This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (proposals). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212
As a recent admin, I now have the ability to edit the MediaWiki namespace. Nonetheless, I assumed procedure was to bring such changes up here first.
I feel that the preferences include an extraordinary lack of detail as to what the options do. Help can sort of be found elsewhere, but there is no link from the prefs screens.
Proposal A: I propose the addition of ( ?) links next to each applicable preference, linking to either pages on Wikipedia or Meta that describe that feature.
In particular, many users are switching on minor edits by default without understanding minor edits properly. IMO, I think this option should be removed, but I don't know its original intent.
Proposal B: But this isn't sufficient for the minor edits problem, and we also need a link on the edit page: "This is a minor edit" should be "This is a minor edit".
Any comments?
jnothman talk 10:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the best spot on the village pump to put this but here goes.
We all know that there has been a big battle about userboxes in the last few days. Things are getting pretty heated, and even starting to get ugly in some places. I wanted to make a few suggestions for keeping the peace.
Can people PLEASE STOP speedy deleting userboxes before they finish TfD, as has happened a lot in the last few days. It's playing hob with my user page for a start, and there are people out there with even more userboxes than me.. At least could people put why on the relevent talk page, so that when I have to revise my collection of userboxes I know why.
I would like to suggest, since lots of people are getting worked up about this, that any userbox deletions should go through full TfD. Even if they might normally be speedy deletes. This is a controversial topic right now and I think it's time for a bit of diplomacy, so can people please TfD userboxes instead of speedying them. And please make sure it's clear on the talk pages what's going on.
Tom 22:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I have been experimenting with using a script to generate an alternative interface to AFD. It is still in the experimental/development phase and is only currently updating when I am working on it, but the above link should give an idea of what is being created. I am hoping by posting here to solicit feedback on whether people view this as a good thing, what features might be useful, etc. Dragons flight 15:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey there everyone. I just started it up - it's just at the moment concentrating on Football news in the UK, but if people want to add to it, and expand it to other countries, and do La Liga, then that's good! Anyway, if anyone follows football, either for their team, or in general in the UK, and is reading this, then PLEASE CONTRIBUTE to the portal!Anyway, the link;
Mr Spum 14:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I see that Template:Editprotected has been added to try to deal with the issue of non-admins wanting to edit protected pages.
However, there is a more fundamental problem, that having to post requests for changes is a slow and unreliable process, and discourages people from making what could be constructive edits.
By "slow and unreliable", what I mean is that:
Certainly, speaking as a non-admin myself, I just don't bother with trying to get changes into protected pages because it's too much hassle.
I would like to propose instead that a "protected" page should instead become a "moderated" page, in order to streamline the process. A non-admin wishing to edit the page would get "edit (moderated)" rather than "view source". Any changes would then go into a queue of pages for an admin to moderate. The moderation process would consist of clicking "accept" or "reject". In the event of reject, there could be a field to specify the rejection reason. The process could include a couple of check-boxes to allow the admin to automatically add notes to the editor's user-talk page and/or the article talk page giving the outcome of the moderation decision.
Admittedly, there is an issue with what happens if a subsequent request to edit the page comes in while there is still an outstanding moderation decision on the page to be edited. An expedient solution would simply be to revert to the "view source" behaviour in that situation, with a note apologising and saying "please try again later". Even if this is done, I believe that with administrators actively monitoring the queue of pages to be moderated, the vast majority of the time there would not be outstanding requests on a given page (provided at least that policy dictated that submitting vandalism for moderation was viewed with the same severity as vandalising an unmoderated page, so that people maliciously flooding the system could be blocked). A more sophisticated solution to the problem of multiple edits might involve the use of Patch style application of differences, so that edits can be independently moderated if they are orthogonal.
Obviously moderation policy would need to be worked out. It might perhaps have a number of cases, with the acceptance criteria depending for example on whether a page is locked because of simple vandalism or because of POV warring. I believe that moderation should not be a means for admins to exert editorial control against consensus, and that the best way to achieve this would be to rule that the actions of an admin rejecting an edit and of an editor repeatedly submitting an already-rejected edit both count as reversions for purposes of 3RR (with the exclusions still applying, so that for example an admin can reject simple vandalism without limit). To this end, rejected edits should be visible in the page history (whether by default or not).
Whatever the detailed policy, it would make it quicker and easier for non-admins to make useful input to protected pages, and would give less sense of exclusion to the many users who are unlikely ever to become admins, not because they are untrustworthy but because they do not have time to make the large number of edits which seems to be pretty much a precondition for adminship.
Terra Green 13:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
For places like Help Desk, Reference Desk, Village Pump, AfD, RfA, etc. Long discussions are difficult with a single edit anywhere page. Old but ongoing discussions eventually get pushed to the top by new posts, so a format where each thread exists as an object, and another page could show a list of objects, ordered by last post. Similar to the way message boards like phpBB work. I don't know how technically feasible this is (seems like it would have a very different paradigm for handling data), but I still think it's a good idea. What you think? - lethe talk 07:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I propose changing the mediawiki boiler text for anon talk pages, along with a suggestion to add lookup information. Please see The talk page for details, including suggested markup and a sample link. xaosflux Talk/ CVU 18:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I've been seeing some very long drawn out exchanges, often between a small number of users, on discussion pages. I've been part of some myself. It can be very annoying to read through seemingly endless text while people work out the minutia of some issue, or else just have a pissing match. Often these conversations lead to some interesting results, but by the time I get there my eyes have glossed over and my brain has clicked off. I propose to solve this by suggesting that people "take it outside".
Taking it outside would mean moving the conversation off the page and finding a new home for it. I have tried this sort of arrangement at the Wikipedia:LGBT notice board. Conversations start on the main page, and when they do, I move the entire converstaion to the talk page, and create a link to it.
Here's how it works:
I'm not sure we have to create any policy to do this, but I would like to hear what people think of this. , and if the response is positive, I'll create a Wikipedia page.
WP:TIO? --
Samuel Wantman 04:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I've created a Wikipedia page. The short-cut is WP:TIO -- Samuel Wantman 06:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I think somebody should post transcripts of every Simpsons episode on Wikipedia.
FLaRN2005 17:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
That would be flagrant violation of Fox Entertainment copyright. Bwithh 19:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Forgive me if this has been suggested but why not have moderator aproved polls being created? Like a user can create a poll and a moderator has to approve to make it functional. This is probably needed so constant repeats or bad in general polls arent all over the place. But this would give us the ability to see what the community thinks about a specific question and its something to add to the main page...'poll of the day'. Love to hear the communities ideas. Thut 23:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I would like to see ~~~~ signatures, and most other auto-generated dates, adhere to ISO 8601. This is related to the above proposal for making more dates follow preference regioning, but this is much simpler, and doesn't require a major addition to the capabilities of Wikipedia.
Right now, it's non-trival to use ISO 8601 in your signature. I had to modify USER/monobook.js to hack the signature button to print this, because subst:Twodigit can't appear in a raw signature (but these non-subst templates can!):
—[[User:Daelin|Daelin]] @ {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}–{{subst:CURRENTMONTH}}–{{subst:Twodigit {{subst:CURRENTDAY}}}} {{subst:CURRENTTIME}}Z
And it was hard just trying to discover that part. I got lucky and found several other people who had done the monobook.js hack, every last one added ISO dates (in addition to other things), and I was able to copy their code.
The benefits of ISO 8601 are numerous. The mere fact that it scans left-to-right is a huge plus IMO. We're already almost using ISO 8601 for times. It's easier to compare ISO dates and times by direct comparison, as your brain can compare them just like any two decimal numbers. They seem to be more acclimatable to US users than the British form currently used. After over two years, I still have to pause to shuffle the signature date around and mentally widen the gap between the time and the day, while I have no such trouble with ISO. — Daelin @ 2006–01–08 23:09Z
This should just be a subset of the Date preferences proposal: signature timestamps should have date preferences enabled, and even better could have timezone preferences. In the meantime User:Quarl/advanced_sig.js changes ~~~~ to an date-preference-enabled-ISO8601 timestamp. — Quarl ( talk) 2006-01-25 19:26 Z
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)#proposal A proposal to clarify the meaning of "Nationality" in the Manual of Style for Biographies -- should the "nationality" in the lead section normally men the person's citizenship, or the person's possibly complex ethhnic heritage. DES (talk) 19:11, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Is there a way to detect sockpuppets? An easy way would be to include a user's IP address AS WELL as their user ID in edit histories. This wouldn't involve any more breach of privacy than anon editors already accept. A situation recently arose where sockpuppetry appeared to be occurring, but there was no straightforward way to prove or disprove it, which would have helped to resolve an ongoing edit conflict. While I'm fairly sure sockpuppetry isn't all that widespread, when it does occur a quick way of stamping it out would be very helpful. Thoughts? Graham 15:48, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
The current Special:Blockip page sucks just a wee bit. I'd like to improve it, but I can't just go off willy-nilly adding things, without asking you lot what you'd like to see. Asking for ideas? Yes, I have gone off the bat. Still, your thoughts, suggestions opinions will be welcomed at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Robchurch/Blocking - sign, please, so I know who to ask for more information on an interesting idea.
Ta, Rob Church ( talk) 23:43, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Following the recent launch of my organisation, Community Justice, one of our aims is too keep the Wikipedia civil. We need stronger rules to keep things civil, and warnings tags like {{civil1}} and {{civil2}} to keep things civil, and those who do instigate persistantly should be blocked, as they are disrupting the Wikipedia.
I'd appreciate your thoughts on this. Compu te r Jo e 12:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I have proposed a WikiProject to organise users to form legal efforts to aid Wikipedia, as I am concerned eventually the need will be very great in the future. This is at Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List of proposed projects#Legal defence. I am not sure whether I should also clarify this at Wikipedia:No legal threats but it really doesn't seem to affect it that much than a slight change in policy (ie. an exception for when the Foundation gives the green light to pursue action against a vandal, for example). For example, this WikiProject could be used to sue Willy on Wheels, or sue convicted sex offender Joshua Gardner for misusing our resources to perpetrate a fraud that endangered the safety of minors (felony), and demanding recompensation (a very heavy one), thus setting precedent and discouraging scandal, or could be used to enforce trademarks, etc. etc. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais ( Be eudaimonic!) 06:26, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I would like to cite the points brought up in this dicussion of the new policy as evidence that a review of this policy is necessary. If I'm honest, the whole idea seemed rather backward from the moment it was introduced. You're actually forcing people to have MORE anonymity before they can create articles, which gives serious vandals an advantage, as vandalism is harder to trace. 71.141.251.153's post sums up my thoughts quite well.
Please consider this, as the policy as it is now has done nothing in terms of preventing vandalism so far. -- 82.7.125.142
There should be an option for "watching" users. Basically, edits by watched users will appear bolded on the Recent Changes page. Sure, this might encourage "wiki-stalking", but this would somewhat help against vandals. What do you guys think? -- Ixfd64 07:33, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
There should be a way to set the block list to display IPs, registered users, and/or auto-blocked IPs only. Anyone else agree? -- Ixfd64 07:31, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
To comabt vandalism, the following rules could be put into place (coded, set up, however)
Obviously, this isn't perfect, (eg. rogue users), but it could help a lot, since many people forget to watch pages, and many pages are unwatched.
Infinity0 talk 00:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
By the way, I believe Special:Unwatchedpages is unavailable to non-admins. Why? Concern that vandals would deliberately target unwatched pages. — Bunchofgrapes ( talk) 19:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
So, how do these proposals actually get accepted/denied? All I notice is an auto-archive thing... Infinity0 talk 12:55, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
How about flagging edits to unwatched pages on Recent Changes? Slashme 16:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi there,
I've been looking at a number of pages in this and similar categories and I can't see any consistency in the labelling of programmes where there is a possible ambiguity. For example, we have Bottom (television), Porridge (TV), Coupling (TV series) and other synonyms such as "show" or "programme". There are also some labelled as "sitcom".
It would look neater and be simpler if there was a common format to follow:
I'd personally opt for (TV) after the name - this seems succinct and we don't really need to know if it's a series or programme etc.. I'd also opt for replacing any that say "sitcom" with "TV" as well. Obviously, with some titles such as The Vicar of Dibley where there are no ambiguities then just leave them as they are - I'm not trying to make this more confusing, I'm trying to simplify it.
This has also been posted here before I read and discovered that I should post it here, apologies. Naturally it also applies to other categories of television programmes, not just British or sitcoms, of which there are many.
Iancaddy 23:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello alls, I would like to replace this.
The
neutrality of this article is
disputed. |
with this
Thank you for your time, Dabljuh 20:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps edits of articles could be highlighted for up to X number edits after and/or until X number of users/members of X qualification vote positively on it. This way users that come to the article know that a) the highlighted edits have yet to be authenticated and/or agreed upon b) it's harder to vandalize and get away with it. The obvious downside is that it slows down the editing process, but given the rate at which Wikipedia is growing, I dare say that isn't necessarily a bad thing. -- 66.229.183.101 18:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I have been printing articles relevant to a project I am doing and realised that there are parts of the article that I don't want. I wonder if there is a feature that could be implemented where the user can select to print the information under each subheading, rather than having to print the whole lot or copying the desired sections to another program like 'Word'. It would make the task alot easier if, say, there were check boxes (i'm not an expert) Yellowmellow45 20:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I have made proposal at Wikipedia:Help_desk#¬¬¬¬\_How long are IP addresses logged and stored by Wikimedia?_/¬¬¬¬ -- 168.131.46.80 18:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
One thing i realized during my short residence on wp is its huge size, language wise. Now if there was just wp in english, everyone with the knowledge of english would contribute to the sole wp database, but because of so many versions in different languages this has caused localisation of many articles, especially images that have been uploaded to the local version instead of the commons. Due to this english users wont be able to access, say, the article on spain on the spanish wikipedia which would probably be more informative and have more media than the english version. This is what i propose:
This seems to be one possible way of bridging the language divide between various wikipedias. This can also help users to translate articles from one version to another without searching. PlaneMad 16:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Links to unit converter websites seem to slowly multiply for no particular reason, but sometimes there are more rapid changes. Just today, dozens of links were replaced. Unless I didn't get the memo and convertplus.com is now the official unit conversion partner of Wikipedia, this seems much like spam. I would like to stop the external link creep that seems to happen on any articles related to units of measurement. Maybe some site could be selected as the default, just like Dmoz is often used when a web directory is needed. Wikilink to conversion of units might do, but a JavaScript converter has its benefits. WikiConversion, anyone? Other ideas? Maybe this issue has already been talked to death, but I can't find the discussion anywhere?
(Anyway, it's so late here that I can't investigate this particular series of edits further today. If someone can be bothered to ascertain their nature and revert them if appropriate, he'll receive my thanks.) Aapo Laitinen 23:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I see that a lot of articles say "passed away" when they mean "died" (and similarly with other parts of the verb e.g. "passing away"). I can't think that it's good to use this expression in an encyclopedia. They should generally just say "died" as this is direct and simple (except of course in direct quotation and where directly relevant to what's being discussed, e.g. in articles such as euphemism or nirvana). "Passed away" could perhaps even be seen as POV.
I started to edit some pages manually, based on Google search results, but stopped when I saw the large number of hits. Is there a consensus agreeing with my point? If so, could I suggest:
Thanks,
Terra Green 21:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
I vote to use "croaked" ;) - SoM 23:47, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the main point; and I think a MoS addition would be appropriate. But running a bot on articles for a stylistic issue like this wrong, I believe. — Johantheghost 13:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I've seen frequent outcries against so-called admin abuse. While most of those are exaggerated or downright unfounded, it is admittedly true that admins are not really held accountable for anything. Sure, there's peer review from other admins, and all admin actions are logged and can be undone, but an admin can basically ignore all that and do whatever s/he pleases, and only in outrageous cases does the ArbCom put a stop to it.
This has been discussed at length on the mailing list (see the thread on "Worthy Admins", and to a lesser extent "Abuse of Power" and "admin violations again"). The two main ideas suggested there are 1) applying higher standards to WP:RFA voting (but note that nominees are already held to substantially higher standards than actual admins) or 2) creating a process for de-adminship (but note that several earlier proposals to that extent were soundly rejected).
I'm not convinced that we actually have a problem here, but there's no harm in at least discussing our options. Hence, I yield the floor to people's ideas, thoughts and opinions. R adiant _>|< 01:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
{{ linux-software-screenshot}} I've seen this disclaimer on images like this. However, most Linux software, like synaptic is GPL licensed. This means that derivate works is allowed, if you abide to the terms of the GPL. By allowing further use of this image, and publishing the image under the GPL, this is fulfilled in my opinion. So I can't see why a screenshot of a GPL'd program should be non-gpl, as it can be considered a derivate work. So I'm suggesting to change this with
|
This is a screenshot of copyrighted Linux computer software, released under the GPL. Thus, it is believed that this image is a derivate work, and is also covered by the GPL. See Copyrights for more information. |
.
Note: This can only be changed on software that is GPL'd obviously. -- vidar lo 21:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
licensing@fsf.org
requesting clarification on this issue.
Crotalus horridus (
TALK •
CONTRIBS) 17:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)However, I think wikipedia distributes the source of the image, since we make it availvable in the same size and quality as the upload. The image is not ascii, but GPL says nothing about that the source has to be in ASCII. JPG is in fact just data, a special program (image viewer) can inteprent, no different from a a.out that a OS can view. So as I see it we distribute the source, to a derivate work of a GPL'd work. From GPL:
The terms and conditions of the GPL are available to anybody receiving a copy of the GPLed work ("the licensee"). Any licensee who adheres to the terms and conditions is given permission to modify the work, as well as to copy and redistribute the work or any derivative version.
I see a image as a derivate work, no more, no less. There is creativity involved in deciding what data to show with it, but it is of a GPL'd work, which means in my opinion, it has to be GPL. In fact, I feel wikipedia has somehow been violating the intent of the GPL by not stating that images are GPL. I've contacted FSF, and included references to this discussion about the issue, so let's see what they come up with. If that takes over 7 days, I suggest this is moved to Talk: Copyright or a more appropriate place. Since there was no replys to my previous comment, I felt I had to clarify and change bits of it. -- vidar lo 08:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
FSF Writes the following in an email: I think screenshots are are generally non-derivative. I can think of an exception (for instance, a series of screenshots of a game which effectively reproduce the storyline of that game as a comic book) -- but that won't affect WP. Certainly, for GNU programs, we will permit screenshots without restrictions.
-- vidar lo 19:10, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I've been very happily using User:HorsePunchKid's idea of adding <span> tags around my signature, in conjunction with custom CSS, to highlight my signature when I'm logged in. This makes reading discussion pages so much more awesome that I think everyone should benefit.
If the software automatically added CSS classes to wikilinks to User:Foo when user Foo is logged in, that would make life better. Everyone would get this feature and discussion pages would be less cluttered from the explicit span tags. (It wouldn't even require a span tag, just add another class to the <a> tag.) This is somewhat similar to how links to the current page are bolded.
I use a colored background highlight; but the default could be a bold, or even no difference by default -- just make it easier to do this. I think it would be pretty trivial to implement.
Comments? — Quarl ( talk) 2006-01-16 08:09 Z
Rick Block understood my proposal correctly and rephrased it better; there is no privacy concern. Also as violet/riga understood, it would shorten the wikisource, not lengthen it. — Quarl ( talk) 2006-01-17 01:40 Z
I would like to see us have some sort of guideline in place regarding internet memes, similar to WP:CORP or WP:MUSIC. After seeing many, many notable internet memes end up on AfD ( Brian Peppers about a zillion times, Raptor Jesus, Hatten ar Din_, it's apparent that a) people are creating articles out of internet memes, and b) people wrongly consider some memes to only be notable if they get publicity offline, like All Your Base. Obviously, some guideline needs to be set to separate the Magical Trevors from the one-off Something Awful "Flash Tub" characters, but it would be very, very helpful to set some sort of standards.
With that said, I don't know what we need to do to get there, but I do have a couple ideas:
Any other thoughts? I'd really like to see this occur. -- badlydrawnjeff 14:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Jeff that a discussion at WP:MEME might be a good idea. User:Zoe| (talk) 19:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Could we have a Wikipedia Wide Census to get an idea of who we all are? The site has come a long way in a short time and I think it is high time to gather some information about the community.
I propose to have a page where information would be collected and then analysed to give trend, demographic, geographic, linguistic and area of interest information. The fields would have to be "check box" rather than "fill in" with words so as to make data analysis easier. The kinds of questions I think would be useful include:
The census could be based on the en.wikipedia community or across all WP or even across the entire collection of sister sites through MetaWiki. The link, I imagine, would look much like the current fundraiser link at the top of the main page. I would also assume that there should be a request to fill out the census put through foundation-i and maybe even on user pages. The census of course would not be obligatory but reccomended (as with donations).
The uses that this information could be put to are numerous. Some of these include:
What do you think?? Witty lama 22:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Just ask Daniel Brandt. I'm sure he already has all of this information on all of us. User:Zoe| (talk) 16:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, me thinks it's a great idea. The only problem is actually doing it. algumacoisaqq 18:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Fine idea, but who would write the "questionaire"? Also, isn't this a proposal better suited to meta? 202.7.166.171 04:19, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
There was a survey made by an academic group in Germany of the German language Wikipedia a while back, and it worked so well that they later surveyed some English language Wikipedians as well. I wonder if they've published the English Wikipedia study yet.-- Pharos 09:35, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
If I type something into the searchbox at wikipedia, and wikipedia doesn't have it but there's something on wiktionary, a link to it would be nice. Username132 20:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Is there a reason why there are so many different wiki's it is hard to navigate and do things without going back to the main page of that wiki and using the interwiki links, I propose a total murger of all wiki's into one for each language it would make it a lot easier to use. -- Lcarsdata 17:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think I understand. Can you explain what you mean by a "wiki"? User:Zoe| (talk) 18:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
We have Special:Newpages and Special:Recentchanges, but there's no Special:Newusers. Such a function could help the welcoming committee welcome new users and the anti-vandalism people to better find serial vandals, insult users, sockpuppets and impersonators. smurrayinch ester( User), ( Talk) 10:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
On another wiki I edit, they use phpwiki. It is generally not nearly as nice as Mediawiki, but it has one very nice feature: On a page history, each version has a checkbox. You check any two checkboxes to generate a diff between those two versions. Very nice if you suspect sneaky vandalism. Would this be hard to implement in Mediawiki? -- Slashme 07:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
This is a gauge of community opinion on admin accountability, RFA, power abuse, and deopping. Not a policy proposal. Opinions welcome. R adiant _>|< 18:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
This multiposted content moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) under same section header.
There is currently discussion regarding the phrases "Mini-series", "Maxi-series" and "Limited series", regarding their popularity, definitions and usage. If you have any opinion on the terms, please share it as we attempt to build consensus at Talk:List of limited series#Building consensus. Steve block talk 14:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
It took a few weeks of visiting Wikipedia before I realized the little "Deutsch", "Français", etc. links part-way down the page on the left. After I started using them (I speak German too), I remember being confused as to how to get back (and I'm not as incompetent as that makes me sound). Anyway, how about a new row of tabs at the TOP of the article, below the current tabs? Besides being more intuitive, you wouldn't have to scroll (on lower resolution screens) to get to them. -- 24.26.178.224 05:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Just to make reversion easier, I think that when you click on "diff" and see the differences between edits, another button should appear near the top that says "revert". Obviously, this automatically reverts the edit and provides a summary. Reverting is such a business, especially when the change is minor but vandalistic/innaccurate/some other inadequacy. If you have a slow connection, it's three pages and a summary you have to go through before achieving a revert. When I want to revert I'm looking at the differences and I want to be able to click "no, go back to the old one" more easily. -- Alfakim -- talk 10:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Rollback is strictly for reverting vandalism. What about when someone adds a sentence or something that is POV, for instance. One sentence, but a bad addition. You still need to revert it! So I suppose this suggestion is to give more users rollback and allow rollback on nonvandalism.-- Alfakim -- talk 11:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Could Dewey Decimal [3] or some simlar classification be of use on wikipedia, in adition to the category system?-- IanDavies 23:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I believe this is the correct place to discuss this? Anyway, there is a small problem with the current method of references - there are two styles 1) adds the external url for direct viewing and 2) is the Harvard style where it is given a number and is listed at the bottom of the page. Both have problems, Item 1) doesn’t give enough detail about the reference and item 2) forces the user to jump to a different section of the article.
I propose that a new kind of wiki syntax be developed so that both can be combined. The syntax for reference material might look like this <reference url="http://someurl.com" title="title of the subject" page=1> - additional info could be added to copy the Harvard style but (hopefully) you get the idea. Now there would be two icons next to the reference url one that goes to the page and the second one that will take you to that reference material or give you a context pop-up on hover to show the info in a little yellow box. Either way of display, the info would be automatically added to a reference section at the bottom of the article.
Good, Bad? I don’t know but the current reference material in all of wiki needs work. Let me know what you think. -- Supercoop 19:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I have an other idea that is more generic that just for dates. The idea is to implement that only the first occurance of a unique link on a page is rendered as a link. Example if you have the code
[[Article]] bla bla bla [[Article]]
It will render as Article bla bla bla Article → Aza Toth 19:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcement is a proposal for simple injunctions against lesser disruptions, that do not reach the level of the ArbCom. Please take a look and comment on the talk page. R adiant _>|< 13:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Folks:
I have been trying to figure a way to add video clip links to articles. My family happens to own EVTV1.com (an online video portal), British Pathe (a newsreel library), and WPA Film Library.
I have also been in the home video business for over 20 years. EVTV1 has secured the rights to video clips from over 20 home video companies.
I added about 100 links to articles (all external links to video clips approx. 90 seconds in length) and editors started deleting the links saying I was SPAMMING. I engaged several in discussions and while they would not restore the links, I truly did understand the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The video clips have a :15 commercial in front of the clips. That subsidizes the streaming and licensing of the clips.
Here is the idea...
Wikipedia should not link to uncopyrighted materials...which is a real problem on the Internet. If the Wiki community is convinced that there is too much of a conflict of interest for me to link, maybe we could create an area for editors to choose appropriate clips for articles. For instance, EVTV1.com has great clips of Shirley Temple, Jack Paar, Muhammad Ali, Volcanoes, Ellis Island, and literally thousands of archival footage clips. All of the clips have rights cleared for Internet viewing worldwide.
Each editor could decide if the video clip is worth the "pain" of the commercial.
Does this idea make any sense?
If it does, please let me know. Thousands of articles might benefit by adding visual resources.
Thanks. Jaffer 03:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
You can also contact me at J.ali@evtv1.com
They receive monies from us.
Now, I would like to address other issues by Ambush and others:
1) Bandwidth usage will deter editors from including All bandwidth from streaming is absorbed by evtv1. These are external links. Bandwidth, while becoming less expensive, still costs...and that is what the commrcial subsidizes.
2) Adding video links doesn't add much Of course I disagree. An article on Jonathan Winters with a link to a classic clip of him on Jack Paar, that is rare is a gem...or Judy Garland's last performance at the Palladium. But editors are free to choose. I like Dr, Pepper...my wife hates it. There is no way to argue taste.
3) Watching a documentary on Google video is great...there should be a link to it IF THE MATERIAL HAS BEEN CORRECTLY LICENSED. That is why I stuck to material that I was sure was clear.
4) Me unilaterally adding links... I am done doing this. I spent over 40 hours linking (what I believe to be in good faith) only to have editors delete the external links. I want to help, not fight. This is a grand project.
5) evtv1 has secured the license to STREAM these video clips, but cannot download them for distribution. The links to the site would not violate copyright, that was my point.
Folks, I see encylopedias being MULTIMEDIA. The licensors of the material have not allowed us the right to facilitate consumers downloading the clips. They believe streaming is fine...but have not allowed for downloads yet. But even when they eventually do allow downloading, they will not allow it for free. The external links ti teh clips are completely legal.
My suggestion is for FREE VIDEO...but the cost is a :15 commercial. Is it obnoxious? I hate commercials myself. But most people would sit through :15 to see a 2 minute clip of what they want to see.
Thanks for reading! Jaffer 14:18, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Kim, the objective of Wikipedia as I see it is to offer information free to the public. I would believe that an article on Malcolm X that quotes his now famous line, "By any means necessary" would benefit by a video clip of the first time he uttered that phrase...which was captured on film (and available at evtv1.com, with full copyright compliance).
As I mentioned in a post in the television section, I personally wrote a book on The Prisoner TV series. I went to conventions years ago and the real aficionados wanted access to every photo conceivable. Having clips of The Prisoner would be cool...(evtv1 plans to put them up in the future.) The value, as I see it, is in connecting the right clips with teh right articles. By me stepping out of the editorial process, it removes the conflict of interest and editors would decide...not me.
SEWilco, if people link to copyrighted video clips that have not been authorized, this is a real problem. There are so many sites on the Internet that just grab clips and put them up. If you link to those sites, the material will not be there once the Copyright owner gets wind...which is coming real soon.
I want to create a resource page for WIKI editors to pick and choose. Every clip will be 100% legal under the Digital Millenium Act and Copyright laws. It is safe and clean. I would bet other copyright holders would eventually want to add their libraries to the WIKI Video Resource center...I am saying I will do this as soon as teh community agrees (and tells me where to put the links and descriptions of the clips). Jaffer 20:29, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
When I got promoted to a sysop, I went off to the Administrator's noticeboard to add it to my watchlist. Then I discovered something: the page was protected! It was baffling! So I click the "unprotect", and I realize it was protected against page moves. Whether or not this qualifies as protection is dubious, but I think we could have a better message.
Therefore, I propose we change the MediaWiki:Unprotect system message from "Unprotect" to "Change protection", as a resulting action from the tab can increase the protection level (from semiprotection to full protection, for example). If there are no objections, I will be bold and do it. — Ambush Commander( Talk) 01:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay, the change will be going live soon. — Ambush Commander( Talk) 19:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
To see in more detail how the recent fund drive went, I started looking at the raw data and put some figures together. Comparing this most recent fundraiser to the two earlier fundraisers in 2005, it seems very clear that something happened to make the week following 12/28/2005 a very good one for the Foundation. More specifically, previous fundraisers had tended to fizzle, and this one seemed to be taking a similar path until its New Year's fireworks.
Maybe additional data, tests, or experiments could help in future planning. Specifically, I would suggest that we conduct research on fundraiser design by pre-testing different types of appeals to randomized subsets of visitors to the site. It would be great if we could have the techniques in place for remarkable success from the very beginning of the next fundraiser. Tobacman 22:54, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Would it be possible to add a policy where the image uploader is notified of any lack of information so that they can have the opportunity to add it, rather than just deleting the picture and leaving the articles that use it pointing to a dead link? -- Rebroad 15:43, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Like the "Templates used on this page" section that appears in the end of the page when editing, an "Images used on this page" would also be useful. Many images are removed from an article in order to be replaced by better ones, and while there's no categorisation of images, it is really hard to find them. CG 04:52, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Just an idea - the central problem with wikipedia is how to keep the editing open while at the same time preserving the best copy.
What if contributors who could rightly claim "authority" on a particular subject could be granted the right to provide definitive sections for such articles. Such sections would be at the top of any article, indellible and under the control of the authority. At the same time, the rest of the article would be open for business as usual.
An active authority would integrate interesting contributions in the rest of the article into the authority section.
A more passive authority might contribute one short authority section and then be seen no more. This would still give such articles a more trustable and consistent authority, while still leaving the article open.
What do you think?
-- Tomandlu 23:08, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Please vote on the requests for rollback proposal, a proposal which would give good contributors, who are not admins, access to the rollback privilege. Talrias ( t | e | c) 23:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I recently had a problem with the article Craig Gannon which got me thinking. What if a user needs help from an administrator that's not related to vandalism (which WP:AIV can be used for)? I propose a page much like WP:AIV but called something like Wikipedia:Administrator Assistance where you can get the attention of admins to help with assorted matters. I would gladly help in designing such a page.
My initial thought was that WP:AN could be used for that, but it doesn't really seem it can. Besides, considering the ammount of edits to WP:AN, I think a page virtually identical to WP:AIV might be a good idea, where the list is cleaned by admins and they right "LIST EMPTY" in the edit summary or so forth. Does a page like this already exist? Any input anyone? Thanks! Deskana (talk) 20:53, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
An idea to help the RC patrol, by allowing them to review feeds that go at slower than 87 edits per minute , the way it is now. User:JesseW/Recent_Changes_Slices. Comments greatly appreciated. JesseW, the juggling janitor 09:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
When you click an image, Wikipedia takes you to that image's information page, which often has a large version of the image. This is not how the rest of the Web works, and I find that novice users of Wikipedia tend to get frustrated by this. For example, today I saw someone go to the RedHat page, then click on the RedHat logo expecting to get more information on RedHat (perhaps to go to the company's website). What he got, of course, was something different, leading him to think that the site was broken. Another example is the graphic that looks a bit like a wristwatch at the top right on the Current events page. The text next to it says "Please visit our sister project, Wikinews...", and most people would instinctively assume that the graphic was a hotlink to Wikinews. But it isn't.
Do other Wikipedians think this is a problem?
(Just to prove that I'm a constructive kind of guy, here's a suggested solution. Extend the [[image:...]] tag so that one of the parameters is the title of a Wikipedia article. The default action for clicking on the image will be to go to that article. There will also be a small icon below the image that links to the image's info page, for the few that wish to go there.) -- Heron 21:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback, everybody. There are some good ideas here. Flcelloguy, it was some time since I last clicked on the Wikinews logo, but I tried it again just now and I see that it is fixed. Thanks for doing that. I won't say any more on this topic, because I just followed the Template talk:Click link above and found that this has been discussed before (see under the 'Confusing' subheading). There is also a feature request on MediaZilla for adding a "link=" parameter to the image tag, as in this example:
[[Image:banana.jpg|100px|thumb|right|link=[[banana]]]]
If you like it, please go to MediaZilla and vote for it. -- Heron 21:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to suggest having a standard template for info about chemical compounds, like the ones for biological species. There would be a standard box saying stuff like the density, appearance, discovery date, etc, the same stuff that appears in references like the CRC handbook. Looking up a compound like Polyethylene to find its density would give you this info right away. There would have to be an ongoing effort to add these boxes to the articles about different compounds.
I suggest that we create a formal policy strongly suggesting that material not be multiposted (identical copies of a discussion placed in multiple locations), particularly when the multiposted content makes no reference to this fact. I've observed this on several occasions recently. This disruptive activity leads to a variety of problematic effects, most importantly forked discussion where some interested contributors are not aware of existing discussion by others. Instead, the content should be located in one place with links announced in other locations. It could be at Wikipedia:Multiposting. What do you all think? (and I'm only posting this here) Deco 02:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
This is a proposed very simple way to deal with non-controversial article deletions. The proponet propses a live test in the near future. I think the idea is a good one, but that soem degree of community support is needed to sanction a live test. Please visit Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion to express your views. DES (talk) 17:27, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
one of the more common Wikipedia edits that call for a revert are on the Days of the Week articles. people are often adding their own name, or a friend's or an enemy's name. i have all 366 days of the week in my watchlist. i sometimes have to revert over 50 edits a day, and still, some of these edits slip by.
if regular users added their own birthday to their watchlists and nothing more, these edits would be discovered and fixed more efficiently. thanks, Kingturtle 01:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, it seems that this idea has overwhelming support. But, this topic will soon vanish from here. Where do we need to document this suggestion so that more people see it? Part of the "welcome kit"? — Johan the Ghost seance 13:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
There is currently discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#Restructure_with_subpages about restructuring the reference desk with subpages instead of having one huge page. This idea could potentially extend to the help desk. Your comments and thoughts would be most appreciated. Thanks! enochlau ( talk) 23:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)</nowiki>
It is old proposal, but I suppose hardly nobody knows that this project in pl wiki is very very fine. More than 40 Players, more than 30 department of quests. And it is more useful that asks for quests wherever in wikispace. All players gives points for realised quests and all quests are controled by WikiMasters. And last but not least it is very funny game. Look here and for related changes here. It is now not only game but work too - work in WikiFactory!. MetaWikiMaster ;) of WikiFaktoria. Przykuta 21:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Look for schema in pl wiki:
== Quest Name == Narrator's note *'''Desription:''' *'''WikiMaster:''' *'''Start date:''' *'''Number of points for quest:''' **'''xxx points''' per... **'''yyy points''' per... *'''Realized by:''' *Below write your realized quests + —[[User:Crypticbot|Crypticbot]] [[User:Cryptic|(operator)]] 00:09, 6 February 2006 (UTC) *#
Here is link to the quest "Interwiki" with a lokal hall of fame. It is boring work when we do it daily, but not when it is Quest.
But it is only a tutorial ;) Now I want to lead a campaign.
First quests in pl wiki was Writing articles about castles and legends, Welcoming - it is still big quest - almost everybody newcomer is welcoming (without vandals of course). But pl wiki has another problems. I think it is worth to find a group of Wikipedians who want to start WikiRPG. Przykuta 00:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I have a suggestion that I would like to bring up and get some opinions on. I am proposing that Special:Listusers be divided into users and indefinantly blocked/vandal accounts. This would provided better navigation on the list of users and would help better identify vandal accounts. Thoughts? SWD316 talk to m e 16:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
You can edit any section of an article without having to load the whole page up, but this is impossible if you want to edit the intro section at the top. Could a discreet link be introduced that allows you just to edi the pre-section section of an article? I'm think an option in the sidebar where "What links here" is, just another link saying "Edit introduction". -- Alfakim -- talk 01:03, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be great if we could use image maps? This could be useful in the article Worms weapons and tools for instance, so the user can click on an icon in the weapons grid (on the right) for a #redirect to its description. Of course, the possibilities are endless: imagine watching a picture of a pediment and being able to click through to articles on the different characters depicted by clicking on them or using a picture of a piston engine as a base for linking articles on the separate parts at a central location. Ma.rkus.nl 23:51, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I couldn't find this exact suggestion anywhere on perennial proposals or elsewhere, so apologies in advance if it's been mentioned a lot. Basically, is there any movement at all on here to make Wikipedia something that the less-technically savvy but very non-tech-subject savvy experts out there can contribute to? I'm talking about people who can cope with e-mails and entering web addresses and typing letters, but who run away at the sight of anything resembling code or scripting (which is what Wikipedia looks like when you try to edit an article, or if you even try to discuss an article). I guess ideally it could be some kind of web-based Wizard, which would take someone through the editing process step by step (and maybe layout too, although I suspect beginners would rather stick to the actual text at first). It could also invite people to register if they wish to, if they haven't logged in. Links to the "boot camp" and how-to guides could be peppered throughout the Wizard so existing efforts wouldn't be duplicated. I'm just frustrated at how editing a Wikipedia article can be as tricky as handcoding HTML, whereas most of the world's experts on non-technical topics (the kind of topics Wikipedia needs experts on the most) would have little or no experience in such matters or concepts. -- Krisse 18:52, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I've been working on a lot of bands recently and I've noticed that for the major bands there tends to be some consistent formatting, but for less significant bands there's really almost no formatting. Is there, and I simply haven't found it? If there's not, wouldn't it be great if there was? If you agree with the last, how do we go about creating that? A bot? Or would this be too complicated?
I feel like the formatting should include sections for band history, members, and discography, and a picture if available, and of course an overview/intro before sections. Those nice little boxes are cute too. From what I've seen now, when some of those sections do exist, sometimes albums are linked, sometimes not. Sometimes the albums are in italics, sometimes with dates, sometimes neither. Sometimes band members are linked, sometimes not. What do y'all think are good formatting policies for this? Is this even the right place to ask about this? Anyway, I'd like to know what the community thinks of this. - GlamdringCookies 08:01, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello everyone. I was brainstorming some ideas for Wikipedia and this is what I came up with:
Keep up the awesome work! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.31.187.201 ( talk • contribs) .
Hello there, tis i, Spum. I have managed to now get the Football Portal on Wiki/news to churn out relevant stories, and there's been a good stready flow of them appearing from other users. Now, shortly, i'm going to be adding a transfers section, listing recent club transfers. Now, I require 2 people - One for coca cola league 1, and another for coca cola league 2 to maintain the results, fixtures and upcoming matches section..If you can add news stories which are important in those leagues, then go fo it; the more the merrier! It's not much work, as there aren't many football matches in a week for the coca cola league, but i'm currently maintaining a large proportion of all the content, and would like some help with it.
Click here to look at the portal.
If anyone wishes to help, or knows anybody who would like to; then please get stuck in, or get in contect with me; you don't need an explicit knowledge of football, you just need to know about how league tables work, and what days to update the table, which isn't too much work for some of those clever-pedians we have here!
I really appreciate any help we can get; i can only see the portal getting wikinews more hits, and making the footy portal get more contributors! Tergards, muchly;
The magical Spum-dandy 13:34, 28 January 2006 (UTC) !
(cross-posted as this is an odd little policy, so here is good, too)
This expansion of ArbCom to include "officers" doesn't appear to have gotten much press. It involves someone whose job it to summarise and present the information presented into digestable packets for the Arbitration Commitee.
It's "going live" any day now, but there have been concerns expressed that it's a "back door" for people who failed re-elction to maintain their powerbase. Additional concerns around why this person would need access to the abritrator only mailing list have been raised.
brenneman (t) (c) 02:13, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
My two penn'orth. On the personalities: I don't approve of vitriol, but I've seen Kelly Martin behave both badly and very dubiously; I'd certainly not trust her as an ArbCom member, and people like me voted against her for that reason. On the various recent antics: she's clearly in a little group of chums who tend to stick together with a "my friend right or wrong" sort of attitude, and who include many editors of long-standing and (what is perceived by many people as being) authority; this has probably been part of the cause of hasty actions such as the protection of Talk pages and RfCs and other attempts to suppress criticism of her. On the procedural issue, it is indeed very difficult to see why the ArbCom needs these "clerks", especially why they need a "head clerk", and most especially why they appointed someone who has just been rejected as sufficiently trusted for an ArbCom rôle. I've seen the excuse that it's no big deal, as anyone can do what the clerks do — but then why appoint clerks? We're not a state with a government, and so the analogy with the appointment of officials is inapt, pace Doc Glasgow; the only reason that most of us can see for this extension of official or semi-official (or quasi-official) positions is some variation on jobs for the boys and girls, and you don't have to share my anarchist leanings not to like it very much. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 17:22, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure this is old news, but it seems to me like many WP "List of XXX" pages are unhelpful. Case in point: List of sailors, which is a randomly-selected and small subset of articles from Category:Sailors. This list totally fails to mention some extremely prominent sailors, and of course needs to be manually maintained to keep it in sync with Category:Sailors. Trouble with that is, it would be either a selected subset (and hence inherently POV), or huge.
So, let's ditch the list and just use Category:Sailors, which is guaranteed to be complete, and is neatly organised into sub-categories. Trouble with that is that it's not annotated; unlike List of sailors, which at least provides a useful "who's-who and why" index of some sailors.
So, my proposal: modify the [[Category]] syntax as follows:
[[Category:Sailors|Slocum, Joshua|first single-handed circumnavigation of the world]]
That is, include the annotation in the article, where it can be maintained with the article itself. Then we just need a change to the [[Category]] feature to (optionally) include annotations in Category pages. Then we can ditch the lists, and replace them with appropriate use of categories.
Note that this proposal works well with articles in multiple categories. Example:
[[Category:Sailors|Slocum, Joshua|first single-handed circumnavigation of the world]] [[Category:Authors|Slocum, Joshua|wrote ''Sailing Alone Around the World'']]
would place Joshua Slocum in two category/lists, with appropriate annotations for each. This feature could also be used in categories themselves, to annotate their entries in their parent categories.
What do you think? — Johantheghost 23:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
intresting idea, but it would make it much harder to read thru categories - some of them are very big as it is without notations. BL kiss the lizard 00:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Me thinks it's a great idea, but it will be a pain to update all articles. Plus, this is something that must be hardcoded inside the wikipedia progam, I don't know how much trouble would be to do that, or witch person to contact about the proposal. By the way, there might be someone allready thinking a way to implement this, because this is a great idea (well, at least in my point of view). algumacoisaqq 02:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I've just found that bug #1775 is the same as my proposal; also bug #2725 covers the category issue. — Johan the Ghost seance 13:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Category browsing and intersection have been implemented on the toolserver: CategoryTree and CategoryIntersect. They are wonderful! JesseW, the juggling janitor 11:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
i was told to post my request here so i have copy-past the whole thing here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Article_not_found&action=edit
i want to change this
"We don't have an article with this title, but you can create it if you log in or create an account. As an unregistered user, you may also submit the content that you wish to have created. Please read our introduction for more information about Wikipedia"
into this
"We don't have an article with this title, but you can create it if you log in or create an account(Registering a free account takes only a few seconds, and has many benefits:you simply need to choose a username and password and click "create account".). As an unregistered user, you may also submit the content that you wish to have created. Please read our introduction for more information about Wikipedia"
why:
because most of the website use e-mail for submiting password and procedures are quite long and so we need to show that it's very fast and convenient...
i didn't get an acount for a long time for this reason
there is also a huge number of pages that are waiting to be created at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles mabe a lot of theses people have posted their articles here because of the same reason(i did once(about a comparison of unix subsystem under windows(sfu,cygwin...)))
EG February 2005 in science January 2005 in Britain and Ireland.
The "Current events" versions of these pages are, (IMO rightly), in reverse chronological order. When they become history, we are keeping them reverse chronological. However new pages dealing old things are almost always done in chronological order. I think we should reverse the date order within the older pages to forward chronological.
What do folk thinlk and how old is "history" and how new is "current". I would suggest that the previous month should remain reverse chronological, but previous months be swapped round. IE on Feb 1 2006 we could/should shuffle all the entries for Dec 2005.
Comments? -- SGBailey 11:44, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a tremendous resource for so many things, but there is one NPOV 'type' page that I am forever looking up on the internet that Wikipedia does not currently offer. That is verses pages, or comparison pages. I constantly trying to find out what the differnces, pros and cons, of a great many items, though mostly in the area of hardware and software. in many cases there are non-wiki sites that offer such comparisons but sometimes i use Wikipedia for the comparison by comparing two or more items' page. Book vs. Movie, PPC iMac vs.Intel iMac, H.264 vs. DivX (XivD), et cetera. Perhaps "vs." isn't the best phraseology but it's a common format used for looking up comparisons. Thank you, Pattersonc( Talk) 9:58 PM, Sunday; January 29 2006 (EST)
There has been a discussion again on slashdot about edit wars, and bokmann had an interesting suggestion: to include some sort of indication of the volatility of the article in the header. Lots of ways to do this - last edit date, edits in past week/month/year, whatever. It may be worth considering.
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=175545&cid=14594374
Well, not really that dramatic, but as someone who works extensively on newpages, it seems to be that something needs to be done. People create articles without really understanding what they're doing, and that's understandable, we don't have a good enough system to help them avoid common mistakes. This leads to the vast ammounts of new articles being created (since many new users seem to want to create new articles more than they want to edit existing ones), which in turn is really at the heart of many problems WP faces. AfD gets overloaded, not because AfD itself is broken, but because too many articles are created that need to go to AfD. Potentially dangerous hoaxes can lie dormant for months because there are so many articles created that the experienced people looking at newpages and orphaned pages can't truly do a good job on every new page, and a lot falls through the cracks.
Right now, we are just giving people a blank page and saying "Have fun!" This really seems to be at the root of the problem. How can we expect people to not create "junk" that requires cleanup or deletion? Do we really think they're going to read through 20 scattered guidelines before creating a page? It's only natural that, given the system we have in place, we're in the situation we're in.
So to fix it, I think article creation needs to be changed, at least for new users (accounts created in the last 7 days, less than 50 edits, would seem like good criteria to me). I think WP:AFC has it right, providing them with a template instead of a blank page is a vast improvement. I propse that new users have this template added to the editbox when they create a new article:
(it looks a little junky formatted, but as text in an editbox it is much cleaner, try it out). That's just a rough draft anyway. This really isn't that drastic. It gives new users a more realistic opportunity to properly create an article by telling them how to avoid all of the mistakes we see all the time with newpages. This template, if followed, would really cut down on the routine cleanup needed on most articles new users create. The need to cite a reference will make it easier for us to detect hoaxes (and to not inadvertantly delete an article just because we're unfamiliar with it), and it would help new users in a rush to create articles know that a lot of things such people want to create articles about aren't appropriate topics, since there can never be a good reference for those topics.
Also, a bot could easilly be run to remove this template from pages older than 24 hours or so, since beyond article creation it would just be clutter in an article.
Even if this proposal seems a little wacky, I really believe we need to give people something better than a blank editbox to create articles with. A lot of problems are coming from the primitive, mistake-encouraging system we have in place now. -- W.marsh 16:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
WikiNews has a sophisticated article creation utility, that can do everything mentioned here. Kevin Baas talk 22:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
It'd be nice if the "show preview" included a big warning at the start of the page about any links to disambig pages in the text. I suspect they creep in because people don't realize there's multiple usages, and highlighting would go a long way to eliminating them (for new work at least). — Kevin Ryde 22:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to announce the opening of the Featured Music Project, an attempt to encourage and facilitate successful featured article candidacies and peer reviews for articles on musicians and bands. You can help by evaluating articles, or by working on the articles that are already close to being ready for FAC. Tuf-Kat 19:30, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
If a user edits a page, and the last edit was made by him too, he should have the option (within a certain time period, say 15 minutes) to literally edit *that* item of the history, instead of creating a edition, and a new entry in history.
This would save lots of hard disk space, I imagine, since editions with bad spelling mistakes don't have to be saved to data. Infinity0 talk 13:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Do you have a link to the details please? I'm quite interested. Infinity0 talk 21:24, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Argh... :S What does the text
table contain? The text of a few key revisions? And the serialised object contains keys indicating which lines to pick out of those revisions?
Oh right. Do you mean that all the different text from all revisions is stored in the text table, and the object picks out the relevant parts from that scramble of text? Infinity0 talk 23:00, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
The encyclopedic part of wikipedia is great, but has a minor problem. Making it bigger also means making it harder to use specially if the "topic" is a combination of different things - like science. In science it's not this or that but mostly all together.
So what I'd suggest for you to consider is making a "wikiQuestion" where topics and search are question based and not concept based. For example a user needs answering a question "WHY the Sun is round?", "HOW the fridge works?" or "WHO..", "WHEN", etc. where the page would be indexed on words in a question. The wikiQuestion would allow posting questions and wiki editing. Every wiki page would be linked by keywords to wikipedia and all other similar pages.
Why is this good.
For a building process this would imply, that you add text to the article, that is not on the page itself. For a question on "why the sun is round" I could borrow data from wiki "Add text from this address, this paragraph" and combine data to answer the question.
The question itself offers complete answer in a form of an article.
I have posted Alternative Dispute Resolution as a proposed group at Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List_of_proposed_projects#Alternative_Dispute Resolution. The project would improve/create articles in the main namespace relating to negotiation, mediation, conciliation, facilitation, arbitration and other alternatives to litigation. I would especially encourage any interested persons engaged is dispute resolution on WP to participate. I believe this would broaden perspective and deepen insights into practice.-- Edivorce 21:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Currently there are two types of users.
I propose a new one to break Anons. Since we already know the IP of the anon it is no secret what ISP they use. Known problematic ISPs such as AOL should be marked so admins dont block them for too long.
So we would have:
This will save time to admins dealing with IP vandalism form AOL. -- Cool Cat Talk| @ 16:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
That would be great. Such as French Alphabet/Latin or Gothic Language Alphabet/Gothic, Arabic, etc, etc... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infobox#Languages Ksenon 05:23, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (proposals). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212
As a recent admin, I now have the ability to edit the MediaWiki namespace. Nonetheless, I assumed procedure was to bring such changes up here first.
I feel that the preferences include an extraordinary lack of detail as to what the options do. Help can sort of be found elsewhere, but there is no link from the prefs screens.
Proposal A: I propose the addition of ( ?) links next to each applicable preference, linking to either pages on Wikipedia or Meta that describe that feature.
In particular, many users are switching on minor edits by default without understanding minor edits properly. IMO, I think this option should be removed, but I don't know its original intent.
Proposal B: But this isn't sufficient for the minor edits problem, and we also need a link on the edit page: "This is a minor edit" should be "This is a minor edit".
Any comments?
jnothman talk 10:43, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is the best spot on the village pump to put this but here goes.
We all know that there has been a big battle about userboxes in the last few days. Things are getting pretty heated, and even starting to get ugly in some places. I wanted to make a few suggestions for keeping the peace.
Can people PLEASE STOP speedy deleting userboxes before they finish TfD, as has happened a lot in the last few days. It's playing hob with my user page for a start, and there are people out there with even more userboxes than me.. At least could people put why on the relevent talk page, so that when I have to revise my collection of userboxes I know why.
I would like to suggest, since lots of people are getting worked up about this, that any userbox deletions should go through full TfD. Even if they might normally be speedy deletes. This is a controversial topic right now and I think it's time for a bit of diplomacy, so can people please TfD userboxes instead of speedying them. And please make sure it's clear on the talk pages what's going on.
Tom 22:28, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I have been experimenting with using a script to generate an alternative interface to AFD. It is still in the experimental/development phase and is only currently updating when I am working on it, but the above link should give an idea of what is being created. I am hoping by posting here to solicit feedback on whether people view this as a good thing, what features might be useful, etc. Dragons flight 15:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey there everyone. I just started it up - it's just at the moment concentrating on Football news in the UK, but if people want to add to it, and expand it to other countries, and do La Liga, then that's good! Anyway, if anyone follows football, either for their team, or in general in the UK, and is reading this, then PLEASE CONTRIBUTE to the portal!Anyway, the link;
Mr Spum 14:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I see that Template:Editprotected has been added to try to deal with the issue of non-admins wanting to edit protected pages.
However, there is a more fundamental problem, that having to post requests for changes is a slow and unreliable process, and discourages people from making what could be constructive edits.
By "slow and unreliable", what I mean is that:
Certainly, speaking as a non-admin myself, I just don't bother with trying to get changes into protected pages because it's too much hassle.
I would like to propose instead that a "protected" page should instead become a "moderated" page, in order to streamline the process. A non-admin wishing to edit the page would get "edit (moderated)" rather than "view source". Any changes would then go into a queue of pages for an admin to moderate. The moderation process would consist of clicking "accept" or "reject". In the event of reject, there could be a field to specify the rejection reason. The process could include a couple of check-boxes to allow the admin to automatically add notes to the editor's user-talk page and/or the article talk page giving the outcome of the moderation decision.
Admittedly, there is an issue with what happens if a subsequent request to edit the page comes in while there is still an outstanding moderation decision on the page to be edited. An expedient solution would simply be to revert to the "view source" behaviour in that situation, with a note apologising and saying "please try again later". Even if this is done, I believe that with administrators actively monitoring the queue of pages to be moderated, the vast majority of the time there would not be outstanding requests on a given page (provided at least that policy dictated that submitting vandalism for moderation was viewed with the same severity as vandalising an unmoderated page, so that people maliciously flooding the system could be blocked). A more sophisticated solution to the problem of multiple edits might involve the use of Patch style application of differences, so that edits can be independently moderated if they are orthogonal.
Obviously moderation policy would need to be worked out. It might perhaps have a number of cases, with the acceptance criteria depending for example on whether a page is locked because of simple vandalism or because of POV warring. I believe that moderation should not be a means for admins to exert editorial control against consensus, and that the best way to achieve this would be to rule that the actions of an admin rejecting an edit and of an editor repeatedly submitting an already-rejected edit both count as reversions for purposes of 3RR (with the exclusions still applying, so that for example an admin can reject simple vandalism without limit). To this end, rejected edits should be visible in the page history (whether by default or not).
Whatever the detailed policy, it would make it quicker and easier for non-admins to make useful input to protected pages, and would give less sense of exclusion to the many users who are unlikely ever to become admins, not because they are untrustworthy but because they do not have time to make the large number of edits which seems to be pretty much a precondition for adminship.
Terra Green 13:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
For places like Help Desk, Reference Desk, Village Pump, AfD, RfA, etc. Long discussions are difficult with a single edit anywhere page. Old but ongoing discussions eventually get pushed to the top by new posts, so a format where each thread exists as an object, and another page could show a list of objects, ordered by last post. Similar to the way message boards like phpBB work. I don't know how technically feasible this is (seems like it would have a very different paradigm for handling data), but I still think it's a good idea. What you think? - lethe talk 07:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I propose changing the mediawiki boiler text for anon talk pages, along with a suggestion to add lookup information. Please see The talk page for details, including suggested markup and a sample link. xaosflux Talk/ CVU 18:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I've been seeing some very long drawn out exchanges, often between a small number of users, on discussion pages. I've been part of some myself. It can be very annoying to read through seemingly endless text while people work out the minutia of some issue, or else just have a pissing match. Often these conversations lead to some interesting results, but by the time I get there my eyes have glossed over and my brain has clicked off. I propose to solve this by suggesting that people "take it outside".
Taking it outside would mean moving the conversation off the page and finding a new home for it. I have tried this sort of arrangement at the Wikipedia:LGBT notice board. Conversations start on the main page, and when they do, I move the entire converstaion to the talk page, and create a link to it.
Here's how it works:
I'm not sure we have to create any policy to do this, but I would like to hear what people think of this. , and if the response is positive, I'll create a Wikipedia page.
WP:TIO? --
Samuel Wantman 04:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I've created a Wikipedia page. The short-cut is WP:TIO -- Samuel Wantman 06:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I think somebody should post transcripts of every Simpsons episode on Wikipedia.
FLaRN2005 17:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
That would be flagrant violation of Fox Entertainment copyright. Bwithh 19:09, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Forgive me if this has been suggested but why not have moderator aproved polls being created? Like a user can create a poll and a moderator has to approve to make it functional. This is probably needed so constant repeats or bad in general polls arent all over the place. But this would give us the ability to see what the community thinks about a specific question and its something to add to the main page...'poll of the day'. Love to hear the communities ideas. Thut 23:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I would like to see ~~~~ signatures, and most other auto-generated dates, adhere to ISO 8601. This is related to the above proposal for making more dates follow preference regioning, but this is much simpler, and doesn't require a major addition to the capabilities of Wikipedia.
Right now, it's non-trival to use ISO 8601 in your signature. I had to modify USER/monobook.js to hack the signature button to print this, because subst:Twodigit can't appear in a raw signature (but these non-subst templates can!):
—[[User:Daelin|Daelin]] @ {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}–{{subst:CURRENTMONTH}}–{{subst:Twodigit {{subst:CURRENTDAY}}}} {{subst:CURRENTTIME}}Z
And it was hard just trying to discover that part. I got lucky and found several other people who had done the monobook.js hack, every last one added ISO dates (in addition to other things), and I was able to copy their code.
The benefits of ISO 8601 are numerous. The mere fact that it scans left-to-right is a huge plus IMO. We're already almost using ISO 8601 for times. It's easier to compare ISO dates and times by direct comparison, as your brain can compare them just like any two decimal numbers. They seem to be more acclimatable to US users than the British form currently used. After over two years, I still have to pause to shuffle the signature date around and mentally widen the gap between the time and the day, while I have no such trouble with ISO. — Daelin @ 2006–01–08 23:09Z
This should just be a subset of the Date preferences proposal: signature timestamps should have date preferences enabled, and even better could have timezone preferences. In the meantime User:Quarl/advanced_sig.js changes ~~~~ to an date-preference-enabled-ISO8601 timestamp. — Quarl ( talk) 2006-01-25 19:26 Z
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)#proposal A proposal to clarify the meaning of "Nationality" in the Manual of Style for Biographies -- should the "nationality" in the lead section normally men the person's citizenship, or the person's possibly complex ethhnic heritage. DES (talk) 19:11, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Is there a way to detect sockpuppets? An easy way would be to include a user's IP address AS WELL as their user ID in edit histories. This wouldn't involve any more breach of privacy than anon editors already accept. A situation recently arose where sockpuppetry appeared to be occurring, but there was no straightforward way to prove or disprove it, which would have helped to resolve an ongoing edit conflict. While I'm fairly sure sockpuppetry isn't all that widespread, when it does occur a quick way of stamping it out would be very helpful. Thoughts? Graham 15:48, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
The current Special:Blockip page sucks just a wee bit. I'd like to improve it, but I can't just go off willy-nilly adding things, without asking you lot what you'd like to see. Asking for ideas? Yes, I have gone off the bat. Still, your thoughts, suggestions opinions will be welcomed at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Robchurch/Blocking - sign, please, so I know who to ask for more information on an interesting idea.
Ta, Rob Church ( talk) 23:43, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Following the recent launch of my organisation, Community Justice, one of our aims is too keep the Wikipedia civil. We need stronger rules to keep things civil, and warnings tags like {{civil1}} and {{civil2}} to keep things civil, and those who do instigate persistantly should be blocked, as they are disrupting the Wikipedia.
I'd appreciate your thoughts on this. Compu te r Jo e 12:01, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I have proposed a WikiProject to organise users to form legal efforts to aid Wikipedia, as I am concerned eventually the need will be very great in the future. This is at Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List of proposed projects#Legal defence. I am not sure whether I should also clarify this at Wikipedia:No legal threats but it really doesn't seem to affect it that much than a slight change in policy (ie. an exception for when the Foundation gives the green light to pursue action against a vandal, for example). For example, this WikiProject could be used to sue Willy on Wheels, or sue convicted sex offender Joshua Gardner for misusing our resources to perpetrate a fraud that endangered the safety of minors (felony), and demanding recompensation (a very heavy one), thus setting precedent and discouraging scandal, or could be used to enforce trademarks, etc. etc. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais ( Be eudaimonic!) 06:26, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
I would like to cite the points brought up in this dicussion of the new policy as evidence that a review of this policy is necessary. If I'm honest, the whole idea seemed rather backward from the moment it was introduced. You're actually forcing people to have MORE anonymity before they can create articles, which gives serious vandals an advantage, as vandalism is harder to trace. 71.141.251.153's post sums up my thoughts quite well.
Please consider this, as the policy as it is now has done nothing in terms of preventing vandalism so far. -- 82.7.125.142
There should be an option for "watching" users. Basically, edits by watched users will appear bolded on the Recent Changes page. Sure, this might encourage "wiki-stalking", but this would somewhat help against vandals. What do you guys think? -- Ixfd64 07:33, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
There should be a way to set the block list to display IPs, registered users, and/or auto-blocked IPs only. Anyone else agree? -- Ixfd64 07:31, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
To comabt vandalism, the following rules could be put into place (coded, set up, however)
Obviously, this isn't perfect, (eg. rogue users), but it could help a lot, since many people forget to watch pages, and many pages are unwatched.
Infinity0 talk 00:24, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
By the way, I believe Special:Unwatchedpages is unavailable to non-admins. Why? Concern that vandals would deliberately target unwatched pages. — Bunchofgrapes ( talk) 19:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
So, how do these proposals actually get accepted/denied? All I notice is an auto-archive thing... Infinity0 talk 12:55, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
How about flagging edits to unwatched pages on Recent Changes? Slashme 16:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi there,
I've been looking at a number of pages in this and similar categories and I can't see any consistency in the labelling of programmes where there is a possible ambiguity. For example, we have Bottom (television), Porridge (TV), Coupling (TV series) and other synonyms such as "show" or "programme". There are also some labelled as "sitcom".
It would look neater and be simpler if there was a common format to follow:
I'd personally opt for (TV) after the name - this seems succinct and we don't really need to know if it's a series or programme etc.. I'd also opt for replacing any that say "sitcom" with "TV" as well. Obviously, with some titles such as The Vicar of Dibley where there are no ambiguities then just leave them as they are - I'm not trying to make this more confusing, I'm trying to simplify it.
This has also been posted here before I read and discovered that I should post it here, apologies. Naturally it also applies to other categories of television programmes, not just British or sitcoms, of which there are many.
Iancaddy 23:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello alls, I would like to replace this.
The
neutrality of this article is
disputed. |
with this
Thank you for your time, Dabljuh 20:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps edits of articles could be highlighted for up to X number edits after and/or until X number of users/members of X qualification vote positively on it. This way users that come to the article know that a) the highlighted edits have yet to be authenticated and/or agreed upon b) it's harder to vandalize and get away with it. The obvious downside is that it slows down the editing process, but given the rate at which Wikipedia is growing, I dare say that isn't necessarily a bad thing. -- 66.229.183.101 18:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I have been printing articles relevant to a project I am doing and realised that there are parts of the article that I don't want. I wonder if there is a feature that could be implemented where the user can select to print the information under each subheading, rather than having to print the whole lot or copying the desired sections to another program like 'Word'. It would make the task alot easier if, say, there were check boxes (i'm not an expert) Yellowmellow45 20:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I have made proposal at Wikipedia:Help_desk#¬¬¬¬\_How long are IP addresses logged and stored by Wikimedia?_/¬¬¬¬ -- 168.131.46.80 18:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
One thing i realized during my short residence on wp is its huge size, language wise. Now if there was just wp in english, everyone with the knowledge of english would contribute to the sole wp database, but because of so many versions in different languages this has caused localisation of many articles, especially images that have been uploaded to the local version instead of the commons. Due to this english users wont be able to access, say, the article on spain on the spanish wikipedia which would probably be more informative and have more media than the english version. This is what i propose:
This seems to be one possible way of bridging the language divide between various wikipedias. This can also help users to translate articles from one version to another without searching. PlaneMad 16:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Links to unit converter websites seem to slowly multiply for no particular reason, but sometimes there are more rapid changes. Just today, dozens of links were replaced. Unless I didn't get the memo and convertplus.com is now the official unit conversion partner of Wikipedia, this seems much like spam. I would like to stop the external link creep that seems to happen on any articles related to units of measurement. Maybe some site could be selected as the default, just like Dmoz is often used when a web directory is needed. Wikilink to conversion of units might do, but a JavaScript converter has its benefits. WikiConversion, anyone? Other ideas? Maybe this issue has already been talked to death, but I can't find the discussion anywhere?
(Anyway, it's so late here that I can't investigate this particular series of edits further today. If someone can be bothered to ascertain their nature and revert them if appropriate, he'll receive my thanks.) Aapo Laitinen 23:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I see that a lot of articles say "passed away" when they mean "died" (and similarly with other parts of the verb e.g. "passing away"). I can't think that it's good to use this expression in an encyclopedia. They should generally just say "died" as this is direct and simple (except of course in direct quotation and where directly relevant to what's being discussed, e.g. in articles such as euphemism or nirvana). "Passed away" could perhaps even be seen as POV.
I started to edit some pages manually, based on Google search results, but stopped when I saw the large number of hits. Is there a consensus agreeing with my point? If so, could I suggest:
Thanks,
Terra Green 21:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
I vote to use "croaked" ;) - SoM 23:47, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the main point; and I think a MoS addition would be appropriate. But running a bot on articles for a stylistic issue like this wrong, I believe. — Johantheghost 13:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I've seen frequent outcries against so-called admin abuse. While most of those are exaggerated or downright unfounded, it is admittedly true that admins are not really held accountable for anything. Sure, there's peer review from other admins, and all admin actions are logged and can be undone, but an admin can basically ignore all that and do whatever s/he pleases, and only in outrageous cases does the ArbCom put a stop to it.
This has been discussed at length on the mailing list (see the thread on "Worthy Admins", and to a lesser extent "Abuse of Power" and "admin violations again"). The two main ideas suggested there are 1) applying higher standards to WP:RFA voting (but note that nominees are already held to substantially higher standards than actual admins) or 2) creating a process for de-adminship (but note that several earlier proposals to that extent were soundly rejected).
I'm not convinced that we actually have a problem here, but there's no harm in at least discussing our options. Hence, I yield the floor to people's ideas, thoughts and opinions. R adiant _>|< 01:02, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
{{ linux-software-screenshot}} I've seen this disclaimer on images like this. However, most Linux software, like synaptic is GPL licensed. This means that derivate works is allowed, if you abide to the terms of the GPL. By allowing further use of this image, and publishing the image under the GPL, this is fulfilled in my opinion. So I can't see why a screenshot of a GPL'd program should be non-gpl, as it can be considered a derivate work. So I'm suggesting to change this with
|
This is a screenshot of copyrighted Linux computer software, released under the GPL. Thus, it is believed that this image is a derivate work, and is also covered by the GPL. See Copyrights for more information. |
.
Note: This can only be changed on software that is GPL'd obviously. -- vidar lo 21:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
licensing@fsf.org
requesting clarification on this issue.
Crotalus horridus (
TALK •
CONTRIBS) 17:42, 17 January 2006 (UTC)However, I think wikipedia distributes the source of the image, since we make it availvable in the same size and quality as the upload. The image is not ascii, but GPL says nothing about that the source has to be in ASCII. JPG is in fact just data, a special program (image viewer) can inteprent, no different from a a.out that a OS can view. So as I see it we distribute the source, to a derivate work of a GPL'd work. From GPL:
The terms and conditions of the GPL are available to anybody receiving a copy of the GPLed work ("the licensee"). Any licensee who adheres to the terms and conditions is given permission to modify the work, as well as to copy and redistribute the work or any derivative version.
I see a image as a derivate work, no more, no less. There is creativity involved in deciding what data to show with it, but it is of a GPL'd work, which means in my opinion, it has to be GPL. In fact, I feel wikipedia has somehow been violating the intent of the GPL by not stating that images are GPL. I've contacted FSF, and included references to this discussion about the issue, so let's see what they come up with. If that takes over 7 days, I suggest this is moved to Talk: Copyright or a more appropriate place. Since there was no replys to my previous comment, I felt I had to clarify and change bits of it. -- vidar lo 08:55, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
FSF Writes the following in an email: I think screenshots are are generally non-derivative. I can think of an exception (for instance, a series of screenshots of a game which effectively reproduce the storyline of that game as a comic book) -- but that won't affect WP. Certainly, for GNU programs, we will permit screenshots without restrictions.
-- vidar lo 19:10, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I've been very happily using User:HorsePunchKid's idea of adding <span> tags around my signature, in conjunction with custom CSS, to highlight my signature when I'm logged in. This makes reading discussion pages so much more awesome that I think everyone should benefit.
If the software automatically added CSS classes to wikilinks to User:Foo when user Foo is logged in, that would make life better. Everyone would get this feature and discussion pages would be less cluttered from the explicit span tags. (It wouldn't even require a span tag, just add another class to the <a> tag.) This is somewhat similar to how links to the current page are bolded.
I use a colored background highlight; but the default could be a bold, or even no difference by default -- just make it easier to do this. I think it would be pretty trivial to implement.
Comments? — Quarl ( talk) 2006-01-16 08:09 Z
Rick Block understood my proposal correctly and rephrased it better; there is no privacy concern. Also as violet/riga understood, it would shorten the wikisource, not lengthen it. — Quarl ( talk) 2006-01-17 01:40 Z
I would like to see us have some sort of guideline in place regarding internet memes, similar to WP:CORP or WP:MUSIC. After seeing many, many notable internet memes end up on AfD ( Brian Peppers about a zillion times, Raptor Jesus, Hatten ar Din_, it's apparent that a) people are creating articles out of internet memes, and b) people wrongly consider some memes to only be notable if they get publicity offline, like All Your Base. Obviously, some guideline needs to be set to separate the Magical Trevors from the one-off Something Awful "Flash Tub" characters, but it would be very, very helpful to set some sort of standards.
With that said, I don't know what we need to do to get there, but I do have a couple ideas:
Any other thoughts? I'd really like to see this occur. -- badlydrawnjeff 14:14, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Jeff that a discussion at WP:MEME might be a good idea. User:Zoe| (talk) 19:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Could we have a Wikipedia Wide Census to get an idea of who we all are? The site has come a long way in a short time and I think it is high time to gather some information about the community.
I propose to have a page where information would be collected and then analysed to give trend, demographic, geographic, linguistic and area of interest information. The fields would have to be "check box" rather than "fill in" with words so as to make data analysis easier. The kinds of questions I think would be useful include:
The census could be based on the en.wikipedia community or across all WP or even across the entire collection of sister sites through MetaWiki. The link, I imagine, would look much like the current fundraiser link at the top of the main page. I would also assume that there should be a request to fill out the census put through foundation-i and maybe even on user pages. The census of course would not be obligatory but reccomended (as with donations).
The uses that this information could be put to are numerous. Some of these include:
What do you think?? Witty lama 22:45, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Just ask Daniel Brandt. I'm sure he already has all of this information on all of us. User:Zoe| (talk) 16:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, me thinks it's a great idea. The only problem is actually doing it. algumacoisaqq 18:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Fine idea, but who would write the "questionaire"? Also, isn't this a proposal better suited to meta? 202.7.166.171 04:19, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
There was a survey made by an academic group in Germany of the German language Wikipedia a while back, and it worked so well that they later surveyed some English language Wikipedians as well. I wonder if they've published the English Wikipedia study yet.-- Pharos 09:35, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
If I type something into the searchbox at wikipedia, and wikipedia doesn't have it but there's something on wiktionary, a link to it would be nice. Username132 20:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Is there a reason why there are so many different wiki's it is hard to navigate and do things without going back to the main page of that wiki and using the interwiki links, I propose a total murger of all wiki's into one for each language it would make it a lot easier to use. -- Lcarsdata 17:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think I understand. Can you explain what you mean by a "wiki"? User:Zoe| (talk) 18:12, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
We have Special:Newpages and Special:Recentchanges, but there's no Special:Newusers. Such a function could help the welcoming committee welcome new users and the anti-vandalism people to better find serial vandals, insult users, sockpuppets and impersonators. smurrayinch ester( User), ( Talk) 10:41, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
On another wiki I edit, they use phpwiki. It is generally not nearly as nice as Mediawiki, but it has one very nice feature: On a page history, each version has a checkbox. You check any two checkboxes to generate a diff between those two versions. Very nice if you suspect sneaky vandalism. Would this be hard to implement in Mediawiki? -- Slashme 07:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
This is a gauge of community opinion on admin accountability, RFA, power abuse, and deopping. Not a policy proposal. Opinions welcome. R adiant _>|< 18:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
This multiposted content moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) under same section header.
There is currently discussion regarding the phrases "Mini-series", "Maxi-series" and "Limited series", regarding their popularity, definitions and usage. If you have any opinion on the terms, please share it as we attempt to build consensus at Talk:List of limited series#Building consensus. Steve block talk 14:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
It took a few weeks of visiting Wikipedia before I realized the little "Deutsch", "Français", etc. links part-way down the page on the left. After I started using them (I speak German too), I remember being confused as to how to get back (and I'm not as incompetent as that makes me sound). Anyway, how about a new row of tabs at the TOP of the article, below the current tabs? Besides being more intuitive, you wouldn't have to scroll (on lower resolution screens) to get to them. -- 24.26.178.224 05:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Just to make reversion easier, I think that when you click on "diff" and see the differences between edits, another button should appear near the top that says "revert". Obviously, this automatically reverts the edit and provides a summary. Reverting is such a business, especially when the change is minor but vandalistic/innaccurate/some other inadequacy. If you have a slow connection, it's three pages and a summary you have to go through before achieving a revert. When I want to revert I'm looking at the differences and I want to be able to click "no, go back to the old one" more easily. -- Alfakim -- talk 10:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Rollback is strictly for reverting vandalism. What about when someone adds a sentence or something that is POV, for instance. One sentence, but a bad addition. You still need to revert it! So I suppose this suggestion is to give more users rollback and allow rollback on nonvandalism.-- Alfakim -- talk 11:51, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Could Dewey Decimal [3] or some simlar classification be of use on wikipedia, in adition to the category system?-- IanDavies 23:33, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I believe this is the correct place to discuss this? Anyway, there is a small problem with the current method of references - there are two styles 1) adds the external url for direct viewing and 2) is the Harvard style where it is given a number and is listed at the bottom of the page. Both have problems, Item 1) doesn’t give enough detail about the reference and item 2) forces the user to jump to a different section of the article.
I propose that a new kind of wiki syntax be developed so that both can be combined. The syntax for reference material might look like this <reference url="http://someurl.com" title="title of the subject" page=1> - additional info could be added to copy the Harvard style but (hopefully) you get the idea. Now there would be two icons next to the reference url one that goes to the page and the second one that will take you to that reference material or give you a context pop-up on hover to show the info in a little yellow box. Either way of display, the info would be automatically added to a reference section at the bottom of the article.
Good, Bad? I don’t know but the current reference material in all of wiki needs work. Let me know what you think. -- Supercoop 19:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I have an other idea that is more generic that just for dates. The idea is to implement that only the first occurance of a unique link on a page is rendered as a link. Example if you have the code
[[Article]] bla bla bla [[Article]]
It will render as Article bla bla bla Article → Aza Toth 19:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcement is a proposal for simple injunctions against lesser disruptions, that do not reach the level of the ArbCom. Please take a look and comment on the talk page. R adiant _>|< 13:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Folks:
I have been trying to figure a way to add video clip links to articles. My family happens to own EVTV1.com (an online video portal), British Pathe (a newsreel library), and WPA Film Library.
I have also been in the home video business for over 20 years. EVTV1 has secured the rights to video clips from over 20 home video companies.
I added about 100 links to articles (all external links to video clips approx. 90 seconds in length) and editors started deleting the links saying I was SPAMMING. I engaged several in discussions and while they would not restore the links, I truly did understand the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The video clips have a :15 commercial in front of the clips. That subsidizes the streaming and licensing of the clips.
Here is the idea...
Wikipedia should not link to uncopyrighted materials...which is a real problem on the Internet. If the Wiki community is convinced that there is too much of a conflict of interest for me to link, maybe we could create an area for editors to choose appropriate clips for articles. For instance, EVTV1.com has great clips of Shirley Temple, Jack Paar, Muhammad Ali, Volcanoes, Ellis Island, and literally thousands of archival footage clips. All of the clips have rights cleared for Internet viewing worldwide.
Each editor could decide if the video clip is worth the "pain" of the commercial.
Does this idea make any sense?
If it does, please let me know. Thousands of articles might benefit by adding visual resources.
Thanks. Jaffer 03:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
You can also contact me at J.ali@evtv1.com
They receive monies from us.
Now, I would like to address other issues by Ambush and others:
1) Bandwidth usage will deter editors from including All bandwidth from streaming is absorbed by evtv1. These are external links. Bandwidth, while becoming less expensive, still costs...and that is what the commrcial subsidizes.
2) Adding video links doesn't add much Of course I disagree. An article on Jonathan Winters with a link to a classic clip of him on Jack Paar, that is rare is a gem...or Judy Garland's last performance at the Palladium. But editors are free to choose. I like Dr, Pepper...my wife hates it. There is no way to argue taste.
3) Watching a documentary on Google video is great...there should be a link to it IF THE MATERIAL HAS BEEN CORRECTLY LICENSED. That is why I stuck to material that I was sure was clear.
4) Me unilaterally adding links... I am done doing this. I spent over 40 hours linking (what I believe to be in good faith) only to have editors delete the external links. I want to help, not fight. This is a grand project.
5) evtv1 has secured the license to STREAM these video clips, but cannot download them for distribution. The links to the site would not violate copyright, that was my point.
Folks, I see encylopedias being MULTIMEDIA. The licensors of the material have not allowed us the right to facilitate consumers downloading the clips. They believe streaming is fine...but have not allowed for downloads yet. But even when they eventually do allow downloading, they will not allow it for free. The external links ti teh clips are completely legal.
My suggestion is for FREE VIDEO...but the cost is a :15 commercial. Is it obnoxious? I hate commercials myself. But most people would sit through :15 to see a 2 minute clip of what they want to see.
Thanks for reading! Jaffer 14:18, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Kim, the objective of Wikipedia as I see it is to offer information free to the public. I would believe that an article on Malcolm X that quotes his now famous line, "By any means necessary" would benefit by a video clip of the first time he uttered that phrase...which was captured on film (and available at evtv1.com, with full copyright compliance).
As I mentioned in a post in the television section, I personally wrote a book on The Prisoner TV series. I went to conventions years ago and the real aficionados wanted access to every photo conceivable. Having clips of The Prisoner would be cool...(evtv1 plans to put them up in the future.) The value, as I see it, is in connecting the right clips with teh right articles. By me stepping out of the editorial process, it removes the conflict of interest and editors would decide...not me.
SEWilco, if people link to copyrighted video clips that have not been authorized, this is a real problem. There are so many sites on the Internet that just grab clips and put them up. If you link to those sites, the material will not be there once the Copyright owner gets wind...which is coming real soon.
I want to create a resource page for WIKI editors to pick and choose. Every clip will be 100% legal under the Digital Millenium Act and Copyright laws. It is safe and clean. I would bet other copyright holders would eventually want to add their libraries to the WIKI Video Resource center...I am saying I will do this as soon as teh community agrees (and tells me where to put the links and descriptions of the clips). Jaffer 20:29, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
When I got promoted to a sysop, I went off to the Administrator's noticeboard to add it to my watchlist. Then I discovered something: the page was protected! It was baffling! So I click the "unprotect", and I realize it was protected against page moves. Whether or not this qualifies as protection is dubious, but I think we could have a better message.
Therefore, I propose we change the MediaWiki:Unprotect system message from "Unprotect" to "Change protection", as a resulting action from the tab can increase the protection level (from semiprotection to full protection, for example). If there are no objections, I will be bold and do it. — Ambush Commander( Talk) 01:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay, the change will be going live soon. — Ambush Commander( Talk) 19:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
To see in more detail how the recent fund drive went, I started looking at the raw data and put some figures together. Comparing this most recent fundraiser to the two earlier fundraisers in 2005, it seems very clear that something happened to make the week following 12/28/2005 a very good one for the Foundation. More specifically, previous fundraisers had tended to fizzle, and this one seemed to be taking a similar path until its New Year's fireworks.
Maybe additional data, tests, or experiments could help in future planning. Specifically, I would suggest that we conduct research on fundraiser design by pre-testing different types of appeals to randomized subsets of visitors to the site. It would be great if we could have the techniques in place for remarkable success from the very beginning of the next fundraiser. Tobacman 22:54, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Would it be possible to add a policy where the image uploader is notified of any lack of information so that they can have the opportunity to add it, rather than just deleting the picture and leaving the articles that use it pointing to a dead link? -- Rebroad 15:43, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Like the "Templates used on this page" section that appears in the end of the page when editing, an "Images used on this page" would also be useful. Many images are removed from an article in order to be replaced by better ones, and while there's no categorisation of images, it is really hard to find them. CG 04:52, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Just an idea - the central problem with wikipedia is how to keep the editing open while at the same time preserving the best copy.
What if contributors who could rightly claim "authority" on a particular subject could be granted the right to provide definitive sections for such articles. Such sections would be at the top of any article, indellible and under the control of the authority. At the same time, the rest of the article would be open for business as usual.
An active authority would integrate interesting contributions in the rest of the article into the authority section.
A more passive authority might contribute one short authority section and then be seen no more. This would still give such articles a more trustable and consistent authority, while still leaving the article open.
What do you think?
-- Tomandlu 23:08, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Please vote on the requests for rollback proposal, a proposal which would give good contributors, who are not admins, access to the rollback privilege. Talrias ( t | e | c) 23:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I recently had a problem with the article Craig Gannon which got me thinking. What if a user needs help from an administrator that's not related to vandalism (which WP:AIV can be used for)? I propose a page much like WP:AIV but called something like Wikipedia:Administrator Assistance where you can get the attention of admins to help with assorted matters. I would gladly help in designing such a page.
My initial thought was that WP:AN could be used for that, but it doesn't really seem it can. Besides, considering the ammount of edits to WP:AN, I think a page virtually identical to WP:AIV might be a good idea, where the list is cleaned by admins and they right "LIST EMPTY" in the edit summary or so forth. Does a page like this already exist? Any input anyone? Thanks! Deskana (talk) 20:53, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
An idea to help the RC patrol, by allowing them to review feeds that go at slower than 87 edits per minute , the way it is now. User:JesseW/Recent_Changes_Slices. Comments greatly appreciated. JesseW, the juggling janitor 09:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
When you click an image, Wikipedia takes you to that image's information page, which often has a large version of the image. This is not how the rest of the Web works, and I find that novice users of Wikipedia tend to get frustrated by this. For example, today I saw someone go to the RedHat page, then click on the RedHat logo expecting to get more information on RedHat (perhaps to go to the company's website). What he got, of course, was something different, leading him to think that the site was broken. Another example is the graphic that looks a bit like a wristwatch at the top right on the Current events page. The text next to it says "Please visit our sister project, Wikinews...", and most people would instinctively assume that the graphic was a hotlink to Wikinews. But it isn't.
Do other Wikipedians think this is a problem?
(Just to prove that I'm a constructive kind of guy, here's a suggested solution. Extend the [[image:...]] tag so that one of the parameters is the title of a Wikipedia article. The default action for clicking on the image will be to go to that article. There will also be a small icon below the image that links to the image's info page, for the few that wish to go there.) -- Heron 21:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback, everybody. There are some good ideas here. Flcelloguy, it was some time since I last clicked on the Wikinews logo, but I tried it again just now and I see that it is fixed. Thanks for doing that. I won't say any more on this topic, because I just followed the Template talk:Click link above and found that this has been discussed before (see under the 'Confusing' subheading). There is also a feature request on MediaZilla for adding a "link=" parameter to the image tag, as in this example:
[[Image:banana.jpg|100px|thumb|right|link=[[banana]]]]
If you like it, please go to MediaZilla and vote for it. -- Heron 21:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to suggest having a standard template for info about chemical compounds, like the ones for biological species. There would be a standard box saying stuff like the density, appearance, discovery date, etc, the same stuff that appears in references like the CRC handbook. Looking up a compound like Polyethylene to find its density would give you this info right away. There would have to be an ongoing effort to add these boxes to the articles about different compounds.
I suggest that we create a formal policy strongly suggesting that material not be multiposted (identical copies of a discussion placed in multiple locations), particularly when the multiposted content makes no reference to this fact. I've observed this on several occasions recently. This disruptive activity leads to a variety of problematic effects, most importantly forked discussion where some interested contributors are not aware of existing discussion by others. Instead, the content should be located in one place with links announced in other locations. It could be at Wikipedia:Multiposting. What do you all think? (and I'm only posting this here) Deco 02:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
This is a proposed very simple way to deal with non-controversial article deletions. The proponet propses a live test in the near future. I think the idea is a good one, but that soem degree of community support is needed to sanction a live test. Please visit Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion to express your views. DES (talk) 17:27, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
one of the more common Wikipedia edits that call for a revert are on the Days of the Week articles. people are often adding their own name, or a friend's or an enemy's name. i have all 366 days of the week in my watchlist. i sometimes have to revert over 50 edits a day, and still, some of these edits slip by.
if regular users added their own birthday to their watchlists and nothing more, these edits would be discovered and fixed more efficiently. thanks, Kingturtle 01:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, it seems that this idea has overwhelming support. But, this topic will soon vanish from here. Where do we need to document this suggestion so that more people see it? Part of the "welcome kit"? — Johan the Ghost seance 13:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
There is currently discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#Restructure_with_subpages about restructuring the reference desk with subpages instead of having one huge page. This idea could potentially extend to the help desk. Your comments and thoughts would be most appreciated. Thanks! enochlau ( talk) 23:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)</nowiki>
It is old proposal, but I suppose hardly nobody knows that this project in pl wiki is very very fine. More than 40 Players, more than 30 department of quests. And it is more useful that asks for quests wherever in wikispace. All players gives points for realised quests and all quests are controled by WikiMasters. And last but not least it is very funny game. Look here and for related changes here. It is now not only game but work too - work in WikiFactory!. MetaWikiMaster ;) of WikiFaktoria. Przykuta 21:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Look for schema in pl wiki:
== Quest Name == Narrator's note *'''Desription:''' *'''WikiMaster:''' *'''Start date:''' *'''Number of points for quest:''' **'''xxx points''' per... **'''yyy points''' per... *'''Realized by:''' *Below write your realized quests + —[[User:Crypticbot|Crypticbot]] [[User:Cryptic|(operator)]] 00:09, 6 February 2006 (UTC) *#
Here is link to the quest "Interwiki" with a lokal hall of fame. It is boring work when we do it daily, but not when it is Quest.
But it is only a tutorial ;) Now I want to lead a campaign.
First quests in pl wiki was Writing articles about castles and legends, Welcoming - it is still big quest - almost everybody newcomer is welcoming (without vandals of course). But pl wiki has another problems. I think it is worth to find a group of Wikipedians who want to start WikiRPG. Przykuta 00:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I have a suggestion that I would like to bring up and get some opinions on. I am proposing that Special:Listusers be divided into users and indefinantly blocked/vandal accounts. This would provided better navigation on the list of users and would help better identify vandal accounts. Thoughts? SWD316 talk to m e 16:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
You can edit any section of an article without having to load the whole page up, but this is impossible if you want to edit the intro section at the top. Could a discreet link be introduced that allows you just to edi the pre-section section of an article? I'm think an option in the sidebar where "What links here" is, just another link saying "Edit introduction". -- Alfakim -- talk 01:03, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be great if we could use image maps? This could be useful in the article Worms weapons and tools for instance, so the user can click on an icon in the weapons grid (on the right) for a #redirect to its description. Of course, the possibilities are endless: imagine watching a picture of a pediment and being able to click through to articles on the different characters depicted by clicking on them or using a picture of a piston engine as a base for linking articles on the separate parts at a central location. Ma.rkus.nl 23:51, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I couldn't find this exact suggestion anywhere on perennial proposals or elsewhere, so apologies in advance if it's been mentioned a lot. Basically, is there any movement at all on here to make Wikipedia something that the less-technically savvy but very non-tech-subject savvy experts out there can contribute to? I'm talking about people who can cope with e-mails and entering web addresses and typing letters, but who run away at the sight of anything resembling code or scripting (which is what Wikipedia looks like when you try to edit an article, or if you even try to discuss an article). I guess ideally it could be some kind of web-based Wizard, which would take someone through the editing process step by step (and maybe layout too, although I suspect beginners would rather stick to the actual text at first). It could also invite people to register if they wish to, if they haven't logged in. Links to the "boot camp" and how-to guides could be peppered throughout the Wizard so existing efforts wouldn't be duplicated. I'm just frustrated at how editing a Wikipedia article can be as tricky as handcoding HTML, whereas most of the world's experts on non-technical topics (the kind of topics Wikipedia needs experts on the most) would have little or no experience in such matters or concepts. -- Krisse 18:52, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I've been working on a lot of bands recently and I've noticed that for the major bands there tends to be some consistent formatting, but for less significant bands there's really almost no formatting. Is there, and I simply haven't found it? If there's not, wouldn't it be great if there was? If you agree with the last, how do we go about creating that? A bot? Or would this be too complicated?
I feel like the formatting should include sections for band history, members, and discography, and a picture if available, and of course an overview/intro before sections. Those nice little boxes are cute too. From what I've seen now, when some of those sections do exist, sometimes albums are linked, sometimes not. Sometimes the albums are in italics, sometimes with dates, sometimes neither. Sometimes band members are linked, sometimes not. What do y'all think are good formatting policies for this? Is this even the right place to ask about this? Anyway, I'd like to know what the community thinks of this. - GlamdringCookies 08:01, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello everyone. I was brainstorming some ideas for Wikipedia and this is what I came up with:
Keep up the awesome work! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.31.187.201 ( talk • contribs) .
Hello there, tis i, Spum. I have managed to now get the Football Portal on Wiki/news to churn out relevant stories, and there's been a good stready flow of them appearing from other users. Now, shortly, i'm going to be adding a transfers section, listing recent club transfers. Now, I require 2 people - One for coca cola league 1, and another for coca cola league 2 to maintain the results, fixtures and upcoming matches section..If you can add news stories which are important in those leagues, then go fo it; the more the merrier! It's not much work, as there aren't many football matches in a week for the coca cola league, but i'm currently maintaining a large proportion of all the content, and would like some help with it.
Click here to look at the portal.
If anyone wishes to help, or knows anybody who would like to; then please get stuck in, or get in contect with me; you don't need an explicit knowledge of football, you just need to know about how league tables work, and what days to update the table, which isn't too much work for some of those clever-pedians we have here!
I really appreciate any help we can get; i can only see the portal getting wikinews more hits, and making the footy portal get more contributors! Tergards, muchly;
The magical Spum-dandy 13:34, 28 January 2006 (UTC) !
(cross-posted as this is an odd little policy, so here is good, too)
This expansion of ArbCom to include "officers" doesn't appear to have gotten much press. It involves someone whose job it to summarise and present the information presented into digestable packets for the Arbitration Commitee.
It's "going live" any day now, but there have been concerns expressed that it's a "back door" for people who failed re-elction to maintain their powerbase. Additional concerns around why this person would need access to the abritrator only mailing list have been raised.
brenneman (t) (c) 02:13, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
My two penn'orth. On the personalities: I don't approve of vitriol, but I've seen Kelly Martin behave both badly and very dubiously; I'd certainly not trust her as an ArbCom member, and people like me voted against her for that reason. On the various recent antics: she's clearly in a little group of chums who tend to stick together with a "my friend right or wrong" sort of attitude, and who include many editors of long-standing and (what is perceived by many people as being) authority; this has probably been part of the cause of hasty actions such as the protection of Talk pages and RfCs and other attempts to suppress criticism of her. On the procedural issue, it is indeed very difficult to see why the ArbCom needs these "clerks", especially why they need a "head clerk", and most especially why they appointed someone who has just been rejected as sufficiently trusted for an ArbCom rôle. I've seen the excuse that it's no big deal, as anyone can do what the clerks do — but then why appoint clerks? We're not a state with a government, and so the analogy with the appointment of officials is inapt, pace Doc Glasgow; the only reason that most of us can see for this extension of official or semi-official (or quasi-official) positions is some variation on jobs for the boys and girls, and you don't have to share my anarchist leanings not to like it very much. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 17:22, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure this is old news, but it seems to me like many WP "List of XXX" pages are unhelpful. Case in point: List of sailors, which is a randomly-selected and small subset of articles from Category:Sailors. This list totally fails to mention some extremely prominent sailors, and of course needs to be manually maintained to keep it in sync with Category:Sailors. Trouble with that is, it would be either a selected subset (and hence inherently POV), or huge.
So, let's ditch the list and just use Category:Sailors, which is guaranteed to be complete, and is neatly organised into sub-categories. Trouble with that is that it's not annotated; unlike List of sailors, which at least provides a useful "who's-who and why" index of some sailors.
So, my proposal: modify the [[Category]] syntax as follows:
[[Category:Sailors|Slocum, Joshua|first single-handed circumnavigation of the world]]
That is, include the annotation in the article, where it can be maintained with the article itself. Then we just need a change to the [[Category]] feature to (optionally) include annotations in Category pages. Then we can ditch the lists, and replace them with appropriate use of categories.
Note that this proposal works well with articles in multiple categories. Example:
[[Category:Sailors|Slocum, Joshua|first single-handed circumnavigation of the world]] [[Category:Authors|Slocum, Joshua|wrote ''Sailing Alone Around the World'']]
would place Joshua Slocum in two category/lists, with appropriate annotations for each. This feature could also be used in categories themselves, to annotate their entries in their parent categories.
What do you think? — Johantheghost 23:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
intresting idea, but it would make it much harder to read thru categories - some of them are very big as it is without notations. BL kiss the lizard 00:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Me thinks it's a great idea, but it will be a pain to update all articles. Plus, this is something that must be hardcoded inside the wikipedia progam, I don't know how much trouble would be to do that, or witch person to contact about the proposal. By the way, there might be someone allready thinking a way to implement this, because this is a great idea (well, at least in my point of view). algumacoisaqq 02:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I've just found that bug #1775 is the same as my proposal; also bug #2725 covers the category issue. — Johan the Ghost seance 13:14, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Category browsing and intersection have been implemented on the toolserver: CategoryTree and CategoryIntersect. They are wonderful! JesseW, the juggling janitor 11:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
i was told to post my request here so i have copy-past the whole thing here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Article_not_found&action=edit
i want to change this
"We don't have an article with this title, but you can create it if you log in or create an account. As an unregistered user, you may also submit the content that you wish to have created. Please read our introduction for more information about Wikipedia"
into this
"We don't have an article with this title, but you can create it if you log in or create an account(Registering a free account takes only a few seconds, and has many benefits:you simply need to choose a username and password and click "create account".). As an unregistered user, you may also submit the content that you wish to have created. Please read our introduction for more information about Wikipedia"
why:
because most of the website use e-mail for submiting password and procedures are quite long and so we need to show that it's very fast and convenient...
i didn't get an acount for a long time for this reason
there is also a huge number of pages that are waiting to be created at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles mabe a lot of theses people have posted their articles here because of the same reason(i did once(about a comparison of unix subsystem under windows(sfu,cygwin...)))
EG February 2005 in science January 2005 in Britain and Ireland.
The "Current events" versions of these pages are, (IMO rightly), in reverse chronological order. When they become history, we are keeping them reverse chronological. However new pages dealing old things are almost always done in chronological order. I think we should reverse the date order within the older pages to forward chronological.
What do folk thinlk and how old is "history" and how new is "current". I would suggest that the previous month should remain reverse chronological, but previous months be swapped round. IE on Feb 1 2006 we could/should shuffle all the entries for Dec 2005.
Comments? -- SGBailey 11:44, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a tremendous resource for so many things, but there is one NPOV 'type' page that I am forever looking up on the internet that Wikipedia does not currently offer. That is verses pages, or comparison pages. I constantly trying to find out what the differnces, pros and cons, of a great many items, though mostly in the area of hardware and software. in many cases there are non-wiki sites that offer such comparisons but sometimes i use Wikipedia for the comparison by comparing two or more items' page. Book vs. Movie, PPC iMac vs.Intel iMac, H.264 vs. DivX (XivD), et cetera. Perhaps "vs." isn't the best phraseology but it's a common format used for looking up comparisons. Thank you, Pattersonc( Talk) 9:58 PM, Sunday; January 29 2006 (EST)
There has been a discussion again on slashdot about edit wars, and bokmann had an interesting suggestion: to include some sort of indication of the volatility of the article in the header. Lots of ways to do this - last edit date, edits in past week/month/year, whatever. It may be worth considering.
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=175545&cid=14594374
Well, not really that dramatic, but as someone who works extensively on newpages, it seems to be that something needs to be done. People create articles without really understanding what they're doing, and that's understandable, we don't have a good enough system to help them avoid common mistakes. This leads to the vast ammounts of new articles being created (since many new users seem to want to create new articles more than they want to edit existing ones), which in turn is really at the heart of many problems WP faces. AfD gets overloaded, not because AfD itself is broken, but because too many articles are created that need to go to AfD. Potentially dangerous hoaxes can lie dormant for months because there are so many articles created that the experienced people looking at newpages and orphaned pages can't truly do a good job on every new page, and a lot falls through the cracks.
Right now, we are just giving people a blank page and saying "Have fun!" This really seems to be at the root of the problem. How can we expect people to not create "junk" that requires cleanup or deletion? Do we really think they're going to read through 20 scattered guidelines before creating a page? It's only natural that, given the system we have in place, we're in the situation we're in.
So to fix it, I think article creation needs to be changed, at least for new users (accounts created in the last 7 days, less than 50 edits, would seem like good criteria to me). I think WP:AFC has it right, providing them with a template instead of a blank page is a vast improvement. I propse that new users have this template added to the editbox when they create a new article:
(it looks a little junky formatted, but as text in an editbox it is much cleaner, try it out). That's just a rough draft anyway. This really isn't that drastic. It gives new users a more realistic opportunity to properly create an article by telling them how to avoid all of the mistakes we see all the time with newpages. This template, if followed, would really cut down on the routine cleanup needed on most articles new users create. The need to cite a reference will make it easier for us to detect hoaxes (and to not inadvertantly delete an article just because we're unfamiliar with it), and it would help new users in a rush to create articles know that a lot of things such people want to create articles about aren't appropriate topics, since there can never be a good reference for those topics.
Also, a bot could easilly be run to remove this template from pages older than 24 hours or so, since beyond article creation it would just be clutter in an article.
Even if this proposal seems a little wacky, I really believe we need to give people something better than a blank editbox to create articles with. A lot of problems are coming from the primitive, mistake-encouraging system we have in place now. -- W.marsh 16:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
WikiNews has a sophisticated article creation utility, that can do everything mentioned here. Kevin Baas talk 22:47, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
It'd be nice if the "show preview" included a big warning at the start of the page about any links to disambig pages in the text. I suspect they creep in because people don't realize there's multiple usages, and highlighting would go a long way to eliminating them (for new work at least). — Kevin Ryde 22:49, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to announce the opening of the Featured Music Project, an attempt to encourage and facilitate successful featured article candidacies and peer reviews for articles on musicians and bands. You can help by evaluating articles, or by working on the articles that are already close to being ready for FAC. Tuf-Kat 19:30, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
If a user edits a page, and the last edit was made by him too, he should have the option (within a certain time period, say 15 minutes) to literally edit *that* item of the history, instead of creating a edition, and a new entry in history.
This would save lots of hard disk space, I imagine, since editions with bad spelling mistakes don't have to be saved to data. Infinity0 talk 13:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Do you have a link to the details please? I'm quite interested. Infinity0 talk 21:24, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Argh... :S What does the text
table contain? The text of a few key revisions? And the serialised object contains keys indicating which lines to pick out of those revisions?
Oh right. Do you mean that all the different text from all revisions is stored in the text table, and the object picks out the relevant parts from that scramble of text? Infinity0 talk 23:00, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
The encyclopedic part of wikipedia is great, but has a minor problem. Making it bigger also means making it harder to use specially if the "topic" is a combination of different things - like science. In science it's not this or that but mostly all together.
So what I'd suggest for you to consider is making a "wikiQuestion" where topics and search are question based and not concept based. For example a user needs answering a question "WHY the Sun is round?", "HOW the fridge works?" or "WHO..", "WHEN", etc. where the page would be indexed on words in a question. The wikiQuestion would allow posting questions and wiki editing. Every wiki page would be linked by keywords to wikipedia and all other similar pages.
Why is this good.
For a building process this would imply, that you add text to the article, that is not on the page itself. For a question on "why the sun is round" I could borrow data from wiki "Add text from this address, this paragraph" and combine data to answer the question.
The question itself offers complete answer in a form of an article.
I have posted Alternative Dispute Resolution as a proposed group at Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List_of_proposed_projects#Alternative_Dispute Resolution. The project would improve/create articles in the main namespace relating to negotiation, mediation, conciliation, facilitation, arbitration and other alternatives to litigation. I would especially encourage any interested persons engaged is dispute resolution on WP to participate. I believe this would broaden perspective and deepen insights into practice.-- Edivorce 21:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Currently there are two types of users.
I propose a new one to break Anons. Since we already know the IP of the anon it is no secret what ISP they use. Known problematic ISPs such as AOL should be marked so admins dont block them for too long.
So we would have:
This will save time to admins dealing with IP vandalism form AOL. -- Cool Cat Talk| @ 16:57, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
That would be great. Such as French Alphabet/Latin or Gothic Language Alphabet/Gothic, Arabic, etc, etc... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infobox#Languages Ksenon 05:23, 5 February 2006 (UTC)