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I would like to propose permanently semi-protecting all 366 articles about calendar days. Now I suppose that'll draw some opposition so I figured it would be best to discuss in the widest possible forum and of course there's no rush to do this. Let me first try to carefully state my case.
Now the policy on semi-protection says that indefinite semi-protection should be used for "Articles subject to heavy and continued vandalism such as George W. Bush". There's no question that the calendar days are the subject of continued vandalism but I'll concede that it's not heavy if one compares it to the hardcore hailstorm that affects the beloved GW Bush article. Still, from a cost/benefit point of view, semi-protection would seem reasonable. If I can get consensus here, I'd like to experiment by protecting a dozen of them for say a week or two. We could see how that goes and make a more educated decision afterwards. Pascal.Tesson 04:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I support the semi-protection. I watch October 4, my birthday, and nearly all of its edits are of this sort. The good edits are nearly always by established users. Because I'm often the first to see it, I'll be the one to take the time to check the article to be sure it's a redlink and then revert it. I also agree that these articles are very static. In my opinion, these test edits will rarely result in recruitment. As said above, most are made by bored school kids adding themselves, unlikely to ever make a constructive edit. I know that I didn't make annoying tests. Regarding Dcoetzee's last statement, I hadn't really thought of it that way before, but for days of the year, it seems they are done, and that we don't want them screwing with it where we then have to revert it. Anyway, if the person has a constructive edit to make, a request on the talk page is encouraged. Reywas92 Talk 14:26, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I also support. Almost no IP edits are not reverted and not being able to add yourself to a date isn't going to turn a useful contributor away. Atropos 22:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I support this proposal, as well. The cost/benefit analysis here is strongly in favor of semi-protection for these pages. - Chunky Rice 22:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I too support this proposal. — The Storm Surfer 03:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Your opinion is well thought out Pascal, and eloquently worded, howver I'm afraid I oppose. I am in favour of anonymous editing in all cases, except where sprotection is totally necessary. The point here is, I don't think sprotection is necessary at all. On the flip side, I am perfectly willing to add every single one of these pages to my watchlist to increase their visibility to me, if this helps. -- ɐuɐʞsəp (ʞɿɐʇ) 04:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
why not make an option on the front page just for birthdays that ppl can post. maybe a separate column, in yellow or light blue frame or something. this will solve part of the problem. and the semi protection does seem reasonable nonetheless. But if the birthday thing is created then there is no need to make semi protection. :D Vitalyshmelkin 10:50, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Support. The ratio of anon edits that are vandalism vs. constructive edits in these articles is persuasive. One benefit to semi-protection not yet mentioned is that RC patrollers spend time dealing with these edits that would be better spent addressing other needs on Wikipedia. Accurizer 11:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Alternatively, create 366 templates, with the meaningful data. Transclude the templates on the main article for each day. Casual vandals will just try to edit the day page, and not know/care about how to change the template. But, the main article for each day should be protected (the templates remain unprotected). End of problem?? Neier 11:48, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Support - 99.99% of edits by new/unregistered users to these pages are vandalism. WATP ( talk) • ( contribs) 12:18, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Strong support - I've reverted lots of anon. IP edits on these pages, many of which had stayed there - never noticed - for weeks or longer. I too have thought of proposing generic semi-protection for these pages -- so I'm glad Pascal.Tesson finally took the inititative on this issue. Thanks! Cgingold 14:04, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Strong support - As a regular RC patroller, I can vouch for the fact that these are test edit/vandalism magnets. Semi-prot won't harm em, and anyone who really wants to improve them can do so easily. Excellent proposal. xC | ☎ 14:27, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Strong support. Taken as a group, these 365 articles have a very high proportion of IP vandal edits to constructive IP edits (any at all?). Let's free up editors to work on things beside reverting vandalism of these articles. (And, by the way, my brief look at one article seemed to show that it wasn't move-protected - why in the world not?) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:30, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
I really don't see the need to semiprotect something which is (supposedly) heavily watched anyway, but I think it boils down to the wikiphilosophy you're adhering to. Let's say it like this: There is not enough vandalism to warrant semiprotection right now; just wachlist and revert. And just as a little caveat: if you start with dealing out semiprotection because the edits to an article are more than 90% vandalism, you will have more articles to be semiprotected. Lectonar 15:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Oppose I don't think that vandalism level is heavy enough to warrant protection. Vandalism that appears in these pages also tends to be the least malicious kind. I don't think the benefits obtained from this proposal is enough to further compromise our principles of open editing. Borisblue 09:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Strong Oppose philosophical approach, I agree with WP:PPOL Semi-protection should not be used With the sole purpose of prohibiting editing by anonymous users. Protection should be used only to prevent continuing disruption. Ultimately we should be striving to uphold the principal of "anyone can edit" Gnan garra 11:51, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Oppose, semi-protection in perpetuity is not done. Corvus cornix 18:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I would like to see the results of this, as a supporter of the proposal. What happened to it? -- User:Krator ( t c) 23:52, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Support a test. As Flyguy649 suggested, a test of this would be interesting, and should be agreeable to most. Maybe July-December, as that is the period we're entering, and provides a clear end date for the test. -- Quiddity 00:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I totally oppose this. We can just revert vandalism, and those pages have the potential to attract new editors that begin as "vandals" and can eventually become helpful editors. A.Z. 00:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Oppose. Yeah, it's a pain in the butt, but I'd be surprised if we don't have at least one or two "reliable" editors to watch each of the dates. I'll add my birthday to my watchlist now, in fact. Cmprince 03:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Weak Support - The concept is good in principal, but if you will notice certain dates tend to get more vandalism than others. Why not instead of semiprotecting all the dates, just semiprotect well known dates. Such as July 4, December 25, February 29, etc. Just a thought. -- Tλε Rαnδom Eδιτor ( ταlκ) 22:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Support I've had many of these pages on my watchlist for a while and they are a target for vandals and a "my daughter was born on this day"-target for newb editors. It's a pain for the editors that maintain and vandal and vanity edits routinely remain unnoticed for long periods (i've seen 4 months). -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 22:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Support - I agree with the previous statement that RC patrollers can focus on other needs. I also like the idea to create templates for each day. Vandals wouldn't care enough to take the time to figure out how to edit the template. Although some may still post nonsense, it may deter many. LaraLove T/ C 04:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Weak Oppose - Im reaslly torn here. Ever since I started on Wikipedia I've been an RC pattroller, and after seeing how much vandalisim these articles got, I now watch about 5 pages (my birthday, my congressman's birthday, and a few friends' birthdays — this also has the benefit of not making my birthday so obvious if anyone's trying to root out my identity for some reason). Is there a lot of vandalisim? definitly. Would semi-protection stop it? There's little doubt in my mind. At the same time however, semi-protection isn't the only way to deal with this. These pages can be and are closely watched. Semi-protection seems like trying to pound in a nail with a sledgehammer. It's overkill, but not by much. I just think using a regular hammer works fine as-is. I won't be dissapointed if they are s-protected (it'd be less work for me), but at the same time, I don't think it's necessary. (If we still wanted to do something, perhaps a bot could check "births" for each day for redlinks?) -- Ybbor Talk 01:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Totally unnecessary. I'd be surprised if these aren't among the most-watched pages on Wikipedia; my own birthday ( May 21 gets hit about once or twice a day, which isn't really very much compared to a lot of the other pages I watch.-- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 16:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Oppose - overkill.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Turkeyphant ( talk • contribs) 11:33, July 26, 2007 (UTC)
Unnecessary - I've changed my opinion after watching about ten pages for the past week. Although some of the pages did receive vandalism, it was all reverted relatively quickly. I'm sure that if enough regular editors watch 10 pages each, very little vandalism would stay for very long. Flyguy649 talk contribs 14:28, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
weak oppose - this is a very tempting idea which i sympathize with for its practicality for me. but it is a precedent to permanently semiprotect articles. user:Dcoetzee makes a good point earlier. further more, Wikipedia provides two services to the public, access to information and the ability to change that information. this compromises that idea out of an argument for convenience. some proposals improve others solidify. we are not the sole editors of wikipedia preparing for retirement. there will always be others after us. but for now, we are the few, the proud, the registered user. it has been our effort to not only improve wikipedia but keep it what it was to us when we first found it, open. openness is and always will be wikipedias greatest strength and most admired virtue. Some thing 05:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Is there any sort of database, or filter, or overlay, in existence right now for an "essential" Wikipedia?
As an example, if I was running a school in rural Congo with no internet access, it would be nice to have one CDR (or whatever size medium is required) that has just the essential educational articles, with all the trivia and pop culture stripped out.
I was thinking that would be an interesting idea - a way to be able to read, or download, only the essential articles.
I assume identifying the articles would just take the addition of a tag. As for a script to assemble the updated essential articles for download, though, that is beyond me. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 19:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Is there anyway to know which all pages have only stub categories and not normal categories as these pages needs to be put under proper category. Vjdchauhan 16:38, 27 July 2007 (UTC).
.Here's my point on the spell check many young students use wikipedia and some times it can be a simple mistake or someone may not know the spelling and these can all be solved with the google search but many of the youngster don't always know how to get to that search. I know that a spell check for an encyclopedia may seem like dumbing down to some flamer but it is relay a great feature .... added at 00:56, 19 July 2007 by Unsignedcomment ( contributions)
no it isn't a great feature. It is annoying when search engines think they know better than you what you are trying to find. Anyway, this seems to be more of a flamebait than a serious suggestion. There is already a solution to address the most common misspellings, {{ R from misspelling}}. dab (𒁳) 07:28, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I might add that my comment on typographical exuberance was in reply to the comment Ah using exclamation marks like that make many of the people who are here that flame newbies mad that is why I use them; the OP subsequently deleted this. -- Hoary 13:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I think this is getting out of hand I get a hate mail from "Anonymous Dissident" saying there is no elitism on wiki and say I'm stupid and don't know what I'm doing. I may be stupid but criticizing someone for suggesting a spell check for Wikipedia search then telling them "You can accuse Wikipedia of many things, but certainly not of elitism. WP has an obsession with accessibility to and participation of, to put it bluntly, morons" yes that is elitism and each member of wikipedia is part of wikipedia and your comments ruin the good community of wikipedia. My post was mainly about a spell check a spell check offering suggestions for the search like the one on google yes it is a basic suggestion and not much to it thats why I suggested it I thought it maybe nice and easy to implement. I have learned from my first post everyone on wikipedia is perfect and can do no wrong but some people are not good speller like me I always use spell check on Open Office and it is easy and convenient. I like this response it so nice and polite "no it isn't a great feature. It is annoying when search engines think they know better than you what you are trying to find. Anyway, this seems to be more of a flame-bait than a serious suggestion. There is already a solution to address the most common misspellings" this is flame bait why are you so cranky you don't like it so it is flame bait boom you attack come on this is not the place for that as for thinking the search engine is better than you I just don't know why a suggestion of the correct spelling is so intimidating .My attempt to ferret out people who attack was just that people on many talk pages are mean and nasty and it should stop just because you are typing 10000 Km away. My user name is Unsignedcomment I thought it was mildly funny but even more I was lazy and do not care much but to Anonymous Dissident it is stupid maybe you think that but a user name is so meaningless here's what Anonymous Dissident had to say "To create a user account Unsignedcomment and then make a point of not signing your posts is just puerile obstinacy and doesn't buy you any points." . I have not posted much I just did not realize I had to sign my post some what like a forum I thought it signed the post for you. As for buying points if I get enough do I get a BB gun like with skeet ball tickets (joke in case you don't get it and are angered to the point of Anonymous Dissident ) .sorry for not reading the FAQ but that does not excuse the hat brought about by a mistake none of the geniuses above have read the FAQ or they would know the answer to why this is not possible and would have let me in on it wouldn't they or are the cranky and elitist.And my next proposal will be a proposal to rid Wiki of the intimidation and B!@#$ing above. Maybe you think someones Idea is dumb but does that give you the right to be mean no if someone is a new user help don't hate. Maybe only you guys and doctors should write the encyclopedia oh no that Nupedia what happened to that?-- User: Unsignedcomment 13:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm very confused reading this. Is there another conversation that explains why dab would think this proposal was a flamebait? Atropos 00:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
I think this is an interesting topic so i'm trying to quarantine the previous insanity, and start anew. let me start by saying that this is primarily a software issue that may or may not be solvable here but it at least starts the conversation. i agree that it is annoying when a program/browser corrects your spelling for you automatically. and it is not always helpful for it to suggest "correct" spellings of things after you make a search. however, i think google in actuallity, after making a search provides you with a list of alternatives in case your search didnt bring the desired results. and i dont think google brings these results from a dictionary. it more or less provides similar words that are more commonly searched and successfully clicked on. wikipedia could potentially, using its existing articles title words, provide a short list of similarly spelled article names or words in the event that there are no exact matches from your search. this would be much more convenient than having to search through the index, or open a new tab to search it on google to check if it provides an alternative spelling that you can then copy and plug into another wikipedia search (which i humbly admit to doing frequently). so here are the questions. is this desirable? whats better? and how could it be made possible? Some thing 05:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Better search feature, summarized as "This is Mediazilla:974. The functionality exists, but is disabled for performance reasons."
See also Wikipedia:Go button for an explanation of how the current search works. -- Quiddity 17:51, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I've been informally interviewing my friends about their experiences with Wikipedia, and man, do we have a lot of work to do if we want more intelligent, normal people to contribute.
One newcomer couldn't even figure out how to leave a comment on a talk page, so I propose that we change the "+" tab to "leave a comment". She liked that idea.
I believe this is accomplished by editing MediaWiki:Addsection. I'd go ahead and be bold, but that's a little too bold...
What do others think? — Omegatron 16:18, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
+
for a long time, but that's just me. On talk pages, edit this page
should be given less emphasis (unbolded) than +
because +
is probably used a lot more often than edit this page
. People should only need to click edit this page
when they want to change banners at the top or to refactor the entire page. To respond to an individual section, use the section's own [edit]
link. If discussion
gets shortened to talk
and edit this page
gets shortened to
or renamed to the more intuitive edit entire page
, then +
can be renamed to add section
or something. 800x600 should be able to handle it. –
Pomte 21:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)Yeah, when I set my font size to 40, the tabs overflow; so maybe we should just change them all to single letters. :-) — Omegatron 15:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I recall this proposal previously got rejected due to historical reasons or some such, but if it does go through, there are some other message in Special:Allmessages that may need changing as well. – Pomte 23:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of the tab until now. I fully agree with the change. It's a useful tab and there's no reason why editors must wait more than one year (the time I've been editing) to know that it exists. A.Z. 02:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
If it gets changed into "leave a comment" then in light of it being very long, I suggest changing "edit this page" on talk pages into "edit". It's good to say "edit this page" on articles, but it's not a good idea on talk pages. -- Steinn inn 09:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
(the first few posts of this thread were moved from Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Talk Pages)
When I first discovered Wikipedia, I spent much time looking for "talk" pages. I am a native speaker of English and I know that "talk" and "discussion" mean much the same thing, but the omnipresence of "talk page" led me to believe that something less formal was meant. Nowhere have I found a reference to a "discussion page", not then and not now. Why do we not change the tab from "discussion" to "talk" and save all the newbies some confusion? We're not likely to change the editors' text habit. Bielle 15:07, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I have looked at Lambiam's first link above. It asks the same question, but there is no discussion or decision that I could see. Perhaps I don't know how to look for follow-up. I have also looked at the Village Pump's FAQ, Perenial Proposals and current suggestions and could see no earlier similar suggestion. On Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), #33, there is a discussion of the "+" tab. This would appear, then, to be the place to hold a discusion on "Talk" pages. If someone who is following this thread knows how to move the relevant parts of it to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), please BE BOLD. Bielle 20:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
The problem is a subtle contextual difference between the two words. "Talk" could be interpreted as endorsing "chatting", which is not what they're for; whereas "Discussion" is a synonym with more formal connotations. However, "talkpage" is in general use primarily because it's faster to type, and because it rolls off the tongue/eye better than "discussionpage". If we tried to force everyone to refer to them as "discussionpages", they'd just create an inscrutable acronym! For these reasons, I would doubt any changes to the current state are likely (though anything is possible). -- Quiddity 18:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
For one thing regarding definitions, talk means to speak, as if with the mouth. Discussion can still mean writing it. The page titles are so because it is shorter. I personally am for continuing using 'discussion' for the tab. Reywas92 Talk Review me 22:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong, I agree that it is very confusing to label the tab "discussion", but have everyone (including the help pages) constantly refer to them as talkpages. Especially so for newcomers, young editors, and ESL editors.
I'm just guessing that it's a perennial proposal, though I can't see it at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals or at Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Proposals concerning Talk namespaces (and other discussions). However, here is the correct place to discuss(!) it, and I personally wouldn't oppose the change of MediaWiki:Talk to say "talk", barring any new persuasive evidence that the status quo needs to remain.
Any oldtimers know about any past history of this idea? (they're not exactly "unique terms" to use as search fodder..!) -- Quiddity 18:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
To (inaccurately!) summarize people's positions on this:
In favor:
Against:
A.Z. 17:36, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
It's been ten days now. We can continue discussing, but I think it's time for an administrator to make the change. A.Z. 03:20, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Reywas92 wrote that "because of parallelism (grammar), 'discuss' just wouldn't work", but there is a button called "edit this page" (perhaps it should be "page edition"?). Their argument for not changing the tab to "talk" is still that "talk" means to speak with the mouth, while discussion can still mean writing it. This is simply not true: people use talk all the time to mean communicating in ways other than speaking with the mouth. They also wrote that "I really don't think something needs to be inviting". Things are supposed to be inviting because of the openness of the project: the more people, the better. A.Z. 22:34, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
tjstrf and Gnangarra have the same argument for opposing the change of "discussion" to "talk": they say that the word "discussion" describes what happens on talk pages better than the word "talk": in their words, "The tabs are worded quite clearly as is and 'talk' is less descriptive, therefore more confusing, not less" and "I prefer 'discussion' as it has an implied context that one should actually listen to opinions of others. Where as 'talk' doesn't relate to an expectation that one should listen to the opinions of others." David D.'s argument is also similar, although he emphasizes a concern with the particular interpretation of the word "talk" according to which the talk pages are "chat rooms".
Nevertheless, the fact is that original argument for changing the tab is that the name of the pages is "talk pages", not that the word "talk" would be a better description of the activity that happens on talk pages. In Bielle's words, "Nowhere have I found a reference to a 'discussion page', not then and not now. Why do we not change the tab from 'discussion' to 'talk' and save all the newbies some confusion?" I have been through the same problem: I didn't immediately understand what people were referring to when they said "talk pages". If the tab said "talk", I would've immediately understood it.
The names of the other tabs are not an attempt to accurately describe the content of the pages that they link to. It's hard to guess what the tab "history" refers to, but people do call those pages "history". Tha sme with "watch": you have to learn what it means somewhere else, likely by clicking on it, or reading about it somewhere. Nevertheless, people do refer to "watchlists" and they do say "I'm watching that page".
No-one calls talk pages discussion pages, anywhere, and that does cause some problems to some newbies, which is the main reason that concerns Bielle and concerns me. Other people seem not to be so worried with newbies, yet they do support the change because it's sort of ridiculous for that word to be there ("discussion"), when there's no reference to it anywhere else. A.Z. 22:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I am astounded this hasn't been changed yet. Wikipedia usability is horrendous. 129.120.159.176 13:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Two points: 1. I love how everyone just assumes that it's soooo simple, and seems sooooo obvious once it's actually been pointed out to them, that it MUST have been proposed before! 2. I'm also surprised no one proposed that perhaps the reason they're called talk pages is because they're in the talk namespace. Morgan Wick 06:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and this change is a stupid idea. Don't fix what isn't broken – Gurch 09:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Stop voting on everything
Don't fix what isn't broken
Haven't they always been like this?
Please don't change without a consensus -- a plurality is insufficient. Andre ( talk) 06:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
This whole thing is mountaineering a molehill, but "leave a comment" has to be the worst change possible. Its far too long, and its not very clear. Its very easy to leave a comment in a previous section, as I am doing now. New comment is far clearer and more aesthetic. Atropos 21:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
And thank god talk was changed back to discussion, I felt so unprofessional clicking it. The idea that the word "discussion" is "jargon" is a little frightening to me. Atropos 21:22, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I changed them both back, as I don't think there's a consensus for "talk" and "leave a comment" here. Andre ( talk) 22:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I see now that changing it in order to generate more discussion was a bad idea. People are just saying things like "Please change it back, this takes up too much space!", completely ignoring the discussion and several other proposals that do not take up as much space. — Omegatron 12:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
It may be something to consider to move-protect established articles that shouldn't need to be moved. For example, there is no reason at all that the article
George W. Bush
Rat or
Jerry Falwell should ever have to be moved, so the only "benefit" of not move-protecting those articles is opening the possibility of page-move vandalism.
Mel
sa
ran (formerly Salaskаn) 19:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering if it would be possible to add a "hide bot edits" option to new pages, as per on the watchlist? There's currently a bot going on a species article creation spree and it just makes it harder to read.. I realise this spree will probably be over eventually but if this bot article creation is going to be a regular occurence, this might be a good idea if possible. Couldn't find a relevant MediaWiki file so I'm posting here, thoughts? - Zeibura ( Talk) 00:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Let me first say I also live in Saint Pete and I'm proud that wikipedia is located in our city, as proud that we are the Monaco of the Indy 500.
Anyway to the point, is there a way to create a new category or is there one - answering the issues of system messages like Syslog(Unix, Linux, Cisco) and Event Log(Windows), all of them have code type and sometimes section like:
Cisco Example: 188 CRYPTO IKMP_NO_SA - IKE message from XX.XX.XX.XX has no SA and is not an initialization offer
Windows Example: 3019 System MRxSmb[Warning] - The redirector failed to determine the connection type
Linux Example: 83 N/A sshd - Error Bind to port 22 on 0.0.0.0 failed Address already in use.
All tree examples have in common 4 fields- %Code% %Section% %Type% %Message%
My idea is for unifying the fields and create link like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki-admin/Cisco~188~CRYPTO~IKMP_NO_SA where an IT guy or a IT newbie can look up how can deal with that type of issue, no matter of the type of operating system.
The problem is that there are thousands of issues and there is always somebody who have resolved the problem, but those who are looking for the problem is too hard to find it on the web space. And with wikipedia it can be done very neat.
P.S. I've done script create that kind of links for my forum. But it's better if done in place that everybody knows like Wikipedia.
Thanks for your time and please write me if I can help with something,
Ivan
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.186.95.161 ( talk • contribs) 20:42, 30 July 2007
I suggest that the Computing reference desk be renamed to Computing and Consumer Electronics, since (a) some users have questions about video game hardware and don't necessarily think of a game console as a computer, and (b) the people who are knowledgeable about computers would probably be knowledgeable about other consumer electronics as well. Neon Merlin 17:07, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we could create a place where we could develop articles, then when they are fit to be a appropriate article, or in the case of lists, finished, moved to the article title. - Presidentman 22:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Having now become addicted to tabbed browsing, I find it frustrating that the Wikipedia search entry in the left column does not support this. I doubt that I am the first to raise this point. So sorry for any duplication. -- CloudSurfer 21:19, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Got Firefox? You can add it to the search bar next to the address bar. You can set it up to always open a new tab. I'm not sure about IE7. MER-C 13:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
The template sandbox ({{
X1}}, {{
X2}}, etc.) headers are not inside a <noinclude> block (hence they are transcluded) on pages where the template is used. This inhibits usage for testing templates. (assuming that the user follows the instructions and only touches the lines below the comment or the page is quickly reverted because the instructions weren't followed)
I propose wrapping all boilerplate headers (possibly excluding the comment) in a <noinclude> block.
BTW, I'm not sure if there's a better place to ask this. I would normally ask on the talk page but that's a sandbox as well. (My guess is this is a change that doesn't require formal approval but might need bots to modified to properly reset the pages) --
Jeremyb 06:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC) Note: I transplanted this from
WP:VPM --
Jeremyb 07:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Interactiv Media Content is missing at Wikipedia. There are many things that could be explained and learned more easy, if there was a method including it. Some other encyclopaedias include Interactiv Media Content as one of their bigest advantage against Wikipedia (e.g. Encarta). But where the datatype of other Wikipedia media seems to be obvious, interactive media has a problem.
Please feel free to enlarge this list. Most known ways to create interactive data like e.g. Java, Flash will not fulfill these demands.
I think that the new visual programming language Scratch could fulfill it.
Scratch is made by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab for educational purpose and has a strong growing community of teachers and students. It's sandboxed, framed, openSource, very easy to learn and has an educational background (originaly it's invented for school kids). Even if the Scratch Player is based on Java, it is the only Java program needed, because Scratch code is interpreted by this player and so much stronger sandboxed.
Here are some Scratch Project that could ilustrate that, even if they are not created to do so and some are made by children:
At a Scratch-Forum we had a discussion about connecting Wikipedia and Scratch and I was encouraged to suggest it here. When having a look at The home of Scratch don't laugh about the sometimes childish projects: Children are our future and the potential of a technology they love is big.
Thank you for your feedback in advance. Mtwoll 19:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Could another field be added to the watchlist that would be for users to tag high priority articles and pages that they want to be able to look at quickly - a sort of super watchlist? This would be helpful for people who have edited many pages and have very large watchlists, but only want to look at the full list sometimes. Tvoz | talk 16:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
An article entirely written by a single editor have a high probability to :
I have written a script which lists all such articles.
Browse the list, check the articles, edit the ones you want to improve, and come back to tell me how to improve this tool :-)
If it proves useful, this tool could be added to the "Fix-up projects" section of Wikipedia:Community_Portal. But first I need your feed-back, and feel free to ask anything about the script or project. Contributors are welcome too :-)
Nicolas1981 11:13, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
As the name implies, I propose that watchlisting individual sections be enabled, where, next to the little '[edit]' on a section, there be a '[watch]'. This is useful in places where there are often much discussion under certain sections, but the page as a whole is very busy. WP:ANI would be an example of this. Thoughts? -- Anonymous Dissident Talk 16:59, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
And yes, this has been discussed before: last change before automated deletion (which would have been much easier to find if you could watchlist sections, by the way) — The Storm Surfer 13:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Based on the recent visibility of Wikipedia geographic coordinates on Google Earth, I have collected a set of 600+ significantly incorrect geographic references. For example, 300+ of them are communes in the Calvados department of France which were placed east of the Prime Meridian, instead of west.
I have been told on the general help desk that there is no central database for such information. That would imply that the Google Earth presentation could be wrong in other languages, even if I manually fixed the English pages.
Surely, there must be a way to introduce a centralized geographic database which could be automatically referenced by templates for each language translation, and for any other georeferences.
Equally, I would expect that the multilingual links on the left-hand side of each page should be derived from a links database fopr each page, so that if a new language translation were to be created for a page, all of the pages for the existing various translations would get the new link, and the links would always be in the same pseudo-alphabetic order. Fairfax Geographer 05:37, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Is there a bot that automatically leaves a welcome template on new user talk pages. If not, could one be created? just a thought - Pheonix15 17:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
As with most issues, I find that I see both sides of the issue, and while I do agree that having a bot may be helpful in some cases, here are the reasons I would probably vote to keep the Welcoming Committee:
I personally don't just drop welcomes on any new user. First, I go through and check their contributions, and talk page. If they've received many warnings, or a bunch of notes regarding CSD or Image deletions, I tend to not drop my personalized welcome, because it shows they've previously ignored attempts to have them review the help info.
I have noticed while doing this, that many of these new accounts are created exclusively with the purpose of defaming/vandalizing pages (see information posted today on Morton's Page .) In that specific case, an article was published online, specifically directing people to create accounts with the express intention of targeting this member and vandalizing his pages. Now, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to welcome people who come here with the solitary intent on doing damage. ;)
I will also drop a welcome on a new user's page if I notice while on RC/VP that they've never had any activity on their talk page. Especially when they are contributing constructively, and especially if they seem to need a little help with formatting (like not 'indenting' paragraphs lol).
Probably the most important reason, if those folks the bot welcomes have questions, they have nobody to ask. Yes, there are the many help pages, but I can tell you from personal experience that that is a whole lot of information to wade through to find the one answer you need sometimes.
I've responded swiftly to new user's questions after I've welcomed them, and I take great pride in that. If a bot was going around welcoming every individual, it would take a lot from the community. Those in the Welcoming Committee seem to be more than happy to do it, and I'd hope between everyone, they get a good majority of the contributing new members. For me personally, I live a pretty solitary life, and I feel at least vicariously, that welcoming new users is spreading a smile that I'm not able to do in real life. And there's nothing I enjoy more than getting that orange box telling me I have a new message! Ariel♥ Gold 15:34, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't oppose the idea because it would be impersonal (most users welcome people using a template, so it makes no real difference). With help, a link to a help page is enough. But I agree with the above point that vandals should not be warned. Hence I would oppose a bot for now. Recurring dreams 11:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I've been suffering through two Afd discussions related to Harry Potter battles. A lot of the people arguing to keep are using the What about X? argument, often citing Star Wars and LotR battles. I'm wondering why exactly we have stuff like Category:Star Wars battles and Category:Middle-earth battles- the articles contained within them are entirely in-universe with no real-world significance, cruft, composed entirely from primary sources, and basically extended plot summaries.- Wafulz 22:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
First and Foremost I just want to thank all of you for producing such an incredible tool.
Quickly I wanted to mention an idea I had for the website:
I use the random article feature all the time. If I am sitting around at night watching a baseball game i will click on random article to learn different things about different items. What I would like to see is the option to some how filter what goes through random article. (i.e. history, sports, US, entertainment, ancient history, etc.) This is just an idea that I thought might be useful to some of the users.
I want to thank all of you again for all that you do.
Please see here for a proposal about unblocking users and giving them parole. Feel free to comment/add. --( Review Me) R Parlate Contribs @ (Let's Go Yankees!) 03:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Is there any sort of database, or filter, or overlay, in existence right now for an "essential" Wikipedia?
As an example, if I was running a school in rural Congo with no internet access, it would be nice to have one CDR (or whatever size medium is required) that has just the essential educational articles, with all the trivia and pop culture stripped out.
I was thinking that would be an interesting idea - a way to be able to read, or download, only the essential articles.
I assume identifying the articles would just take the addition of a tag. As for a script to assemble the updated essential articles for download, though, that is beyond me. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 19:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Just curious other opinions about the practice of placing huge honking project-specific tags onto articles, as for example here. IMO, it's bad enough that the top of many talk pages are occupied by multiple project banners -- but now expanding the clutter into the article space seems a bit too much. I mean, in this case, it is not like the article is horrendously bad in a general sense -- it seems that it just isn't up to snuff by some standards of a wikiproject. I thought that sort of tagging is one of the things that the project banners on the talk pages were for. older ≠ wiser 02:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I find it interesting and very frustrating that tags that could go onto the article page - visited by those that are into improving / looking abit further - are put onto the talk page e.g. (see 1911 (encyclopedia Britannia)). Such like should go onto the article page so that the 'casual researcher' has the easily accessible information about the subject... But no instead it is put on the talk page - somewhere they may not even know exist, let alone visit. Wikipedia is an platform for knowledge - we should not clutter the article page with development demands at the same time hide under discussion buttons the sources of such knowledge. -- Edmund Patrick 14:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I would like to propose that Wikipedia block all search engines from indexing anything that which is not an article. This includes User pages, User Talk pages, category talk pages etc. for the following reasons.
-- PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 22:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm not liking this idea at all. If it weren't for google, tons of stuff (including discussions, userpage stuff, etc) would easily get lost and not be accessible when it needs to be. It's already a pain in the ass to find stuff, lets not make it any harder. If you do not want the internet to know something, then here's a good idea, stop talking about it in a highly public and visible place like Wikipedia. If anyone is worried about privacy then they shouldn't be putting sensitive information on any page of Wikipedia. -- Ned Scott 03:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
What we really need is a bot that could find spammy or otherwise "bad" userpages, to reduce our dependance on Google. Nathanww 14:44, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I personally search wikipedia using a google directed only at the site in my toolbar, and often search for non-articles, including users. This would seriously inconvenience me for the sake of provided privacy.. to people who have published the information on the internet. Everyone with a userpage knows that they have no expectation of privacy.
I also doubt that people searching for a topic in the encyclopedia would be very likely to get a userpage very high in their google results. Atropos 00:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
The idea is great in theory, but when you look at it in practice I don't think this is useful. Google searching of all the namespaces is very helpful considering the MediaWiki search engine has a few caveats. If people are using information from Userspace as a source of information it shows that they haven't researched the quality of their source. For example, if I am going to use some information in an article, I make sure that where I am getting it from fits all the appropriate criteria. If I was using Wikipedia articles as sources for something else, I would put a little research into Wikipedia first and realise that Userspace isn't a reliable source of information. Nicko ( Talk• Contribs) Review my progress! 03:23, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
It is very useful to be able to search all namespaces. What we could have as a compromise is a template to slap on pages which prevents them from being indexed... that way my templates under my userpage would be indexed while my userpage proper would not (for example). BigNate37 (T) 19:56, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I propose that a table be created that simply lists pages (in user space). Pages in the table would be served with headers to prevent indexing. Users who wish to do so could request to have their pages added to the list. This would require implementation in the mediawiki code. The point is to allow for greater privacy for users who don't want their WP page to appear in Google. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 14:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
{{DONTCRAWL}}
or {{DISALLOWROBOTS}}
would be best.
BigNate37
(T) 16:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)I think opt-in no-indexing is the worst of all worlds except for the few things we already noindex though manual server config (AFD). External search on the policy and talk namespaces are just too useful.. and with a few exceptions they don't cause much harm. I have noticed, however, that some WP:FOO style redirects coming up in google as elevated hits. :(
I think, in particular, user NS is a special case. See below for thoughts on why user NS shouldn't be indexed. -- Gmaxwell 17:50, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Is there any reason why user pages need to be indexed by the likes of Google? I think we should modify Wikipedia's robots.txt to exclude pages in the User namespace (noindex, nofollow). That way people can feel more comfortable about listing personal information on their user pages. Besides, is there any advantage to searching the User namespace? Andre ( talk) 23:00, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Can we at least somehow enable noindex on an optional basis for user pages? I would set many of mine to that. Andre ( talk) 21:35, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Interactiv Media Content is missing at Wikipedia. There are many things that could be explained and learned more easy, if there was a method including it. Some other encyclopaedias include Interactiv Media Content as one of their bigest advantage against Wikipedia (e.g. Encarta). But where the datatype of other Wikipedia media seems to be obvious, interactive media has a problem.
Please feel free to enlarge this list. Most known ways to create interactive data like e.g. Java, Flash will not fulfill these demands.
I think that the new visual programming language Scratch could fulfill it.
Scratch is made by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab for educational purpose and has a strong growing community of teachers and students. It's sandboxed, framed, openSource, very easy to learn and has an educational background (originaly it's invented for school kids). Even if the Scratch Player is based on Java, it is the only Java program needed, because Scratch code is interpreted by this player and so much stronger sandboxed.
Here are some Scratch Project that could ilustrate that, even if they are not created to do so and some are made by children:
At a Scratch-Forum we had a discussion about connecting Wikipedia and Scratch and I was encouraged to suggest it here. When having a look at The home of Scratch don't laugh about the sometimes childish projects: Children are our future and the potential of a technology they love is big.
Thank you for your feedback in advance. Mtwoll 19:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
It may be something to consider to move-protect established articles that shouldn't need to be moved. For example, there is no reason at all that the article
George W. Bush
Rat or
Jerry Falwell should ever have to be moved, so the only "benefit" of not move-protecting those articles is opening the possibility of page-move vandalism.
Mel
sa
ran (formerly Salaskаn) 19:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be a great idea to start a wikipedian of the month. We'll have candidates state their case for one month while editors vote for who they feel should be wikipedian of the month. At the end of the month the votes will be counted and whoever has the most will be wikipedian of the month.-- Southern Texas 18:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I have restored the {{ proposed}} banner for Wikipedia:Quotations ( WP:QUOTE) because it seems to have been replaced with {{ historical}} a while back without discussion. If anyone can point to some discussion that formally rejected this proposal or otherwise discussed its removal from consideration, please note that on its talk page.
After a little time to get some notice for the old proposal, I would like us to review and edit it to reflect current practices and/or establish new ones. I am especially concerned about a growing problem with editors doing mass transfers of quotations from Wikipedia articles to Wikiquote with no regard for the edit history or other crediting required by GFDL. (See q:WQ:VP#Probable GFDL problems with improper transwikis for only the latest of heated discussions about this problem.) We at Wikiquote are beginning to simply delete these contributions because fixing the vast problem is far more work than we can reasonably do. (After all, there are at least 150 active Wikipedians to every active Wikiquotian.) Since simple deletion hardly serves Wikimedia's interests, we need to establish a formal, practical policy for where, when, and how to do this, and this proposal page seems to be the logical home for it.
I would appreciate assistance in (re-)developing this potential guideline. I will also be requesting help from Wikiquotians, many of whom are Wikipedians, too. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Hey all, I would like to know if there is a group of wikipedians dedicated solely to helping others find sources for articles? I have access to quite a few databases and would like to help out as many people as possible, so a central location for such requests would be helpful. -- Cronholm 144 06:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow, there is (was?) an effort in creating a library listing? That's a surprise to me, especially since I came up with a similar idea independently and created User:BigNate37/Library... BigNate37 (T) 17:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
This does help :), I might be back with some proposals. Cheers-- Cronholm 144 11:08, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I suspect that something like this may have been considered before, but if so then I don't know the outcome.
I think it would be useful to have a unified way that currency amounts can be quoted with templates, that result in useful links for the reader.
What I envisage (setting aside for the moment the fact that {{ currency}} already exists as a redirect with a number of links to it) is a setup where you can enter something like:
or
and then this gets rendered in the article as something like "£20" or "30 Fr." (i.e. taking into account the symbol and ordering), but as a link which takes you to a page where there is a link to the relevant article (e.g. Pound sterling or Swiss franc) and also links to third-party websites showing the currently equivalent value of that sum in other currencies (something vaguely analogous to what is done with book sources).
This does somewhat depend on third-party sites supporting some URL format that embeds the query information appropriately, but if not then probably the prospect of traffic generated from Wikipedia would be enough to persuade those site maintainers to implement it.
No doubt there could be other template options like overriding the display symbol or possibly specifying a date for historical conversion, but this is the gist of it.
Does this sound desirable? Feasible?
I must admit that I probably don't have the time or knowledge to actually help with this, so it would depend on whether anyone else has the inclination.
Many thanks. — Alan ✉ 11:42, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, perhaps nonsense is a bit strong, but can someone please tell me why biographies include the age of the person along with their birth date? Not only do I feel that since the age will change, subsequently needing updating each year, I also feel it is indirectly insulting to any reader. Are we assuming that the reader can't subtract the current year from the birth year?
In any event, crack open an encyclopedia. You will find birth dates (and dates of death if applicable), but to include the age as of the writing of the entry would be silly. The only time I can think an age may be noted is for death.
I guess I'd just like to know the reasoning for including the current age of the person in the biography of a living person.
DeeKenn 15:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Ah, so it's Template:birth date and age. There's a problem with this—it is not consistent across different pages. Any functionality like this should be either not used at all or incorporated into the infobox. Since the infobox's page itself describes how to use it and makes no mention of adding the age to the birth date field, I would suggest that the use of the age-generating template in infoboxes is improper. Therefore, if we truly want this age generating behaviour, it should be built into the infobox templates, otherwise it shouldn't be happening at all. BigNate37 (T) 16:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Everyone else, just end this. The simple convenience of telling us how old a person is even though the year is right there is perfectly fine, useful to some, and staying, even though it may be redundant and theoretically insulting. By reading User:DeeKenn's userpage, he must have a lot of concerns and we shouldn't take his comments too seriously. There, I said it. Reywas92 Talk 18:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I see your point, though the first I was only disagreeing. Some just find it quite helpful to simply read a person's age, especially when just scanning, rather than doing the math. It definitely was never meant to insult anyone's intelligence. Reywas92 Talk 18:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
The {{ articleissues}} template was created to merge seperate issue-type templates into one. This cuts down on the screen space the templates use and is more organized. The template is currently collapsible but there is a disagreement on if it should be initially collapsed or shown on page load. I think the discussion on this would benefit from more opinions to help reach conesnsus. -- Android Mouse 19:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I am primarily an Uncyclopedia user, but I came here because I'm good at looking at recent changes and doing stuff pertaining to that. I've noticed that certain articles have titles that are impossible to render in MediaWiki. We, over at Uncyclopedia, have a fix for this. I didn't write it, nor do I have any stake in it besides my own personal use of it on an article of mine (click to see what it does). Perhaps you could use this to solve your woes (note: I would ask at the forum there before I sporked it, just because they tend to be testy.) Cheers.- Ljlego 01:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Proposal:_Mandatory_noindex.2Fnofollow_for_User:_ns
There has been a lot of mention recently on WT:COI of the unwieldy, wordy, and poorly-structured nature of the current COI guideline. It has thus been suggested that some interested parties (not as in a conflict of interest, obviously) get together to find a better way of writing the same guideline in a more usable way. There is no intent here to change the meaning of the guideline, just to make it more usable.
Discussion of the redraft/refactor is invited at Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/redraft, with the current intent to initially 'recruit' participants and discuss the aims of the redraft before putting together a precise plan of action. SamBC( talk) 20:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
this one needs views from a wider audience. Please feel free to go there and comment. Regards, Navou banter 19:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
We currently avoid references to Wikiepdia's mechanics, on Wikipeida, per WP:SELF. I think we could formulate a way of doing so, where appropriate, by using side-boxes similar to those for Wikitionary, WikiQuote etc.; so that, say Manual of style could have a side box saying " Wikipedia has a Manual of Style". This would replace {{ selfref}}. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 17:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 August 12#Template:Pop-up that concerns a template that allows popups to appear when the mouse if over an item. It can be used to translate terms. The argument there is moving towards deletion with the argument, that I agree has a lot of weight, that footnotes are less annoying and more general. However, I think the debate needs to be on a wider basis so I draw your attention to it here. It may turn out to be a key usage in future or it may just die. -- Bduke 22:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Hey I was wondering that someone should add info on individual air training corps squadrons around New Zealand. I'm sure they would appreciate it. Wes45 21:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
BJAODN was recently speedy deleted, speedy restored, speedy cancled out of MFD, and is now on DRV at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 August 14/BJAODN. If you are interested in these pages, please contribute at the DRV. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 05:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Uploading images#Requesting photo and licenses (a method proposal). 01:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
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I would like to propose permanently semi-protecting all 366 articles about calendar days. Now I suppose that'll draw some opposition so I figured it would be best to discuss in the widest possible forum and of course there's no rush to do this. Let me first try to carefully state my case.
Now the policy on semi-protection says that indefinite semi-protection should be used for "Articles subject to heavy and continued vandalism such as George W. Bush". There's no question that the calendar days are the subject of continued vandalism but I'll concede that it's not heavy if one compares it to the hardcore hailstorm that affects the beloved GW Bush article. Still, from a cost/benefit point of view, semi-protection would seem reasonable. If I can get consensus here, I'd like to experiment by protecting a dozen of them for say a week or two. We could see how that goes and make a more educated decision afterwards. Pascal.Tesson 04:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I support the semi-protection. I watch October 4, my birthday, and nearly all of its edits are of this sort. The good edits are nearly always by established users. Because I'm often the first to see it, I'll be the one to take the time to check the article to be sure it's a redlink and then revert it. I also agree that these articles are very static. In my opinion, these test edits will rarely result in recruitment. As said above, most are made by bored school kids adding themselves, unlikely to ever make a constructive edit. I know that I didn't make annoying tests. Regarding Dcoetzee's last statement, I hadn't really thought of it that way before, but for days of the year, it seems they are done, and that we don't want them screwing with it where we then have to revert it. Anyway, if the person has a constructive edit to make, a request on the talk page is encouraged. Reywas92 Talk 14:26, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I also support. Almost no IP edits are not reverted and not being able to add yourself to a date isn't going to turn a useful contributor away. Atropos 22:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I support this proposal, as well. The cost/benefit analysis here is strongly in favor of semi-protection for these pages. - Chunky Rice 22:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
I too support this proposal. — The Storm Surfer 03:14, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Your opinion is well thought out Pascal, and eloquently worded, howver I'm afraid I oppose. I am in favour of anonymous editing in all cases, except where sprotection is totally necessary. The point here is, I don't think sprotection is necessary at all. On the flip side, I am perfectly willing to add every single one of these pages to my watchlist to increase their visibility to me, if this helps. -- ɐuɐʞsəp (ʞɿɐʇ) 04:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
why not make an option on the front page just for birthdays that ppl can post. maybe a separate column, in yellow or light blue frame or something. this will solve part of the problem. and the semi protection does seem reasonable nonetheless. But if the birthday thing is created then there is no need to make semi protection. :D Vitalyshmelkin 10:50, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Support. The ratio of anon edits that are vandalism vs. constructive edits in these articles is persuasive. One benefit to semi-protection not yet mentioned is that RC patrollers spend time dealing with these edits that would be better spent addressing other needs on Wikipedia. Accurizer 11:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Alternatively, create 366 templates, with the meaningful data. Transclude the templates on the main article for each day. Casual vandals will just try to edit the day page, and not know/care about how to change the template. But, the main article for each day should be protected (the templates remain unprotected). End of problem?? Neier 11:48, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Support - 99.99% of edits by new/unregistered users to these pages are vandalism. WATP ( talk) • ( contribs) 12:18, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Strong support - I've reverted lots of anon. IP edits on these pages, many of which had stayed there - never noticed - for weeks or longer. I too have thought of proposing generic semi-protection for these pages -- so I'm glad Pascal.Tesson finally took the inititative on this issue. Thanks! Cgingold 14:04, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Strong support - As a regular RC patroller, I can vouch for the fact that these are test edit/vandalism magnets. Semi-prot won't harm em, and anyone who really wants to improve them can do so easily. Excellent proposal. xC | ☎ 14:27, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Strong support. Taken as a group, these 365 articles have a very high proportion of IP vandal edits to constructive IP edits (any at all?). Let's free up editors to work on things beside reverting vandalism of these articles. (And, by the way, my brief look at one article seemed to show that it wasn't move-protected - why in the world not?) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:30, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
I really don't see the need to semiprotect something which is (supposedly) heavily watched anyway, but I think it boils down to the wikiphilosophy you're adhering to. Let's say it like this: There is not enough vandalism to warrant semiprotection right now; just wachlist and revert. And just as a little caveat: if you start with dealing out semiprotection because the edits to an article are more than 90% vandalism, you will have more articles to be semiprotected. Lectonar 15:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Oppose I don't think that vandalism level is heavy enough to warrant protection. Vandalism that appears in these pages also tends to be the least malicious kind. I don't think the benefits obtained from this proposal is enough to further compromise our principles of open editing. Borisblue 09:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Strong Oppose philosophical approach, I agree with WP:PPOL Semi-protection should not be used With the sole purpose of prohibiting editing by anonymous users. Protection should be used only to prevent continuing disruption. Ultimately we should be striving to uphold the principal of "anyone can edit" Gnan garra 11:51, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Oppose, semi-protection in perpetuity is not done. Corvus cornix 18:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I would like to see the results of this, as a supporter of the proposal. What happened to it? -- User:Krator ( t c) 23:52, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Support a test. As Flyguy649 suggested, a test of this would be interesting, and should be agreeable to most. Maybe July-December, as that is the period we're entering, and provides a clear end date for the test. -- Quiddity 00:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I totally oppose this. We can just revert vandalism, and those pages have the potential to attract new editors that begin as "vandals" and can eventually become helpful editors. A.Z. 00:33, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Oppose. Yeah, it's a pain in the butt, but I'd be surprised if we don't have at least one or two "reliable" editors to watch each of the dates. I'll add my birthday to my watchlist now, in fact. Cmprince 03:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
Weak Support - The concept is good in principal, but if you will notice certain dates tend to get more vandalism than others. Why not instead of semiprotecting all the dates, just semiprotect well known dates. Such as July 4, December 25, February 29, etc. Just a thought. -- Tλε Rαnδom Eδιτor ( ταlκ) 22:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Support I've had many of these pages on my watchlist for a while and they are a target for vandals and a "my daughter was born on this day"-target for newb editors. It's a pain for the editors that maintain and vandal and vanity edits routinely remain unnoticed for long periods (i've seen 4 months). -- TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 22:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Support - I agree with the previous statement that RC patrollers can focus on other needs. I also like the idea to create templates for each day. Vandals wouldn't care enough to take the time to figure out how to edit the template. Although some may still post nonsense, it may deter many. LaraLove T/ C 04:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Weak Oppose - Im reaslly torn here. Ever since I started on Wikipedia I've been an RC pattroller, and after seeing how much vandalisim these articles got, I now watch about 5 pages (my birthday, my congressman's birthday, and a few friends' birthdays — this also has the benefit of not making my birthday so obvious if anyone's trying to root out my identity for some reason). Is there a lot of vandalisim? definitly. Would semi-protection stop it? There's little doubt in my mind. At the same time however, semi-protection isn't the only way to deal with this. These pages can be and are closely watched. Semi-protection seems like trying to pound in a nail with a sledgehammer. It's overkill, but not by much. I just think using a regular hammer works fine as-is. I won't be dissapointed if they are s-protected (it'd be less work for me), but at the same time, I don't think it's necessary. (If we still wanted to do something, perhaps a bot could check "births" for each day for redlinks?) -- Ybbor Talk 01:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
Totally unnecessary. I'd be surprised if these aren't among the most-watched pages on Wikipedia; my own birthday ( May 21 gets hit about once or twice a day, which isn't really very much compared to a lot of the other pages I watch.-- jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 16:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Oppose - overkill.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Turkeyphant ( talk • contribs) 11:33, July 26, 2007 (UTC)
Unnecessary - I've changed my opinion after watching about ten pages for the past week. Although some of the pages did receive vandalism, it was all reverted relatively quickly. I'm sure that if enough regular editors watch 10 pages each, very little vandalism would stay for very long. Flyguy649 talk contribs 14:28, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
weak oppose - this is a very tempting idea which i sympathize with for its practicality for me. but it is a precedent to permanently semiprotect articles. user:Dcoetzee makes a good point earlier. further more, Wikipedia provides two services to the public, access to information and the ability to change that information. this compromises that idea out of an argument for convenience. some proposals improve others solidify. we are not the sole editors of wikipedia preparing for retirement. there will always be others after us. but for now, we are the few, the proud, the registered user. it has been our effort to not only improve wikipedia but keep it what it was to us when we first found it, open. openness is and always will be wikipedias greatest strength and most admired virtue. Some thing 05:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Is there any sort of database, or filter, or overlay, in existence right now for an "essential" Wikipedia?
As an example, if I was running a school in rural Congo with no internet access, it would be nice to have one CDR (or whatever size medium is required) that has just the essential educational articles, with all the trivia and pop culture stripped out.
I was thinking that would be an interesting idea - a way to be able to read, or download, only the essential articles.
I assume identifying the articles would just take the addition of a tag. As for a script to assemble the updated essential articles for download, though, that is beyond me. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 19:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Is there anyway to know which all pages have only stub categories and not normal categories as these pages needs to be put under proper category. Vjdchauhan 16:38, 27 July 2007 (UTC).
.Here's my point on the spell check many young students use wikipedia and some times it can be a simple mistake or someone may not know the spelling and these can all be solved with the google search but many of the youngster don't always know how to get to that search. I know that a spell check for an encyclopedia may seem like dumbing down to some flamer but it is relay a great feature .... added at 00:56, 19 July 2007 by Unsignedcomment ( contributions)
no it isn't a great feature. It is annoying when search engines think they know better than you what you are trying to find. Anyway, this seems to be more of a flamebait than a serious suggestion. There is already a solution to address the most common misspellings, {{ R from misspelling}}. dab (𒁳) 07:28, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I might add that my comment on typographical exuberance was in reply to the comment Ah using exclamation marks like that make many of the people who are here that flame newbies mad that is why I use them; the OP subsequently deleted this. -- Hoary 13:44, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I think this is getting out of hand I get a hate mail from "Anonymous Dissident" saying there is no elitism on wiki and say I'm stupid and don't know what I'm doing. I may be stupid but criticizing someone for suggesting a spell check for Wikipedia search then telling them "You can accuse Wikipedia of many things, but certainly not of elitism. WP has an obsession with accessibility to and participation of, to put it bluntly, morons" yes that is elitism and each member of wikipedia is part of wikipedia and your comments ruin the good community of wikipedia. My post was mainly about a spell check a spell check offering suggestions for the search like the one on google yes it is a basic suggestion and not much to it thats why I suggested it I thought it maybe nice and easy to implement. I have learned from my first post everyone on wikipedia is perfect and can do no wrong but some people are not good speller like me I always use spell check on Open Office and it is easy and convenient. I like this response it so nice and polite "no it isn't a great feature. It is annoying when search engines think they know better than you what you are trying to find. Anyway, this seems to be more of a flame-bait than a serious suggestion. There is already a solution to address the most common misspellings" this is flame bait why are you so cranky you don't like it so it is flame bait boom you attack come on this is not the place for that as for thinking the search engine is better than you I just don't know why a suggestion of the correct spelling is so intimidating .My attempt to ferret out people who attack was just that people on many talk pages are mean and nasty and it should stop just because you are typing 10000 Km away. My user name is Unsignedcomment I thought it was mildly funny but even more I was lazy and do not care much but to Anonymous Dissident it is stupid maybe you think that but a user name is so meaningless here's what Anonymous Dissident had to say "To create a user account Unsignedcomment and then make a point of not signing your posts is just puerile obstinacy and doesn't buy you any points." . I have not posted much I just did not realize I had to sign my post some what like a forum I thought it signed the post for you. As for buying points if I get enough do I get a BB gun like with skeet ball tickets (joke in case you don't get it and are angered to the point of Anonymous Dissident ) .sorry for not reading the FAQ but that does not excuse the hat brought about by a mistake none of the geniuses above have read the FAQ or they would know the answer to why this is not possible and would have let me in on it wouldn't they or are the cranky and elitist.And my next proposal will be a proposal to rid Wiki of the intimidation and B!@#$ing above. Maybe you think someones Idea is dumb but does that give you the right to be mean no if someone is a new user help don't hate. Maybe only you guys and doctors should write the encyclopedia oh no that Nupedia what happened to that?-- User: Unsignedcomment 13:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm very confused reading this. Is there another conversation that explains why dab would think this proposal was a flamebait? Atropos 00:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
I think this is an interesting topic so i'm trying to quarantine the previous insanity, and start anew. let me start by saying that this is primarily a software issue that may or may not be solvable here but it at least starts the conversation. i agree that it is annoying when a program/browser corrects your spelling for you automatically. and it is not always helpful for it to suggest "correct" spellings of things after you make a search. however, i think google in actuallity, after making a search provides you with a list of alternatives in case your search didnt bring the desired results. and i dont think google brings these results from a dictionary. it more or less provides similar words that are more commonly searched and successfully clicked on. wikipedia could potentially, using its existing articles title words, provide a short list of similarly spelled article names or words in the event that there are no exact matches from your search. this would be much more convenient than having to search through the index, or open a new tab to search it on google to check if it provides an alternative spelling that you can then copy and plug into another wikipedia search (which i humbly admit to doing frequently). so here are the questions. is this desirable? whats better? and how could it be made possible? Some thing 05:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Better search feature, summarized as "This is Mediazilla:974. The functionality exists, but is disabled for performance reasons."
See also Wikipedia:Go button for an explanation of how the current search works. -- Quiddity 17:51, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I've been informally interviewing my friends about their experiences with Wikipedia, and man, do we have a lot of work to do if we want more intelligent, normal people to contribute.
One newcomer couldn't even figure out how to leave a comment on a talk page, so I propose that we change the "+" tab to "leave a comment". She liked that idea.
I believe this is accomplished by editing MediaWiki:Addsection. I'd go ahead and be bold, but that's a little too bold...
What do others think? — Omegatron 16:18, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
+
for a long time, but that's just me. On talk pages, edit this page
should be given less emphasis (unbolded) than +
because +
is probably used a lot more often than edit this page
. People should only need to click edit this page
when they want to change banners at the top or to refactor the entire page. To respond to an individual section, use the section's own [edit]
link. If discussion
gets shortened to talk
and edit this page
gets shortened to
or renamed to the more intuitive edit entire page
, then +
can be renamed to add section
or something. 800x600 should be able to handle it. –
Pomte 21:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)Yeah, when I set my font size to 40, the tabs overflow; so maybe we should just change them all to single letters. :-) — Omegatron 15:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I recall this proposal previously got rejected due to historical reasons or some such, but if it does go through, there are some other message in Special:Allmessages that may need changing as well. – Pomte 23:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't aware of the tab until now. I fully agree with the change. It's a useful tab and there's no reason why editors must wait more than one year (the time I've been editing) to know that it exists. A.Z. 02:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
If it gets changed into "leave a comment" then in light of it being very long, I suggest changing "edit this page" on talk pages into "edit". It's good to say "edit this page" on articles, but it's not a good idea on talk pages. -- Steinn inn 09:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
(the first few posts of this thread were moved from Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Talk Pages)
When I first discovered Wikipedia, I spent much time looking for "talk" pages. I am a native speaker of English and I know that "talk" and "discussion" mean much the same thing, but the omnipresence of "talk page" led me to believe that something less formal was meant. Nowhere have I found a reference to a "discussion page", not then and not now. Why do we not change the tab from "discussion" to "talk" and save all the newbies some confusion? We're not likely to change the editors' text habit. Bielle 15:07, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I have looked at Lambiam's first link above. It asks the same question, but there is no discussion or decision that I could see. Perhaps I don't know how to look for follow-up. I have also looked at the Village Pump's FAQ, Perenial Proposals and current suggestions and could see no earlier similar suggestion. On Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), #33, there is a discussion of the "+" tab. This would appear, then, to be the place to hold a discusion on "Talk" pages. If someone who is following this thread knows how to move the relevant parts of it to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), please BE BOLD. Bielle 20:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
The problem is a subtle contextual difference between the two words. "Talk" could be interpreted as endorsing "chatting", which is not what they're for; whereas "Discussion" is a synonym with more formal connotations. However, "talkpage" is in general use primarily because it's faster to type, and because it rolls off the tongue/eye better than "discussionpage". If we tried to force everyone to refer to them as "discussionpages", they'd just create an inscrutable acronym! For these reasons, I would doubt any changes to the current state are likely (though anything is possible). -- Quiddity 18:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
For one thing regarding definitions, talk means to speak, as if with the mouth. Discussion can still mean writing it. The page titles are so because it is shorter. I personally am for continuing using 'discussion' for the tab. Reywas92 Talk Review me 22:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong, I agree that it is very confusing to label the tab "discussion", but have everyone (including the help pages) constantly refer to them as talkpages. Especially so for newcomers, young editors, and ESL editors.
I'm just guessing that it's a perennial proposal, though I can't see it at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals or at Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Proposals concerning Talk namespaces (and other discussions). However, here is the correct place to discuss(!) it, and I personally wouldn't oppose the change of MediaWiki:Talk to say "talk", barring any new persuasive evidence that the status quo needs to remain.
Any oldtimers know about any past history of this idea? (they're not exactly "unique terms" to use as search fodder..!) -- Quiddity 18:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
To (inaccurately!) summarize people's positions on this:
In favor:
Against:
A.Z. 17:36, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
It's been ten days now. We can continue discussing, but I think it's time for an administrator to make the change. A.Z. 03:20, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Reywas92 wrote that "because of parallelism (grammar), 'discuss' just wouldn't work", but there is a button called "edit this page" (perhaps it should be "page edition"?). Their argument for not changing the tab to "talk" is still that "talk" means to speak with the mouth, while discussion can still mean writing it. This is simply not true: people use talk all the time to mean communicating in ways other than speaking with the mouth. They also wrote that "I really don't think something needs to be inviting". Things are supposed to be inviting because of the openness of the project: the more people, the better. A.Z. 22:34, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
tjstrf and Gnangarra have the same argument for opposing the change of "discussion" to "talk": they say that the word "discussion" describes what happens on talk pages better than the word "talk": in their words, "The tabs are worded quite clearly as is and 'talk' is less descriptive, therefore more confusing, not less" and "I prefer 'discussion' as it has an implied context that one should actually listen to opinions of others. Where as 'talk' doesn't relate to an expectation that one should listen to the opinions of others." David D.'s argument is also similar, although he emphasizes a concern with the particular interpretation of the word "talk" according to which the talk pages are "chat rooms".
Nevertheless, the fact is that original argument for changing the tab is that the name of the pages is "talk pages", not that the word "talk" would be a better description of the activity that happens on talk pages. In Bielle's words, "Nowhere have I found a reference to a 'discussion page', not then and not now. Why do we not change the tab from 'discussion' to 'talk' and save all the newbies some confusion?" I have been through the same problem: I didn't immediately understand what people were referring to when they said "talk pages". If the tab said "talk", I would've immediately understood it.
The names of the other tabs are not an attempt to accurately describe the content of the pages that they link to. It's hard to guess what the tab "history" refers to, but people do call those pages "history". Tha sme with "watch": you have to learn what it means somewhere else, likely by clicking on it, or reading about it somewhere. Nevertheless, people do refer to "watchlists" and they do say "I'm watching that page".
No-one calls talk pages discussion pages, anywhere, and that does cause some problems to some newbies, which is the main reason that concerns Bielle and concerns me. Other people seem not to be so worried with newbies, yet they do support the change because it's sort of ridiculous for that word to be there ("discussion"), when there's no reference to it anywhere else. A.Z. 22:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
I am astounded this hasn't been changed yet. Wikipedia usability is horrendous. 129.120.159.176 13:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Two points: 1. I love how everyone just assumes that it's soooo simple, and seems sooooo obvious once it's actually been pointed out to them, that it MUST have been proposed before! 2. I'm also surprised no one proposed that perhaps the reason they're called talk pages is because they're in the talk namespace. Morgan Wick 06:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and this change is a stupid idea. Don't fix what isn't broken – Gurch 09:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Stop voting on everything
Don't fix what isn't broken
Haven't they always been like this?
Please don't change without a consensus -- a plurality is insufficient. Andre ( talk) 06:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
This whole thing is mountaineering a molehill, but "leave a comment" has to be the worst change possible. Its far too long, and its not very clear. Its very easy to leave a comment in a previous section, as I am doing now. New comment is far clearer and more aesthetic. Atropos 21:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
And thank god talk was changed back to discussion, I felt so unprofessional clicking it. The idea that the word "discussion" is "jargon" is a little frightening to me. Atropos 21:22, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I changed them both back, as I don't think there's a consensus for "talk" and "leave a comment" here. Andre ( talk) 22:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I see now that changing it in order to generate more discussion was a bad idea. People are just saying things like "Please change it back, this takes up too much space!", completely ignoring the discussion and several other proposals that do not take up as much space. — Omegatron 12:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
It may be something to consider to move-protect established articles that shouldn't need to be moved. For example, there is no reason at all that the article
George W. Bush
Rat or
Jerry Falwell should ever have to be moved, so the only "benefit" of not move-protecting those articles is opening the possibility of page-move vandalism.
Mel
sa
ran (formerly Salaskаn) 19:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I was wondering if it would be possible to add a "hide bot edits" option to new pages, as per on the watchlist? There's currently a bot going on a species article creation spree and it just makes it harder to read.. I realise this spree will probably be over eventually but if this bot article creation is going to be a regular occurence, this might be a good idea if possible. Couldn't find a relevant MediaWiki file so I'm posting here, thoughts? - Zeibura ( Talk) 00:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Let me first say I also live in Saint Pete and I'm proud that wikipedia is located in our city, as proud that we are the Monaco of the Indy 500.
Anyway to the point, is there a way to create a new category or is there one - answering the issues of system messages like Syslog(Unix, Linux, Cisco) and Event Log(Windows), all of them have code type and sometimes section like:
Cisco Example: 188 CRYPTO IKMP_NO_SA - IKE message from XX.XX.XX.XX has no SA and is not an initialization offer
Windows Example: 3019 System MRxSmb[Warning] - The redirector failed to determine the connection type
Linux Example: 83 N/A sshd - Error Bind to port 22 on 0.0.0.0 failed Address already in use.
All tree examples have in common 4 fields- %Code% %Section% %Type% %Message%
My idea is for unifying the fields and create link like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki-admin/Cisco~188~CRYPTO~IKMP_NO_SA where an IT guy or a IT newbie can look up how can deal with that type of issue, no matter of the type of operating system.
The problem is that there are thousands of issues and there is always somebody who have resolved the problem, but those who are looking for the problem is too hard to find it on the web space. And with wikipedia it can be done very neat.
P.S. I've done script create that kind of links for my forum. But it's better if done in place that everybody knows like Wikipedia.
Thanks for your time and please write me if I can help with something,
Ivan
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.186.95.161 ( talk • contribs) 20:42, 30 July 2007
I suggest that the Computing reference desk be renamed to Computing and Consumer Electronics, since (a) some users have questions about video game hardware and don't necessarily think of a game console as a computer, and (b) the people who are knowledgeable about computers would probably be knowledgeable about other consumer electronics as well. Neon Merlin 17:07, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we could create a place where we could develop articles, then when they are fit to be a appropriate article, or in the case of lists, finished, moved to the article title. - Presidentman 22:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Having now become addicted to tabbed browsing, I find it frustrating that the Wikipedia search entry in the left column does not support this. I doubt that I am the first to raise this point. So sorry for any duplication. -- CloudSurfer 21:19, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Got Firefox? You can add it to the search bar next to the address bar. You can set it up to always open a new tab. I'm not sure about IE7. MER-C 13:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
The template sandbox ({{
X1}}, {{
X2}}, etc.) headers are not inside a <noinclude> block (hence they are transcluded) on pages where the template is used. This inhibits usage for testing templates. (assuming that the user follows the instructions and only touches the lines below the comment or the page is quickly reverted because the instructions weren't followed)
I propose wrapping all boilerplate headers (possibly excluding the comment) in a <noinclude> block.
BTW, I'm not sure if there's a better place to ask this. I would normally ask on the talk page but that's a sandbox as well. (My guess is this is a change that doesn't require formal approval but might need bots to modified to properly reset the pages) --
Jeremyb 06:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC) Note: I transplanted this from
WP:VPM --
Jeremyb 07:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Interactiv Media Content is missing at Wikipedia. There are many things that could be explained and learned more easy, if there was a method including it. Some other encyclopaedias include Interactiv Media Content as one of their bigest advantage against Wikipedia (e.g. Encarta). But where the datatype of other Wikipedia media seems to be obvious, interactive media has a problem.
Please feel free to enlarge this list. Most known ways to create interactive data like e.g. Java, Flash will not fulfill these demands.
I think that the new visual programming language Scratch could fulfill it.
Scratch is made by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab for educational purpose and has a strong growing community of teachers and students. It's sandboxed, framed, openSource, very easy to learn and has an educational background (originaly it's invented for school kids). Even if the Scratch Player is based on Java, it is the only Java program needed, because Scratch code is interpreted by this player and so much stronger sandboxed.
Here are some Scratch Project that could ilustrate that, even if they are not created to do so and some are made by children:
At a Scratch-Forum we had a discussion about connecting Wikipedia and Scratch and I was encouraged to suggest it here. When having a look at The home of Scratch don't laugh about the sometimes childish projects: Children are our future and the potential of a technology they love is big.
Thank you for your feedback in advance. Mtwoll 19:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Could another field be added to the watchlist that would be for users to tag high priority articles and pages that they want to be able to look at quickly - a sort of super watchlist? This would be helpful for people who have edited many pages and have very large watchlists, but only want to look at the full list sometimes. Tvoz | talk 16:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
An article entirely written by a single editor have a high probability to :
I have written a script which lists all such articles.
Browse the list, check the articles, edit the ones you want to improve, and come back to tell me how to improve this tool :-)
If it proves useful, this tool could be added to the "Fix-up projects" section of Wikipedia:Community_Portal. But first I need your feed-back, and feel free to ask anything about the script or project. Contributors are welcome too :-)
Nicolas1981 11:13, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
As the name implies, I propose that watchlisting individual sections be enabled, where, next to the little '[edit]' on a section, there be a '[watch]'. This is useful in places where there are often much discussion under certain sections, but the page as a whole is very busy. WP:ANI would be an example of this. Thoughts? -- Anonymous Dissident Talk 16:59, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
And yes, this has been discussed before: last change before automated deletion (which would have been much easier to find if you could watchlist sections, by the way) — The Storm Surfer 13:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Based on the recent visibility of Wikipedia geographic coordinates on Google Earth, I have collected a set of 600+ significantly incorrect geographic references. For example, 300+ of them are communes in the Calvados department of France which were placed east of the Prime Meridian, instead of west.
I have been told on the general help desk that there is no central database for such information. That would imply that the Google Earth presentation could be wrong in other languages, even if I manually fixed the English pages.
Surely, there must be a way to introduce a centralized geographic database which could be automatically referenced by templates for each language translation, and for any other georeferences.
Equally, I would expect that the multilingual links on the left-hand side of each page should be derived from a links database fopr each page, so that if a new language translation were to be created for a page, all of the pages for the existing various translations would get the new link, and the links would always be in the same pseudo-alphabetic order. Fairfax Geographer 05:37, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Is there a bot that automatically leaves a welcome template on new user talk pages. If not, could one be created? just a thought - Pheonix15 17:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
As with most issues, I find that I see both sides of the issue, and while I do agree that having a bot may be helpful in some cases, here are the reasons I would probably vote to keep the Welcoming Committee:
I personally don't just drop welcomes on any new user. First, I go through and check their contributions, and talk page. If they've received many warnings, or a bunch of notes regarding CSD or Image deletions, I tend to not drop my personalized welcome, because it shows they've previously ignored attempts to have them review the help info.
I have noticed while doing this, that many of these new accounts are created exclusively with the purpose of defaming/vandalizing pages (see information posted today on Morton's Page .) In that specific case, an article was published online, specifically directing people to create accounts with the express intention of targeting this member and vandalizing his pages. Now, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to welcome people who come here with the solitary intent on doing damage. ;)
I will also drop a welcome on a new user's page if I notice while on RC/VP that they've never had any activity on their talk page. Especially when they are contributing constructively, and especially if they seem to need a little help with formatting (like not 'indenting' paragraphs lol).
Probably the most important reason, if those folks the bot welcomes have questions, they have nobody to ask. Yes, there are the many help pages, but I can tell you from personal experience that that is a whole lot of information to wade through to find the one answer you need sometimes.
I've responded swiftly to new user's questions after I've welcomed them, and I take great pride in that. If a bot was going around welcoming every individual, it would take a lot from the community. Those in the Welcoming Committee seem to be more than happy to do it, and I'd hope between everyone, they get a good majority of the contributing new members. For me personally, I live a pretty solitary life, and I feel at least vicariously, that welcoming new users is spreading a smile that I'm not able to do in real life. And there's nothing I enjoy more than getting that orange box telling me I have a new message! Ariel♥ Gold 15:34, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't oppose the idea because it would be impersonal (most users welcome people using a template, so it makes no real difference). With help, a link to a help page is enough. But I agree with the above point that vandals should not be warned. Hence I would oppose a bot for now. Recurring dreams 11:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I've been suffering through two Afd discussions related to Harry Potter battles. A lot of the people arguing to keep are using the What about X? argument, often citing Star Wars and LotR battles. I'm wondering why exactly we have stuff like Category:Star Wars battles and Category:Middle-earth battles- the articles contained within them are entirely in-universe with no real-world significance, cruft, composed entirely from primary sources, and basically extended plot summaries.- Wafulz 22:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
First and Foremost I just want to thank all of you for producing such an incredible tool.
Quickly I wanted to mention an idea I had for the website:
I use the random article feature all the time. If I am sitting around at night watching a baseball game i will click on random article to learn different things about different items. What I would like to see is the option to some how filter what goes through random article. (i.e. history, sports, US, entertainment, ancient history, etc.) This is just an idea that I thought might be useful to some of the users.
I want to thank all of you again for all that you do.
Please see here for a proposal about unblocking users and giving them parole. Feel free to comment/add. --( Review Me) R Parlate Contribs @ (Let's Go Yankees!) 03:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Is there any sort of database, or filter, or overlay, in existence right now for an "essential" Wikipedia?
As an example, if I was running a school in rural Congo with no internet access, it would be nice to have one CDR (or whatever size medium is required) that has just the essential educational articles, with all the trivia and pop culture stripped out.
I was thinking that would be an interesting idea - a way to be able to read, or download, only the essential articles.
I assume identifying the articles would just take the addition of a tag. As for a script to assemble the updated essential articles for download, though, that is beyond me. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 19:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Just curious other opinions about the practice of placing huge honking project-specific tags onto articles, as for example here. IMO, it's bad enough that the top of many talk pages are occupied by multiple project banners -- but now expanding the clutter into the article space seems a bit too much. I mean, in this case, it is not like the article is horrendously bad in a general sense -- it seems that it just isn't up to snuff by some standards of a wikiproject. I thought that sort of tagging is one of the things that the project banners on the talk pages were for. older ≠ wiser 02:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I find it interesting and very frustrating that tags that could go onto the article page - visited by those that are into improving / looking abit further - are put onto the talk page e.g. (see 1911 (encyclopedia Britannia)). Such like should go onto the article page so that the 'casual researcher' has the easily accessible information about the subject... But no instead it is put on the talk page - somewhere they may not even know exist, let alone visit. Wikipedia is an platform for knowledge - we should not clutter the article page with development demands at the same time hide under discussion buttons the sources of such knowledge. -- Edmund Patrick 14:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I would like to propose that Wikipedia block all search engines from indexing anything that which is not an article. This includes User pages, User Talk pages, category talk pages etc. for the following reasons.
-- PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 22:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm not liking this idea at all. If it weren't for google, tons of stuff (including discussions, userpage stuff, etc) would easily get lost and not be accessible when it needs to be. It's already a pain in the ass to find stuff, lets not make it any harder. If you do not want the internet to know something, then here's a good idea, stop talking about it in a highly public and visible place like Wikipedia. If anyone is worried about privacy then they shouldn't be putting sensitive information on any page of Wikipedia. -- Ned Scott 03:38, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
What we really need is a bot that could find spammy or otherwise "bad" userpages, to reduce our dependance on Google. Nathanww 14:44, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
I personally search wikipedia using a google directed only at the site in my toolbar, and often search for non-articles, including users. This would seriously inconvenience me for the sake of provided privacy.. to people who have published the information on the internet. Everyone with a userpage knows that they have no expectation of privacy.
I also doubt that people searching for a topic in the encyclopedia would be very likely to get a userpage very high in their google results. Atropos 00:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
The idea is great in theory, but when you look at it in practice I don't think this is useful. Google searching of all the namespaces is very helpful considering the MediaWiki search engine has a few caveats. If people are using information from Userspace as a source of information it shows that they haven't researched the quality of their source. For example, if I am going to use some information in an article, I make sure that where I am getting it from fits all the appropriate criteria. If I was using Wikipedia articles as sources for something else, I would put a little research into Wikipedia first and realise that Userspace isn't a reliable source of information. Nicko ( Talk• Contribs) Review my progress! 03:23, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
It is very useful to be able to search all namespaces. What we could have as a compromise is a template to slap on pages which prevents them from being indexed... that way my templates under my userpage would be indexed while my userpage proper would not (for example). BigNate37 (T) 19:56, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
I propose that a table be created that simply lists pages (in user space). Pages in the table would be served with headers to prevent indexing. Users who wish to do so could request to have their pages added to the list. This would require implementation in the mediawiki code. The point is to allow for greater privacy for users who don't want their WP page to appear in Google. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 14:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
{{DONTCRAWL}}
or {{DISALLOWROBOTS}}
would be best.
BigNate37
(T) 16:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)I think opt-in no-indexing is the worst of all worlds except for the few things we already noindex though manual server config (AFD). External search on the policy and talk namespaces are just too useful.. and with a few exceptions they don't cause much harm. I have noticed, however, that some WP:FOO style redirects coming up in google as elevated hits. :(
I think, in particular, user NS is a special case. See below for thoughts on why user NS shouldn't be indexed. -- Gmaxwell 17:50, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Is there any reason why user pages need to be indexed by the likes of Google? I think we should modify Wikipedia's robots.txt to exclude pages in the User namespace (noindex, nofollow). That way people can feel more comfortable about listing personal information on their user pages. Besides, is there any advantage to searching the User namespace? Andre ( talk) 23:00, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Can we at least somehow enable noindex on an optional basis for user pages? I would set many of mine to that. Andre ( talk) 21:35, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Interactiv Media Content is missing at Wikipedia. There are many things that could be explained and learned more easy, if there was a method including it. Some other encyclopaedias include Interactiv Media Content as one of their bigest advantage against Wikipedia (e.g. Encarta). But where the datatype of other Wikipedia media seems to be obvious, interactive media has a problem.
Please feel free to enlarge this list. Most known ways to create interactive data like e.g. Java, Flash will not fulfill these demands.
I think that the new visual programming language Scratch could fulfill it.
Scratch is made by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab for educational purpose and has a strong growing community of teachers and students. It's sandboxed, framed, openSource, very easy to learn and has an educational background (originaly it's invented for school kids). Even if the Scratch Player is based on Java, it is the only Java program needed, because Scratch code is interpreted by this player and so much stronger sandboxed.
Here are some Scratch Project that could ilustrate that, even if they are not created to do so and some are made by children:
At a Scratch-Forum we had a discussion about connecting Wikipedia and Scratch and I was encouraged to suggest it here. When having a look at The home of Scratch don't laugh about the sometimes childish projects: Children are our future and the potential of a technology they love is big.
Thank you for your feedback in advance. Mtwoll 19:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
It may be something to consider to move-protect established articles that shouldn't need to be moved. For example, there is no reason at all that the article
George W. Bush
Rat or
Jerry Falwell should ever have to be moved, so the only "benefit" of not move-protecting those articles is opening the possibility of page-move vandalism.
Mel
sa
ran (formerly Salaskаn) 19:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be a great idea to start a wikipedian of the month. We'll have candidates state their case for one month while editors vote for who they feel should be wikipedian of the month. At the end of the month the votes will be counted and whoever has the most will be wikipedian of the month.-- Southern Texas 18:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I have restored the {{ proposed}} banner for Wikipedia:Quotations ( WP:QUOTE) because it seems to have been replaced with {{ historical}} a while back without discussion. If anyone can point to some discussion that formally rejected this proposal or otherwise discussed its removal from consideration, please note that on its talk page.
After a little time to get some notice for the old proposal, I would like us to review and edit it to reflect current practices and/or establish new ones. I am especially concerned about a growing problem with editors doing mass transfers of quotations from Wikipedia articles to Wikiquote with no regard for the edit history or other crediting required by GFDL. (See q:WQ:VP#Probable GFDL problems with improper transwikis for only the latest of heated discussions about this problem.) We at Wikiquote are beginning to simply delete these contributions because fixing the vast problem is far more work than we can reasonably do. (After all, there are at least 150 active Wikipedians to every active Wikiquotian.) Since simple deletion hardly serves Wikimedia's interests, we need to establish a formal, practical policy for where, when, and how to do this, and this proposal page seems to be the logical home for it.
I would appreciate assistance in (re-)developing this potential guideline. I will also be requesting help from Wikiquotians, many of whom are Wikipedians, too. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
Hey all, I would like to know if there is a group of wikipedians dedicated solely to helping others find sources for articles? I have access to quite a few databases and would like to help out as many people as possible, so a central location for such requests would be helpful. -- Cronholm 144 06:08, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow, there is (was?) an effort in creating a library listing? That's a surprise to me, especially since I came up with a similar idea independently and created User:BigNate37/Library... BigNate37 (T) 17:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
This does help :), I might be back with some proposals. Cheers-- Cronholm 144 11:08, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I suspect that something like this may have been considered before, but if so then I don't know the outcome.
I think it would be useful to have a unified way that currency amounts can be quoted with templates, that result in useful links for the reader.
What I envisage (setting aside for the moment the fact that {{ currency}} already exists as a redirect with a number of links to it) is a setup where you can enter something like:
or
and then this gets rendered in the article as something like "£20" or "30 Fr." (i.e. taking into account the symbol and ordering), but as a link which takes you to a page where there is a link to the relevant article (e.g. Pound sterling or Swiss franc) and also links to third-party websites showing the currently equivalent value of that sum in other currencies (something vaguely analogous to what is done with book sources).
This does somewhat depend on third-party sites supporting some URL format that embeds the query information appropriately, but if not then probably the prospect of traffic generated from Wikipedia would be enough to persuade those site maintainers to implement it.
No doubt there could be other template options like overriding the display symbol or possibly specifying a date for historical conversion, but this is the gist of it.
Does this sound desirable? Feasible?
I must admit that I probably don't have the time or knowledge to actually help with this, so it would depend on whether anyone else has the inclination.
Many thanks. — Alan ✉ 11:42, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, perhaps nonsense is a bit strong, but can someone please tell me why biographies include the age of the person along with their birth date? Not only do I feel that since the age will change, subsequently needing updating each year, I also feel it is indirectly insulting to any reader. Are we assuming that the reader can't subtract the current year from the birth year?
In any event, crack open an encyclopedia. You will find birth dates (and dates of death if applicable), but to include the age as of the writing of the entry would be silly. The only time I can think an age may be noted is for death.
I guess I'd just like to know the reasoning for including the current age of the person in the biography of a living person.
DeeKenn 15:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Ah, so it's Template:birth date and age. There's a problem with this—it is not consistent across different pages. Any functionality like this should be either not used at all or incorporated into the infobox. Since the infobox's page itself describes how to use it and makes no mention of adding the age to the birth date field, I would suggest that the use of the age-generating template in infoboxes is improper. Therefore, if we truly want this age generating behaviour, it should be built into the infobox templates, otherwise it shouldn't be happening at all. BigNate37 (T) 16:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Everyone else, just end this. The simple convenience of telling us how old a person is even though the year is right there is perfectly fine, useful to some, and staying, even though it may be redundant and theoretically insulting. By reading User:DeeKenn's userpage, he must have a lot of concerns and we shouldn't take his comments too seriously. There, I said it. Reywas92 Talk 18:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I see your point, though the first I was only disagreeing. Some just find it quite helpful to simply read a person's age, especially when just scanning, rather than doing the math. It definitely was never meant to insult anyone's intelligence. Reywas92 Talk 18:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
The {{ articleissues}} template was created to merge seperate issue-type templates into one. This cuts down on the screen space the templates use and is more organized. The template is currently collapsible but there is a disagreement on if it should be initially collapsed or shown on page load. I think the discussion on this would benefit from more opinions to help reach conesnsus. -- Android Mouse 19:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
I am primarily an Uncyclopedia user, but I came here because I'm good at looking at recent changes and doing stuff pertaining to that. I've noticed that certain articles have titles that are impossible to render in MediaWiki. We, over at Uncyclopedia, have a fix for this. I didn't write it, nor do I have any stake in it besides my own personal use of it on an article of mine (click to see what it does). Perhaps you could use this to solve your woes (note: I would ask at the forum there before I sporked it, just because they tend to be testy.) Cheers.- Ljlego 01:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Proposal:_Mandatory_noindex.2Fnofollow_for_User:_ns
There has been a lot of mention recently on WT:COI of the unwieldy, wordy, and poorly-structured nature of the current COI guideline. It has thus been suggested that some interested parties (not as in a conflict of interest, obviously) get together to find a better way of writing the same guideline in a more usable way. There is no intent here to change the meaning of the guideline, just to make it more usable.
Discussion of the redraft/refactor is invited at Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest/redraft, with the current intent to initially 'recruit' participants and discuss the aims of the redraft before putting together a precise plan of action. SamBC( talk) 20:27, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
this one needs views from a wider audience. Please feel free to go there and comment. Regards, Navou banter 19:49, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
We currently avoid references to Wikiepdia's mechanics, on Wikipeida, per WP:SELF. I think we could formulate a way of doing so, where appropriate, by using side-boxes similar to those for Wikitionary, WikiQuote etc.; so that, say Manual of style could have a side box saying " Wikipedia has a Manual of Style". This would replace {{ selfref}}. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 17:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 August 12#Template:Pop-up that concerns a template that allows popups to appear when the mouse if over an item. It can be used to translate terms. The argument there is moving towards deletion with the argument, that I agree has a lot of weight, that footnotes are less annoying and more general. However, I think the debate needs to be on a wider basis so I draw your attention to it here. It may turn out to be a key usage in future or it may just die. -- Bduke 22:53, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Hey I was wondering that someone should add info on individual air training corps squadrons around New Zealand. I'm sure they would appreciate it. Wes45 21:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
BJAODN was recently speedy deleted, speedy restored, speedy cancled out of MFD, and is now on DRV at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 August 14/BJAODN. If you are interested in these pages, please contribute at the DRV. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 05:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Uploading images#Requesting photo and licenses (a method proposal). 01:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)