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We are getting to the age where we do in fact have user pages left over from users who stopped being active more than five years ago. It's a small number, but it will grow exponentially in the coming months. Those pages serve no further purpose to the project, and are an annoyance to the extent that they tend to add absolutely useless matter to the "What links here" pages of any article to which they are linked. Subpages pose an entirely different kind of problem, because they frequently serve as repositories of unencyclopedic information, copyvios, and forgotten drafts that will never be made into articles. Unless someone sets out to do a thorough scouring of user subpages, most will never be found in the regular editing process. Based on the foregoing, I propose the following:
That's it in a nutshell. bd2412 T 07:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
We already have a process for deleting stale article drafts in userspace: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion. Many stale article drafts have been deleted there, without even waiting for the 5 years that you propose. See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Bacchiad/Anarchism, for example. If stale article drafts and copyright violations are the problem that you are actually addressing (which it seems so) then simply use the working mechanisms already actively dealing with these that we already have. Uncle G ( talk) 23:44, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
We have thousands of these, where the user has never been blocked, they haven't edited in a year (or more), and 'their' user talk page hasn't been edited in a year or more. Can these be deleted? For a tabula rasa, among other things (no new messages bar, etc.). Obviously pages with {{ sharedip}} or {{ dynamicip}} or whatever would be skipped. Thoughts? -- MZMcBride ( talk) 23:51, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I propose that users who are not administrators will be able to delete pages if they are the sole contributor to them or if they are within their own userspace. This feature should replace {{ db-author}} and {{ db-user}} -- IRP ☎ 15:28, 22 December 2008 (UTC), modified 15:30, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I propose that Wikipedia use a filter to prevent things like this from happening. It deceived users into believing that was the actual action of the user, which it wasn't. The vandalism remained in place for months until I finally caught it and reverted it. Please note that I am not proposing that this blocks the user from editing, but just causes an error message to display if a user attempts to manually insert " ←" into the edit summary. -- IRP ☎ 17:12, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
This type of edit used to give the default edit summary, but no longer does. Therefore a lot of my recent edits, where I added categories to redirects, have no summaries. For the record, as vandalism goes, this was very minor, since you'd only see it if you edited the redirect. -- NE2 13:02, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
I made a template ( User:JSH-alive/Sandbox/Testground, specific revision) to store former slogans, titles, names, call signs, whatever else in one place, especially in the infobox.
Comments? -- JSH-alive talk • cont • mail 13:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
I often come to browse Wikipedia. I start with an article I need to know something about (say, C#). I find in the article something else I want to learn about in a link in the article (say, model-view-component). I click the link, and lo and behold, I am navigated away. Wouldn't it be soooooooooo simple to a) make it the default that other articles open in a new tab, or b) make it a "permanent setting" (you set it when logged into your acct, and when you're on Wikipedia on the same computer, even when not logged in, Wikipedia will see that and auto-open in new tabs)?
Please tell me why this would be hard, if it is.
Users without a username can easily go around vandalising a person's page. Also, if an IP address wishes to speak to a person on the talk page, they may only add, not take away( unless reverting own edits)
I presume this is suggesting that the protection extended to users' .js and .css files (ie only they and admins can edit them) be extended to all pages in userspace. If so, then no: vandal moves featured articles into userspace of some random user, articles are locked until admins move them back; huge amount of admin time is tied up unnecessarily. Or, user creates policy-violating content in their own userspace, moves it into the userspace of a retired user, same problem. The knee-jerk reaction of "protecting things → less vandalism" really doesn't hold when you step back and think twice. Happy‑ melon 21:29, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
The conflict of interest guidelines need clarification. It says that editing with a conflict of interest (particularly when there is money involved) is 'strongly discouraged', but pretty much all the reasons why seem to come back to other policies - notability, npov etc. Most of the cases that come to the attention of the COI noticeboard also seem to involve editors who have written crappy pages, created pages on non-notable subjects, linkspammed or whatever - all things which would be bad whether the editor has a conflict of interest or not.
So, is editing with a conflict of interest considered bad in and of itself, or only when it leads to bad editing? It does seem like the vast majority of people with a COI make bad edits, but it does not necessarily follow that COI automatically leads to bad editing. For starters, everyone who comes onto Wikipedia for the sole purpose of promoting their company or whatever is a new editor and thus likely to make bad edits regardless of their motivations. Also, I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of editors out there with conflicts of interest that no one knows about because they haven't drawn attention to themselves by making obviously biased or otherwise crappy edits. I think it's probably in the best interests of Wikipedia to encourage these people to be open about what they're doing rather than passing themselves off as ordinary editors.
Basically I think we need to decide whether conflict of interest editing is bad regardless of the quality of the edits (and if so, why) or just when it violates other policies. If the former, the COI page should be more explicit about this, and provide reasons why COI editing is bad in and of itself. If the latter, the term 'strongly discouraged' should probably be dropped and COI editors encouraged to be open about who they are and abide by a code of conduct, something along the lines of 'obey the spirit and letter of all policies, don't get involved in controversial editing, and be honest about what you're doing'.
Since several people have had accounts blocked for falling afoul of this - and not always in cases involving clearly bad edits - this needs to be resolved. I also posted this on the COI talk page but after a few days no-one has replied, and I really don't want to go changing this without some kind of consensus. -- Helenalex ( talk) 01:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Anomie. I have made all the suggested changes except the last two. Instead of the last suggestion, I put more emphasis on blocking into the first paragraph of 'consequences'. I think this is more clear than the original guidelines in terms of what specific actions can result in blocking.
I originally cut out the sentence on promotional articles because I thought the rewritten guidelines already made it clear that non-NPOV, non notable articles etc were unacceptable. It probably did need to be made clearer, so I have added "Editors should not create articles which serve solely to promote their subject. All Wikipedia articles should contain useful information written as if from a neutral point of view. The writing of 'puff pieces' and advertisements on Wikipedia is strictly prohibited." I felt the term 'promotional' was far too vague - it could be interpreted to mean any article on behalf of a client or employer, even if it's a good article. If you want 'promotional' back in, it needs to be defined. I have also removed the reference to clients as it seems to imply that creating a promotional article for an employer or best friend or whoever is more acceptable, which seems like a fairly odd and arbitrary distinction to make.
Again, I would rather not be in charge of this, so if you or anyone else wants to copy this into their own namespace and take charge of its final form, that would be much appreciated and probably help acceptance of whatever revisions end up getting made. -- Helenalex ( talk) 04:56, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
I propose a rating system of some kind for pages and images. This applies not only to this wiki, but the simple version as well. Articles about ejaculation, penis, etc. should be rated R considering the images and videos that are place on those pages. And parents should have some way to make sure that those materials are not available to our children unless we give explicit permission. Maybe for articles where the content is appropriate for teenagers, there can be a "ejaculation, student version" or "penis, student version" that contains images and diagrams that one would expect to find in a middle school or high school health education text book. 69.120.135.108 ( talk)
In disambiguating links to Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway, I have to filter out a lot of chaff added by {{ North American Class I}}. It's also useful sometimes to see what actually links to a page in the prose rather than in a navbox template. Would there be any way to add this feature? -- NE2 19:41, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
On so many occasions I've added to an article or created one and felt confident I was linking to an actual article because I saw a blue link. But several times, I've found out why I shouldn't be so confident. When I have found out, I have corrected my mistake, but there's no way I can go back and find all of the mistakes like that. I try harder these days to check all my links.
Is there a way to produce another possible link color for articles tagged as disambiguation pages? Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 22:43, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
How many times has it been suggested that editors can vote "yeah" or "nay" on articles to say "This is a good article" or the reverse? - Denimadept ( talk) 09:14, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello, my name is Dr. Jason Wrench and I'm starting a project with my students this spring to update the information on organizational communication in Wikipedia. Organizational Communication is a wide field, but the current information on Wikipedia is very minimal, so I want to have my students to help me update the information. -- JasonSWrench ( talk) 06:43, 27 December 2008 (UTC) Jason S. Wrench
To prepare for the upcoming Wikipedia usability study, I wrote up a list of usability problems and proposals. Any comments are welcome. Cheers, AxelBoldt ( talk) 17:46, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
There is a proposal to close the Simple English Wikipedia. Additional comments would be appreciated. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 19:29, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
This has been mildly bothering me for a while now, and I thought I'd mention it and see if others felt the same way. I often use Wikipedia to help solve crossword puzzles, and frequently face clues like "Pop singer Jones". This leads me to the disambiguation page, List_of_people_with_surname_Jones#Music where I see a list of everybody named Jones involved in music. That's fine of course, but obviously some of the people listed are going to be more prominent or famous that all of the others, and thus more likely to be who myself or other readers are looking for.
Another example is the disambiguation page for Buffalo#United States, which lists 29 different US cities named Buffalo. I know that one of them is a quite large city and home to the Buffalo Sabers, but I (as a Canadian) had no idea which one, and no way of finding out short of trying each link (or using Google—I've since added a "Largest US city name Buffalo" description).
It would be great if there was some clear way of highlighting those disambiguation entries on the list that a reader is most likely after, for example using bold face for the link. Obviously a danger here is creating arguments about whether borderline entry X is prominent enough to deserve highlighting or not, but Buffalo, Oklahoma with a population of 1200 is quite clearly less prominent than Buffalo, New York (apologies to any of the 1200 Oklahoma Buffalonians who may be reading this...)
I've cross-posted to Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation#Highlighting_most_sought_disambig_entries; please comment there if you're interested. -- jwanders Talk 08:03, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes I go through the deletion log to see if any recently-deleted articles have been recreated. It can get complicated when the log is a huge list of user talk pages or images that are not likely to be recreated. I propose adding a drop-down list to the deletion log page, as we have on other special pages such as watchlists, so that the reader can focus on an individual namespace. ... discospinster talk 14:44, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
See bugzilla:14711 for details on why this isn't enabled. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 00:47, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I've started brainstorming on a reform idea for ArbCom at User:Kirill Lokshin/ArbCom 2.0; it's still in a very early stage, but any comments would be appreciated! Kirill 19:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
There's an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#NOINDEX of all non-content namespaces regarding disabling indexing of non-content namespaces. Comments would be appreciated. Cheers. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 00:46, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Has there been any attempt to make a consistent naming scheme for the articles in Category:Lists of fictional characters by medium? I'm seeing everything from "List of ______ characters" to "List of characters in _________" with no consistency either way. I would like to see some sort of consensus form in one direction or the other, but don't know where to start. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ( Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP) 20:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Now, as nearly everyone knows, splitting up the admin rights has been debated to death and deserves its spot on
WP:PEREN (if its not there already), but I feel we need to revisit it one last time, from an angle I don't believe has been discussed before; splitting up some rights for bot use only.
As many people are aware, getting an admin bot its userrights can run into a whole bunch of comunity issues, from fears that the bot's password can be found out (and thus compromising an admin account) and concerns that the bot will be the next
Skynet, blocking all the users or protecting all the pages. My idea would be to split up some of the rights that adminbots use (delete
and editprotected
I think are the main ones) and allow crats to assign only the relevant rights to the bot's accounts. This has various advantages over giving a bot an admin account:
We would, of couse, in classic Wikipedian style, need to debate over all the little bits of policy that need to be created, but I believe that this has some great potential. Foxy Loxy Pounce! 00:59, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
editprotected
, you need editinterface
to change Mediawiki: pages. Administrators have the protect
(which includes editprotected
) and editinterface
which can cause some confusion. Also, editing people's .css and .js files is another seperate userright (I think its editusercssjs
or something like that)
Foxy Loxy
Pounce! 01:34, 31 December 2008 (UTC)editprotected
Foxy Loxy
Pounce! 01:42, 31 December 2008 (UTC)I suppose I'm not against it, I just see it as pointless. A bot runs from a code, so if the code had no mention of Special:BlockIP at all, then there's no way that the bot could possibly block anyone. Despite Skynet, bots on WP genuinely can't think for themselves, so an adminbot will run the scripts it's programmed to follow. With the recent Lustiger Seth RfA, he passed despite there being no technical way of splitting his administrative rights. If one fear adminbots, one might as well fear any admin; but a human administrator is a lot more likely to go nuts than a bot. :) PeterSymonds ( talk) 18:08, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
It may be useful to create a unified 'adminbot' usergroup, which has all user rights that current 'bot' and 'sysop' usergroups have (possibly, except 'block'). Accounts can be assigned to this group and removed from it by 'bureaucrats'. Creation of such a group will streamline bot's management. Currently it is rather complicated: a bureaucrat needs to add a bot to both 'bot' and 'sysop' groups. And only a 'steward' can desysop a bot. Ruslik ( talk) 19:09, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Proposal: Add "reason", "bias" or "views" to Template:POV.
What it should look like:
The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. (February 2008) Bias towards | Views not adequately represented Keynesianism | Adamsians, Furries, Pastafarians Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.
My shot at it as a HTML comment. Add some CSS, should be fine q: -- Sigmundur ( talk) 19:49, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Rationale: Take Supply-side economics as an example, just saying that neutrality of a totally random article (from a casual viewer's point of view) has been accused as biased doesn't really say much. Is it too liberal/conservative? Rich north / poor south -bias, maybe? Adamsians enraged by the ridiculous claims of the Keynesians, or *gasp*, vice versa? No way to tell. To me, arguing about bias in an article about supply-side economics is like... well... claiming there exists a way in the first place to take a definite stance on such dictionary issues. Just check this list out. Can an article about Puzzle Bobble be biased, honestly?
I see there is indeed a Template:POV-because. It's not documented though, it seems; also, use of "biased" without explanation should be discouraged in general. -- Sigmundur ( talk) 18:58, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
How come all automatic edit summaries have AES arrows except for the automatic edit summary for reverting an edit? I propose that "Reverted edits by Vandal ( talk) to last version by Editor" be changed to " ←Reverted edits by Vandal ( talk) to last version by Editor". -- IRP ☎ 16:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
The discussion on the implementation of a 'trial' configuration of FlaggedRevisions on en.wiki has now reached the 'straw poll' stage. All editors are invited to read the proposal and discussion and to participate in the straw poll. Happy‑ melon 17:53, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi, let me be clear, I do not have any sort of annoucements for the Wikipedia community but Wikipedia has loads. Fund-raising, FlaggedRevs, Wikipedia 1.0, 10 Million articles, et cetera. I searched through the Pump archives and found nothing on this. Users do not sign up because they are not interested. When are you guys going to insist to us users/editors how interesting Wikipedia is by sending some messages to our talk pages. I am aware of Signpost but that is a hefty item. Some stuff such as what I mentioned above obviously transcends asking for a weekly digest. I think you guys who make announcements on the community portal page should collaborate with Arbcom and announce anything of signifigance on a mini barnstar type template with a nice big Community Portal signature. People will edit lots of stuff and rarely if ever look at the portal page and yet some irregular stuff would be nice to hear. Some people will look through half the wiki without even looking at half the main page. If I sign up for a specific project I will get announcements occasionally as applys. I like it and would welcome any announcements from the Community Project as well just because it is interesting. ~ R. T. G 02:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I propose that rollback links show up next to edits in the recent changes list. Although we might not be able to determine exactly what every edit looks like simply by looking at the list, if we see something like "( ←Replaced content with 'BITCH')", or large, red, bold negative numbers in size change with no edit summary, then, the recent changes patrollers with rollback rights can roll it back faster. -- IRP ☎ 17:51, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps this can be something we can add to our monobook? -- IRP ☎ 21:07, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Another proposal: On our image pages, could we have a small tag at the top of the page saying 'commons', which, when clicked, would lead to the commons' image page (when existent)? Exactly like on commons, where there's a little tag 'en', which leads to the English Wikipedia's page describing the file.
It would act as a compliment to the template automatically generated beneath the image when commons holds the image but we don't (but isn't generated when both we and commons hold an identically named image). It would make it much easier to spot when {{ ncd}} needs to be placed, and would save having to scroll to find the template below. - Anxietycello ( talk) 06:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
How about replacing the line:
default [[commons:Main Page|This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.]]
with
default [[commons:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.]]
or
default [{{fullurl:commons:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}}} This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.]
Not sure if either would work, my skills are probably even more feeble.
Anxietycello (
talk) 00:43, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
default [[commons:{{FULLPAGENAMEE}}|This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.]]
{{#tag:
… }}
format for the ImageMap, as the <imagemap>
tag form doesn't accept magic words or template inputs. I wrote a
tutorial for ImageMap a while ago that might be useful. Better yet, use the |link=
bit in ordinary image syntax that now exists. Oh, and while you're at it, would you please move the Commons-icon so that it doesn't screw with the featured image icon (e.g. as on
File:1Mcolors.png)? {{
Nihiltres|
talk|
log}} 16:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)I propose that, to decrease the risk of Wikipedia being used to spread malware and getting bad press as a result, all uploaded files in potentially vulnerable formats be scanned for malware (not necessarily at the time of upload) and, though not deleted, tagged if they test positive. MediaWiki could give each file one of the following four notices:
A client bot could do this, but it would leave open the possibility of vandalism changing a positive to negative or vice-versa.
Neon Merlin 04:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
The editing function should be true-to form,
including having the same format, font, spacing, linking, and elements as the posted article.
HTML and code is too obscure and not user friendly for many users.
It should be formatted as closer to word processing and normal true-to form text-editing, requiring fewer steps and abstraction in formatting for editing.
==
Also, the toolbar should include: lists, and other functions in edit and formatting, all the way to the end of the bar.
The 'internal link' should allow for specificity, possibly by including a drop-down list of the articles in disambiguation for the term.
==
Other formatting of the editing page can be simplified for ease of use, trueness to form, and versatility in editing.
-
AthenaO (
talk) 08:01, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
That looks closer, although still not true-to form. It looks like mostly programmer or abstract creation types would be comfortable with the current editing format. It would be nice to have a clear and more user-friendly editing format in the future.
- AthenaO ( talk) 07:47, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi guys! Just wondering, could we possibly improve on our background image ( File:Headbg.jpg)? Firstly, would it not be better to have it as a png file, rather than a jpg? Secondly, it seems to have a mauve tinge; wouldn't it be better to have it in greyscale? Worst of all, it seems to have a large amount of square-like shapes, which are probably compression artefacts. For all the effort put into WP:FP, it seems sensible that our second-most visible picture shouldn't contain so many easily fixed faults? Anxietycello ( talk) 05:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia should be easy to use, and contain clear definitions of each topic.
The introduction of each article should be the clear definition of each topic.
It should be clear, concise, and able to be freestanding. It should be neutral in tone, and give an simple, complete, gramatically positive definition of the topic.
It should answer the 7 journalistic base questions in a clear manner-
who, what, why, when, where, which, how
In a clear, simple, understandable way.
==
It should not include expository or derivative elements, including:
trivia,
heavy statistics,
overly tedious detail,
loaded adjectives, criticism,
opinion,
negation definitions,
or quotes from secondary sources or media,
and ideally be easily interpreted, and able to stand free of derivative definitions, including obscure references, excessive internal linking, or external references.
==
The elements of a concise encyclopedia definition should be clear in the introduction.
Any expository or elaborating elements kept in the body of the article.
It should be more of a light, illuminating the subject,
than a pile of trivial or redundant information crowding the subject.
The introduction should also be topographically flat, user-friendly, easy to grasp, and clear,
and not requiring extra foreknowledge about the topic.
In this way, all entries are accessible and understandable to all readers.
To have comprehensiveness of entries is fine, but it should also be user friendly, accessible and lightweight for users who want a definition, not to be intimidated by a mass of information on each topic.
Wikipedia should still be able to function as an encyclopedia, rather than theses on each topic.
==
The proposal is for standard guidelines for Clear Introductions for each topic, functioning as free-standing encyclopedia definitions.
Any expository elements should be relegated to the body of the articles.
In this way, people can use to Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, rather than only a set of theses on each topic.
-
AthenaO (
talk) 08:02, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Clear Introductions
Examples
New Clear Introduction:
The apple is the fruit of the apple tree. It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits in the world. It grows mainly in temperate regions, in moderate climates.
The tree originated from Central Asia, where the wild ancestor of all modern apples, the wild crab apple, is still found today. The fruit was consumed by humans since the Stone Age, and cultivated in large scale in about 2500 BCE. It is one of the first fruits cultivated for human consumption. There are more than 7,500 known types of apples cultivated in the world today.
Apples are grown mainly in orchards, on the continents of Asia and North America as the main sources of supply. At least 55 million tonnes of apples were grown worldwide in 2005, with a value of about $10 billion. About 35% of this total was produced in China, the leading producer, and 7.5% in the United States, as the second leading worldwide producer. Apples are also grown in other countries, including in Europe.
The common apple (M. sylvestris) is the best known and is commercially the most important temperate fruit in the world today.
==
Original:
The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family Rosaceae. It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits. The tree is small and deciduous, reaching 3 to 12 metres (9.8 to 39 ft) tall, with a broad, often densely twiggy crown.[1] The leaves are alternately arranged simple ovals 5 to 12 cm long and 3–6 centimetres (1.2–2.4 in) broad on a 2 to 5 centimetres (0.79 to 2.0 in) petiole with an acute tip, serrated margin and a slightly downy underside. Blossoms are produced in spring simultaneously with the budding of the leaves. The flowers are white with a pink tinge that gradually fades, five petaled, and 2.5 to 3.5 centimetres (0.98 to 1.4 in) in diameter. The fruit matures in autumn, and is typically 5 to 9 centimetres (2.0 to 3.5 in) diameter. The center of the fruit contains five carpels arranged in a five-point star, each carpel containing one to three seeds.[1]
The tree originated from Central Asia, where its wild ancestor is still found today. There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples resulting in range of desired characteristics. Cultivars vary in their yield and the ultimate size of the tree, even when grown on the same rootstock.[2]
At least 55 million tonnes of apples were grown worldwide in 2005, with a value of about $10 billion. China produced about 35% of this total.[3] The United States is the second leading producer, with more than 7.5% of the world production. Turkey, France, Italy and Iran are among the leading apple exporters.
==
From- too much information, to- just enough
==
New Clear Introduction:
Gala is a type of apple. It originated in New Zealand in the 1920s. It is a cross between two types of apple, the Golden Delicious and Kidd's Orange Red apple. It is now grown in many parts of the world, and is often available year-round in supermarkets.
The gala apple typically has red skin, with light yellow stripes, sometimes with shades of yellow and green, and has a mild and sweet flavor.
It is one of the most widely grown apple varieties in the world, in part because of its uniformity of flavor, durability, and availability year-round. It needs a warm temperate climate to grow best, and can be supplied from growers in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The United States, New Zealand, and Australia are the currently the major producers and exporters of the fruit.
==
Original:
Gala is a cultivar of apple with a mild and sweet flavor.
==
From- too little information, to- just enough
==
The introductions should have uniformity, of information, length, and completeness.
The subject of the article should be able to be understood completely in the introduction only.
One model is a standard encyclopedic definition, which is generally clear and simple, and can be read and understood in less than a minute.
A second standard model is the standard essay, which contains a clear, broad, easy to understand introductory paragraph, which covers the breadth of the topic discussed in the rest of the essay in a complete manner.
Another model for covering a lengthy subject is the standard 250 word abstracts in standard medical and scientific articles, which contain a standard set of information. and the most important and main points of the article. The subject can be completely understood by the abstract only.
There should be a clear set of information in the introduction of each article, so that users can reliably read a complete definition of the subject in the introduction.
The exposition is supplementary, and should not need to be searched in order to get the basic information and comprehension of the topic.
So, the introduction is to be clear and definitive.
All of the information following, in the body of the article, is supplementary and expository.
-
AthenaO (
talk) 18:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
==
The point being
that the introductions need to have a clear format.
They should reliably communicate a complete set of information about the topic.
Too many articles resemble a black hole of expository and elaborated information
and Wikipedia cannot function as a lightweight encyclopedia in this way.
The format needs to be cleaned up so that the introduction can function as a complete definition.
The exposition should be separated into the body of the articles.
This would probably go under the Manual of Style for Introduction or lead formatting.
- AthenaO ( talk) 07:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
No, it's not Simple English Wiki. The introductions of the standard Wikipedia should have a reliable set of information about the topic.
This is to standardize the introductions,
in a clear, understandable way.
Right now, there is too much variation between introductions of articles, and there is not a clear set of information that can be found about each topic in the introduction.
Some are 1 sentence. Some are 8 paragraphs, containing excess elements. Some articles do not have introductions at all.
Many of the articles on Wikipedia are becoming very elaborative, and while it's ok to elaborate on topics, there should still be a clear encyclopedic definition for each topic.
The proposal is to have the introduction of each article, contain a clear, definite set of information about the topic.
- AthenaO ( talk) 09:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't know if this is old news to everyone, but there is currently (and for a while now) a discussion about closing the Simple English Wikipedia at Meta ( meta:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Simple English (2) Wikipedia). Would this be inappropriate to add to Template:Cent, as it isn't directly about EN and it doesn't link to our project? I think it would impact EN were it to close, as it impacts EN being open. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 07:15, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
There has been an update to inputbox that makes searching subpages much more streamlined (see here). I'd like to propose that most (if not all) noticeboards be moved to subpages (or pages with similar prefixes) of a few pages. All of the village pumps and their archives begin with Wikipedia:Village pump, so there's no problem there, and several others are already subpages of WP:AN. I'd like to move the rest to either Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/ or Wikipedia:Noticeboard/. So, for example, Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard would be Wikipedia:Noticeboard/Biographies of living persons. The naming is just reversed, but it makes searching for previous problems worlds-simpler. The idea is that if you encounter an issue with an editor or article (or any noun), you can easily search multiple noticeboards and archives at once to see if there is a previous point of reference. This would be especially useful for the WP:RNBs, the names of which are all over the place. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, take a look at Template:Editabuselinks. And this would only really be helpful for the ones that contain discussions and/or archives. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 07:26, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Keep in mind I am planning on listing these individually for renaming (unless there is overwhelming support here, which at this point seems unlikely), this is just a proposal about the idea, but to start with -
I'd also like to set one up a noticeboard for WP:CSD (or maybe just deletion?), which was suggested on the talk page a month or two ago, as people often have complaints about speedies. I have already moved a few inactive boards to subpages of WP:AN - WP:CSN and WP:PAIN (WP:PAIN doesn't have archives, that was just for cleanup). The searchbar at the top of WP:AN will now search those pages as well. I'd like to set up WP:Noticeboards as a directory, with search bars for the Village pumps, AN, and whatever else. The RNBs are tougher, because many aren't actually noticeboards, but those can be worried about later.
Here is an example that I posted on Technical, like the one at WP:AN -
~ JohnnyMrNinja 14:30, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia should become a paid web host. This means wikipedia won't have to ask for donations anymore. The wikipedia.org site should not promote your own webhost to keep things neutral and you should have a seperate domain name that doesn't sound like wikipedia and doesn't have the word wiki in it.
You should offer dedicated servers and dedicated servers in a cluster using private racks(one or more servers connected together running as one) and shared servers.
The difference between your web host could be that every server has unlimited monthly bandwidth, because wikipedia knows how expensive bandwidth is, so you could maybe build your own underground/underwater cables so you can offer unlimited bandwidth. Danielspencer2 ( talk) 01:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't think you are aware about the profits hosting companies make. a simple google search shows they make millions each year. Danielspencer2 ( talk) 23:57, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed on a couple other Wikipedias, IP editors have links at the top right corner of the page, similar to those that logged in users have (see nl:Main Page). These include links to the IP's userpage, talk page, contributions, and the standard login link. I'd like to see this adopted here. 68.220.210.50 ( talk) 04:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there's a way to do this currently... I'd like for there to be a way to specify a link so that the page that includes the link doesn't show up on the "What links here" page for the page that is linked to. This would be useful for the production of content (e.g. project-level alerts) that could show up in multiple places (e.g., project banners) that contain links to articles, users and other pages. I request this to avoid potential "What links here" clutter.
A couple ideas off the top of my head for how this might work:
I'm open to other approaches on this, but I think we could eventually have too much "What links here" clutter in some articles at some point if we don't do something. Also I think this would be a useful approach for user pages, sandboxes and the like. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 15:36, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
<phantom>[[George W Bush|Penis]]</phantom>
, that would prompt the result
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W_Bush to shoot up the rankings of google searches for "penis". It wouldn't be obvious why this was the case, and hiding links from whatlinkshere only clouds the issue further. More generally, comprehensive backlink tables like WhatLinksHere are absolutely integral to the way a wiki works as a cohesive whole: when an article is deleted all backlinks will become redlinks, so they need to be hunted down and delinked or retargetted; this can only be done if there is a complete list available. We could perhaps implement a method to segregate 'maintenance' links from 'real' links, but what distinguishes one from the other? One man's clutter is another's treasure.
Happy‑
melon 15:54, 8 January 2009 (UTC)Is it possible to incorporate Cat: and Catagory: headings so when you type Cat:, Catagory: shows up? This would be very useful as many extra pages would be unneccessary. If so, then can someone do this? Thanks! Math Cool 10 Sign here! 03:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Portals could have their own "Random article" functions. So I get a random Arts article, a random Technology article, etc.
See [2].
Franciscrot ( talk) 15:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Flagged protection ( WP:FLP) is currently being proposed, if you have time please comment on this proposal, and make changes to it as you see fit. The page also needs some copy-editing as well. Please fill in any missing part in this proposal if you can. Thank you. Y. Ichiro ( talk) 03:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I propose to standardize the introductory sentences in all articles across wikipedia into the following format:
[Indefinite/definite article] + [Article title] + [relevant conjugation of the verb ''to be''] + [definition/overview etc.]
(NB: The article may be omitted if it is inappropriate/unnecessary.)
This is an example of a legitimate opening sentence according to my proposal (from the article Apple):
Here there is the definite article, followed by the article name, followed by the third person singular conjugation of to be (is), which is then followed by the definition. Another example is given below (from the article Guerrilla warfare):
Here, the article is omitted, but the article name is there, followed by the third person singular conjugation of to be, followed by the definition (which I have put in quotation marks for emphasis). An example of a sentence which does not conform to my proposal is given below (from the article LaRouche criminal trials):
Here, it is not immediately clear what "LaRouche criminal trials" are. The use of "stemmed from" gives no immediate indication of the subject, and to me, assumes previous knowledge of the reader. A better format, in line with my proposal, would be:
Here, there is the definite article, the article name (stated word for word for no confusion), and then the third person plural past preterite of to be (which is were). Following this, there is the definition (once again in quotation marks for emphasis).
I think that there are too many cases of topics being started vaguely and ambiguously, when what is needed is the formula for the introductory sentence which I have proposed. This is more than just the Use-mention distinction, it's about starting the topic by defining the word-for-word article name. That is what the introductory sentence should be. It should not be jumping into a discussion about X, without first saying "X is ____." Thanks for any feedback and comments on this proposal, and fingers crossed that it passes. -- Paaerduag ( talk) 06:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
That's a terrible proposal. Rôte formulaic boilerplate is no substitute for writing that is the result of intelligent thought, and the latter most certainly should not be changed to the former. One size most definitely does not fit all in this particular instance. Uncle G ( talk) 00:58, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Here's an example of actually putting intelligent thought into things: Qualifiers such as "In X," are necessary for some articles where the same name means different things in different fields, or where the field of knowledge has to be given to ensure that the terminology used in the rest of the introduction has enough context for it to make sense.
Putting no thought into things, and just using boilerplate formulae for writing, to achieve the not even evidently desirable goal of consistency, is a terrible idea. It's akin to the idea of putting one-size-fits all infoboxes on every article in a given class, again in the name of nothing but consistency. If you want to read several article writers' views on that idea, also applied by rôte by editors who aren't thinking about the specific articles, or even the infoboxes at times, and who are placing consistency ahead of intelligent writing, see User:Geogre/Talk archive 24#Who OWNS what?, User:Geogre/Talk archive 24#Infobox discussion at Philosophy Wikiproject, and the various places linked from them. Uncle G ( talk) 02:47, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be nice to have more shortcut namespaces like WP: and WT:? Currently, the WP: namespace is amazing because it shortens how much you type by just that little bit. It's so much easier to type [[WP:OR]] than to type [[Wikipedia:OR]], just because it's 7 characters shorter. So I propose to make a U: shortcut for the current User: namespace, T: for Talk:, UT: for User talk:, TP: for Template:, TT: for Template talk:, I: / F: for Image: / File:, IT: / FT: for Image talk: / File talk:, etc. (I can't think of any more namespaces; add any more suggestions below) Note that this would also free up some space in signatures (← Look at that! I just used a WP: shortcut! That was so easy!) and pretty much everything else you can think of. flaming lawye r c 06:15, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
At DYK we solved this by making the redirect come from T:TDYK instead of TT:DYK. But why a new namespace, the whole thing already works. - Mgm| (talk) 13:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
[[CAT:WPB]]
would cause the page to be categorised into
Category:WPB, not just adding a link there. There is currently no way to create an alias to the inline link version, which is what is really required.
Happy‑
melon 10:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I had asked this question at WP:Helpdesk on April 15, 2008:
And so here I am. Such a tool could be a time-saver in trying to determine when (and by whom) specific text was added. Could this be added as a future feature? -- Thomprod ( talk) 23:28, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
It would be good if when I was reading a website or document even if when I came across a word or phrase I didn't full understand I could just put my curser on it then Right Click on it and they'd be an OPEN IN WIKIPEDIA option.
<email removed to prevent spam>
There's a Greasemonkey script called "QuickiWiki" that does something like this. It's available at http://UserScripts.org. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 14:58, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
For any Mac users, I highly recommend iSeek. Very handy application, and with a quick key command, you can search any site you want; I've got mine pretty much permanently set to Wikipedia, and in five actions (select, copy, activate, paste, return) bring up any topic on Wikipedia. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:30, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
While this proposal is related to the FAQ entry Wikipedia:PEREN#Create a counter of people watching a page, don't reject it out of hand. Hopefully implementation of this idea would be more useful for improving the quality of articles on Wikipedia.
I'm imagining a new special page that displays a rank-order list of articles that have been scored according to a ratio of editing frequency divided by the number of people watching a page. Articles having 1 or less editors could be excluded, as these are likely to be either unwatched pages or new articles under development by one author.
This would show a higher rank for high-activity pages that have few editors. A special page showing such a list would tell me what articles are likely to require attention. High-ranked articles would be watched by 2 or more editors and have sufficient activity to indicate the article is of interest and could use participation from others.
Ideally, such a special page would ultimately accomplish the flattening of the distribution of pages that have few watchers. Any thoughts? ~ Amatulić ( talk) 01:54, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I think that It would be great if Wikipedia added a save function to the user accounts where users would be able to create a list of their favorite articles. They fould be able to create and name folders much like an e-mail account, and then save links to the articles in the folders. This would allow you to come back to an interesting article you come accross when you have more time to read it, or allow you to keep track of articles you want to use as sources for a research project.
For Example I just came accross a really great article on the Dominicans that I would really like to read, but it is quite long and it is 1:30 AM and I don't have the time now. I will never remember to come back to it myself, but If Wikipedia allowed me to "flag" it in my account the next time I log in I could see it and remember that I want to read it.
Thanks for considering this suggestion.
Well, happy new year y'all, and since I'm here anyway, allow me to bounce an idea off a few heads.
The Ireland ArbCom case recently came to my attention. This strikes me as a dispute that is extremely important to 1% of our userbase, who are more-or-less evenly divided between the two sides, and mostly irrelevant to the remaining 99%. It also strikes me that we have a whole gallery of this kind of disputes, and that they tend to rage on for months and cause serious burnout in involved people.
We need a way for resolving these issues. Based on the recent ArbCom case, there is now an effort to try and decide it by headcount, but that strikes me as counterproductive, as it rehashes all arguments again, repeatedly, and will probably end up near a 50-50 split between two options.
So I'm thinking, perhaps it's time we make a Content Committee? Basically, a small panel of uninvolved users that makes lasting decisions in this kind of cases. It strikes me as a far better idea to decide that "yes, we will call the article Gdańsk for now", than to keep edit warring over it for a lengthy period of time. It goes without saying that such a committee could not go against WP:NPOV and WP:RS and so forth. But when there are two equally viable answers, it's good to be able to stick with one and stop arguing.
Thoughts please? Should I draw up a solid proposal page or is this too wishful thinking? >Radiant< 22:06, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I was reading some of Wikipedia's articles to find the flow to be awkward at times. As Wikipedia is the conglomerate of the knowledge of many, it has also become of the style of many. I think we should have some sort of project to help with streamlining articles; i.e., they simply rewrite the current facts such that the flow of the articles is smoother.
-- Heero Kirashami ( talk) 18:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I think that lyrics should be added to songs to help people understand references to lyrics and so that they can understand what the song is about (though the lyrics). I have wondered why this has not already happened, it would be very helpful to many people. (Edit: Which part of that WP:NONFREE does it fall under? And what about if it is an interpretation of the lyrics and is not copied from any website? -- Somebody You Do Not Know ( talk) 04:57, 6 January 2009 (UTC)) (Edit: Well then at least adding under external links a link to a copy of the lyrics?) -- Somebody You Do Not Know ( talk) 19:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC) -- Somebody You Do Not Know ( talk) 04:08, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed that many articles on mathematics seem to be poorly written, and as a result, the only people who understand the article are the people who already understood the concept.
I propose that there be a project to overhaul sections about mathematical topics so that anyone could understand them, no matter their prior knowledge.
I have long thought that we all need a comprehensive list of symbols and their explanations. This is a feature that is missing from nearly all dictionaries, which generally exclude anything that does not begin with an alphabetical character. As a result, many people have no idea what most symbols are called, even though they may have a rich vocabulary and know the meanings of the most abstruse and uncommon words. It seems odd to me that someone can know the meaning of words such as oreochiette, strangury, apophatic, scrim, proleptically, and nosology but have no idea what “&” is called, through there being no readily available reference which explains that this squiggle is called an ampersand and is short for “and”.
I have a theory that a big part of the reason that many people are frightened of math and can’t begin to understand it is simply because they cannot “read” the equations, which are full of what appears to them to be squiggles and weird Masonic-type signs. When people can READ signs they can talk about them (even if just to themselves) and they start to get an intellectual grip on what is involved. If you don’t know HOW the Greek symbols and other math signs are pronounced, then you can’t begin to understand the subject; it becomes completely opaque. For example, most readers would have seen those accents which frequently appear above the letter e in French. But many don’t know what they are called (acute and grave), and fewer know what it is they do. This is directly because one never sees them when flipping through a dictionary.
I would urge that WP gather and organize a comprehensive and easily accessed list of all such signs, arranged by language and function (e.g. logical, chemical, mathematical and so on). How would you know in what order these signs should be listed? Well, how do the Chinese organize THEIR dictionaries and phone books. You use the simplest elements first and then the more complex. And of course their should be a REVERSE alphabetical listing, so that you can access the signs by their proper names. An article like this would could become a valuable resource. This is one of my many hobby horses, so discussion is warmly invited Myles325a ( talk) 07:29, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
A perennial complaint by editors is the amount of space that references occupy in articles. Also, anything that simplifies adding references can only be a good thing.
Most journal articles contain a unique identifier in the form of a DOI or PMID. My bot Citation bot is trained to complete citation templates from only a DOI - it can expand something of the form {{citation|doi=10.1010/asiohu23}} into a fully fledged reference. However, this requires manual intevention (and knowledge of the Citation bot) and can leave a large imprint in an article. I often find myself referring to the same article many times; if I wish to tweak the reference (for example, adding a free access URL) this involves editing every page.
I have come up with a solution that could automate the process.
In the article, a user would enter something along the lines of <ref>{{doi/10.1010/ashi8ub}}</ref>. If the article in question had already been referenced elsewhere, it will of course automatically appear in its entirety in the reference list. If not, Citation bot will spring into action, look up the article's details at Crossref, and create the new template page. The full reference will appear in the article immediately.
Does anyone envision either any problems with this process, or any ways it can be improved?
Martin ( Smith609 – Talk) 23:59, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I was on the very edge of filing Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Help: namespace, but I think it would be more productive to come here instead. I think it's time to take a serious look at the state of our Help: namespace, and to ask how we expect it to develop. As best I can determine, Help: has never really had very much enthusiasm in its construction and development; in the beginning, content was assembled on meta-wiki and copied here by a bot on a regular basis; a complicated set of templates allowed the inclusion of site-specific content. That update cycle stopped many years ago, and the content has very much languished ever since. More recently, the website http://www.mediawiki.org was created by the WMF to provide documentation and support for MediaWiki: this includes a public-domain Help: namespace that it intended to hold site-neutral help content on the MediaWiki interface. While the development has progressed fairly slowly, that content is now building up, and is in many cases better than our own content: compare mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions with our old version.
There are, as I see it, three ways to proceed with our Help: interface in light of this increasingly mature content available at mediawiki.org. Firstly, of course, we could ignore it, and rely on our own help pages to document MediaWiki's features. However, there's no evidence that there is any of the enthusiasm required to actually build and maintain such pages. Or, we could try and interface with mediawiki.org and derive our help content from their PD help.
There are various means by which we could do this. We could just create something like
Portal:Help that explains the situation (that help is available on an external site, which is allied with, but not affiliated to, en.wiki) and has a big fat interwiki link to pipe people there, and abandon our own Help: namespace altogether. We could try and get a bot to restart the copying-pages-from-the-main-wiki process (not something I would advocate, too fragile). We could ask for interwiki redirects to be enabled to mediawiki.org. We could alternatively ask for interwiki transclusion to be enabled from mediawiki.org, so we can just put {{mw:Help:Foo}}
on our help pages and get a dynamic copy of the content immediately available. That would be my personal preference, but there might be
performance issues that the devs will bite us with. Alternatively, we could hack up a JavaScript implementation to do the same thing, putting the performance hit onto the users' browsers.
I think the only thing we can't do is allow our Help: namespace to continue in the diabolical state it's currently in. Your thoughts, please. Happy‑ melon 13:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
A form of disruptive editing I frequently encounter is the 'correction' of an article from British to US english, or vice versa. I know that the spelling 'color' galls many Brits and Canadians, and am sure that Americans find the extra u equally annoying.
Without software changes, it would be possible to implement a template-based solution so that any user could opt to view Wikipedia in their own dialect. It would work as follows:
The setting of the preference would involve copying one line of text to the user CSS; with consensus, it would be easy to add a box to the 'gadgets' page.
Without getting into the technical details of how this would be implemented, I would be interested to know whether people think that it is a good idea to allow people to see words in their local dialect if they wish to.
Martin ( Smith609 – Talk) 00:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I hereby table this proposal. =) — kur ykh 01:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
We have hundreds of articles on lighthouses, but there is no notability guideline for them. The current policy seems to be that simply being a lighthouse makes it notable. There's obviously some hobbyist niche that absolutely adores lighthouses, but do we really believe that every lighthouse in the world in inherently notable enough for an article? Most of these lighthouse articles look good, but only consist of technical information and a section on its (local) history. Your grandfather's barn is not notable just because you know its history and dimensions. -- Remurmur ( talk) 19:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
hello, i jus had a suggestion regarding the wikipedia articles. I thought it would be a good idea to add a feature that would allow people to add a slideshow of pictures instead of one still picture in their articles. for example in this article --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_house , there is only one picture of the white house (South façade of the White House) ,by using this feature, editors can upload several pictures of the white house and the pictures would change every few seconds showing several different views of the white house in the same little box. Another thing that can be done is allowing editors to upload images that can create a 360 degree view of something. for example the inside of the white house can be shown in 360 degree view (rotateable) on the article page in a small box. I think this will take wikipedia to the next level. thanks.
Is there a centralized place for people who know about coding and using templates, where users looking for help can find an experienced user? For example, we have Wikipedia:Graphic Lab for images and WP:BOTR for bots, and yada yada...is there anything like that where people who are having trouble with a template (either people trying to code a template, or people using one in an article or something and having problems) to get help? Maybe there already is, and if so you can ignore this (but please let me know where that place is).... If not, though, would it be helpful to start some sort of noticeboard, project, or what-have-you, where people needing template help can easily find experienced template people?
I know I can often directly contact a user that I know from personal experience to be more template-savvy than I, but that's not always the case, especially for users who are new to WP or new to playing around with templates. And a lot of templates aren't watched much, so requests for help at the template talk page aren't always useful (I posted something at Template talk:Royal Family of Bhutan about two months ago and haven't gotten a response, for example). So maybe a noticeboard for people seeking template help would be useful, if you guys feel there is enough demand for such a thing and enough template-savvy people to participate in it. Any thoughts? Politizer talk/ contribs 15:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Would be interesting to see if a third party could do a blind review a WP and Citizendium article of the highest quality on the same topic, blind. Has this already been done? Balonkey ( talk) 04:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I propose that we add a new protection level, that would allow any user to edit, but no anonymous users to edit. In order to solve this problem, all that would be needed is for the sysadmins to edit $wgRestrictionLevels, and add 'user' to the list. The benefit of this would be to prevent IPs !voting at RFA and to prevent IPs posting requests at CHU. If this gains consensus, I'll fill out a bug report. What do others think? X clamation point 03:17, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Feel free to hop in and help develop this page. -- Cat chi? 08:39, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Hello,
I had an idea of creating a new template that could be used in huggle/twinkle. Maybe a minority of users who vandalize Wikipedia just do it because they think its funny so maybe we could make a template that says:
"Thank you for trying to use Humour on Wikipedia. Unfortunately we are here to build an Encyclopdeia. You may wish to direct your efforts here "
Many thanks DFS454 ( talk) 13:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I have for a little while been using the very nice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
link-page of wikipedia as my starting page. I was wondering if it would be possible to implement a function that would 'split up' this page into subcategories or subjects; so that when you entered a link, say Special:Random/[subject X], you would be able to get ie. articles only related to the subject 'mathematics' or 'culture'?
To me, that would greatly improve the value of the wikipedia Special:Random feature.
Knowledgelover121 ( talk) 20:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Algebraist, thank you very much for your swift response and for your link to the random mathematics link which I didn't know about. Knowledgelover121 ( talk) 20:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
MOS:IMAGES states "As a rule, images should not be forced to a fixed size". It also states that size-forcing is appropriate for lead images and that "Lead images, which should usually be no larger than 300 pixels". The trouble as I see it is that every wikiproject has a different policy on the InfoBox/Lead/Taxobox image size. As a user with a number of large monitors, I have my default thumbnail size set to 300px. This means that in most cases the lead images are smaller than the following images in an article. I propose a modification to the image syntax allowing something along the lines of [[File:example.jpg|thumb|large]] so that these images are consistent. The size of large images would then be specified by user preference (perhaps ranging from 180-450px). Doing this would make wikipedia more mobile device friendly, and reduce work on pages in the future (as monitor size and resolution climbs). Specifying a well defined "large" image size would also bring consistency to the lead images across the project and give a more professional look. Noodle snacks ( talk) 02:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Hello, I have traveled from WikiProject Geographical coordinates, where we seek wider opinions on whether {{ coord}} should offer a N/S/E/W labeled format for decimal coordinates (example: 43.12° N 79.34° W) either as an option or by default, or if the existing unlabeled format (example: 43°07′N 79°20′W / 43.12°N 79.34°W) is sufficient. Please comment there if you have an opinion on this. Thanks! -- GregU ( talk) 18:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
I think it would be benificial for all to have a way of tagging articles or images as safe for work, or not safe for work. Doesn't have to be these tags specifically, perhaps your own rating system. The reson I post here first instead of bugzilla as I don't know what exactly this would entail. The idea is steming from a desire to see complete articles, images and all, from work. Currently, my place of employment block images due to some of the odd things you can look up that might be offensive, etc. This takes a great deal from Wikipedia, and can be useful in downtimes at certain industry jobs, and this can be a life saver in situations AT work. Demortes ( talk) 16:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
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We are getting to the age where we do in fact have user pages left over from users who stopped being active more than five years ago. It's a small number, but it will grow exponentially in the coming months. Those pages serve no further purpose to the project, and are an annoyance to the extent that they tend to add absolutely useless matter to the "What links here" pages of any article to which they are linked. Subpages pose an entirely different kind of problem, because they frequently serve as repositories of unencyclopedic information, copyvios, and forgotten drafts that will never be made into articles. Unless someone sets out to do a thorough scouring of user subpages, most will never be found in the regular editing process. Based on the foregoing, I propose the following:
That's it in a nutshell. bd2412 T 07:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
We already have a process for deleting stale article drafts in userspace: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion. Many stale article drafts have been deleted there, without even waiting for the 5 years that you propose. See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Bacchiad/Anarchism, for example. If stale article drafts and copyright violations are the problem that you are actually addressing (which it seems so) then simply use the working mechanisms already actively dealing with these that we already have. Uncle G ( talk) 23:44, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
We have thousands of these, where the user has never been blocked, they haven't edited in a year (or more), and 'their' user talk page hasn't been edited in a year or more. Can these be deleted? For a tabula rasa, among other things (no new messages bar, etc.). Obviously pages with {{ sharedip}} or {{ dynamicip}} or whatever would be skipped. Thoughts? -- MZMcBride ( talk) 23:51, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I propose that users who are not administrators will be able to delete pages if they are the sole contributor to them or if they are within their own userspace. This feature should replace {{ db-author}} and {{ db-user}} -- IRP ☎ 15:28, 22 December 2008 (UTC), modified 15:30, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I propose that Wikipedia use a filter to prevent things like this from happening. It deceived users into believing that was the actual action of the user, which it wasn't. The vandalism remained in place for months until I finally caught it and reverted it. Please note that I am not proposing that this blocks the user from editing, but just causes an error message to display if a user attempts to manually insert " ←" into the edit summary. -- IRP ☎ 17:12, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
This type of edit used to give the default edit summary, but no longer does. Therefore a lot of my recent edits, where I added categories to redirects, have no summaries. For the record, as vandalism goes, this was very minor, since you'd only see it if you edited the redirect. -- NE2 13:02, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
I made a template ( User:JSH-alive/Sandbox/Testground, specific revision) to store former slogans, titles, names, call signs, whatever else in one place, especially in the infobox.
Comments? -- JSH-alive talk • cont • mail 13:29, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
I often come to browse Wikipedia. I start with an article I need to know something about (say, C#). I find in the article something else I want to learn about in a link in the article (say, model-view-component). I click the link, and lo and behold, I am navigated away. Wouldn't it be soooooooooo simple to a) make it the default that other articles open in a new tab, or b) make it a "permanent setting" (you set it when logged into your acct, and when you're on Wikipedia on the same computer, even when not logged in, Wikipedia will see that and auto-open in new tabs)?
Please tell me why this would be hard, if it is.
Users without a username can easily go around vandalising a person's page. Also, if an IP address wishes to speak to a person on the talk page, they may only add, not take away( unless reverting own edits)
I presume this is suggesting that the protection extended to users' .js and .css files (ie only they and admins can edit them) be extended to all pages in userspace. If so, then no: vandal moves featured articles into userspace of some random user, articles are locked until admins move them back; huge amount of admin time is tied up unnecessarily. Or, user creates policy-violating content in their own userspace, moves it into the userspace of a retired user, same problem. The knee-jerk reaction of "protecting things → less vandalism" really doesn't hold when you step back and think twice. Happy‑ melon 21:29, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
The conflict of interest guidelines need clarification. It says that editing with a conflict of interest (particularly when there is money involved) is 'strongly discouraged', but pretty much all the reasons why seem to come back to other policies - notability, npov etc. Most of the cases that come to the attention of the COI noticeboard also seem to involve editors who have written crappy pages, created pages on non-notable subjects, linkspammed or whatever - all things which would be bad whether the editor has a conflict of interest or not.
So, is editing with a conflict of interest considered bad in and of itself, or only when it leads to bad editing? It does seem like the vast majority of people with a COI make bad edits, but it does not necessarily follow that COI automatically leads to bad editing. For starters, everyone who comes onto Wikipedia for the sole purpose of promoting their company or whatever is a new editor and thus likely to make bad edits regardless of their motivations. Also, I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of editors out there with conflicts of interest that no one knows about because they haven't drawn attention to themselves by making obviously biased or otherwise crappy edits. I think it's probably in the best interests of Wikipedia to encourage these people to be open about what they're doing rather than passing themselves off as ordinary editors.
Basically I think we need to decide whether conflict of interest editing is bad regardless of the quality of the edits (and if so, why) or just when it violates other policies. If the former, the COI page should be more explicit about this, and provide reasons why COI editing is bad in and of itself. If the latter, the term 'strongly discouraged' should probably be dropped and COI editors encouraged to be open about who they are and abide by a code of conduct, something along the lines of 'obey the spirit and letter of all policies, don't get involved in controversial editing, and be honest about what you're doing'.
Since several people have had accounts blocked for falling afoul of this - and not always in cases involving clearly bad edits - this needs to be resolved. I also posted this on the COI talk page but after a few days no-one has replied, and I really don't want to go changing this without some kind of consensus. -- Helenalex ( talk) 01:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Anomie. I have made all the suggested changes except the last two. Instead of the last suggestion, I put more emphasis on blocking into the first paragraph of 'consequences'. I think this is more clear than the original guidelines in terms of what specific actions can result in blocking.
I originally cut out the sentence on promotional articles because I thought the rewritten guidelines already made it clear that non-NPOV, non notable articles etc were unacceptable. It probably did need to be made clearer, so I have added "Editors should not create articles which serve solely to promote their subject. All Wikipedia articles should contain useful information written as if from a neutral point of view. The writing of 'puff pieces' and advertisements on Wikipedia is strictly prohibited." I felt the term 'promotional' was far too vague - it could be interpreted to mean any article on behalf of a client or employer, even if it's a good article. If you want 'promotional' back in, it needs to be defined. I have also removed the reference to clients as it seems to imply that creating a promotional article for an employer or best friend or whoever is more acceptable, which seems like a fairly odd and arbitrary distinction to make.
Again, I would rather not be in charge of this, so if you or anyone else wants to copy this into their own namespace and take charge of its final form, that would be much appreciated and probably help acceptance of whatever revisions end up getting made. -- Helenalex ( talk) 04:56, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
I propose a rating system of some kind for pages and images. This applies not only to this wiki, but the simple version as well. Articles about ejaculation, penis, etc. should be rated R considering the images and videos that are place on those pages. And parents should have some way to make sure that those materials are not available to our children unless we give explicit permission. Maybe for articles where the content is appropriate for teenagers, there can be a "ejaculation, student version" or "penis, student version" that contains images and diagrams that one would expect to find in a middle school or high school health education text book. 69.120.135.108 ( talk)
In disambiguating links to Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway, I have to filter out a lot of chaff added by {{ North American Class I}}. It's also useful sometimes to see what actually links to a page in the prose rather than in a navbox template. Would there be any way to add this feature? -- NE2 19:41, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
On so many occasions I've added to an article or created one and felt confident I was linking to an actual article because I saw a blue link. But several times, I've found out why I shouldn't be so confident. When I have found out, I have corrected my mistake, but there's no way I can go back and find all of the mistakes like that. I try harder these days to check all my links.
Is there a way to produce another possible link color for articles tagged as disambiguation pages? Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 22:43, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
How many times has it been suggested that editors can vote "yeah" or "nay" on articles to say "This is a good article" or the reverse? - Denimadept ( talk) 09:14, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
Hello, my name is Dr. Jason Wrench and I'm starting a project with my students this spring to update the information on organizational communication in Wikipedia. Organizational Communication is a wide field, but the current information on Wikipedia is very minimal, so I want to have my students to help me update the information. -- JasonSWrench ( talk) 06:43, 27 December 2008 (UTC) Jason S. Wrench
To prepare for the upcoming Wikipedia usability study, I wrote up a list of usability problems and proposals. Any comments are welcome. Cheers, AxelBoldt ( talk) 17:46, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
There is a proposal to close the Simple English Wikipedia. Additional comments would be appreciated. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 19:29, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
This has been mildly bothering me for a while now, and I thought I'd mention it and see if others felt the same way. I often use Wikipedia to help solve crossword puzzles, and frequently face clues like "Pop singer Jones". This leads me to the disambiguation page, List_of_people_with_surname_Jones#Music where I see a list of everybody named Jones involved in music. That's fine of course, but obviously some of the people listed are going to be more prominent or famous that all of the others, and thus more likely to be who myself or other readers are looking for.
Another example is the disambiguation page for Buffalo#United States, which lists 29 different US cities named Buffalo. I know that one of them is a quite large city and home to the Buffalo Sabers, but I (as a Canadian) had no idea which one, and no way of finding out short of trying each link (or using Google—I've since added a "Largest US city name Buffalo" description).
It would be great if there was some clear way of highlighting those disambiguation entries on the list that a reader is most likely after, for example using bold face for the link. Obviously a danger here is creating arguments about whether borderline entry X is prominent enough to deserve highlighting or not, but Buffalo, Oklahoma with a population of 1200 is quite clearly less prominent than Buffalo, New York (apologies to any of the 1200 Oklahoma Buffalonians who may be reading this...)
I've cross-posted to Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation#Highlighting_most_sought_disambig_entries; please comment there if you're interested. -- jwanders Talk 08:03, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes I go through the deletion log to see if any recently-deleted articles have been recreated. It can get complicated when the log is a huge list of user talk pages or images that are not likely to be recreated. I propose adding a drop-down list to the deletion log page, as we have on other special pages such as watchlists, so that the reader can focus on an individual namespace. ... discospinster talk 14:44, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
See bugzilla:14711 for details on why this isn't enabled. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 00:47, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I've started brainstorming on a reform idea for ArbCom at User:Kirill Lokshin/ArbCom 2.0; it's still in a very early stage, but any comments would be appreciated! Kirill 19:37, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
There's an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#NOINDEX of all non-content namespaces regarding disabling indexing of non-content namespaces. Comments would be appreciated. Cheers. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 00:46, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Has there been any attempt to make a consistent naming scheme for the articles in Category:Lists of fictional characters by medium? I'm seeing everything from "List of ______ characters" to "List of characters in _________" with no consistency either way. I would like to see some sort of consensus form in one direction or the other, but don't know where to start. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ( Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP) 20:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Now, as nearly everyone knows, splitting up the admin rights has been debated to death and deserves its spot on
WP:PEREN (if its not there already), but I feel we need to revisit it one last time, from an angle I don't believe has been discussed before; splitting up some rights for bot use only.
As many people are aware, getting an admin bot its userrights can run into a whole bunch of comunity issues, from fears that the bot's password can be found out (and thus compromising an admin account) and concerns that the bot will be the next
Skynet, blocking all the users or protecting all the pages. My idea would be to split up some of the rights that adminbots use (delete
and editprotected
I think are the main ones) and allow crats to assign only the relevant rights to the bot's accounts. This has various advantages over giving a bot an admin account:
We would, of couse, in classic Wikipedian style, need to debate over all the little bits of policy that need to be created, but I believe that this has some great potential. Foxy Loxy Pounce! 00:59, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
editprotected
, you need editinterface
to change Mediawiki: pages. Administrators have the protect
(which includes editprotected
) and editinterface
which can cause some confusion. Also, editing people's .css and .js files is another seperate userright (I think its editusercssjs
or something like that)
Foxy Loxy
Pounce! 01:34, 31 December 2008 (UTC)editprotected
Foxy Loxy
Pounce! 01:42, 31 December 2008 (UTC)I suppose I'm not against it, I just see it as pointless. A bot runs from a code, so if the code had no mention of Special:BlockIP at all, then there's no way that the bot could possibly block anyone. Despite Skynet, bots on WP genuinely can't think for themselves, so an adminbot will run the scripts it's programmed to follow. With the recent Lustiger Seth RfA, he passed despite there being no technical way of splitting his administrative rights. If one fear adminbots, one might as well fear any admin; but a human administrator is a lot more likely to go nuts than a bot. :) PeterSymonds ( talk) 18:08, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
It may be useful to create a unified 'adminbot' usergroup, which has all user rights that current 'bot' and 'sysop' usergroups have (possibly, except 'block'). Accounts can be assigned to this group and removed from it by 'bureaucrats'. Creation of such a group will streamline bot's management. Currently it is rather complicated: a bureaucrat needs to add a bot to both 'bot' and 'sysop' groups. And only a 'steward' can desysop a bot. Ruslik ( talk) 19:09, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Proposal: Add "reason", "bias" or "views" to Template:POV.
What it should look like:
The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. (February 2008) Bias towards | Views not adequately represented Keynesianism | Adamsians, Furries, Pastafarians Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.
My shot at it as a HTML comment. Add some CSS, should be fine q: -- Sigmundur ( talk) 19:49, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Rationale: Take Supply-side economics as an example, just saying that neutrality of a totally random article (from a casual viewer's point of view) has been accused as biased doesn't really say much. Is it too liberal/conservative? Rich north / poor south -bias, maybe? Adamsians enraged by the ridiculous claims of the Keynesians, or *gasp*, vice versa? No way to tell. To me, arguing about bias in an article about supply-side economics is like... well... claiming there exists a way in the first place to take a definite stance on such dictionary issues. Just check this list out. Can an article about Puzzle Bobble be biased, honestly?
I see there is indeed a Template:POV-because. It's not documented though, it seems; also, use of "biased" without explanation should be discouraged in general. -- Sigmundur ( talk) 18:58, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
How come all automatic edit summaries have AES arrows except for the automatic edit summary for reverting an edit? I propose that "Reverted edits by Vandal ( talk) to last version by Editor" be changed to " ←Reverted edits by Vandal ( talk) to last version by Editor". -- IRP ☎ 16:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
The discussion on the implementation of a 'trial' configuration of FlaggedRevisions on en.wiki has now reached the 'straw poll' stage. All editors are invited to read the proposal and discussion and to participate in the straw poll. Happy‑ melon 17:53, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi, let me be clear, I do not have any sort of annoucements for the Wikipedia community but Wikipedia has loads. Fund-raising, FlaggedRevs, Wikipedia 1.0, 10 Million articles, et cetera. I searched through the Pump archives and found nothing on this. Users do not sign up because they are not interested. When are you guys going to insist to us users/editors how interesting Wikipedia is by sending some messages to our talk pages. I am aware of Signpost but that is a hefty item. Some stuff such as what I mentioned above obviously transcends asking for a weekly digest. I think you guys who make announcements on the community portal page should collaborate with Arbcom and announce anything of signifigance on a mini barnstar type template with a nice big Community Portal signature. People will edit lots of stuff and rarely if ever look at the portal page and yet some irregular stuff would be nice to hear. Some people will look through half the wiki without even looking at half the main page. If I sign up for a specific project I will get announcements occasionally as applys. I like it and would welcome any announcements from the Community Project as well just because it is interesting. ~ R. T. G 02:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
I propose that rollback links show up next to edits in the recent changes list. Although we might not be able to determine exactly what every edit looks like simply by looking at the list, if we see something like "( ←Replaced content with 'BITCH')", or large, red, bold negative numbers in size change with no edit summary, then, the recent changes patrollers with rollback rights can roll it back faster. -- IRP ☎ 17:51, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps this can be something we can add to our monobook? -- IRP ☎ 21:07, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Another proposal: On our image pages, could we have a small tag at the top of the page saying 'commons', which, when clicked, would lead to the commons' image page (when existent)? Exactly like on commons, where there's a little tag 'en', which leads to the English Wikipedia's page describing the file.
It would act as a compliment to the template automatically generated beneath the image when commons holds the image but we don't (but isn't generated when both we and commons hold an identically named image). It would make it much easier to spot when {{ ncd}} needs to be placed, and would save having to scroll to find the template below. - Anxietycello ( talk) 06:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
How about replacing the line:
default [[commons:Main Page|This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.]]
with
default [[commons:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}|This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.]]
or
default [{{fullurl:commons:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAME}}}} This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.]
Not sure if either would work, my skills are probably even more feeble.
Anxietycello (
talk) 00:43, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
default [[commons:{{FULLPAGENAMEE}}|This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.]]
{{#tag:
… }}
format for the ImageMap, as the <imagemap>
tag form doesn't accept magic words or template inputs. I wrote a
tutorial for ImageMap a while ago that might be useful. Better yet, use the |link=
bit in ordinary image syntax that now exists. Oh, and while you're at it, would you please move the Commons-icon so that it doesn't screw with the featured image icon (e.g. as on
File:1Mcolors.png)? {{
Nihiltres|
talk|
log}} 16:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)I propose that, to decrease the risk of Wikipedia being used to spread malware and getting bad press as a result, all uploaded files in potentially vulnerable formats be scanned for malware (not necessarily at the time of upload) and, though not deleted, tagged if they test positive. MediaWiki could give each file one of the following four notices:
A client bot could do this, but it would leave open the possibility of vandalism changing a positive to negative or vice-versa.
Neon Merlin 04:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
The editing function should be true-to form,
including having the same format, font, spacing, linking, and elements as the posted article.
HTML and code is too obscure and not user friendly for many users.
It should be formatted as closer to word processing and normal true-to form text-editing, requiring fewer steps and abstraction in formatting for editing.
==
Also, the toolbar should include: lists, and other functions in edit and formatting, all the way to the end of the bar.
The 'internal link' should allow for specificity, possibly by including a drop-down list of the articles in disambiguation for the term.
==
Other formatting of the editing page can be simplified for ease of use, trueness to form, and versatility in editing.
-
AthenaO (
talk) 08:01, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
That looks closer, although still not true-to form. It looks like mostly programmer or abstract creation types would be comfortable with the current editing format. It would be nice to have a clear and more user-friendly editing format in the future.
- AthenaO ( talk) 07:47, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi guys! Just wondering, could we possibly improve on our background image ( File:Headbg.jpg)? Firstly, would it not be better to have it as a png file, rather than a jpg? Secondly, it seems to have a mauve tinge; wouldn't it be better to have it in greyscale? Worst of all, it seems to have a large amount of square-like shapes, which are probably compression artefacts. For all the effort put into WP:FP, it seems sensible that our second-most visible picture shouldn't contain so many easily fixed faults? Anxietycello ( talk) 05:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia should be easy to use, and contain clear definitions of each topic.
The introduction of each article should be the clear definition of each topic.
It should be clear, concise, and able to be freestanding. It should be neutral in tone, and give an simple, complete, gramatically positive definition of the topic.
It should answer the 7 journalistic base questions in a clear manner-
who, what, why, when, where, which, how
In a clear, simple, understandable way.
==
It should not include expository or derivative elements, including:
trivia,
heavy statistics,
overly tedious detail,
loaded adjectives, criticism,
opinion,
negation definitions,
or quotes from secondary sources or media,
and ideally be easily interpreted, and able to stand free of derivative definitions, including obscure references, excessive internal linking, or external references.
==
The elements of a concise encyclopedia definition should be clear in the introduction.
Any expository or elaborating elements kept in the body of the article.
It should be more of a light, illuminating the subject,
than a pile of trivial or redundant information crowding the subject.
The introduction should also be topographically flat, user-friendly, easy to grasp, and clear,
and not requiring extra foreknowledge about the topic.
In this way, all entries are accessible and understandable to all readers.
To have comprehensiveness of entries is fine, but it should also be user friendly, accessible and lightweight for users who want a definition, not to be intimidated by a mass of information on each topic.
Wikipedia should still be able to function as an encyclopedia, rather than theses on each topic.
==
The proposal is for standard guidelines for Clear Introductions for each topic, functioning as free-standing encyclopedia definitions.
Any expository elements should be relegated to the body of the articles.
In this way, people can use to Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, rather than only a set of theses on each topic.
-
AthenaO (
talk) 08:02, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Clear Introductions
Examples
New Clear Introduction:
The apple is the fruit of the apple tree. It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits in the world. It grows mainly in temperate regions, in moderate climates.
The tree originated from Central Asia, where the wild ancestor of all modern apples, the wild crab apple, is still found today. The fruit was consumed by humans since the Stone Age, and cultivated in large scale in about 2500 BCE. It is one of the first fruits cultivated for human consumption. There are more than 7,500 known types of apples cultivated in the world today.
Apples are grown mainly in orchards, on the continents of Asia and North America as the main sources of supply. At least 55 million tonnes of apples were grown worldwide in 2005, with a value of about $10 billion. About 35% of this total was produced in China, the leading producer, and 7.5% in the United States, as the second leading worldwide producer. Apples are also grown in other countries, including in Europe.
The common apple (M. sylvestris) is the best known and is commercially the most important temperate fruit in the world today.
==
Original:
The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family Rosaceae. It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits. The tree is small and deciduous, reaching 3 to 12 metres (9.8 to 39 ft) tall, with a broad, often densely twiggy crown.[1] The leaves are alternately arranged simple ovals 5 to 12 cm long and 3–6 centimetres (1.2–2.4 in) broad on a 2 to 5 centimetres (0.79 to 2.0 in) petiole with an acute tip, serrated margin and a slightly downy underside. Blossoms are produced in spring simultaneously with the budding of the leaves. The flowers are white with a pink tinge that gradually fades, five petaled, and 2.5 to 3.5 centimetres (0.98 to 1.4 in) in diameter. The fruit matures in autumn, and is typically 5 to 9 centimetres (2.0 to 3.5 in) diameter. The center of the fruit contains five carpels arranged in a five-point star, each carpel containing one to three seeds.[1]
The tree originated from Central Asia, where its wild ancestor is still found today. There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples resulting in range of desired characteristics. Cultivars vary in their yield and the ultimate size of the tree, even when grown on the same rootstock.[2]
At least 55 million tonnes of apples were grown worldwide in 2005, with a value of about $10 billion. China produced about 35% of this total.[3] The United States is the second leading producer, with more than 7.5% of the world production. Turkey, France, Italy and Iran are among the leading apple exporters.
==
From- too much information, to- just enough
==
New Clear Introduction:
Gala is a type of apple. It originated in New Zealand in the 1920s. It is a cross between two types of apple, the Golden Delicious and Kidd's Orange Red apple. It is now grown in many parts of the world, and is often available year-round in supermarkets.
The gala apple typically has red skin, with light yellow stripes, sometimes with shades of yellow and green, and has a mild and sweet flavor.
It is one of the most widely grown apple varieties in the world, in part because of its uniformity of flavor, durability, and availability year-round. It needs a warm temperate climate to grow best, and can be supplied from growers in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The United States, New Zealand, and Australia are the currently the major producers and exporters of the fruit.
==
Original:
Gala is a cultivar of apple with a mild and sweet flavor.
==
From- too little information, to- just enough
==
The introductions should have uniformity, of information, length, and completeness.
The subject of the article should be able to be understood completely in the introduction only.
One model is a standard encyclopedic definition, which is generally clear and simple, and can be read and understood in less than a minute.
A second standard model is the standard essay, which contains a clear, broad, easy to understand introductory paragraph, which covers the breadth of the topic discussed in the rest of the essay in a complete manner.
Another model for covering a lengthy subject is the standard 250 word abstracts in standard medical and scientific articles, which contain a standard set of information. and the most important and main points of the article. The subject can be completely understood by the abstract only.
There should be a clear set of information in the introduction of each article, so that users can reliably read a complete definition of the subject in the introduction.
The exposition is supplementary, and should not need to be searched in order to get the basic information and comprehension of the topic.
So, the introduction is to be clear and definitive.
All of the information following, in the body of the article, is supplementary and expository.
-
AthenaO (
talk) 18:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
==
The point being
that the introductions need to have a clear format.
They should reliably communicate a complete set of information about the topic.
Too many articles resemble a black hole of expository and elaborated information
and Wikipedia cannot function as a lightweight encyclopedia in this way.
The format needs to be cleaned up so that the introduction can function as a complete definition.
The exposition should be separated into the body of the articles.
This would probably go under the Manual of Style for Introduction or lead formatting.
- AthenaO ( talk) 07:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
No, it's not Simple English Wiki. The introductions of the standard Wikipedia should have a reliable set of information about the topic.
This is to standardize the introductions,
in a clear, understandable way.
Right now, there is too much variation between introductions of articles, and there is not a clear set of information that can be found about each topic in the introduction.
Some are 1 sentence. Some are 8 paragraphs, containing excess elements. Some articles do not have introductions at all.
Many of the articles on Wikipedia are becoming very elaborative, and while it's ok to elaborate on topics, there should still be a clear encyclopedic definition for each topic.
The proposal is to have the introduction of each article, contain a clear, definite set of information about the topic.
- AthenaO ( talk) 09:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't know if this is old news to everyone, but there is currently (and for a while now) a discussion about closing the Simple English Wikipedia at Meta ( meta:Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Simple English (2) Wikipedia). Would this be inappropriate to add to Template:Cent, as it isn't directly about EN and it doesn't link to our project? I think it would impact EN were it to close, as it impacts EN being open. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 07:15, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
There has been an update to inputbox that makes searching subpages much more streamlined (see here). I'd like to propose that most (if not all) noticeboards be moved to subpages (or pages with similar prefixes) of a few pages. All of the village pumps and their archives begin with Wikipedia:Village pump, so there's no problem there, and several others are already subpages of WP:AN. I'd like to move the rest to either Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/ or Wikipedia:Noticeboard/. So, for example, Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard would be Wikipedia:Noticeboard/Biographies of living persons. The naming is just reversed, but it makes searching for previous problems worlds-simpler. The idea is that if you encounter an issue with an editor or article (or any noun), you can easily search multiple noticeboards and archives at once to see if there is a previous point of reference. This would be especially useful for the WP:RNBs, the names of which are all over the place. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, take a look at Template:Editabuselinks. And this would only really be helpful for the ones that contain discussions and/or archives. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 07:26, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Keep in mind I am planning on listing these individually for renaming (unless there is overwhelming support here, which at this point seems unlikely), this is just a proposal about the idea, but to start with -
I'd also like to set one up a noticeboard for WP:CSD (or maybe just deletion?), which was suggested on the talk page a month or two ago, as people often have complaints about speedies. I have already moved a few inactive boards to subpages of WP:AN - WP:CSN and WP:PAIN (WP:PAIN doesn't have archives, that was just for cleanup). The searchbar at the top of WP:AN will now search those pages as well. I'd like to set up WP:Noticeboards as a directory, with search bars for the Village pumps, AN, and whatever else. The RNBs are tougher, because many aren't actually noticeboards, but those can be worried about later.
Here is an example that I posted on Technical, like the one at WP:AN -
~ JohnnyMrNinja 14:30, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia should become a paid web host. This means wikipedia won't have to ask for donations anymore. The wikipedia.org site should not promote your own webhost to keep things neutral and you should have a seperate domain name that doesn't sound like wikipedia and doesn't have the word wiki in it.
You should offer dedicated servers and dedicated servers in a cluster using private racks(one or more servers connected together running as one) and shared servers.
The difference between your web host could be that every server has unlimited monthly bandwidth, because wikipedia knows how expensive bandwidth is, so you could maybe build your own underground/underwater cables so you can offer unlimited bandwidth. Danielspencer2 ( talk) 01:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't think you are aware about the profits hosting companies make. a simple google search shows they make millions each year. Danielspencer2 ( talk) 23:57, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed on a couple other Wikipedias, IP editors have links at the top right corner of the page, similar to those that logged in users have (see nl:Main Page). These include links to the IP's userpage, talk page, contributions, and the standard login link. I'd like to see this adopted here. 68.220.210.50 ( talk) 04:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there's a way to do this currently... I'd like for there to be a way to specify a link so that the page that includes the link doesn't show up on the "What links here" page for the page that is linked to. This would be useful for the production of content (e.g. project-level alerts) that could show up in multiple places (e.g., project banners) that contain links to articles, users and other pages. I request this to avoid potential "What links here" clutter.
A couple ideas off the top of my head for how this might work:
I'm open to other approaches on this, but I think we could eventually have too much "What links here" clutter in some articles at some point if we don't do something. Also I think this would be a useful approach for user pages, sandboxes and the like. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 15:36, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
<phantom>[[George W Bush|Penis]]</phantom>
, that would prompt the result
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W_Bush to shoot up the rankings of google searches for "penis". It wouldn't be obvious why this was the case, and hiding links from whatlinkshere only clouds the issue further. More generally, comprehensive backlink tables like WhatLinksHere are absolutely integral to the way a wiki works as a cohesive whole: when an article is deleted all backlinks will become redlinks, so they need to be hunted down and delinked or retargetted; this can only be done if there is a complete list available. We could perhaps implement a method to segregate 'maintenance' links from 'real' links, but what distinguishes one from the other? One man's clutter is another's treasure.
Happy‑
melon 15:54, 8 January 2009 (UTC)Is it possible to incorporate Cat: and Catagory: headings so when you type Cat:, Catagory: shows up? This would be very useful as many extra pages would be unneccessary. If so, then can someone do this? Thanks! Math Cool 10 Sign here! 03:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Portals could have their own "Random article" functions. So I get a random Arts article, a random Technology article, etc.
See [2].
Franciscrot ( talk) 15:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Flagged protection ( WP:FLP) is currently being proposed, if you have time please comment on this proposal, and make changes to it as you see fit. The page also needs some copy-editing as well. Please fill in any missing part in this proposal if you can. Thank you. Y. Ichiro ( talk) 03:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I propose to standardize the introductory sentences in all articles across wikipedia into the following format:
[Indefinite/definite article] + [Article title] + [relevant conjugation of the verb ''to be''] + [definition/overview etc.]
(NB: The article may be omitted if it is inappropriate/unnecessary.)
This is an example of a legitimate opening sentence according to my proposal (from the article Apple):
Here there is the definite article, followed by the article name, followed by the third person singular conjugation of to be (is), which is then followed by the definition. Another example is given below (from the article Guerrilla warfare):
Here, the article is omitted, but the article name is there, followed by the third person singular conjugation of to be, followed by the definition (which I have put in quotation marks for emphasis). An example of a sentence which does not conform to my proposal is given below (from the article LaRouche criminal trials):
Here, it is not immediately clear what "LaRouche criminal trials" are. The use of "stemmed from" gives no immediate indication of the subject, and to me, assumes previous knowledge of the reader. A better format, in line with my proposal, would be:
Here, there is the definite article, the article name (stated word for word for no confusion), and then the third person plural past preterite of to be (which is were). Following this, there is the definition (once again in quotation marks for emphasis).
I think that there are too many cases of topics being started vaguely and ambiguously, when what is needed is the formula for the introductory sentence which I have proposed. This is more than just the Use-mention distinction, it's about starting the topic by defining the word-for-word article name. That is what the introductory sentence should be. It should not be jumping into a discussion about X, without first saying "X is ____." Thanks for any feedback and comments on this proposal, and fingers crossed that it passes. -- Paaerduag ( talk) 06:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
That's a terrible proposal. Rôte formulaic boilerplate is no substitute for writing that is the result of intelligent thought, and the latter most certainly should not be changed to the former. One size most definitely does not fit all in this particular instance. Uncle G ( talk) 00:58, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Here's an example of actually putting intelligent thought into things: Qualifiers such as "In X," are necessary for some articles where the same name means different things in different fields, or where the field of knowledge has to be given to ensure that the terminology used in the rest of the introduction has enough context for it to make sense.
Putting no thought into things, and just using boilerplate formulae for writing, to achieve the not even evidently desirable goal of consistency, is a terrible idea. It's akin to the idea of putting one-size-fits all infoboxes on every article in a given class, again in the name of nothing but consistency. If you want to read several article writers' views on that idea, also applied by rôte by editors who aren't thinking about the specific articles, or even the infoboxes at times, and who are placing consistency ahead of intelligent writing, see User:Geogre/Talk archive 24#Who OWNS what?, User:Geogre/Talk archive 24#Infobox discussion at Philosophy Wikiproject, and the various places linked from them. Uncle G ( talk) 02:47, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be nice to have more shortcut namespaces like WP: and WT:? Currently, the WP: namespace is amazing because it shortens how much you type by just that little bit. It's so much easier to type [[WP:OR]] than to type [[Wikipedia:OR]], just because it's 7 characters shorter. So I propose to make a U: shortcut for the current User: namespace, T: for Talk:, UT: for User talk:, TP: for Template:, TT: for Template talk:, I: / F: for Image: / File:, IT: / FT: for Image talk: / File talk:, etc. (I can't think of any more namespaces; add any more suggestions below) Note that this would also free up some space in signatures (← Look at that! I just used a WP: shortcut! That was so easy!) and pretty much everything else you can think of. flaming lawye r c 06:15, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
At DYK we solved this by making the redirect come from T:TDYK instead of TT:DYK. But why a new namespace, the whole thing already works. - Mgm| (talk) 13:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
[[CAT:WPB]]
would cause the page to be categorised into
Category:WPB, not just adding a link there. There is currently no way to create an alias to the inline link version, which is what is really required.
Happy‑
melon 10:24, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I had asked this question at WP:Helpdesk on April 15, 2008:
And so here I am. Such a tool could be a time-saver in trying to determine when (and by whom) specific text was added. Could this be added as a future feature? -- Thomprod ( talk) 23:28, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
It would be good if when I was reading a website or document even if when I came across a word or phrase I didn't full understand I could just put my curser on it then Right Click on it and they'd be an OPEN IN WIKIPEDIA option.
<email removed to prevent spam>
There's a Greasemonkey script called "QuickiWiki" that does something like this. It's available at http://UserScripts.org. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 14:58, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
For any Mac users, I highly recommend iSeek. Very handy application, and with a quick key command, you can search any site you want; I've got mine pretty much permanently set to Wikipedia, and in five actions (select, copy, activate, paste, return) bring up any topic on Wikipedia. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:30, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
While this proposal is related to the FAQ entry Wikipedia:PEREN#Create a counter of people watching a page, don't reject it out of hand. Hopefully implementation of this idea would be more useful for improving the quality of articles on Wikipedia.
I'm imagining a new special page that displays a rank-order list of articles that have been scored according to a ratio of editing frequency divided by the number of people watching a page. Articles having 1 or less editors could be excluded, as these are likely to be either unwatched pages or new articles under development by one author.
This would show a higher rank for high-activity pages that have few editors. A special page showing such a list would tell me what articles are likely to require attention. High-ranked articles would be watched by 2 or more editors and have sufficient activity to indicate the article is of interest and could use participation from others.
Ideally, such a special page would ultimately accomplish the flattening of the distribution of pages that have few watchers. Any thoughts? ~ Amatulić ( talk) 01:54, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I think that It would be great if Wikipedia added a save function to the user accounts where users would be able to create a list of their favorite articles. They fould be able to create and name folders much like an e-mail account, and then save links to the articles in the folders. This would allow you to come back to an interesting article you come accross when you have more time to read it, or allow you to keep track of articles you want to use as sources for a research project.
For Example I just came accross a really great article on the Dominicans that I would really like to read, but it is quite long and it is 1:30 AM and I don't have the time now. I will never remember to come back to it myself, but If Wikipedia allowed me to "flag" it in my account the next time I log in I could see it and remember that I want to read it.
Thanks for considering this suggestion.
Well, happy new year y'all, and since I'm here anyway, allow me to bounce an idea off a few heads.
The Ireland ArbCom case recently came to my attention. This strikes me as a dispute that is extremely important to 1% of our userbase, who are more-or-less evenly divided between the two sides, and mostly irrelevant to the remaining 99%. It also strikes me that we have a whole gallery of this kind of disputes, and that they tend to rage on for months and cause serious burnout in involved people.
We need a way for resolving these issues. Based on the recent ArbCom case, there is now an effort to try and decide it by headcount, but that strikes me as counterproductive, as it rehashes all arguments again, repeatedly, and will probably end up near a 50-50 split between two options.
So I'm thinking, perhaps it's time we make a Content Committee? Basically, a small panel of uninvolved users that makes lasting decisions in this kind of cases. It strikes me as a far better idea to decide that "yes, we will call the article Gdańsk for now", than to keep edit warring over it for a lengthy period of time. It goes without saying that such a committee could not go against WP:NPOV and WP:RS and so forth. But when there are two equally viable answers, it's good to be able to stick with one and stop arguing.
Thoughts please? Should I draw up a solid proposal page or is this too wishful thinking? >Radiant< 22:06, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I was reading some of Wikipedia's articles to find the flow to be awkward at times. As Wikipedia is the conglomerate of the knowledge of many, it has also become of the style of many. I think we should have some sort of project to help with streamlining articles; i.e., they simply rewrite the current facts such that the flow of the articles is smoother.
-- Heero Kirashami ( talk) 18:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I think that lyrics should be added to songs to help people understand references to lyrics and so that they can understand what the song is about (though the lyrics). I have wondered why this has not already happened, it would be very helpful to many people. (Edit: Which part of that WP:NONFREE does it fall under? And what about if it is an interpretation of the lyrics and is not copied from any website? -- Somebody You Do Not Know ( talk) 04:57, 6 January 2009 (UTC)) (Edit: Well then at least adding under external links a link to a copy of the lyrics?) -- Somebody You Do Not Know ( talk) 19:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC) -- Somebody You Do Not Know ( talk) 04:08, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
I've noticed that many articles on mathematics seem to be poorly written, and as a result, the only people who understand the article are the people who already understood the concept.
I propose that there be a project to overhaul sections about mathematical topics so that anyone could understand them, no matter their prior knowledge.
I have long thought that we all need a comprehensive list of symbols and their explanations. This is a feature that is missing from nearly all dictionaries, which generally exclude anything that does not begin with an alphabetical character. As a result, many people have no idea what most symbols are called, even though they may have a rich vocabulary and know the meanings of the most abstruse and uncommon words. It seems odd to me that someone can know the meaning of words such as oreochiette, strangury, apophatic, scrim, proleptically, and nosology but have no idea what “&” is called, through there being no readily available reference which explains that this squiggle is called an ampersand and is short for “and”.
I have a theory that a big part of the reason that many people are frightened of math and can’t begin to understand it is simply because they cannot “read” the equations, which are full of what appears to them to be squiggles and weird Masonic-type signs. When people can READ signs they can talk about them (even if just to themselves) and they start to get an intellectual grip on what is involved. If you don’t know HOW the Greek symbols and other math signs are pronounced, then you can’t begin to understand the subject; it becomes completely opaque. For example, most readers would have seen those accents which frequently appear above the letter e in French. But many don’t know what they are called (acute and grave), and fewer know what it is they do. This is directly because one never sees them when flipping through a dictionary.
I would urge that WP gather and organize a comprehensive and easily accessed list of all such signs, arranged by language and function (e.g. logical, chemical, mathematical and so on). How would you know in what order these signs should be listed? Well, how do the Chinese organize THEIR dictionaries and phone books. You use the simplest elements first and then the more complex. And of course their should be a REVERSE alphabetical listing, so that you can access the signs by their proper names. An article like this would could become a valuable resource. This is one of my many hobby horses, so discussion is warmly invited Myles325a ( talk) 07:29, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
A perennial complaint by editors is the amount of space that references occupy in articles. Also, anything that simplifies adding references can only be a good thing.
Most journal articles contain a unique identifier in the form of a DOI or PMID. My bot Citation bot is trained to complete citation templates from only a DOI - it can expand something of the form {{citation|doi=10.1010/asiohu23}} into a fully fledged reference. However, this requires manual intevention (and knowledge of the Citation bot) and can leave a large imprint in an article. I often find myself referring to the same article many times; if I wish to tweak the reference (for example, adding a free access URL) this involves editing every page.
I have come up with a solution that could automate the process.
In the article, a user would enter something along the lines of <ref>{{doi/10.1010/ashi8ub}}</ref>. If the article in question had already been referenced elsewhere, it will of course automatically appear in its entirety in the reference list. If not, Citation bot will spring into action, look up the article's details at Crossref, and create the new template page. The full reference will appear in the article immediately.
Does anyone envision either any problems with this process, or any ways it can be improved?
Martin ( Smith609 – Talk) 23:59, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
I was on the very edge of filing Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Help: namespace, but I think it would be more productive to come here instead. I think it's time to take a serious look at the state of our Help: namespace, and to ask how we expect it to develop. As best I can determine, Help: has never really had very much enthusiasm in its construction and development; in the beginning, content was assembled on meta-wiki and copied here by a bot on a regular basis; a complicated set of templates allowed the inclusion of site-specific content. That update cycle stopped many years ago, and the content has very much languished ever since. More recently, the website http://www.mediawiki.org was created by the WMF to provide documentation and support for MediaWiki: this includes a public-domain Help: namespace that it intended to hold site-neutral help content on the MediaWiki interface. While the development has progressed fairly slowly, that content is now building up, and is in many cases better than our own content: compare mw:Help:Extension:ParserFunctions with our old version.
There are, as I see it, three ways to proceed with our Help: interface in light of this increasingly mature content available at mediawiki.org. Firstly, of course, we could ignore it, and rely on our own help pages to document MediaWiki's features. However, there's no evidence that there is any of the enthusiasm required to actually build and maintain such pages. Or, we could try and interface with mediawiki.org and derive our help content from their PD help.
There are various means by which we could do this. We could just create something like
Portal:Help that explains the situation (that help is available on an external site, which is allied with, but not affiliated to, en.wiki) and has a big fat interwiki link to pipe people there, and abandon our own Help: namespace altogether. We could try and get a bot to restart the copying-pages-from-the-main-wiki process (not something I would advocate, too fragile). We could ask for interwiki redirects to be enabled to mediawiki.org. We could alternatively ask for interwiki transclusion to be enabled from mediawiki.org, so we can just put {{mw:Help:Foo}}
on our help pages and get a dynamic copy of the content immediately available. That would be my personal preference, but there might be
performance issues that the devs will bite us with. Alternatively, we could hack up a JavaScript implementation to do the same thing, putting the performance hit onto the users' browsers.
I think the only thing we can't do is allow our Help: namespace to continue in the diabolical state it's currently in. Your thoughts, please. Happy‑ melon 13:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
A form of disruptive editing I frequently encounter is the 'correction' of an article from British to US english, or vice versa. I know that the spelling 'color' galls many Brits and Canadians, and am sure that Americans find the extra u equally annoying.
Without software changes, it would be possible to implement a template-based solution so that any user could opt to view Wikipedia in their own dialect. It would work as follows:
The setting of the preference would involve copying one line of text to the user CSS; with consensus, it would be easy to add a box to the 'gadgets' page.
Without getting into the technical details of how this would be implemented, I would be interested to know whether people think that it is a good idea to allow people to see words in their local dialect if they wish to.
Martin ( Smith609 – Talk) 00:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I hereby table this proposal. =) — kur ykh 01:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
We have hundreds of articles on lighthouses, but there is no notability guideline for them. The current policy seems to be that simply being a lighthouse makes it notable. There's obviously some hobbyist niche that absolutely adores lighthouses, but do we really believe that every lighthouse in the world in inherently notable enough for an article? Most of these lighthouse articles look good, but only consist of technical information and a section on its (local) history. Your grandfather's barn is not notable just because you know its history and dimensions. -- Remurmur ( talk) 19:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
hello, i jus had a suggestion regarding the wikipedia articles. I thought it would be a good idea to add a feature that would allow people to add a slideshow of pictures instead of one still picture in their articles. for example in this article --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_house , there is only one picture of the white house (South façade of the White House) ,by using this feature, editors can upload several pictures of the white house and the pictures would change every few seconds showing several different views of the white house in the same little box. Another thing that can be done is allowing editors to upload images that can create a 360 degree view of something. for example the inside of the white house can be shown in 360 degree view (rotateable) on the article page in a small box. I think this will take wikipedia to the next level. thanks.
Is there a centralized place for people who know about coding and using templates, where users looking for help can find an experienced user? For example, we have Wikipedia:Graphic Lab for images and WP:BOTR for bots, and yada yada...is there anything like that where people who are having trouble with a template (either people trying to code a template, or people using one in an article or something and having problems) to get help? Maybe there already is, and if so you can ignore this (but please let me know where that place is).... If not, though, would it be helpful to start some sort of noticeboard, project, or what-have-you, where people needing template help can easily find experienced template people?
I know I can often directly contact a user that I know from personal experience to be more template-savvy than I, but that's not always the case, especially for users who are new to WP or new to playing around with templates. And a lot of templates aren't watched much, so requests for help at the template talk page aren't always useful (I posted something at Template talk:Royal Family of Bhutan about two months ago and haven't gotten a response, for example). So maybe a noticeboard for people seeking template help would be useful, if you guys feel there is enough demand for such a thing and enough template-savvy people to participate in it. Any thoughts? Politizer talk/ contribs 15:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Would be interesting to see if a third party could do a blind review a WP and Citizendium article of the highest quality on the same topic, blind. Has this already been done? Balonkey ( talk) 04:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I propose that we add a new protection level, that would allow any user to edit, but no anonymous users to edit. In order to solve this problem, all that would be needed is for the sysadmins to edit $wgRestrictionLevels, and add 'user' to the list. The benefit of this would be to prevent IPs !voting at RFA and to prevent IPs posting requests at CHU. If this gains consensus, I'll fill out a bug report. What do others think? X clamation point 03:17, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Feel free to hop in and help develop this page. -- Cat chi? 08:39, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Hello,
I had an idea of creating a new template that could be used in huggle/twinkle. Maybe a minority of users who vandalize Wikipedia just do it because they think its funny so maybe we could make a template that says:
"Thank you for trying to use Humour on Wikipedia. Unfortunately we are here to build an Encyclopdeia. You may wish to direct your efforts here "
Many thanks DFS454 ( talk) 13:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I have for a little while been using the very nice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
link-page of wikipedia as my starting page. I was wondering if it would be possible to implement a function that would 'split up' this page into subcategories or subjects; so that when you entered a link, say Special:Random/[subject X], you would be able to get ie. articles only related to the subject 'mathematics' or 'culture'?
To me, that would greatly improve the value of the wikipedia Special:Random feature.
Knowledgelover121 ( talk) 20:39, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Algebraist, thank you very much for your swift response and for your link to the random mathematics link which I didn't know about. Knowledgelover121 ( talk) 20:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
MOS:IMAGES states "As a rule, images should not be forced to a fixed size". It also states that size-forcing is appropriate for lead images and that "Lead images, which should usually be no larger than 300 pixels". The trouble as I see it is that every wikiproject has a different policy on the InfoBox/Lead/Taxobox image size. As a user with a number of large monitors, I have my default thumbnail size set to 300px. This means that in most cases the lead images are smaller than the following images in an article. I propose a modification to the image syntax allowing something along the lines of [[File:example.jpg|thumb|large]] so that these images are consistent. The size of large images would then be specified by user preference (perhaps ranging from 180-450px). Doing this would make wikipedia more mobile device friendly, and reduce work on pages in the future (as monitor size and resolution climbs). Specifying a well defined "large" image size would also bring consistency to the lead images across the project and give a more professional look. Noodle snacks ( talk) 02:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Hello, I have traveled from WikiProject Geographical coordinates, where we seek wider opinions on whether {{ coord}} should offer a N/S/E/W labeled format for decimal coordinates (example: 43.12° N 79.34° W) either as an option or by default, or if the existing unlabeled format (example: 43°07′N 79°20′W / 43.12°N 79.34°W) is sufficient. Please comment there if you have an opinion on this. Thanks! -- GregU ( talk) 18:12, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
I think it would be benificial for all to have a way of tagging articles or images as safe for work, or not safe for work. Doesn't have to be these tags specifically, perhaps your own rating system. The reson I post here first instead of bugzilla as I don't know what exactly this would entail. The idea is steming from a desire to see complete articles, images and all, from work. Currently, my place of employment block images due to some of the odd things you can look up that might be offensive, etc. This takes a great deal from Wikipedia, and can be useful in downtimes at certain industry jobs, and this can be a life saver in situations AT work. Demortes ( talk) 16:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)