt even Featured Articles remain stable on a time-scale of 3-months. Zunaid 08:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
It gives zero results. Something wrong with it? Zunaid 08:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Every day newbies create usernames which are an email address. Everyone agrees this is a bad idea and we have templates to warn newbies and policy pages and bots that look for them. I propose we simply disallow newly created user accounts from having "@" in the username. An alternative is for the software to detect and strongly discourage, but allow if the user clicks "Yes, I really want this username." However, I can't think of any good reason to allow "@" in usernames so the MediaWiki software should just disallow it. — Quarl ( talk) 2006-09-22 15:01Z
This is a good idea but maybe having .com, .net banned in your username would be a better idea since it will stop people from using their email addresses and letting them use @, and also stopping self promotion-- Coasttocoast 01:22, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
It seems to be ok to use the entires of the Pali Proper Names dictionary (see User_talk:Samahita). I wonder: maybe it would be good to have a template to indicate this, as is done with the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Brittannica? But before this happens, we need to be sure it is definitively all right to do so. Greetings, Sacca 06:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
As a way to gauge interest in a page, I'd like to propose adding a "page accessed counter" to the bottom of each Wikipedia page. For example, I've noticed some wikis that use MediaWiki, e.g., ICANNWiki, have a statement at the bottom of each page like, "This page has been accessed 61,648 times." I believe such an indicator would be another way to help editors decide where the biggest bang for the buck could be gained from various types of article improvement drives. I expect similar insights could be gained from counting pages accessed in other "official" namespaces. Counting userspace page hits probably would be frowned upon by some, so it might be better to not implement counting there if that doesn't complicate implementation too much. Rfrisbie talk 17:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I am suggesting a wizard for uploading photos. The actual process of uploading the image is easy, but the licensing options, permission/credit text have too many options to remember for trouble free establishment of new images on wikipedia. It seems the howto is dozens of pages long for uploading images.
Not purely a technical suggestion, as it would improve copyright compliance issues as well and encourage more photo illustrations.
I upload photos to wikipedia. Not quite often enough to learn and memorize all the steps and options. Perhaps a wizard to guide a photographer or image creator through the important steps. It's getting sort of away from wiki, but lots of creative people aren't markup language wizards, or don't do it enough to learn it all.
Thanks! -- Jp498 00:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
(I don't think this is in the perennial proposals list or in archives...)
Would it be possible to extend the watchlist functionality to include deletion of articles that are on your watchlist? It's sort of an anomaly that any edit, including blanking, conversion to a redirect, etc., are duly noted in the watchlist, but if the article is deleted, it simply and silently disappears from your watchlist with no notice. This would be very useful in conjunction with WP:PROD, and to a lesser extent, AfD (since you can always watch the AfD itself, which is not deleted even if the article is). -- MCB 04:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Is there a Wikiproject where one can request some help from Wikipedians with profound knowledge of English language? For instance, a person not so good in English writes an excelent article and wants to nominate it for GA, but knows the article would fail on spelling and grammar errors. Where can such person request help from experts in English? If such place doesn't exist, are there any English language experts here willing to take part in something like that? I would be very glad to organise such a Wikiprojest, but I can't help with improving articles since my English is very very far from perfect... -- Dijxtra 10:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Can we make it more obveous that you should use the "+" to add to discution pages (at the bottem of the page) Insted of using "edit" to add them at the top?
Can we lock the first line here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction, so people cant break the page by editing it?
How about a faverotes? like a watch but where it just lists them as pages you like and dosn't watch them all the time, I use watch a lot but not all the stuff I necerraly want to watch every edit.
Can we lock out personal pages?, so others can not edit them. Others could use the discution or talk page for input
Alan2here 19:06, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't know whether this should go here, or at Policy.
I have proposed a new policy on disambiguation in titles, please could some users give feedback. - Wikipedia:Unneccisary Disambiguation ( WP:UNDAB/ WP:DND) --GW_Simulations User Page | Talk 12:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I would humbly suggest that you start by renaming your proposal to Wikipedia:Unnecessary Disambiguation. Pascal.Tesson 15:21, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
sigh. This is either related to the Highways naming convention or the city/state naming convention. I just know it. 205.157.110.11 08:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I find sometimes forcing a disambiguation supplies a context. Many moons ago, I moved all of the Washington Metro articles, most of which I created, to "Title (Washington Metro)", to forever ensure further disambiguation and confusion would not be needed, and it helped explain what "Capital South" was. Same deal with cities - context is very useful sometimes in the article titles. As for highways, not touching that. ;) Also, learn to spell, thanks. -- Golbez 09:14, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if anyone else would find this useful, but I would: My latest proposal is the ability to organize the watchlist into "folders", for which the changes can be viewed all at once or individually. I thought of this because I'm reserving my watchlist for pages I created. -- Gray Porpoise Phocoenidae, not Delphinidae 20:30, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
{{user:Gray Porpoise/subpage1}}
). Now, if you visit one of the folder subpages and click "related changes", you'll see the changes for the articles in that "folder". If you visit the "master list" subpage and click "related changes" you'll see changes for all articles in all the subfolders. One notable difference between this technique and using your watchlist is that subpages of your user page are visible to everyone while no one but you can see your watchlist. If keeping these lists private is important to you, I don't know of a way to do what you're asking for. There are a variety of existing enhancement requests related to this idea, for example
bugzilla:5875. If you have a bugzilla account voting for these enhancements (or if you're a developer implementing one) is a way to improve the chances that such a feature gets implemented. --
Rick Block (
talk) 17:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Fair use/Amendment/Fair use images in portals. ddcc 21:47, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be nice to know if an article is featured before clicking on its link? It's not a particularly necessary change, but it would be quite useful. Also, I think, people would be more likely to check out an article knowing it's featured. The easiest, most non-intrusive way of implementing this that I can think of would be to change the the colour of links to FAs from blue to gold, thereby making an easily recognisable but not visually clunky or annoying indication that the article is featured. Anybody with me? RWhite 17:47, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I get really annoyed by all the images out there that could use some editing (usually to remove the background). My idea is to create a page where people with the appropriate software to edit images well can take requests from those of us who don't have such means. (Feel free to play with the title of the page—image modification, for instance.)-- Here T oHelp 22:53, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I spend most of my WP time at the RefDesk. Humanities in particular, as that's where most of my expertise lies. Although I do find the whole thing fascinating, as well as a fun learning experience, I sincerely hope that I'm actually contributing by answering questions to the best of my ability.
One big problem about the RefDesk is that it's very poorly defined. The link to get you there mentions that it's for asking questions like: ""How old is the Earth?" or "What does 'lorem ipsum' mean?". As I've pointed out so many times on the RefDesk, these are very poor examples of questions that are meant for the RefDesk. In fact, if one were to ask the question: "What does 'lorem ipsum' mean?", a clever editor would no doubt point out that the question is inappropriate for the RefDesk, and would direct the questioner to enter: " lorem ipsum" in the search box, as there's an entire article on it!
Similarly, if one were to ask: "How old is the Earth?", the answer to that question would require only very slightly more ingenuity. Simply enter Age of Earth or Age of the Earth and one would be instantly directed to an article with every possible bit of information one could possibly desire concerning the question: "How old is the Earth?"
The RefDesk is a GREAT place (that's why I spend so much time there!) but it's obviously not meant for such simple questions. It's meant for either far more unique questions regarding particular scenarios that may not have ever occurred to anyone before, or for far more nuanced questions, questions that simply have no clear NPOV answer, questions that are clearly meant as invitations for a variety of responses with a variety of opposing POVs.
I think those kinds of questions are great, and I love throwing in my admittedly POV two-cents into them, and I delight in another editor throwing in his or her also POV two-cents into it. I'm a firm believer in the Socratic Method of educating one's self through civil argumentation by editors with a variety of POV's, to arrive at an answer that as closely approaches what one would call an NPOV answer. I sometimes even play devil's advocate, when I see a certain POV not being argued for. This, to me, is the essence of the RefDesk.
Yet so many editors, and apparently admins as well seem so uncomfortable with the idea. Whenever one POV is argued, they reprimand that particular editor by pointing out that "Wikipedia is NOT a soapbox!" Well of course it isn't a soapbox. Of course it's not a place to push one POV over another for the purpose of advancing any particular agenda. Of course it's not a place for editors to go around saying, in a completely gratuitous fashion: "Vote Republican!" or "Enjoy Coca-Cola!". That, I'll admit, is a clear abuse of the RefDesk. Yet I can't seem to understand why some people are so anti-POV. It's true, NPOV should be striven for in the actual articles, but I just don't see any problem with it at the RefDesk. On the contrary, I consider it exteremely informative for a variety of POVs to be canvassed, in as civil a manner as possible, in order to best arrive at the truest and most informative answer to a RefDesk question. It may be counterintuitive, but I actually believe that a fair number of opposing POV answers to a difficult question is actually a far greater method at arriving at a fair NPOV sense of the truth, rather than expecting everyone to keep repeating the same "NPOV" answer over and over again. To me, at best it'll lead to a rather uninformative, unsophisticated answer, and at worst, it'll just propagate political correctness, and I know we've all had WAY to much of that!
Therefore, I have three proposals:
1) The "definition" of the RefDesk as a place to get answers to questions like "How old is the Earth?" or "What does 'lorem ipsum' mean?" MUST be reconsidered, and a more appropriate definition should be applied;
2) The whole "anti-POV" rule, one which I admit is crucial for the "regular" wiki articles, should be greatly relaxed, if not eliminated on the RefDesk; and
3) For goodness sake! Whoever is responsible for "declaring" certain questions as "Answered" and thereby cutting off further debate, PLEASE STOP!! No good RefDesk question is EVER really answered. I actually find it rather arrogant of whoever is actually doing this, to appoint him/herself as ultimate arbiter of when a question has been "answered". It's actually quite rude to the editors engaged in a friendly debate, and ultimately, it's rather stifling for a questioner (as I've been at times) at getting a full answer to the question. I think the old week by week format worked excellently. Obviously debate should be cut off at some point, otherwise it would go on forever. If you haven't said everything you wanted to say after a full week, that seems like an appropriate, neutral point to end the debate and to move on to newer questions.
Thanks to all of you for considering my proposals.
Loomis 19:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I would like if Wikipedia had a Korean version. It would be particularly helpful because of the increasing population of Korean speaking persons and the increasing power of the Korean public. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.252.184.1 ( talk • contribs) .
But in the home page, there is no version of Korean Wikipedia. There is only a Chinese version. Also, the translated articles have missing information. I would like if the articles were translated fully.
See my proposal at User:Poccil/uploadlist and comment on it. My changes to the list in part reflect practices on Wikimedia Commons. Peter O. ( Talk) 04:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
While I agree that wikipedia should not be censored, explicit images distract some readers from content and in some ways turn wikipedia into a shock site. For example, while clicking on an unmarked link in the "terminology" section of the Anime article, I was sent to the article for Shotacon which contains an explicit image which would widely be considered offensive. While I do not dispute that the image (and others like it) are legitimate and relavent to their articles, I am confident that many people who use wikipedia would appreciate it if they could read articles on subjects pertaining to material they may find offensive, without the fear of being subjected to the offensive material itself. For example, I wish to read the article on Public Hair to learn about its relation to sanitation and pheremones, but do not wish to be subjected to the nude photographs which accompany the page. This is why I propose that there should be an option for registered users to disable images in wikipedia if they so choose. This would allow users to censor themselves from what they do not wish to see, and would not compromise wikipedia's existing policies. Ziiv 07:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
img {display:none;}
in
monobook.css will hide the images. However, this includes the toolbar buttons and the enhanced Recent Changes, but the Wikipedia logo and the user icon at the top will not be affected.
Tra
(Talk) 13:45, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
In a recent round of debates, one issue surfaced again and again: Most (really, all) of us don't know what other people do on Wikipedia. It's hard to appreciate how much work is done, and it's hard to find out if somebody is already doing something you would like to do. So, I created Wikipedia:Job Center, where we can provide descriptions of Wikipedian jobs, both for newbies to find a niche, and for old hands to have an overview of various "jobs" and contacts to editors who do them.
So, pretty please, provide the description of your job. Zocky | picture popups 04:51, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes I have a hard time finding an article on Wikipedia because I spell the item incorrectly in the search box. Often, when I don't know how to spell whatever it is I'm looking for, I'll search for it in Google. Google says, "Did you mean: [suggesting a spelling correction]?" Then I copy/past Google's suggestion into the Wikipedia search box.
It would be great if Wikipedia eliminated this intermediate step. Perhaps Google will license the spelling suggestion technology for a reasonable price. Otherwise, I'm sure Wikipedians design such a program.
I'll also note that this would be very useful in application to Wiktionary as well. One reason it would be good is because Google's "spelling suggestor" is better even than that of Microsoft Word's. For example, just a few minutes ago, while writing something in Word, it did not have a spelling suggestion when I typed in "rotweiler," but Google gave me the correct spelling (add a second 't'). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.171.72.48 ( talk • contribs)
Also, if you feel that your misspelling is likely to be common, don't hesitate to create a redirect. I'm confident that redirects like Muriel Hemingway, Ghandi are very useful. (Anyone's got stats on the ratio of searches which redirect?) Pascal.Tesson 14:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
The redirect and searching using Google suggestions are workarounds. I think the people running this whole thing should talk to Google. You'd be surprised what big companies are willing to do for charity. Google might be willing to charitably license its "Did you mean..." software. Of course, Google might be licensing it from elsewhere.... To make it from scratch--I'm no programmer, but this is what I would think you'd do--any search that doesn't go directly to an article, run through Aspell (an open source spell checker), which would then output a few possible suggestions. Then improve the suggestion software over time through use. In the meantime, however, I'll keep both of those earlier suggestions in mind for my own use. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.228.244.110 ( talk) 00:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC).
I was wondering if it would be possible in the many geographical articles availble to put a google earth placemark to be able to view the location of the item talked about in the article. Many articles include a Latitude and a Longitude, but its not always easy to locate things that way. Since google earth basic is a shareware that most poeple can download and use free, I think it could be a nice addition that can complement pictures. Artephius 20:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I am proposing this very important feature to watch articles added to categories. I'm not sure if this has be proposed before, but there are a lot of categories such as Category:Wikipedians looking for help which need users to just enter it all the time to get updated, but users tend to forget, just like what happened to articles before the watch feature was invented. Michaelas10 20:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I would like to propose that the set of various protection templates be revamped to be made smaller and significantly less-obtrusive to articles. It is my belief that placing a large template box atop any article that is protected, semi-protected, and so on, qualifies as a glaring and unnecessary self-reference in the form of metadata. Some other template boxes do contain valuable information about an article and its contents, like the set of temporal templates. For example, they might inform the user that the article's content may change with time. However, protection templates reference the inner-workings / security of Wikipedia and have no bearing on the article content. For example, the article on Nintendo's Wii has contained both of the template box-types I have mentioned. As you can see, the box that references vandalism seems out of place because it does not contribute to the article, nor would it necessarily make sense to someone unfamiliar with Wikipedia.
The only benefit that I see to including such a template so prominently in the article is as a service to editors. It informs anyone that wishes to contribute to the current article of what they must do in order to proceed. However, I think that Wikipedia's #1 aim is to be a good encyclopedia, not a tool that is easy to edit. It should always be assumed that the reason a user is visiting an article is to learn about the topic, which need not be marred by the details of the particular page's protection-level.
So, if the philosophy behind why to make this template as unobtrusive as possible is dealt with, I would like to make a few small suggestions for how this could be done. As I see it, the best options are:
Since the last two options are fairly unprecedented uses of those styles of templates, I believe the best option by-far is the first. Some arguments against use of this format might include:
So, after all is said and done, here is a simple proposal for how to represent a semi-protected article, in the title bar:
-- Inarius 19:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I propose using a smaller version of this box, which could be placed floating at the right side on the article.
Example:
Bush, a member of the Republican Party, was elected 46th Governor of Texas in 1994 and was re-elected in 1998. From there, he moved on to win the nomination of the Republican Party for the 2000 presidential race and ultimately defeated Democratic Vice President Al Gore in a particularly close and controversial [2] general election. In 2004, Bush was elected to a second term, defeating Democratic Senator John Kerry. This term will expire January 20, 2009. |
The See why link would direct the user to the article's Discussion page, where he or she would find the full explanation box for the article's protection, as well as helpful links on what to do.
What does anyone think about this? Is it preferably to have a little box in the main article, and then the full box in the Talk page? I mean, do we really need this. Comments? — Cantus… ☎ 10:41, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I like the idea too. As RexNL said, there could be problems with infoboxes, etc. if placed to the right. A solution would be to place everything to the left. Slightly more intrusive, but gets the necessary attention. ☆ CieloEstrellado 06:53, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi. Would it make sense to have a hierarchy of categories? One of the problems with having categories such as Category:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles actors (see also the long debate here) is, for example, that actors suddelny belong to 50 categories. It would be pretty simple to have some categories marked as being "minor" or "of trivia interest". Articles would, by default, show only categories of importance and a "show all" would allow the full list to appear. For actor categories for instance, we could hide the "X award nominee" and show only "x award winner".
Note that this need not be an attribute of the categories themselves. It's probably much easier to implement by some sort of code in the article so that some cats show and others don't. For instance, this allows us to show category:House actors for Hugh Laurie but only on request for Dominic Purcell. This would allow the survival of somewhat less useful categories without clogging articles with too many categories at once. Pascal.Tesson 15:18, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi All. Let me introduce myself: I am postdoctoral fellow at Dept. Neuroscience, Temple Univ. (Phila, PA) and my main occupation is doing research on original topic. As everyone knows, once you have discovered something (literally, everything) you go (run) to publish those new data/results, theories, models, formulas (whatever). Sometimes, it is clever try to patent them before publication, obviously. In any case, my idea/proposal is using Wiki as the first universally accessible able scientific journal for original, genuine discoveries. I am wondering whether someone else has had the same idea of mine and he/she could be interested to expand this area of discussion. It follows my email, please feel free to contact me << E-MAIL REMOVED >> Wikipedia is a widely published site on the net. Putting your e-mail address anywhere on this site is inviting spam. I've thus removed it. Zunaid 09:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot in advance.
Best regards,
D. Eletto
-- Eletto 20:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Isn't the whole idea that the peer review would come from the users? In other words--it would be peer reviewed--by us! It would be WikiJournal.
--A daughter project (obsiously in beta-version) could work - the peer-review issue is a good point (it is THE POINT, indeed), and it is absolutely necessary. How to organize a kind of board of editors, or reviewer commission? Who is the referee? There are a lot of questions (maybe others will come in work in progress phase). Any author should have to declare his/her own affiliation ( a real affiliation). All these rules, even if seeming as a costraint, are currently working for each scientific pubblication (from Science to those ones with the smallest Impact Factor) - I do not see any problem for them being applied in Wiki-Eureka (it could be named as wikieureka!).
--
Eletto 00:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
One of the most useful functions of universities is to act as a spam filter for the body of human knowledge. On Wikipedia we make use of references to ensure the material we read here is true and accurate. Nevertheless we have a reputation for unreliability. Anyone can write material here but it may be quite some time before it is reviewed by someone expert enough to cull the crap. Even then it can be difficult to convince an Admin who is not familiar with the material to delete what may be (to an expert on the topic) blatant rubbish. How does a Wikipedia Admin know whether User:Dmoss or User:Peterwats is telling the truth, from another continent, without knowing anything about either of them? Wikipedia requires material to be verifiable to get around this problem, but how would an Admin verify original research? Academia solves this problem (or at least minimises it significantly) through the university system. Each academic builds a reputation, first with an undergraduate degree, then through postgraduate work. Peer review and formal examination at each stage establishes the reputation. If someone with a PhD in a topic writes an article about that topic, similarly qualified people soon take the trouble to review it. If User:Dmoss writes an article about the same topic it is likely to be ignored entirely by those best qualified to conduct a review. There is just too much material out there, so genuine experts have to be selective in their reading. Many Academics I have met spend at least 4 hours a day reading qualified material in their field just to stay current. So, a wiki that dealt with original research would have to have restrictions on participation similar to those in the University system to work at all. But that would defeat the Wiki philosophy of "anyone can edit" entirely, so such a project probably doesn't belong here. If you only want to set up a wiki environment so qualified peers can collaborate on research, I'm sure your Uni IT department will help. If not, and you have properly qualified peers lined up and ready, drop me a line and I will make room on my own server for such a project. Its very small, its very slow, but it runs the same mediawiki software as Wikipedia. -- Dave 11:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
-- The so-called "anyone can edit" section in each original article should be the main part of the Discussion. -- Eletto 04:23, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
The addition of random article searches within a particular field or related to a subject. For example an adding random search within Philosophy on the Portal:Philosophy page and from any page with a philosophy topics box at the bottom - probably within this box. Could this be driven by searching for the topics boxes within the wiki and then applying random choice? Could be extended further. -- The Sage of Brouhaha 14:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
To thwart vandalism, why not allow a principle similar to that of CVS and Subversion where the main article page is a working base page (Article tab) and the non-admin users who try to edit the working base would automatically create a working copy tab (next to the Article tab) that shows their changes, any further modification to the page by non-admin would go directly to the working copy tab. The article is discussed, and once the modifications are approved on the discussion page an Admin would merge the working copy with the working base and the working copy tab is automatically removed. Note: I tried looking perennial proposals and technical pages but didn't find anything similar. Any feedback?? -- Witchinghour 19:55, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I've come across material which was uploaded to Wikipedia just to (usually temporarily) store it there. I propose modification to the speedy deletion policy to allow speedy deletion of material uploaded to Wikipedia just to store it there. [[User:Nwwaew|Nwwaew]] 22:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
As much as I like mathematics, I doubt it should feature as a high-level portal. It seems it should appear as a sub-portal of the Science Portal. Wikidss 08:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I dont think wikipedia's "Reads like an essay" tag should be included because prose that is written in this form meets all or most of Wikipedia's editing guidelines. For example, consider the following text that was tagged "reads like an essay" when it clearly makes use of good prose and conveys the necessary information.
"By integrating NEPs with existing public heath programs, IDUs will also benefit from service beyond sterile needles. Robert Heimer states that when NEPs are connected with medical facilities, such as those that are federally funded, they can offer services such as medical care, drug abuse treatment, safe sex supplies, information, and guidance. Heimer continues, “…[syringe exchange programs] can provide IDUs—who are often alienated from the heath care system by their poverty, their criminal status, and their inferior housing status—with these services in a physical and psychological context that fosters the reduction of the risk associated with the injection of illicit drugs” (Heimer 72). Medical services would be difficult to provision from community-based NEPs, in particular those that are loosely organized and inadequately funded. A federally funded program would provide the necessary resources to “foster the reduction of risk” and more importantly, to reduce the incidence of HIV and hepatitis." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teglin ( talk • contribs)
A discussion is underway which concerns the design of the pages in the above presented navigation bar. It involves the pages Wikipedia:List of portals and Portal:Browse, and which one of these directories should occupy the "Portals" position on the navigation bar. A merge suggestion is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:List of portals#Merge suggestion. Please compare the two portal directory designs, and voice your opinion in the merge discussion. Thank you. -- The Transhumanist 16:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I have been wondering about the vandalism problem and reading some about proposals to reduce it.
Might a feature be created that appears somewhere on a page that indicates to a visitor how many people are following (watching) that page? Or does it exist already and I just haven't found it?
I'm supposing that many potential vandals might be put off, knowing their work will be found rather quickly. Then again, perhaps I don't know how to think like a vandal. :)
I'm guessing a feature like this would put some strain on the database if it were re-calculated each time a page is called up. Perhaps instead it could be re-calculated on an occasional basis with the result stored as a numeric field along with the page's database entry.
A feature like this might help a bit with 'public relations' as visitors readily know that WP sites are actively monitored.
It might also serve as a de facto "To Do" item by highlighting pages that need a few extra volunteers to watch that page.
Apologies in advance if this has been already suggested and discarded. -- RayBirks 17:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
interestingly, i had this exact idea last night.. the obvious problem is that there is a certain amount of privacy users should have of their watchlists. But, i think it would be a great idea to divide the watchlist into "publicly watching" and "privately watching".
Actually, the reason i had thought of this, is to allow WikiProjects to function more effectively; you could see at a glance who is watching which pages within your WikiProject.. since it would obviously only show the "public" watchlist, privacy isn't an issue here.
with this information, each user page could have a link to "watched pages", and each page could have a link to "users watching this page". i think that would be great for many reasons. for vandal fighting, the "publicly watching" users could be like your patrolling police, while the "privately watching" users are like the snipers in the trees, hehe ;) Mlm42 12:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I came up with an idea for a new level of user access. Some vandals create accounts that remain dormant for four days, so they can vandalise semi-protected pages. A solution to this would be for a new user rights level that allows a user to do everything a normal registered user can do, except for edit semi-protected pages. Temporary demotion to this level could be the result of vandalism to semi-protected pages, as a less harsh alternative to blocking or banning. Admins would have the power to demote the users, though most changes of user rights can only be performed by bureaucrats. --
Gray
Porpoise
Phocoenidae, not
Delphinidae 21:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
{{ Graphic warning}}
This is just an example template. I really think that this template is needed in many articles and is requested enough to get its own template. As you can see, in most of the articles with graphic images, such as the one provided above, they have been moved to the external links section, but a lot of articles didn't do it yet. I understand that Wikipedia is not censored, but these images can really turn people off articles and even case health problems to some; nearly all websites with these graphic image warn before showing them to viewers as well.
A proposal has already been made here. Michaelas10 16:20, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I've been thinking that if Wikipedia were to start letting companies advertise via the site, that it could earn a lot of money that way. Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites on the net, and I'm sure that companies would jump at the chance to advertise here.-- Rouge Rosado Oui? 22:29, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
It's not going to happen, but I'll point this out anyway: If something like adsense was used, that would give the incentive to advertisers to edit target articles so that their ad gets shown more often. Zocky | picture popups
I think it might be a good idea to create a place where editors can get decent, though not professional, advice about copyrights. Right now, there is just the Village Pump, which does not have an appropriate page for such questions and is unlikely to attract those who are knowledgeable about copyrights, and the Wikipedia:Copyright problems talk page, which is not very visible or active (It's much better than it was six months to a year ago, but it still is not very active and days can pass between posts. Also, there are only a few truly knowledgeable people that post there. Most are either asking for help, have admittedly little knowledge or are giving incorrect information.). An even worse problem than the lack of a visible, appropriate location is that the advice given in postings at these locations and elsewhere is often contradictory to other postings and/or official guidelines. Disturbingly, the bad advice comes not just from inexperienced editors, but also from veteran editors and administrators.
I suggest that an area be created for editors to go to in order to determine whether something is copyrighted, whether sufficient proof of permission has been obtained and whether something can be used under fair use. There should be instructions for the editor to read Wikipedia:Copyrights first. If their question is not answered there, they should be able to get good advice at a single location. As the project progresses, Wikipedia:Copyrights would be expanded and clarified to reduce the workload of those who answer questions. -- Kjkolb 10:56, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
The way references work is fabulous. You put <ref>
and </ref>
around a reference and the you add <references />
to the references section and all the references show up. More details available at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php I would like to request the same treatment for notes, i.e. <note>
and </note>
formatted by <notes />
. People currently use the references feature for notes in some articles, and it is frustrating to not be able to have two types of footnotes, appearing in two sections.
Albert Einstein is one of many examples of an article that uses the reference formatting feature for notes, so it cannot be used for the references section. — Reinyday, 21:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Reposted to m:Talk:Cite/Cite.php#Request for both notes and references. — Reinyday, 18:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Talk header templates have started cluttering talk pages now that many projects have started to embrace Version 1.0. I am seeing the {{ Skiptotoctalk}} template getting used at many places. For example, Talk:India. I took the skiptotalk idea and created this template that can be used to move all header templates to a sub-page (/about). Has this been discussed elsewhere? Are there any other ideas to fix this problem? Regards, Ganeshk ( talk) 07:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
More on this. See Wikipedia:Mini Talkpage Template. - Ganeshk ( talk) 02:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm moving this here from WP:AN to get a broader discussion. I've noticed a couple administrators using nick names in their signatures that completely obfuscate their real username. I would think that this would generally be a bad idea; it affects perception of the administrator's accountability.
Some issues with obfuscation:
I don't see as much of a problem with abbreviations of a username like Cyde or Doc. And I wouldn't have a problem with someone using their real name in their sig in place of the real username. Users shouldn't be required to click or rollover a link to find out who they are really talking to; administrators should be accessable without detective work. I think it is an accountability problem when a pseudonym is used on top of a pseudonym.
— Malber ( talk • contribs) 12:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
So this attempt to get a "wider audience" has had a crowd come over here from WP:AN. Anyone see any problems with this? </sarcasm> The real people to ask about this are new users. But they are the people least likely to see these two discussions. I agree with Malber that this can be a problem, and I think that it wouldn't take much effort for people to meet him somewhere in the middle, instead of entrenching their positions. About the actual issues, rather than the nature of the discussion here, see my next comment. Carcharoth 00:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I think there is a problem here, and it is to do with stability of sig-names. I think people here will understand the distinction between sig-names and usernames. Sometimes I see people morphing their names (while staying with the same account). Excessive morphing like this can be confusing. I have sometimes read discussions somewhere and only realised that who a particular user was when I bothered to hover my mouse over the signature. I have no problems with people creating an account with one name, and then signing with another name. What I do object to is that person then changing their signature every week to a different name. Even variants on the name can be confusing, as (all names made up, apologies if I accidently hit on a real person) Doc Fred -> Doc -> Fred -> Doctor Frederick -> Doc Fred the Third. This can be bewildering. Carcharoth 00:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I can't believe that people are wasting valuable characters on a proposal this lame and inconsequential. And now they've got me doing it too. :P - Hit bull, win steak (Moo!) 14:16, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
I came up with an idea to make a new namespace, called List Namespace for all the articles containing phrase as "list". It will make distinction between lists and articles. Existence articles starting with List of will be associated with List namespace, if my proposal could get consensus. Shyam ( T/ C) 21:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I was actually writing something like that up, myself : )
Essentially for the user, it's a change in naming from "List of" to "List:". This should help with searches, among other things. (Clarity is typically a good thing.) -
jc37 22:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
It would also be nice if there was a tool which does a "down-n-dirty" copy of a category to a rough list format. (This would be very useful for CfD resolutions.) - jc37 22:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this requires large amount of work obviously but it will make search easier for the list. Some features can also be added in the list namespace to make lists also, but I don't know how feasible is it. There would be no requirement to type List of again and again in search toolbar. We have featured lists which is also in mainspace. That can also be simply replaced in List namespace. Shyam ( T/ C) 22:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't see the point of a list namespace. What for? Articles that are currently lists are few. We already have the category namespace. Trivia isn't allowed because wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and trivia doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Besides...i don't think moving articles from main namespace to another namespace is a good idea. The main namespace should contain all encyclopediac articles, moving articles like List of dinosaurs to a list namespace will mean we have two namespaces containing encyclopediac articles. besides list articles and trivia, what else can we put onto the list namespace that doesn't already go into the category namespace? -- `/aksha 03:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
The persons who have any oppositions to this proposal, please mark your oppositions with valid reasons. Regards, Shyam ( T/ C) 19:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
"Introducing the namespace will mean there are two namespaces for encyclopedic articles" this is the main reason. Two encyclopedia namespaces would be bad, unless there was really a great need for it. The encyclopedia namespace, being the 'main' one, is the actual "Wikipedia". All the other namespaces are more like 'supporting namespaces'. Having two namespaces spreads out the encyclopedia. Plus...places that mirror Wikipedia only mirror the main namespace. people looking for articles know they can just type in the name of the article after "wiki/" on the url. With list, it'll become "wiki/list:". Besides...each namespace has a unique function. I don't see any purpose for the list namespace, it just intrudes into the boundaries of the main namespace and the category namespace. -- `/aksha 23:58, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Response from my side:
Still is there any issues which could create problem to Wikipedia, please mention them. If I am wrong at any this point to answer, please correct me. Regards, Shyam ( T/ C) 07:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
A "thank you" to Tra for the summary : )
I've heard it asked: Where's the good?
The good is clarity, usablity, and readability for the casual reader (as opposed to those of us entrenched in wikipedian policies : )
Also, with it's own namespace, searching would actually be easier. When searching for something, hit "search", rather than "go", sometime. Look at the bottom of the search page. If lists had their own namespace, then you could actually choose to include/disinclude the list namespace in your searches. This would be great for those who wish to limit their searches to articles. Lists tend to duplicate much material in articles, which leads to rather long search results. And the reverse is true. Perhaps you just want a list of something, searching for a noun in article space may get you more results than just the 4 lists in which that noun appears.
Now I want to ask: Where's the harm? If this is done, how would it harm wikipedia, and its readers/editors? - jc37 18:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I am not seeking any more objections to this approval. So what is the next step for approval of this proposal? Should it move to bugzilla or somewhere else? Shyam ( T/ C) 14:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Generally discussion for the merits of config changes and so on should happen on-wiki, in the community, not on Bugzilla. Bugzilla is to get the devs' attention, not to discuss anything but the technical aspects of proposals. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 20:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I think a lot of articles that are currently list have the ability to become more - possibly a comparison. Moving them into a separate namespace might discourage the addition of prose. For example see Comparison of BSD operating systems, the last 3 sections of which (excluding the notes and references) are in list/table format. Armedblowfish ( talk| mail| contribs) 21:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
To summarize, the mainspace is intended to hold all "encyclopedic" pages. Lists are just a sub-type of article.
I think there are more, but I can't find them. This should probably be moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals) (either now or before it's archived).
On a minor issue, the points raised above about template namespace etc not being included in site-mirrors (and cdrom/paper editions) are valid, as those mirrors/editions essentially subst all templates – They use static html pages, and they do not run the mediawiki software required to transclude templates or utilize categories.
Personally, I'm strongly against a List: namespace, as I suspect it would lead to more content disputes, and more fractured disputes, and open up possibilities of additional list-cruft problems. -- Quiddity 23:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
What could be done to involve more people and get consensus to the proposal. I have left messages to the Wikipedia talk:List guideline, Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and series boxes, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, Wikipedia talk:Lists in Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk:Featured lists. I do not think that the vote procedure is good enough right now because people should know and think first how better or worse the proposal could be? Shyam ( T/ C) 15:00, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I still don't see what the problem is. When you search, "default" namespaces are searched. If List has it's own namespace, then it's rather simple to have that be one of the defaults. How is this not better for Wikipedia? Once in place, how would this be "more complex"? We have "featured lists", which is separate from featured articles. It would seem to me that this is already a "de facto" separation, why not recognise that and give it its own namespace? It would also help in other kinds of searching. Go check out "special pages" and see how many nice uses it would have. (Not to mention watchlist use.) I'm sorry, but this really sounds like a great, very useful idea. - jc37 06:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Just been pointed toward this thread, so thought I'd add another dimension/spanner to the works by suggesting the creation of an Infobox: namespace. Hopefully the rationale would already be understood; infoboxes seem to be established as part of the Wikipedia furniture, so why not assign them their own (less redundantly-named) namespace...? Regards, David Kernow ( talk) 00:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm trying to figure out : a new namespace for lists ? Now I am a Wikipedia user and I try and find some info, may it be an article or a list, I dunno. How does WP give me the info : searching across two namespaces each time ?
How many lists do we have ? maybe less (try : "random article") than census results about improbable (not at all non-notable :-)) townships. I really do not see the point, because only Wikipedia editors use the other namespaces, and WP is made for users first. -- DLL .. T 20:19, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
As per this proposal, I would like to add
.messagebox.standard-talk { border: 1px solid #c0c090; background-color: #f8eaba; float: right; border:1px solid #000; margin:1px; width:238px; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 10pt; clear: both; }
to MediaWiki:Common.css and remove the old .messagebox.standard-talk code, which will make all talk page messageboxes small. The only change necessary would be to change a few templates (namely {{ todo}}, {{ bot}}, {{ move}}, {{ talkheader}}, and {{ warning}}, and possibly others) that should remain large to use .messagebox.alternate-talk which will be large like the current talk boxes. As an example, the difference is this:
vs. the one shown floating on the right. Anyone object? — Mets501 ( talk) 16:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Village pump (proposals)/Archive W has been listed as a
good article under the
good-article criteria. If you can improve it further,
please do. |
messagebox standard-talk-small
and convert the templates individually, making certain that they're not horribly broken as a result.
Kirill Lokshin 23:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)More on this. See Wikipedia:Mini Talkpage Template. - Ganeshk ( talk) 02:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Feedback is welcome on this guideline on academic biographies, based in part on the old "average professor test". >Radiant< 17:27, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Fancruft is a huge problem on Wikipedia, particularly with articles about games and media. Most who contribute fancruft are anonymous editors acting in good faith. We should not bite them, as they could become quality contributors if they sign up and learn the ropes, but we must keep our articles fancruft-free and encyclopediac.
Therefore, I suggest we create a fancruft template and place this template at the top of articles which contain excessive fancruft. This template should discourage anonymous editors from adding fancruft, while helping registered contributors co-ordinate their efforts to fight fancruft by identifying fancruft-filled articles in a category.
In addition, we should create a series of fancruft warning templates, to warn anonymous editors who add fancruft to articles. Here's how they could be worded:
{{fancruft1}}: Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia! Unfortunately, your contributions have been reverted because they are fancruft, which is information that would only be of interest to fans of the article's subject. We encourage you to sign up for an account and make further contributions, as long as they are not fancruft. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.
{{fancruft2}}: Please do not add fancruft to Wikipedia. Fancruft does not belong in an encyclopedia, and readers who are less familiar with the article subject will not find such information useful. You are welcome to sign up for an account and create further contributions, as long as they are not fancruft.
{{fancruft3}}: This is your last warning. If you continue to add fancruft to Wikipedia, you will be blocked from editing.
{{fancruft4}}: You have been temporarily blocked from editing for adding fancruft to articles. After your block expires, you are welcome to make further contributions, as long as they are not fancruft.
-- J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I think much of the opposition was based on the definition and use of the word "fancruft". It is perfectly possible to implement these ideas without actually using the word "fancruft" in the text of the templates. Fancruft is a specific term used to describe a broad range of information which violates several policies and decreases the quality of articles. -- J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I propose that some one write an article about this.
I think it would help people a lot more if Wikipedia had a spell checker when you search for a word. Peopl would look for things it jsut says there is nothing to it and I personally look the spelling on Yahoo and then copy and past onto Wikipedia. So i was wondering if someone could do that...thank you
You can use Lupin's tools (ie. the Live Spellcheck) for the newest spelling errors. I forget the code to placing it in your monobook, but User:Lupin should have it linked somewhere on his userpage. — Moe 15:23, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
There is wikiformat for tables, blockquotes, Egyptian hieroglyphics... Does anyone besides myself believe there should be some for sheet music? -- Gray Porpoise Phocoenidae, not Delphinidae 20:19, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Under preferences I've got the button checked that automatically adds new pages I create to my watchlist. By and large, this is what I want. When I create a new article, I want it on my watchlist. If I were to draft a new policy, I would want it on my watchlist. When I nominate an article for deletion and create the deletion discussion page, I want it on my watchlist... etc.
However, when I create a new talk page, (say, for example, that I warn a new user about vandalism and it's the first talk page message) I don't neccessarily want that cluttering up my watchlist. Today, for example, I went through Category:Album stubs and added the Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums message to the talk pages of all the ones through the As, and none of them had pre-existing talk pages; meaning I now have some 50 album stubs that I have little or no interest in cluttering up my watchlist.
Is there a way to change this preference so that it is not affected by the creation of talk pages? If not, I propose that it be added. ~ ONUnicorn ( Talk / Contribs) 20:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
if ((document.URL.lastIndexOf("&action=edit") != -1) && wgArticleId == 0 && (wgNamespaceNumber == 0 || wgNamespaceNumber == 2 || wgNamespaceNumber == 4 || wgNamespaceNumber == 6 || wgNamespaceNumber == 8 || wgNamespaceNumber == 10 || wgNamespaceNumber == 12 || wgNamespaceNumber == 14 || wgNamespaceNumber == 100)) { addOnloadHook(wlTickBox); } function wlTickBox() {document.editform.wpWatchthis.checked = "1";}
I've noticed on some pages, users can click a link which takes them to a clean page allowing them to add a new topic to the page without clicking on "edit this page". (e.g. this is what the RD one looks like)
I think it would be a good idea to put such a link on all talk pages by default, especially the talk pages for the main namespace.
A link that basically says "click here to add not discussion topic" isn't going to be particularly obtrusive (especially compared to the talk pages for some popular articles, where there are tons of template messages at the top of the talk page where you have to scroll down whole screens before reaching actual discussion, e.g. Talk:Charizard)
The link, however, has one advantage in that it should make adding a new discussion topic much eaiser for new users.
The thing is, even though the page is called 'discussion', i don't think it's completely obvious what to do on it when you're making your first edits on wikipedia. With an article, it's glaringly obvious - click "edit this page" and edit the article as you see it. But for a discussion page, it's not so glaringly obvious that people are supposed to the entire page like an article in order to post a discussion comment, or start a new topic.
Especially when the talk page doesn't exist for an article. I don't even think anons or new users will be able to start the talk page in that case.
This would mean a talk page will automatically exist when an article does - but it shouldn't be a technical problem, almost all articles have talk pages anyway (in the main space) so it's not like we're increasing the number of pages.
-- `/aksha 12:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I fully agree with Yaksha. As a new user it isn't immediately obvious how to interact with talk pages (even calling them talk pages when the tab actually says "discussion" is confusing!). It makes sense to change the + sign to something more intuitive, and there are no downfalls whatsoever. Zunaid 13:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Another idea - have the "+" changed to "Add new topic" only for anons. Anons don't see the "move" or "watch" tab, so having "+" become "Add new topic" shouldn't make the tabs too wide for the page. The other alternative is to change "+" to "add new topic", but an option is avaiable in "my preferences" to change it back, so registered users can choose whether they want "+" or "add new topic". That should prevent any problems with the tabs becoming too wide - but it still serves the purpose of helping anons and new users work talk pages. -- `/aksha 07:59, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Aren't the first letter of every word in a title supposed to be capitalized? So why aren't the first letters of all the words in Wikipedia articles capitalized? That would mean the section headings too. And then there's the template that says, i.e.: iPod, the first letter of the article is specifically supposed to be uncapitalized. It teaches the reader how to write iPod, but then none of the articles have a lineatthetop to say [something like] how you're supposed to capitalize the word, when you should, when you shouldn't, i.e.: if it is the first word of a sentence of in a title, or if it compounded into a name, and never in all other circumstances. 100110100 07:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
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This isn't so much an explicit proposal as a request for people to chime in with ideas. I am concerned over the recent de-featuring of Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace. While there are many concerns about this article, the use of the "readability" requirement for featured articles concerns me. In particular people seemed to interpret this criterion as requiring that FAs be readable by lay readers (there is a similar requirement for good articles as well). I've been worried about this for a long time, and I would like to address it. I use wikipedia as a specialized encyclopedia in my research. Many of the pages I look at contain material that is not accessible to the lay reader. If it were, it would be useless to me because I need highly technical information. I think it's a shame that we have no way of recognizing good articles which are too technical for readers. I really don't want to introduce yet more categories of articles, so I don't want to suggest the creation of Technical Good Articles, or some such thing. Instead I would like to find a way to recognize these articles in one of the existing systems. Either, could we expand FA to include technical articles that are not widely accessible (they probably should never be put on the main page) or could we expand GA to include articles which are not readable by the public (this might require a change in the GA review process). Maybe there is an easy way to deal with these articles that I'm not considering... Thoughts? --best, kevin kzollman][ talk 22:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me while I will not delve into the above discussion nor keep this page on my watchlist and thus not respond, but I just wanted to drop in my 3 cents. I understand the issue is that Kzollman refuses to accept that Wikipedia articles should be accessible to non-specialist readers. Well, they should - this is a general reference encyclopedia, not a specialist one, so the interests of the "general" reader should take precedence. While I appreciate the efforts of editors of some specialist articles that made them good enough to be cited in professional work, and it conflicts with their readability, then perhaps separate specialized Wikis for given disciplines could be set up, to serve the needs of given professional communities, while the articles in Wikipedia could be reworked to serve the needs of the "casual reader".
That said, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of creating an article that would be both a suitable for professional and "casual" readers, and I would strive to achieve that in the first place. But, as I said, the needs of non-specialist readers should take precedence.
Bravada,
talk - 23:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Here's a more general and interesting case though. The philosopher Brian Weatherson once remarked on his blog that he was intersted in transferring some of his, outstandingly well-written but extemely specialized, articles from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy onto to Wikipedia under a free license. Of course, having read the stuff he has written, I would immediately post it for FAC (after adding in-line cites and so on). It would almost surely be shot down by people with weak reading comprehension skills, anti-elitists or what have you. I'm sure Weatherson would not be particularly offended by this, but it is would be an intersting relection on the standards at Wikipedia for what qualifies as a "Good" article!! The current guidline is: "A good article must be non-technical even when it deals with an inherently technical subject". Photon polarization must be held to the same standards of readability (a subjective phenomonen if ever there was one) as Pokemon. Come on, let's get serious here please. -- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I think the FA and GA stuff is all tied into ego. When it comes down to it, who cares? If you want to write a really good technical article that professionals will recognize as really good, then go for it. That is the type of validation you should go for. Do you really need validation from a VERY SMALL group of editors who control the FA and GA process? If that small group of editors want to deem articles that are more "readible" to be worthy of their little club tag, then who cares? Let them tag all the little articles that they want. It doesn't increase or diminish the value of YOUR article. It not like your article is going to be deleted because it is not FA or GA. 205.157.110.11 00:24, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes, on FAC and FAR/C, we find that no attempt is made to open a technical topic to educated but non-specialist readers. This is possible, no matter what the topic; non-specialists can cope with patches of highly technical text as long as they know where it's going. The point of departure for each section is important in this respect. I have to agree with Sandy that much of the problem lies in poor writing. Why make a difficult topic even more difficult? Tony 01:27, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
WP:PRO is used almost not at all and isn't even listed at the top of this page, so I've stolen it for Wikipedia:Practical process. You've got two more ;-) - David Gerard 16:54, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
From one of the above discussions: any page that goes unwatched for a year should probably be deleted anyways. --Arcadian 04:35, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
It actually leads on to something I've been considering for a while. Very often advertising, non-notable, or minor " current event" articles get created by users (to forestall any questions, I'm specifically NOT talking about MAJOR current event articles). These articles are mostly "hit and run" affairs, with very few subsequent edits. If they are not immediately caught by NP or RC Patrollers and are not CSDed, PRODed, AfDed or tagged in any way, these articles can lie for months without anyone discovering them. My idea to have something like a Special:Neglectedpages (or some sort of bot?) which would list all pages that have not been edited in 3 months (or some other suitable length of time. or maybe you could specify the time like you do on watchlists.). This would allow the articles to either be improved or deleted as necessary. False positives would be few, I doubt even Featured Articles remain stable on a time-scale of 3-months. Zunaid 08:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
It gives zero results. Something wrong with it? Zunaid 08:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Every day newbies create usernames which are an email address. Everyone agrees this is a bad idea and we have templates to warn newbies and policy pages and bots that look for them. I propose we simply disallow newly created user accounts from having "@" in the username. An alternative is for the software to detect and strongly discourage, but allow if the user clicks "Yes, I really want this username." However, I can't think of any good reason to allow "@" in usernames so the MediaWiki software should just disallow it. — Quarl ( talk) 2006-09-22 15:01Z
This is a good idea but maybe having .com, .net banned in your username would be a better idea since it will stop people from using their email addresses and letting them use @, and also stopping self promotion-- Coasttocoast 01:22, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
It seems to be ok to use the entires of the Pali Proper Names dictionary (see User_talk:Samahita). I wonder: maybe it would be good to have a template to indicate this, as is done with the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Brittannica? But before this happens, we need to be sure it is definitively all right to do so. Greetings, Sacca 06:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
As a way to gauge interest in a page, I'd like to propose adding a "page accessed counter" to the bottom of each Wikipedia page. For example, I've noticed some wikis that use MediaWiki, e.g., ICANNWiki, have a statement at the bottom of each page like, "This page has been accessed 61,648 times." I believe such an indicator would be another way to help editors decide where the biggest bang for the buck could be gained from various types of article improvement drives. I expect similar insights could be gained from counting pages accessed in other "official" namespaces. Counting userspace page hits probably would be frowned upon by some, so it might be better to not implement counting there if that doesn't complicate implementation too much. Rfrisbie talk 17:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I am suggesting a wizard for uploading photos. The actual process of uploading the image is easy, but the licensing options, permission/credit text have too many options to remember for trouble free establishment of new images on wikipedia. It seems the howto is dozens of pages long for uploading images.
Not purely a technical suggestion, as it would improve copyright compliance issues as well and encourage more photo illustrations.
I upload photos to wikipedia. Not quite often enough to learn and memorize all the steps and options. Perhaps a wizard to guide a photographer or image creator through the important steps. It's getting sort of away from wiki, but lots of creative people aren't markup language wizards, or don't do it enough to learn it all.
Thanks! -- Jp498 00:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
(I don't think this is in the perennial proposals list or in archives...)
Would it be possible to extend the watchlist functionality to include deletion of articles that are on your watchlist? It's sort of an anomaly that any edit, including blanking, conversion to a redirect, etc., are duly noted in the watchlist, but if the article is deleted, it simply and silently disappears from your watchlist with no notice. This would be very useful in conjunction with WP:PROD, and to a lesser extent, AfD (since you can always watch the AfD itself, which is not deleted even if the article is). -- MCB 04:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Is there a Wikiproject where one can request some help from Wikipedians with profound knowledge of English language? For instance, a person not so good in English writes an excelent article and wants to nominate it for GA, but knows the article would fail on spelling and grammar errors. Where can such person request help from experts in English? If such place doesn't exist, are there any English language experts here willing to take part in something like that? I would be very glad to organise such a Wikiprojest, but I can't help with improving articles since my English is very very far from perfect... -- Dijxtra 10:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Can we make it more obveous that you should use the "+" to add to discution pages (at the bottem of the page) Insted of using "edit" to add them at the top?
Can we lock the first line here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction, so people cant break the page by editing it?
How about a faverotes? like a watch but where it just lists them as pages you like and dosn't watch them all the time, I use watch a lot but not all the stuff I necerraly want to watch every edit.
Can we lock out personal pages?, so others can not edit them. Others could use the discution or talk page for input
Alan2here 19:06, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't know whether this should go here, or at Policy.
I have proposed a new policy on disambiguation in titles, please could some users give feedback. - Wikipedia:Unneccisary Disambiguation ( WP:UNDAB/ WP:DND) --GW_Simulations User Page | Talk 12:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I would humbly suggest that you start by renaming your proposal to Wikipedia:Unnecessary Disambiguation. Pascal.Tesson 15:21, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
sigh. This is either related to the Highways naming convention or the city/state naming convention. I just know it. 205.157.110.11 08:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I find sometimes forcing a disambiguation supplies a context. Many moons ago, I moved all of the Washington Metro articles, most of which I created, to "Title (Washington Metro)", to forever ensure further disambiguation and confusion would not be needed, and it helped explain what "Capital South" was. Same deal with cities - context is very useful sometimes in the article titles. As for highways, not touching that. ;) Also, learn to spell, thanks. -- Golbez 09:14, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if anyone else would find this useful, but I would: My latest proposal is the ability to organize the watchlist into "folders", for which the changes can be viewed all at once or individually. I thought of this because I'm reserving my watchlist for pages I created. -- Gray Porpoise Phocoenidae, not Delphinidae 20:30, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
{{user:Gray Porpoise/subpage1}}
). Now, if you visit one of the folder subpages and click "related changes", you'll see the changes for the articles in that "folder". If you visit the "master list" subpage and click "related changes" you'll see changes for all articles in all the subfolders. One notable difference between this technique and using your watchlist is that subpages of your user page are visible to everyone while no one but you can see your watchlist. If keeping these lists private is important to you, I don't know of a way to do what you're asking for. There are a variety of existing enhancement requests related to this idea, for example
bugzilla:5875. If you have a bugzilla account voting for these enhancements (or if you're a developer implementing one) is a way to improve the chances that such a feature gets implemented. --
Rick Block (
talk) 17:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Fair use/Amendment/Fair use images in portals. ddcc 21:47, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be nice to know if an article is featured before clicking on its link? It's not a particularly necessary change, but it would be quite useful. Also, I think, people would be more likely to check out an article knowing it's featured. The easiest, most non-intrusive way of implementing this that I can think of would be to change the the colour of links to FAs from blue to gold, thereby making an easily recognisable but not visually clunky or annoying indication that the article is featured. Anybody with me? RWhite 17:47, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I get really annoyed by all the images out there that could use some editing (usually to remove the background). My idea is to create a page where people with the appropriate software to edit images well can take requests from those of us who don't have such means. (Feel free to play with the title of the page—image modification, for instance.)-- Here T oHelp 22:53, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I spend most of my WP time at the RefDesk. Humanities in particular, as that's where most of my expertise lies. Although I do find the whole thing fascinating, as well as a fun learning experience, I sincerely hope that I'm actually contributing by answering questions to the best of my ability.
One big problem about the RefDesk is that it's very poorly defined. The link to get you there mentions that it's for asking questions like: ""How old is the Earth?" or "What does 'lorem ipsum' mean?". As I've pointed out so many times on the RefDesk, these are very poor examples of questions that are meant for the RefDesk. In fact, if one were to ask the question: "What does 'lorem ipsum' mean?", a clever editor would no doubt point out that the question is inappropriate for the RefDesk, and would direct the questioner to enter: " lorem ipsum" in the search box, as there's an entire article on it!
Similarly, if one were to ask: "How old is the Earth?", the answer to that question would require only very slightly more ingenuity. Simply enter Age of Earth or Age of the Earth and one would be instantly directed to an article with every possible bit of information one could possibly desire concerning the question: "How old is the Earth?"
The RefDesk is a GREAT place (that's why I spend so much time there!) but it's obviously not meant for such simple questions. It's meant for either far more unique questions regarding particular scenarios that may not have ever occurred to anyone before, or for far more nuanced questions, questions that simply have no clear NPOV answer, questions that are clearly meant as invitations for a variety of responses with a variety of opposing POVs.
I think those kinds of questions are great, and I love throwing in my admittedly POV two-cents into them, and I delight in another editor throwing in his or her also POV two-cents into it. I'm a firm believer in the Socratic Method of educating one's self through civil argumentation by editors with a variety of POV's, to arrive at an answer that as closely approaches what one would call an NPOV answer. I sometimes even play devil's advocate, when I see a certain POV not being argued for. This, to me, is the essence of the RefDesk.
Yet so many editors, and apparently admins as well seem so uncomfortable with the idea. Whenever one POV is argued, they reprimand that particular editor by pointing out that "Wikipedia is NOT a soapbox!" Well of course it isn't a soapbox. Of course it's not a place to push one POV over another for the purpose of advancing any particular agenda. Of course it's not a place for editors to go around saying, in a completely gratuitous fashion: "Vote Republican!" or "Enjoy Coca-Cola!". That, I'll admit, is a clear abuse of the RefDesk. Yet I can't seem to understand why some people are so anti-POV. It's true, NPOV should be striven for in the actual articles, but I just don't see any problem with it at the RefDesk. On the contrary, I consider it exteremely informative for a variety of POVs to be canvassed, in as civil a manner as possible, in order to best arrive at the truest and most informative answer to a RefDesk question. It may be counterintuitive, but I actually believe that a fair number of opposing POV answers to a difficult question is actually a far greater method at arriving at a fair NPOV sense of the truth, rather than expecting everyone to keep repeating the same "NPOV" answer over and over again. To me, at best it'll lead to a rather uninformative, unsophisticated answer, and at worst, it'll just propagate political correctness, and I know we've all had WAY to much of that!
Therefore, I have three proposals:
1) The "definition" of the RefDesk as a place to get answers to questions like "How old is the Earth?" or "What does 'lorem ipsum' mean?" MUST be reconsidered, and a more appropriate definition should be applied;
2) The whole "anti-POV" rule, one which I admit is crucial for the "regular" wiki articles, should be greatly relaxed, if not eliminated on the RefDesk; and
3) For goodness sake! Whoever is responsible for "declaring" certain questions as "Answered" and thereby cutting off further debate, PLEASE STOP!! No good RefDesk question is EVER really answered. I actually find it rather arrogant of whoever is actually doing this, to appoint him/herself as ultimate arbiter of when a question has been "answered". It's actually quite rude to the editors engaged in a friendly debate, and ultimately, it's rather stifling for a questioner (as I've been at times) at getting a full answer to the question. I think the old week by week format worked excellently. Obviously debate should be cut off at some point, otherwise it would go on forever. If you haven't said everything you wanted to say after a full week, that seems like an appropriate, neutral point to end the debate and to move on to newer questions.
Thanks to all of you for considering my proposals.
Loomis 19:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I would like if Wikipedia had a Korean version. It would be particularly helpful because of the increasing population of Korean speaking persons and the increasing power of the Korean public. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.252.184.1 ( talk • contribs) .
But in the home page, there is no version of Korean Wikipedia. There is only a Chinese version. Also, the translated articles have missing information. I would like if the articles were translated fully.
See my proposal at User:Poccil/uploadlist and comment on it. My changes to the list in part reflect practices on Wikimedia Commons. Peter O. ( Talk) 04:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
While I agree that wikipedia should not be censored, explicit images distract some readers from content and in some ways turn wikipedia into a shock site. For example, while clicking on an unmarked link in the "terminology" section of the Anime article, I was sent to the article for Shotacon which contains an explicit image which would widely be considered offensive. While I do not dispute that the image (and others like it) are legitimate and relavent to their articles, I am confident that many people who use wikipedia would appreciate it if they could read articles on subjects pertaining to material they may find offensive, without the fear of being subjected to the offensive material itself. For example, I wish to read the article on Public Hair to learn about its relation to sanitation and pheremones, but do not wish to be subjected to the nude photographs which accompany the page. This is why I propose that there should be an option for registered users to disable images in wikipedia if they so choose. This would allow users to censor themselves from what they do not wish to see, and would not compromise wikipedia's existing policies. Ziiv 07:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
img {display:none;}
in
monobook.css will hide the images. However, this includes the toolbar buttons and the enhanced Recent Changes, but the Wikipedia logo and the user icon at the top will not be affected.
Tra
(Talk) 13:45, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
In a recent round of debates, one issue surfaced again and again: Most (really, all) of us don't know what other people do on Wikipedia. It's hard to appreciate how much work is done, and it's hard to find out if somebody is already doing something you would like to do. So, I created Wikipedia:Job Center, where we can provide descriptions of Wikipedian jobs, both for newbies to find a niche, and for old hands to have an overview of various "jobs" and contacts to editors who do them.
So, pretty please, provide the description of your job. Zocky | picture popups 04:51, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes I have a hard time finding an article on Wikipedia because I spell the item incorrectly in the search box. Often, when I don't know how to spell whatever it is I'm looking for, I'll search for it in Google. Google says, "Did you mean: [suggesting a spelling correction]?" Then I copy/past Google's suggestion into the Wikipedia search box.
It would be great if Wikipedia eliminated this intermediate step. Perhaps Google will license the spelling suggestion technology for a reasonable price. Otherwise, I'm sure Wikipedians design such a program.
I'll also note that this would be very useful in application to Wiktionary as well. One reason it would be good is because Google's "spelling suggestor" is better even than that of Microsoft Word's. For example, just a few minutes ago, while writing something in Word, it did not have a spelling suggestion when I typed in "rotweiler," but Google gave me the correct spelling (add a second 't'). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.171.72.48 ( talk • contribs)
Also, if you feel that your misspelling is likely to be common, don't hesitate to create a redirect. I'm confident that redirects like Muriel Hemingway, Ghandi are very useful. (Anyone's got stats on the ratio of searches which redirect?) Pascal.Tesson 14:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
The redirect and searching using Google suggestions are workarounds. I think the people running this whole thing should talk to Google. You'd be surprised what big companies are willing to do for charity. Google might be willing to charitably license its "Did you mean..." software. Of course, Google might be licensing it from elsewhere.... To make it from scratch--I'm no programmer, but this is what I would think you'd do--any search that doesn't go directly to an article, run through Aspell (an open source spell checker), which would then output a few possible suggestions. Then improve the suggestion software over time through use. In the meantime, however, I'll keep both of those earlier suggestions in mind for my own use. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.228.244.110 ( talk) 00:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC).
I was wondering if it would be possible in the many geographical articles availble to put a google earth placemark to be able to view the location of the item talked about in the article. Many articles include a Latitude and a Longitude, but its not always easy to locate things that way. Since google earth basic is a shareware that most poeple can download and use free, I think it could be a nice addition that can complement pictures. Artephius 20:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I am proposing this very important feature to watch articles added to categories. I'm not sure if this has be proposed before, but there are a lot of categories such as Category:Wikipedians looking for help which need users to just enter it all the time to get updated, but users tend to forget, just like what happened to articles before the watch feature was invented. Michaelas10 20:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I would like to propose that the set of various protection templates be revamped to be made smaller and significantly less-obtrusive to articles. It is my belief that placing a large template box atop any article that is protected, semi-protected, and so on, qualifies as a glaring and unnecessary self-reference in the form of metadata. Some other template boxes do contain valuable information about an article and its contents, like the set of temporal templates. For example, they might inform the user that the article's content may change with time. However, protection templates reference the inner-workings / security of Wikipedia and have no bearing on the article content. For example, the article on Nintendo's Wii has contained both of the template box-types I have mentioned. As you can see, the box that references vandalism seems out of place because it does not contribute to the article, nor would it necessarily make sense to someone unfamiliar with Wikipedia.
The only benefit that I see to including such a template so prominently in the article is as a service to editors. It informs anyone that wishes to contribute to the current article of what they must do in order to proceed. However, I think that Wikipedia's #1 aim is to be a good encyclopedia, not a tool that is easy to edit. It should always be assumed that the reason a user is visiting an article is to learn about the topic, which need not be marred by the details of the particular page's protection-level.
So, if the philosophy behind why to make this template as unobtrusive as possible is dealt with, I would like to make a few small suggestions for how this could be done. As I see it, the best options are:
Since the last two options are fairly unprecedented uses of those styles of templates, I believe the best option by-far is the first. Some arguments against use of this format might include:
So, after all is said and done, here is a simple proposal for how to represent a semi-protected article, in the title bar:
-- Inarius 19:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I propose using a smaller version of this box, which could be placed floating at the right side on the article.
Example:
Bush, a member of the Republican Party, was elected 46th Governor of Texas in 1994 and was re-elected in 1998. From there, he moved on to win the nomination of the Republican Party for the 2000 presidential race and ultimately defeated Democratic Vice President Al Gore in a particularly close and controversial [2] general election. In 2004, Bush was elected to a second term, defeating Democratic Senator John Kerry. This term will expire January 20, 2009. |
The See why link would direct the user to the article's Discussion page, where he or she would find the full explanation box for the article's protection, as well as helpful links on what to do.
What does anyone think about this? Is it preferably to have a little box in the main article, and then the full box in the Talk page? I mean, do we really need this. Comments? — Cantus… ☎ 10:41, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I like the idea too. As RexNL said, there could be problems with infoboxes, etc. if placed to the right. A solution would be to place everything to the left. Slightly more intrusive, but gets the necessary attention. ☆ CieloEstrellado 06:53, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi. Would it make sense to have a hierarchy of categories? One of the problems with having categories such as Category:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles actors (see also the long debate here) is, for example, that actors suddelny belong to 50 categories. It would be pretty simple to have some categories marked as being "minor" or "of trivia interest". Articles would, by default, show only categories of importance and a "show all" would allow the full list to appear. For actor categories for instance, we could hide the "X award nominee" and show only "x award winner".
Note that this need not be an attribute of the categories themselves. It's probably much easier to implement by some sort of code in the article so that some cats show and others don't. For instance, this allows us to show category:House actors for Hugh Laurie but only on request for Dominic Purcell. This would allow the survival of somewhat less useful categories without clogging articles with too many categories at once. Pascal.Tesson 15:18, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi All. Let me introduce myself: I am postdoctoral fellow at Dept. Neuroscience, Temple Univ. (Phila, PA) and my main occupation is doing research on original topic. As everyone knows, once you have discovered something (literally, everything) you go (run) to publish those new data/results, theories, models, formulas (whatever). Sometimes, it is clever try to patent them before publication, obviously. In any case, my idea/proposal is using Wiki as the first universally accessible able scientific journal for original, genuine discoveries. I am wondering whether someone else has had the same idea of mine and he/she could be interested to expand this area of discussion. It follows my email, please feel free to contact me << E-MAIL REMOVED >> Wikipedia is a widely published site on the net. Putting your e-mail address anywhere on this site is inviting spam. I've thus removed it. Zunaid 09:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot in advance.
Best regards,
D. Eletto
-- Eletto 20:52, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Isn't the whole idea that the peer review would come from the users? In other words--it would be peer reviewed--by us! It would be WikiJournal.
--A daughter project (obsiously in beta-version) could work - the peer-review issue is a good point (it is THE POINT, indeed), and it is absolutely necessary. How to organize a kind of board of editors, or reviewer commission? Who is the referee? There are a lot of questions (maybe others will come in work in progress phase). Any author should have to declare his/her own affiliation ( a real affiliation). All these rules, even if seeming as a costraint, are currently working for each scientific pubblication (from Science to those ones with the smallest Impact Factor) - I do not see any problem for them being applied in Wiki-Eureka (it could be named as wikieureka!).
--
Eletto 00:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
One of the most useful functions of universities is to act as a spam filter for the body of human knowledge. On Wikipedia we make use of references to ensure the material we read here is true and accurate. Nevertheless we have a reputation for unreliability. Anyone can write material here but it may be quite some time before it is reviewed by someone expert enough to cull the crap. Even then it can be difficult to convince an Admin who is not familiar with the material to delete what may be (to an expert on the topic) blatant rubbish. How does a Wikipedia Admin know whether User:Dmoss or User:Peterwats is telling the truth, from another continent, without knowing anything about either of them? Wikipedia requires material to be verifiable to get around this problem, but how would an Admin verify original research? Academia solves this problem (or at least minimises it significantly) through the university system. Each academic builds a reputation, first with an undergraduate degree, then through postgraduate work. Peer review and formal examination at each stage establishes the reputation. If someone with a PhD in a topic writes an article about that topic, similarly qualified people soon take the trouble to review it. If User:Dmoss writes an article about the same topic it is likely to be ignored entirely by those best qualified to conduct a review. There is just too much material out there, so genuine experts have to be selective in their reading. Many Academics I have met spend at least 4 hours a day reading qualified material in their field just to stay current. So, a wiki that dealt with original research would have to have restrictions on participation similar to those in the University system to work at all. But that would defeat the Wiki philosophy of "anyone can edit" entirely, so such a project probably doesn't belong here. If you only want to set up a wiki environment so qualified peers can collaborate on research, I'm sure your Uni IT department will help. If not, and you have properly qualified peers lined up and ready, drop me a line and I will make room on my own server for such a project. Its very small, its very slow, but it runs the same mediawiki software as Wikipedia. -- Dave 11:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
-- The so-called "anyone can edit" section in each original article should be the main part of the Discussion. -- Eletto 04:23, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
The addition of random article searches within a particular field or related to a subject. For example an adding random search within Philosophy on the Portal:Philosophy page and from any page with a philosophy topics box at the bottom - probably within this box. Could this be driven by searching for the topics boxes within the wiki and then applying random choice? Could be extended further. -- The Sage of Brouhaha 14:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
To thwart vandalism, why not allow a principle similar to that of CVS and Subversion where the main article page is a working base page (Article tab) and the non-admin users who try to edit the working base would automatically create a working copy tab (next to the Article tab) that shows their changes, any further modification to the page by non-admin would go directly to the working copy tab. The article is discussed, and once the modifications are approved on the discussion page an Admin would merge the working copy with the working base and the working copy tab is automatically removed. Note: I tried looking perennial proposals and technical pages but didn't find anything similar. Any feedback?? -- Witchinghour 19:55, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I've come across material which was uploaded to Wikipedia just to (usually temporarily) store it there. I propose modification to the speedy deletion policy to allow speedy deletion of material uploaded to Wikipedia just to store it there. [[User:Nwwaew|Nwwaew]] 22:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
As much as I like mathematics, I doubt it should feature as a high-level portal. It seems it should appear as a sub-portal of the Science Portal. Wikidss 08:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I dont think wikipedia's "Reads like an essay" tag should be included because prose that is written in this form meets all or most of Wikipedia's editing guidelines. For example, consider the following text that was tagged "reads like an essay" when it clearly makes use of good prose and conveys the necessary information.
"By integrating NEPs with existing public heath programs, IDUs will also benefit from service beyond sterile needles. Robert Heimer states that when NEPs are connected with medical facilities, such as those that are federally funded, they can offer services such as medical care, drug abuse treatment, safe sex supplies, information, and guidance. Heimer continues, “…[syringe exchange programs] can provide IDUs—who are often alienated from the heath care system by their poverty, their criminal status, and their inferior housing status—with these services in a physical and psychological context that fosters the reduction of the risk associated with the injection of illicit drugs” (Heimer 72). Medical services would be difficult to provision from community-based NEPs, in particular those that are loosely organized and inadequately funded. A federally funded program would provide the necessary resources to “foster the reduction of risk” and more importantly, to reduce the incidence of HIV and hepatitis." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Teglin ( talk • contribs)
A discussion is underway which concerns the design of the pages in the above presented navigation bar. It involves the pages Wikipedia:List of portals and Portal:Browse, and which one of these directories should occupy the "Portals" position on the navigation bar. A merge suggestion is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:List of portals#Merge suggestion. Please compare the two portal directory designs, and voice your opinion in the merge discussion. Thank you. -- The Transhumanist 16:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I have been wondering about the vandalism problem and reading some about proposals to reduce it.
Might a feature be created that appears somewhere on a page that indicates to a visitor how many people are following (watching) that page? Or does it exist already and I just haven't found it?
I'm supposing that many potential vandals might be put off, knowing their work will be found rather quickly. Then again, perhaps I don't know how to think like a vandal. :)
I'm guessing a feature like this would put some strain on the database if it were re-calculated each time a page is called up. Perhaps instead it could be re-calculated on an occasional basis with the result stored as a numeric field along with the page's database entry.
A feature like this might help a bit with 'public relations' as visitors readily know that WP sites are actively monitored.
It might also serve as a de facto "To Do" item by highlighting pages that need a few extra volunteers to watch that page.
Apologies in advance if this has been already suggested and discarded. -- RayBirks 17:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
interestingly, i had this exact idea last night.. the obvious problem is that there is a certain amount of privacy users should have of their watchlists. But, i think it would be a great idea to divide the watchlist into "publicly watching" and "privately watching".
Actually, the reason i had thought of this, is to allow WikiProjects to function more effectively; you could see at a glance who is watching which pages within your WikiProject.. since it would obviously only show the "public" watchlist, privacy isn't an issue here.
with this information, each user page could have a link to "watched pages", and each page could have a link to "users watching this page". i think that would be great for many reasons. for vandal fighting, the "publicly watching" users could be like your patrolling police, while the "privately watching" users are like the snipers in the trees, hehe ;) Mlm42 12:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
I came up with an idea for a new level of user access. Some vandals create accounts that remain dormant for four days, so they can vandalise semi-protected pages. A solution to this would be for a new user rights level that allows a user to do everything a normal registered user can do, except for edit semi-protected pages. Temporary demotion to this level could be the result of vandalism to semi-protected pages, as a less harsh alternative to blocking or banning. Admins would have the power to demote the users, though most changes of user rights can only be performed by bureaucrats. --
Gray
Porpoise
Phocoenidae, not
Delphinidae 21:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
{{ Graphic warning}}
This is just an example template. I really think that this template is needed in many articles and is requested enough to get its own template. As you can see, in most of the articles with graphic images, such as the one provided above, they have been moved to the external links section, but a lot of articles didn't do it yet. I understand that Wikipedia is not censored, but these images can really turn people off articles and even case health problems to some; nearly all websites with these graphic image warn before showing them to viewers as well.
A proposal has already been made here. Michaelas10 16:20, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I've been thinking that if Wikipedia were to start letting companies advertise via the site, that it could earn a lot of money that way. Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites on the net, and I'm sure that companies would jump at the chance to advertise here.-- Rouge Rosado Oui? 22:29, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
It's not going to happen, but I'll point this out anyway: If something like adsense was used, that would give the incentive to advertisers to edit target articles so that their ad gets shown more often. Zocky | picture popups
I think it might be a good idea to create a place where editors can get decent, though not professional, advice about copyrights. Right now, there is just the Village Pump, which does not have an appropriate page for such questions and is unlikely to attract those who are knowledgeable about copyrights, and the Wikipedia:Copyright problems talk page, which is not very visible or active (It's much better than it was six months to a year ago, but it still is not very active and days can pass between posts. Also, there are only a few truly knowledgeable people that post there. Most are either asking for help, have admittedly little knowledge or are giving incorrect information.). An even worse problem than the lack of a visible, appropriate location is that the advice given in postings at these locations and elsewhere is often contradictory to other postings and/or official guidelines. Disturbingly, the bad advice comes not just from inexperienced editors, but also from veteran editors and administrators.
I suggest that an area be created for editors to go to in order to determine whether something is copyrighted, whether sufficient proof of permission has been obtained and whether something can be used under fair use. There should be instructions for the editor to read Wikipedia:Copyrights first. If their question is not answered there, they should be able to get good advice at a single location. As the project progresses, Wikipedia:Copyrights would be expanded and clarified to reduce the workload of those who answer questions. -- Kjkolb 10:56, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
The way references work is fabulous. You put <ref>
and </ref>
around a reference and the you add <references />
to the references section and all the references show up. More details available at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php I would like to request the same treatment for notes, i.e. <note>
and </note>
formatted by <notes />
. People currently use the references feature for notes in some articles, and it is frustrating to not be able to have two types of footnotes, appearing in two sections.
Albert Einstein is one of many examples of an article that uses the reference formatting feature for notes, so it cannot be used for the references section. — Reinyday, 21:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Reposted to m:Talk:Cite/Cite.php#Request for both notes and references. — Reinyday, 18:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Talk header templates have started cluttering talk pages now that many projects have started to embrace Version 1.0. I am seeing the {{ Skiptotoctalk}} template getting used at many places. For example, Talk:India. I took the skiptotalk idea and created this template that can be used to move all header templates to a sub-page (/about). Has this been discussed elsewhere? Are there any other ideas to fix this problem? Regards, Ganeshk ( talk) 07:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
More on this. See Wikipedia:Mini Talkpage Template. - Ganeshk ( talk) 02:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm moving this here from WP:AN to get a broader discussion. I've noticed a couple administrators using nick names in their signatures that completely obfuscate their real username. I would think that this would generally be a bad idea; it affects perception of the administrator's accountability.
Some issues with obfuscation:
I don't see as much of a problem with abbreviations of a username like Cyde or Doc. And I wouldn't have a problem with someone using their real name in their sig in place of the real username. Users shouldn't be required to click or rollover a link to find out who they are really talking to; administrators should be accessable without detective work. I think it is an accountability problem when a pseudonym is used on top of a pseudonym.
— Malber ( talk • contribs) 12:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
So this attempt to get a "wider audience" has had a crowd come over here from WP:AN. Anyone see any problems with this? </sarcasm> The real people to ask about this are new users. But they are the people least likely to see these two discussions. I agree with Malber that this can be a problem, and I think that it wouldn't take much effort for people to meet him somewhere in the middle, instead of entrenching their positions. About the actual issues, rather than the nature of the discussion here, see my next comment. Carcharoth 00:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I think there is a problem here, and it is to do with stability of sig-names. I think people here will understand the distinction between sig-names and usernames. Sometimes I see people morphing their names (while staying with the same account). Excessive morphing like this can be confusing. I have sometimes read discussions somewhere and only realised that who a particular user was when I bothered to hover my mouse over the signature. I have no problems with people creating an account with one name, and then signing with another name. What I do object to is that person then changing their signature every week to a different name. Even variants on the name can be confusing, as (all names made up, apologies if I accidently hit on a real person) Doc Fred -> Doc -> Fred -> Doctor Frederick -> Doc Fred the Third. This can be bewildering. Carcharoth 00:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I can't believe that people are wasting valuable characters on a proposal this lame and inconsequential. And now they've got me doing it too. :P - Hit bull, win steak (Moo!) 14:16, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
I came up with an idea to make a new namespace, called List Namespace for all the articles containing phrase as "list". It will make distinction between lists and articles. Existence articles starting with List of will be associated with List namespace, if my proposal could get consensus. Shyam ( T/ C) 21:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I was actually writing something like that up, myself : )
Essentially for the user, it's a change in naming from "List of" to "List:". This should help with searches, among other things. (Clarity is typically a good thing.) -
jc37 22:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
It would also be nice if there was a tool which does a "down-n-dirty" copy of a category to a rough list format. (This would be very useful for CfD resolutions.) - jc37 22:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this requires large amount of work obviously but it will make search easier for the list. Some features can also be added in the list namespace to make lists also, but I don't know how feasible is it. There would be no requirement to type List of again and again in search toolbar. We have featured lists which is also in mainspace. That can also be simply replaced in List namespace. Shyam ( T/ C) 22:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't see the point of a list namespace. What for? Articles that are currently lists are few. We already have the category namespace. Trivia isn't allowed because wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and trivia doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Besides...i don't think moving articles from main namespace to another namespace is a good idea. The main namespace should contain all encyclopediac articles, moving articles like List of dinosaurs to a list namespace will mean we have two namespaces containing encyclopediac articles. besides list articles and trivia, what else can we put onto the list namespace that doesn't already go into the category namespace? -- `/aksha 03:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
The persons who have any oppositions to this proposal, please mark your oppositions with valid reasons. Regards, Shyam ( T/ C) 19:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
"Introducing the namespace will mean there are two namespaces for encyclopedic articles" this is the main reason. Two encyclopedia namespaces would be bad, unless there was really a great need for it. The encyclopedia namespace, being the 'main' one, is the actual "Wikipedia". All the other namespaces are more like 'supporting namespaces'. Having two namespaces spreads out the encyclopedia. Plus...places that mirror Wikipedia only mirror the main namespace. people looking for articles know they can just type in the name of the article after "wiki/" on the url. With list, it'll become "wiki/list:". Besides...each namespace has a unique function. I don't see any purpose for the list namespace, it just intrudes into the boundaries of the main namespace and the category namespace. -- `/aksha 23:58, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Response from my side:
Still is there any issues which could create problem to Wikipedia, please mention them. If I am wrong at any this point to answer, please correct me. Regards, Shyam ( T/ C) 07:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
A "thank you" to Tra for the summary : )
I've heard it asked: Where's the good?
The good is clarity, usablity, and readability for the casual reader (as opposed to those of us entrenched in wikipedian policies : )
Also, with it's own namespace, searching would actually be easier. When searching for something, hit "search", rather than "go", sometime. Look at the bottom of the search page. If lists had their own namespace, then you could actually choose to include/disinclude the list namespace in your searches. This would be great for those who wish to limit their searches to articles. Lists tend to duplicate much material in articles, which leads to rather long search results. And the reverse is true. Perhaps you just want a list of something, searching for a noun in article space may get you more results than just the 4 lists in which that noun appears.
Now I want to ask: Where's the harm? If this is done, how would it harm wikipedia, and its readers/editors? - jc37 18:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I am not seeking any more objections to this approval. So what is the next step for approval of this proposal? Should it move to bugzilla or somewhere else? Shyam ( T/ C) 14:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Generally discussion for the merits of config changes and so on should happen on-wiki, in the community, not on Bugzilla. Bugzilla is to get the devs' attention, not to discuss anything but the technical aspects of proposals. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 20:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I think a lot of articles that are currently list have the ability to become more - possibly a comparison. Moving them into a separate namespace might discourage the addition of prose. For example see Comparison of BSD operating systems, the last 3 sections of which (excluding the notes and references) are in list/table format. Armedblowfish ( talk| mail| contribs) 21:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
To summarize, the mainspace is intended to hold all "encyclopedic" pages. Lists are just a sub-type of article.
I think there are more, but I can't find them. This should probably be moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals) (either now or before it's archived).
On a minor issue, the points raised above about template namespace etc not being included in site-mirrors (and cdrom/paper editions) are valid, as those mirrors/editions essentially subst all templates – They use static html pages, and they do not run the mediawiki software required to transclude templates or utilize categories.
Personally, I'm strongly against a List: namespace, as I suspect it would lead to more content disputes, and more fractured disputes, and open up possibilities of additional list-cruft problems. -- Quiddity 23:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
What could be done to involve more people and get consensus to the proposal. I have left messages to the Wikipedia talk:List guideline, Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and series boxes, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, Wikipedia talk:Lists in Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk:Featured lists. I do not think that the vote procedure is good enough right now because people should know and think first how better or worse the proposal could be? Shyam ( T/ C) 15:00, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I still don't see what the problem is. When you search, "default" namespaces are searched. If List has it's own namespace, then it's rather simple to have that be one of the defaults. How is this not better for Wikipedia? Once in place, how would this be "more complex"? We have "featured lists", which is separate from featured articles. It would seem to me that this is already a "de facto" separation, why not recognise that and give it its own namespace? It would also help in other kinds of searching. Go check out "special pages" and see how many nice uses it would have. (Not to mention watchlist use.) I'm sorry, but this really sounds like a great, very useful idea. - jc37 06:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Just been pointed toward this thread, so thought I'd add another dimension/spanner to the works by suggesting the creation of an Infobox: namespace. Hopefully the rationale would already be understood; infoboxes seem to be established as part of the Wikipedia furniture, so why not assign them their own (less redundantly-named) namespace...? Regards, David Kernow ( talk) 00:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm trying to figure out : a new namespace for lists ? Now I am a Wikipedia user and I try and find some info, may it be an article or a list, I dunno. How does WP give me the info : searching across two namespaces each time ?
How many lists do we have ? maybe less (try : "random article") than census results about improbable (not at all non-notable :-)) townships. I really do not see the point, because only Wikipedia editors use the other namespaces, and WP is made for users first. -- DLL .. T 20:19, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
As per this proposal, I would like to add
.messagebox.standard-talk { border: 1px solid #c0c090; background-color: #f8eaba; float: right; border:1px solid #000; margin:1px; width:238px; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 10pt; clear: both; }
to MediaWiki:Common.css and remove the old .messagebox.standard-talk code, which will make all talk page messageboxes small. The only change necessary would be to change a few templates (namely {{ todo}}, {{ bot}}, {{ move}}, {{ talkheader}}, and {{ warning}}, and possibly others) that should remain large to use .messagebox.alternate-talk which will be large like the current talk boxes. As an example, the difference is this:
vs. the one shown floating on the right. Anyone object? — Mets501 ( talk) 16:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Village pump (proposals)/Archive W has been listed as a
good article under the
good-article criteria. If you can improve it further,
please do. |
messagebox standard-talk-small
and convert the templates individually, making certain that they're not horribly broken as a result.
Kirill Lokshin 23:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)More on this. See Wikipedia:Mini Talkpage Template. - Ganeshk ( talk) 02:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Feedback is welcome on this guideline on academic biographies, based in part on the old "average professor test". >Radiant< 17:27, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Fancruft is a huge problem on Wikipedia, particularly with articles about games and media. Most who contribute fancruft are anonymous editors acting in good faith. We should not bite them, as they could become quality contributors if they sign up and learn the ropes, but we must keep our articles fancruft-free and encyclopediac.
Therefore, I suggest we create a fancruft template and place this template at the top of articles which contain excessive fancruft. This template should discourage anonymous editors from adding fancruft, while helping registered contributors co-ordinate their efforts to fight fancruft by identifying fancruft-filled articles in a category.
In addition, we should create a series of fancruft warning templates, to warn anonymous editors who add fancruft to articles. Here's how they could be worded:
{{fancruft1}}: Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia! Unfortunately, your contributions have been reverted because they are fancruft, which is information that would only be of interest to fans of the article's subject. We encourage you to sign up for an account and make further contributions, as long as they are not fancruft. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.
{{fancruft2}}: Please do not add fancruft to Wikipedia. Fancruft does not belong in an encyclopedia, and readers who are less familiar with the article subject will not find such information useful. You are welcome to sign up for an account and create further contributions, as long as they are not fancruft.
{{fancruft3}}: This is your last warning. If you continue to add fancruft to Wikipedia, you will be blocked from editing.
{{fancruft4}}: You have been temporarily blocked from editing for adding fancruft to articles. After your block expires, you are welcome to make further contributions, as long as they are not fancruft.
-- J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I think much of the opposition was based on the definition and use of the word "fancruft". It is perfectly possible to implement these ideas without actually using the word "fancruft" in the text of the templates. Fancruft is a specific term used to describe a broad range of information which violates several policies and decreases the quality of articles. -- J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I propose that some one write an article about this.
I think it would help people a lot more if Wikipedia had a spell checker when you search for a word. Peopl would look for things it jsut says there is nothing to it and I personally look the spelling on Yahoo and then copy and past onto Wikipedia. So i was wondering if someone could do that...thank you
You can use Lupin's tools (ie. the Live Spellcheck) for the newest spelling errors. I forget the code to placing it in your monobook, but User:Lupin should have it linked somewhere on his userpage. — Moe 15:23, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
There is wikiformat for tables, blockquotes, Egyptian hieroglyphics... Does anyone besides myself believe there should be some for sheet music? -- Gray Porpoise Phocoenidae, not Delphinidae 20:19, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Under preferences I've got the button checked that automatically adds new pages I create to my watchlist. By and large, this is what I want. When I create a new article, I want it on my watchlist. If I were to draft a new policy, I would want it on my watchlist. When I nominate an article for deletion and create the deletion discussion page, I want it on my watchlist... etc.
However, when I create a new talk page, (say, for example, that I warn a new user about vandalism and it's the first talk page message) I don't neccessarily want that cluttering up my watchlist. Today, for example, I went through Category:Album stubs and added the Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums message to the talk pages of all the ones through the As, and none of them had pre-existing talk pages; meaning I now have some 50 album stubs that I have little or no interest in cluttering up my watchlist.
Is there a way to change this preference so that it is not affected by the creation of talk pages? If not, I propose that it be added. ~ ONUnicorn ( Talk / Contribs) 20:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
if ((document.URL.lastIndexOf("&action=edit") != -1) && wgArticleId == 0 && (wgNamespaceNumber == 0 || wgNamespaceNumber == 2 || wgNamespaceNumber == 4 || wgNamespaceNumber == 6 || wgNamespaceNumber == 8 || wgNamespaceNumber == 10 || wgNamespaceNumber == 12 || wgNamespaceNumber == 14 || wgNamespaceNumber == 100)) { addOnloadHook(wlTickBox); } function wlTickBox() {document.editform.wpWatchthis.checked = "1";}
I've noticed on some pages, users can click a link which takes them to a clean page allowing them to add a new topic to the page without clicking on "edit this page". (e.g. this is what the RD one looks like)
I think it would be a good idea to put such a link on all talk pages by default, especially the talk pages for the main namespace.
A link that basically says "click here to add not discussion topic" isn't going to be particularly obtrusive (especially compared to the talk pages for some popular articles, where there are tons of template messages at the top of the talk page where you have to scroll down whole screens before reaching actual discussion, e.g. Talk:Charizard)
The link, however, has one advantage in that it should make adding a new discussion topic much eaiser for new users.
The thing is, even though the page is called 'discussion', i don't think it's completely obvious what to do on it when you're making your first edits on wikipedia. With an article, it's glaringly obvious - click "edit this page" and edit the article as you see it. But for a discussion page, it's not so glaringly obvious that people are supposed to the entire page like an article in order to post a discussion comment, or start a new topic.
Especially when the talk page doesn't exist for an article. I don't even think anons or new users will be able to start the talk page in that case.
This would mean a talk page will automatically exist when an article does - but it shouldn't be a technical problem, almost all articles have talk pages anyway (in the main space) so it's not like we're increasing the number of pages.
-- `/aksha 12:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I fully agree with Yaksha. As a new user it isn't immediately obvious how to interact with talk pages (even calling them talk pages when the tab actually says "discussion" is confusing!). It makes sense to change the + sign to something more intuitive, and there are no downfalls whatsoever. Zunaid 13:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Another idea - have the "+" changed to "Add new topic" only for anons. Anons don't see the "move" or "watch" tab, so having "+" become "Add new topic" shouldn't make the tabs too wide for the page. The other alternative is to change "+" to "add new topic", but an option is avaiable in "my preferences" to change it back, so registered users can choose whether they want "+" or "add new topic". That should prevent any problems with the tabs becoming too wide - but it still serves the purpose of helping anons and new users work talk pages. -- `/aksha 07:59, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Aren't the first letter of every word in a title supposed to be capitalized? So why aren't the first letters of all the words in Wikipedia articles capitalized? That would mean the section headings too. And then there's the template that says, i.e.: iPod, the first letter of the article is specifically supposed to be uncapitalized. It teaches the reader how to write iPod, but then none of the articles have a lineatthetop to say [something like] how you're supposed to capitalize the word, when you should, when you shouldn't, i.e.: if it is the first word of a sentence of in a title, or if it compounded into a name, and never in all other circumstances. 100110100 07:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)