Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

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The proposals section of the village pump is used to discuss new ideas and proposals that are not policy related (see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) for that).

Recurring policy proposals are discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals). If you have a proposal for something that sounds overwhelmingly obvious and are amazed that Wikipedia doesn't have it, please check there first before posting it, as someone else might have found it obvious, too.

Before posting your proposal:

• Read this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.
• If the proposal is a change to the software, file a bug at Bugzilla instead. Your proposal is unlikely to be noticed by a developer unless it is placed there.
• If the proposal is a change in policy, be sure to also post the proposal to, say, Wikipedia:Manual of style, and ask people to discuss it there.
• If the proposal is for a new wiki-style project outside of Wikipedia, please go to m:Proposals for new projects and follow the guidelines there. Please do not post it here. These are different from WikiProjects.

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These discussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.

Full site map

How about creating a full site map, something like this:

but complete, and only between articles (and with smaller text, and maybe size of the text can be based on the the amount of links to and from articles), it would be interesting to look at and I would especially be interested how different articles are linked and to see if there are clusters. It's possible to do this with a bot or something. What do you people think? Jeffrey.Kleykamp 15:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

It would be much too large to view all at once. And don't get us started on how many server CPU cycles it would take to maintain it in real time. NeonMerlin 17:33, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Then, how about a one time thing starting from one article and moving three to six levels, start articles like USA, cheesecake, or lemon. It could also be a yearly or even monthly event starting from the article that gets linked to the most or a nominated article (along the lines of featured content). Jeffrey.Kleykamp 19:19, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Possible script of interest: Six degrees of Wikipedia. –Pomte 21:38, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I find it really interesting and extremely amusing that to get from "George W. Bush" to "fart" it only take 3 degrees of separation, even without date and year articles, but how does it work, is it pre-indexed or is it a simple search? Jeffrey.Kleykamp 22:09, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Preindexed, I bet, it'd take a long time to search through the 1 million plus entries.--Kylohk 16:59, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

This looks like a really neat idea in theory, but I agree that the sheer scale of Wikipedia mean that this would be quite an endeavor. With current technology, I'd say real-time is right out; but this may be feasible if limited to Wikipedia articles which are linked with a specified number of other articles; and perhaps containing a specified article size (in bytes or textual characters). That way, you'd clear out all the stubs and dead-end articles which make up a pretty significant portion of Wikipedia. Such runs could be reiterated periodically throughout the year to provide a visual representation of Wikipedia's growth. This might be easier on some other language's Wikipedias, as they are smaller-scale and may greater growth in non-stub non-dead-end articles. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 01:52, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think someone should do what you said. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 21:41, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I know that this will be too much but how about an animated site-map, that means it looks at the versions of the Wikipedia at different periods of time, starting from the beginning to now. It would look like water, as articles gain in size. Wow. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 14:24, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem that I see is the sheer size of a full map. Look at a protein interaction map of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It's got something like 6000 protein-coding genes, and the "interactome" is a mess. With upward of 1.8 million articles, including redirects, this would be crazy. As suggested above, it might be a way to find small closed groups that link to others within the group, but fail to link into the rest of the project. Flyguy649^talk_contribs 14:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

FUI Wikipedia:Six degrees of Wikipedia `'Miikka 02:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

See also catgraph. --Quiddity

Changes to talk page tabs

Change "+" tab to "leave a comment"

I've been informally interviewing my friends about their experiences with Wikipedia, and man, do we have a lot of work to do if we want more intelligent, normal people to contribute.

One newcomer couldn't even figure out how to leave a comment on a talk page, so I propose that we change the "+" tab to "leave a comment". She liked that idea.

I believe this is accomplished by editing MediaWiki:Addsection. I'd go ahead and be bold, but that's a little too bold...

What do others think? — Omegatron 16:18, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Not necessary. The plus tab made immediate sense to me, because it represented adding something. But that is just based on my own experience, since I do not know any other Wikipedia editors or serious users. On narrower viewports, it is cumbersome to have lengthy tabs because they are very close to the personal links. Adrian M. H. 20:59, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I worry that changing the plus icon to text that long might break screens at 800x600. x42bn6 Talk Mess 21:16, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I didn't even notice + for a long time, but that's just me. On talk pages, edit this page should be given less emphasis (unbolded) than + because + is probably used a lot more often than edit this page. People should only need to click edit this page when they want to change banners at the top or to refactor the entire page. To respond to an individual section, use the section's own [edit] link. If discussion gets shortened to talk and edit this page gets shortened to edit or renamed to the more intuitive edit entire page, then + can be renamed to add section or something. 800x600 should be able to handle it. –Pomte 21:27, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with de-emphasizing "edit" on talk pages and emphasizing "new section" and the section edit links. — Omegatron 01:00, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I run 800x600 and "leave a comment" would fit fine. This, that and the other 07:22, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

This would need a lot of testing with various browsers and font sizes at 800x600. When the tabs overflow, they tend to disappear, a very bad thing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 08:04, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

When the talk pages are forum-structured, there will be a "new post" button and everything will make sense. They won't have to know how to create a section header or sign their post either. Dcoetzee 08:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, when I set my font size to 40, the tabs overflow; so maybe we should just change them all to single letters.  :-) — Omegatron 15:05, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I like the shortest possibler button labels up there. ^(H) 16:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

There are ways to customize everything with javascript and CSS for advanced users and sysops with 15 tabs, but the default user interface should be targeted at the newest of newcomers. "+" is almost meaningless in this context. — Omegatron 19:01, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I recall this proposal previously got rejected due to historical reasons or some such, but if it does go through, there are some other message in Special:Allmessages that may need changing as well. –Pomte 23:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

"Historical reasons"? Bah.  :-) — Omegatron 00:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

If we were to change "Discussion" to "Talk" (see Proposal #39, below), there would be room to change the "+" to "New Post". Two birds in a bush or something like that . . . Bielle 01:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think "discuss" would be better if trying to save space. — Omegatron 00:35, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

'Edit this page' is an action that applies to the visable page. 'Discussion' and 'article' are places we go. I wonder if removing the grey line under 'edit this page' would make clear what the tab applies to? Then we could change 'edit this page' to 'edit'. That would give us room to change '+' to some friendly verb. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:50, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of the tab until now. I fully agree with the change. It's a useful tab and there's no reason why editors must wait more than one year (the time I've been editing) to know that it exists. A.Z. 02:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

If it gets changed into "leave a comment" then in light of it being very long, I suggest changing "edit this page" on talk pages into "edit". It's good to say "edit this page" on articles, but it's not a good idea on talk pages. --Steinninn 09:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

One of the reasons I prefer the venerable "classic" skin for Wikipedia. Over on the left side I see "Edit this page", "Discuss the page", etc. -- simple enough for a simple guy like me. I only wish I had the stick-to-it-iveness to learn CSS & help keep that skin up to date. -- llywrch 23:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Talk Pages

Summary: change the tab title (MediaWiki:Talk label) from 'discussion' to 'talk'.

(the first few posts of this thread were moved from Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Talk Pages)

When I first discovered Wikipedia, I spent much time looking for "talk" pages. I am a native speaker of English and I know that "talk" and "discussion" mean much the same thing, but the omnipresence of "talk page" led me to believe that something less formal was meant. Nowhere have I found a reference to a "discussion page", not then and not now. Why do we not change the tab from "discussion" to "talk" and save all the newbies some confusion? We're not likely to change the editors' text habit. Bielle 15:07, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

It couldn't make more sense. I agree with the change. A.Z. 18:04, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines#Discussion Page Guidelines. Calling the discussion pages "talk pages" is jargon that is specific to the English Wikipedia; for example, talk pages on the French Wikipédia are des pages de discussion, while the German-speaking Wikipedianer have Diskussionsseiten. For the proposal to have a chance of having an effect, you should post it at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).  --Lambiam^Talk 19:17, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

This probably happens because other languages have no equivalent to "talk pages". A.Z. 19:28, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

What? Of course they have talk pages- take a look at any of the other language Wikipedias, see a list. Friday (talk) 19:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Friday, I didn't mean that other language Wikipedias don't have the equivalent to talk pages. I meant that other languages don't have an expression such as talk page, and therefore their only option is to use the equivalent to discussion page. Romance languages and German all have a cognate of the word discussion which means the same thing, therefore making it the most obvious translation. A.Z. 19:45, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I was only referring to English Wikipedia in suggesting the change. I assumed that, whatever the tag in other Wikipedias(-pediae?), it is appropriate to its language, and the use of its language. Is there a need to have some congruence in the tag, as would be represented by the root orthography of "disc(k)uss"? That may be a silly question, now that I look at it, as there wouldn't be any visual connection with Chinese, for example. Thanks for the pointers to the pages where such matters are discussed, Lambiam, and to the better place for its discussion. As for having "a chance to have an effect", I have nothing invested in the suggestion or its acceptance. It merely reflects an editor's interest in (a) ease of use and (b) consistency. Bielle 19:40, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

As it is, the tags are inconsistent with the way that all Wikipedians call these pages, and, because of that and other things, they are harder to use. A.Z. 19:48, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I have looked at Lambiam's first link above. It asks the same question, but there is no discussion or decision that I could see. Perhaps I don't know how to look for follow-up. I have also looked at the Village Pump's FAQ, Perenial Proposals and current suggestions and could see no earlier similar suggestion. On Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), #33, there is a discussion of the "+" tab. This would appear, then, to be the place to hold a discusion on "Talk" pages. If someone who is following this thread knows how to move the relevant parts of it to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), please BE BOLD. Bielle 20:44, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, an user with the privilege of being able to edit protected pages needs to change this page. The change is uncontroversial and, if I were an user with such a privilege, I'd make it right now. A.Z. 21:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know that we can say the proposal is uncontroversial until we have given it some time to be considered. Change is nearly always controversial for someone, and that someone (or those "someones") needs time to be able to respond. That's why there are Talk (Discussion) pages, after all. Thus, even if I had the privilege, I would wait a few days. There is nothing urgent here. Bielle 22:56, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand. I would wait a few days as well, then, but I feel this is rather uncontroversial. A.Z. 23:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I am wondering why we all call these pages Talk pages, the text seems to always have been discussion. Anyway, I think Talk is a better idea, the rest of the interface calls these pages talk pages (even the My talk page link) -- lucasbfr ^talk 13:16, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is a subtle contextual difference between the two words. "Talk" could be interpreted as endorsing "chatting", which is not what they're for; whereas "Discussion" is a synonym with more formal connotations. However, "talkpage" is in general use primarily because it's faster to type, and because it rolls off the tongue/eye better than "discussionpage". If we tried to force everyone to refer to them as "discussionpages", they'd just create an inscrutable acronym! For these reasons, I would doubt any changes to the current state are likely (though anything is possible). --Quiddity 18:09, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Quiddity has hit the nail on the head with his description of the 'subtle contextual difference', so I shan't say anything other than to endorse his statement. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

True, there is a "subtle contextual difference". English is full of such things. However, no one is paying any attention to the diifference, as far as I can tell, which may mean it is "subtle too far". "Discussion" could equally well be "chatting"; the difference depends more upon the setting and the formality of the language of the conversation than on its content. Everyone refers to what is linked to the Discussion tab as "talk pages" or just plain "talk" and, whether we wish to encourage it or not, talk and chat do happen there, along with discussion, negotiation, argument, notification, diatribe, rant, positioning, advertising, pleading, demanding, and almost every other actvity possible on screen. The difference between "talk" and "chat" is another example of a "subtle contextual difference". "Chat" has a specific meaning on-line, however, and indeed, it is not what we wish to encourage. "Talk page", however, on English Wiki, means the "discussion page and what actually goes on there". It seems unnecessarily confusing to insist that the tab keep the "Discussion" label merely to make a point that talk isn't chat. (While the WP:POINT being made is not disruptive, neither is it helpful, especially to the newcomer.) Bielle 19:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd beg to differ or there would be no need for pages such as Wikipedia:WikiLawyering. I think there are users that will push the interpretation to the limit. For this reason anything that could be misconstrued as chat should be avoided. David D. (Talk) 20:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

For one thing regarding definitions, talk means to speak, as if with the mouth. Discussion can still mean writing it. The page titles are so because it is shorter. I personally am for continuing using 'discussion' for the tab. Reywas92^{TalkReview me} 22:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Nothing needs to be "miscontrued as chat", David D., for chat to happen. It is happening all over now. (I'd link to specific talk pages except that it might embarrass individuals who are no more chatty than a hundred others. For the most part, this is limited to User Talk.) I also disagree with Reywas92. On line, "talk" is understood to mean "write" unless a voice system is specifically noted. There is no doubt that there is a reason why "Discussion" was selected for the tab initially, and Wikipedia:WikiLawyering is a reality for the most minute points. Nonetheless, "Discussion" as a tab remains confusing, and there is a simple way to eliminate the confusion. No one has yet addressed this issue, which is the only reason for the proposing the change. And, in respect of the care and keeping of newbies, please see the opening comment in 33 above, and all the following flac about the "+" sign.Bielle 23:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the confusion. The pages are for the discussion of the article content, that seems to be quite obvious. Agreed one might call it talk but the service that the page provides is apparently quite descriptive. At least, I have never considered it to be an inappropriate name. Are most newbies really that confused? David D. (Talk) 02:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't speak for most newbies. I can tell you that I spent considerable time looking for "Talk Pages". I found the "Discussion" tab and knew what it was for, and what went on there, but assumed, as the name "talk page" was everywhere, that it was something quite different from "Discussion". If you do an internal search for Talk Page you get to read about "Talk Pages" in all their manifestations. "Discuss" and "Discussion" are secondary meanings. The article even notes that you should look for something labelled "Talk" (or "discuss") at the top or side of a page. All I am suggesting is that we reflect the actual use, and what the "Talk Pages" article believes to be the case already, in the tab system so that there is one less hurdle for a newbie. Obviously, all of us figured it out, eventually. (Perhaps it is a secret test to see if a newbie really is Wiki editor material. Perhaps I am a slow learner.) The world will not collapse if we don't make the change. From the resisitance noted here to what I thought was a minor matter, it might be easier to try and get all the editors to refer to "Discussion Pages" instead of "Talk Pages" with the same objective, of being more newbie friendly. I wonder where I would make that proposal. :-)Bielle 02:46, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with Bielle that "talk" can be used to mean "write", especially online. It means something as "communicate" or "communication". That's why almost all Wikipedians feel comfortable calling them talk pages. Reywas92, do you commonly refer to those pages as "discussion pages"? A.Z. 19:50, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I agree that it is very confusing to label the tab "discussion", but have everyone (including the help pages) constantly refer to them as talkpages. Especially so for newcomers, young editors, and ESL editors.

I'm just guessing that it's a perennial proposal, though I can't see it at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals or at Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Proposals concerning Talk namespaces (and other discussions). However, here is the correct place to discuss(!) it, and I personally wouldn't oppose the change of MediaWiki:Talk to say "talk", barring any new persuasive evidence that the status quo needs to remain.

Any oldtimers know about any past history of this idea? (they're not exactly "unique terms" to use as search fodder..!) --Quiddity 18:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It seemed to me such a simple idea that I, too, went looking for a history at all the places you mentioned, and failed to find anything earlier on such a change. I should have said all this in the opening paragraph, and saved others the effort. Anybody find anything? Bielle 23:00, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

1. We should really be emphasizing accessibility to newbies above all else. We need to make the site very easy for newcomers to contribute to.
2. Would "discuss" (verb) be a better choice than "discussion" (noun)? — Omegatron 01:03, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

"Discuss" suggests active participation better than "discussion", but the confusion about "talk pages" isn't remedied by the change. Unless we have something labelled "Talk" or "Talk Page", the confusion remains. Bielle 01:25, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we should be emphasizing accessibility to newbies above all else. Openness is the whole idea behind Wikipedia! Imagine if we had suggested ten years ago "let's let everyone edit an online encyclopedia". Someone would surely come up with something like "no, people will begin to chat, it will become a social network, it will never work", and things like that. Imagine that Wikipedia had been created and someone suggested "let's write on the main page that anyone can edit it". Surely someone would say "no, because it will turn the encyclopedia into a huge chat room". It's just fear. Changing the name of the tag will improve Wikipedia by making the website more accessible to new users, as people will more quickly understand what is a core aspect of Wikipedia, namely the talk pages, which will diminish a bit the feeling that Wikipedia is such a misterious place that only a selected few can understand. Letting the links to talk pages continue to be called "discussion" will only make people confused and prevent good editors from participating in the project. A.Z. 02:30, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

To (inaccurately!) summarize people's positions on this:

In favor:

• Bielle: "Why do we not change the tab from 'discussion' to 'talk' and save all the newbies some confusion?"

• A.Z.: Agrees with Bielle.

• lucasbfr: "I think Talk is a better idea, the rest of the interface calls these pages talk pages."

• Omegatron:"We should really be emphasizing accessibility to newbies above all else."

• Quiddity: "I personally wouldn't oppose the change of MediaWiki:Talk to say 'talk', barring any new persuasive evidence that the status quo needs to remain."

Against:

• David D.:"Anything that could be misconstrued as chat should be avoided."

• Reywas92:"Talk means to speak, as if with the mouth. Discussion can still mean writing it."

A.Z. 17:36, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

That's a terrible summary of my position! I specifically stated that I wouldn't oppose a change. I was merely pointing out why discussion was the currently used word, and why there was a disparity between the formal-name and the informal-usage. It probably should be changed, as far as I can see. --Quiddity 17:56, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I changed my post so you are in the group that supports the change. A.Z. 18:02, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks ;) --Quiddity 19:17, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say I was in favor of this change, either. Lumping people into groups based on your perception of their position is usually a bad idea. If you want to see what we actually think, take a poll or something...

Sign under any options that you like. Feel free to add other options. — Omegatron 01:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

A poll may be helpful for something, but I hope it doesn't become an election. I think the discussion above and more discussion like that are useful, and a poll would be useful if it were just a part of the discussion. I thought my post was useful because we could easily know who was left to be convinced. A.Z. 02:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

It's been ten days now. We can continue discussing, but I think it's time for an administrator to make the change. A.Z. 03:20, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Poll

"discussion" → "talk"

1. Makes sense to me because of title prefixes like "Talk:" and "Wikipedia talk:". — Omegatron 01:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
2. This reflects tha language used throughout en.wiki and will be the easiest for newcomers to understand. This benefit outweighs, in my opinion, the possibility that the change will be seen as an invitation to "chat". Bielle 01:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
3. Clearest for newcomers, ESL editors, and young editors. Used almost-consistently throughout the help pages, and consistently in normal usage. --Quiddity 01:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
4. I'm in favor of the change. I explained why on the thread above. A.Z. 03:03, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
5. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 03:52, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
6. Moderately in favour, only to bring it in line with the namespace. And at least it is short. Adrian M. H. 15:46, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
7. Strong support - this goes along with the namespace names; it seems to me that the meaning is clear, and it's shorter. Od Mishehu 08:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
8. That's what everyone calls them. Why confuse the newbies. --Apoc2400 08:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

"discussion" → "discuss"

1. Saves space, more inviting than "discussion". — Omegatron 01:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
2. Not a bad alternative. I still don't like the idea of "talk", despite reading the many arguments above in favour of such a change. The title of the tab should be viewed as an invitation to discuss the page, or to a discussion. What does an invitation of talk conjure in the minds of editors? A monolog? An IRC channel? A dialog? Discuss represents so much more than these. David D. (Talk) 03:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

   Yes, David D., it does that, but "discuss" does not speak to the initial reason for the proposal: that everywhere on en.wiki there are mentioned "talk" pages, and yet there are no "Talk" pages. You can't read anything on English Wikipedia and fail to come across a reference to a "Talk" page, and yet, they don't exist. Bielle 18:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't change "discussion" tab

1. --Steinninn 01:45, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
2. I see no reason to change, however, see above for views on discuss which might be a viable alternative if people really find discussion too cryptic. David D. (Talk) 03:43, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
3. It is fine the way it is right now. +spebi ~ 07:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
4. Oppose 'Discussion' could be changed to 'talk', but because of parallelism (grammar), 'discuss' just wouldn't work. The 'article' tab would then need to be changed to 'read', perhaps. Why inviting? + may be confusing (not to me), but 'discussion' says it; I really don't think something needs to be inviting. Reywas92^Talk 14:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

   I don't agree that there is a grammar problem of any sort; "discussion", "article" and "talk" can all be nouns. Bielle 17:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

   'Discuss' can't, though. I believe my opinion is made. Reywas92^Talk 13:01, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

   Sorry; I misread your original sentence. Indeed, "discuss" is not a noun; "article", however, can be a verb, if you are a law student. :-) Bielle 17:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

5. Pointless. The tabs are worded quite clearly as is and "talk" is less descriptive, therefore more confusing, not less. --tjstrf talk 17:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
6. — Deckiller 18:01, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

"+" → "leave a comment"

1. Clearer for newcomers. — Omegatron 01:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
2. Likely the best in terms of new-user comprehension, but may take up too much space. The overall best, then, is "New Post" Bielle 01:43, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
3. --Steinninn 01:45, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
4. Weak Support. I would prefer just "comment" or "add comment" — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 03:52, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
5. Yes. This, that and the other _[talk] 07:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
6. Good idea. Not everyone is good at figuring out cryptic UIs. --Apoc2400 08:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
7. Everything needs to be spelled out because we want normal people contributing. It is not easy for the majority of people to click on things to find out what they are. Just a minority do that. A.Z. 18:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

"+" → "new post"

1. This is language generally recognized on the Internet and is clearer for newcomers than just the "+" Bielle 01:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
2. The tab is useful and it's hard to figure out what it means. It's even hard to see. A.Z. 18:08, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

"+" → "new comment"

1. Not quite as clear as "leave a comment", but saves space. — Omegatron 01:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
2. My second choice, per discussion rationales offered above. --Quiddity 01:57, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

"+" → "comment"

1. Not as good as the more verbose ones, but acceptable. — Omegatron 23:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

"+" → "add comment"

1. Pretty clear, short. — Omegatron 23:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't change "+" tab

1. I think of it as just a shortcut for experienced editors, plus editing the whole page or just a prior section, gives newcomers an example of wikicode to glance through. --Quiddity 01:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
2. As I wrote when the "+ tab" issue was raised recently, I see no problem with it, based on my own experience of finding my way around WP. It logically equates to adding something new. Adrian M. H. 15:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
3. Leave it alone or remove it. I see no real need for the tab anyway. If people are curious they can click it and find out what it is. Does everything really need to be spelled out? David D. (Talk) 03:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
4. Concur with David – if people are confused about the button, it is easy enough just to click on it and find out. +spebi ~ 07:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
5. Do not remove it, as it allows a more automatic edit summary and goes directly to the bottom of the page. "Leave a comment" is too long. Not to be rude, but it is very simple to realize what + means. If I had to chose, it is the shortest, "new post". Reywas92^Talk 14:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Stop voting on everything

Oh, and this change is a stupid idea. Don't fix what isn't broken – Gurch 09:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I strongly concur. Haven't they always been like this? Reywas92^Talk 14:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

• Try not to call people's ideas "stupid". It's rude, especially when there are some obvious, logical, and intelligent reasons behind the discussion (As in, it's the 'talk:' namespace, lots of newcomers have expressed confusion over the years, etc).
• We're not "voting on everything"; this is the first poll I've seen at VPp in a while. They're sometimes useful. An admin started this one.
• Appeal to tradition is one perspective, but it's not an argument ender. --Quiddity 18:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
• Anything that decreases the chance that a new comer will stay and be comfortable here should be changed to something more welcoming or easier to use. No experienced editor will be bothered by either the "+" or the "Discussion" tabs. We don't know how many potential editors a fruitless search for a way to add a comment or a guide to finding the omnipresent (but entirly absent) "talk" pages has driven away. We do know that some new, but not entirely inexperienced, editors mentioned that they have had some problems with these matters in their early days and were confused by them. Why not just make everything a simple as possible? Bielle 18:38, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Stop voting on everything

This isn't a vote; it's a poll. Both polls and votes are discouraged, but can be useful in certain situations, especially for decisions like this (you have to agree that a UI change is significantly different from an editorial decision about an article.) I've intentionally structured the poll so that people write their rationales for supporting different options instead of just saying "support", and so that new suggestions can be added to take into account different rationales and narrow in on an idea that more people will agree with. It's more like a structured discussion than a vote. I've seen this style used successfully elsewhere and thought it would be appropriate here.

Don't fix what isn't broken

Several people disagree. You should sign under the "no change" section if you don't think it needs changing.

Haven't they always been like this?

Way back in the day it said "Discuss this page", actually (see http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org), but why does that matter? Tradition is completely irrelevant. The user interface should be as usable as possible.

Also, everyone needs to realize that this poll is not very meaningful in the grand scheme of things. There seems to be a consensus that the interface should be changed, so it probably will be. But as soon as we make that change, everyone will become aware of the issue and there will suddenly be hordes of people with opinions on the subject. There will be much more discussion after the change is made, and an even better solution will most likely emerge. Relax. — Omegatron 23:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Request for removal of methods from magic effects

In many of the magic trick articles on wiki, the method is exposed. This is extremely damaging to the magci community because they are tricks that we, as magicians, perform regularly. It would be grealy appreciated if these methods were removed. It would also help promote magic as an art form and maybe also help prevent other sites from exposing. It might also help wiki gain more respect from magicians. Birdy2011

While I understand your dismay at having all your best moves set out in black and white for anybody to read, I would also point out that there are magicians who explain everything they do while they are doing it, on stage or on camera, and the audience is still mystified, entranced and lining up to see the show. As with anything requiring a high degree of skill, how it is done is not the magic (if you will pardon this use of the word); that it is done is. Bielle 02:52, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This debate is very old and is already thoroughly covered. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Magic#Magic_Methods_and_Exposure. The primary point to make is that all material on Wikipedia should be attributed to a verifiable source, in which case you can't really say we're the ones exposing the trick. Dcoetzee 03:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This should possibly be on WP:PEREN. You should expect an encyclopedia to contain information; if it's covered in reliable sources, we also cover it. >Radiant< 10:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I've watched documentaries on the telly detailing how this top magician do this and that. So, if anything, many secrets are already exposed, with or without mention on Wikipedia.--Kylohk 14:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

You've all made good points, however, these are copyrighted effects. I know what you are going to say, "methods cannot be copyrighted." While this is true, the names of the effects can and have been. The tricks I have already found have been reported and I was informed that action would be taken. I just figured it would be easier for everyone if Wiki simply removed the methods themselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Birdy2011 (talk • contribs) 19:25, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

What has copyright of a name got to do with it? Microsoft doesn't mind. Copyright issues only apply to copied content. Adrian M. H. 18:29, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This is legal sleight of hand (no pun intended). Copyright cannot be applied to names, only trademarks can, and trademark use is only forbidden where it's a use by a competitor that could potentially confuse consumers. If you look into more detail at the link I supplied, they've thoroughly addressed the usual legal techniques magicians employ to attempt to suppress publication of their techniques. Dcoetzee 19:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

See also discussion at Exposure on Wiki!. x42bn6 Talk Mess 23:30, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think special moves are copyrighted. If David Blaine did this, there is no stopping another magician to try and attempt his trick. I mean, it's not a logo or anything, it's just a set of actions.--Kylohk 19:50, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

New id attribute in MediaWiki:Common.css

In my opinion, there should be an ID "#roundcorners { -moz-border-radius: 1em; }" as to have to avoid typing {{Round corners}} when they are wanted. But that's just me. « ANIMUM » 18:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

You probably mean CLASS, not ID. Instead of using {{Round corners}}, you will have to type class=roundcorners, and have no way to specify the exact CSS value. So far I don't see any advantages ∴ Alex Smotrov 19:18, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Make an {{editprotected}} request at MediaWiki talk:Common.css if there is consensus. –Pomte 07:05, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

You can't rely on it for appearance because it will only work on the Gecko. Gutworth (talk) 02:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

W3C Icon

I propose that the W3C Icon be displayed in the footer of Wikipedia, where the WikiMedia and MediaWiki icons are. Since the main page passed the validation test I see no problem with displaying the icon. I think it would serve not only as a pat on the back to our coders, but also to show people browsing Wikipedia that our coders care about quality assurance, passing a test that even Microsoft did not. Thoughts? Masterof148 04:15, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

"Even Microsoft"? Do you actually believe that Microsoft cares about meeting the standards? But to your main question: I don't know. The only DTDs against which many WP pages could be validated are the awful old "transitional" ones, thanks to the love by various users of <FONT> and suchlike garbage. (Indeed, I've used <U> myself.) I don't think that validation against a transitional DTD is anything worth mentioning. -- Hoary 04:36, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Although it's very satisfying to have valid XHTML, I don't think it's worth putting the sticker on. Anyone who cared would do what you did and used the validator. Gutworth (talk) 02:35, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Letter to Stephen Colbert

I'm thinking about writing a letter by us to Stephen Colbert, because of two reasons: (1) all those vandals are not completely responsible because they were just following orders and that's why according to official policy we should warn the source (Stephen Colbert) and (2) to thank him for publicizing Wikipedia. Any thoughts? Jeffrey.Kleykamp 21:31, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to make it a letter from us, you'll have to allow everyone to edit it. I'd suggest keeping it a letter from you. Λυδαcιτγ 23:01, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Click "letter", it's a link to the actual letter that anyone can edit. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 23:04, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I think if anyone should do this, it should be the Wikimedia Foundation. Why not leave it to them? I don't think it's really a problem as long as our vandal-fighters also watch the Colbert Report.  ;) — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 23:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I strongly disagree with the content of your letter. If we want to send a letter to a celebrity and actually get it read and listened to, we need it to be very well-thought-out, and it should probably come from the Foundation of Jimmy Wales himself. A templated {{Uw-vandalism1}} message or something is not going to accomplish anything. —METS501 (talk) 23:16, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't imagine a positive outcome to sending the letter in its current form, and I don't see how it can possibly be salvaged. Think about it for a second: The mighty admins are warning Stephen Colbert not to tell people to vandalize our website! And he'd better answer, or we'll... what? We'll block him? We'll send him more angry emails? Oh, I know, we'll put an item in his article that says "Stephen Colbert is a big meanie to Wikipedia!" C'mon, get real. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 23:25, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Well people can edit and sign the letter, I'm sure that if 50+ Wikipedians (0.001% of registered users) sign, it would be enough to get him to listen. And also, it's really not that hard to write a letter to a celebrity, people think it's hard but celebrities aren't that busy, plus if one newspaper or an other form of news reported on it, he would eventually read it, and since it's written by us, Jimmy Wales (who got interviewed by Mr. Colbert) probably wouldn't mind giving it to Mr. Colbert or at least calling and telling him that he should look at it, plus when Stephen Colbert interviewed Jimmy Wales, he said that he liked Wikipedia and used it often. And finally, Stephen Colbert (the person) likes Wikipedia, Stephen Colbert (the character) likes to tell people to vandalise Wikipedia, this letter is written to Stephen Colbert (the character) and he only exists on the Colbert Report and that's where we can expect an answer, he might say vandalize more but is that really a problem, because more vandalism means more people in general to edit Wikipedia. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 23:37, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

With respect, I don't believe you have performed a realistic analysis of how this letter would be received. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 23:44, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

That could be. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 23:45, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

How about we find out his IP address and warn him directly for telling others to vandalise (that's not the same as vandalising personally). We know where he lives and we know that at the time of the interview with Jimmy Wales he was blocked because he said that in the interview. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 23:51, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

You couldn't possibly correlate the date/time, seeing as Colbert Report episodes are not aired live. Furthermore, I can guarantee you that neither Wales nor the Wikimedia Foundation would have anything to do with your letter, as it stands, were you to send it. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 00:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Looking at it again, the letter is not only ungrammatical but it also contradicts itself. If you're going to send it, send it on your own behalf. Keep the community out of it. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 00:26, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I requested the deletion, it was a stupid idea, sorry to waste your time. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 13:21, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

u guys ganged up on the suggestion of a letter like crazy! i think it was a good idea as long as its planed out. Why not make a page about John Colbert (the character) and feature it as article of the day. that way a lot of ppl will see it. how bout that? why kill an idea so fast. it didnt even have reasonble discussion except that its unrealistic. i with jeff. Vitalyshmelkin 14:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Stephen Colbert (character)

He hasn't done any harm, has he? All he's done in the long run is publicize the site. What's the problem? — Omegatron 01:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Search Page

I realize that there's a Site Search available from the Home Page, and I do have that bookmarked, but using it means waiting for the Home Page to load, which sometimes takes quite a while on a dial-up connection. In fact, since the Home Page takes considerably longer to load than many of the encyclopedia pages, searching via the Home Page can easily triple the time needed to look up one little thing.

What I would prefer to bookmark would be an uncluttered search page analogous to Google's regular search page. It would have the Wikipedia logo at the top, a nice prominent box to type the search object into, one or more go/search buttons, and probably a *few* links (e.g., to the Home Page) -- and that's it.

If there already is such a page, please post its location. Then we can turn this into a discussion of how to make the page easier to find! Carol the Dabbler 21:21, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I use Google. To search Wikipedia page titles enter "allintitle: site:en.wikipedia.org" in the search box, followed by the search terms. to search article text, omit the "allintitle:" term. -- Boracay Bill 22:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Click the Search button in the lefthand sidebar, without typing anything into the box. You can also type something into the box to do a search directly from the sidebar. That also allows you to search using other engines (such as google) as well. I don't know how more prominent it can get, it's already on every page. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 22:02, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Another possibility is to use http://www.wikipedia.org as your search page. It defaults to searching the English Wikipedia.-gadfium 01:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Just as a note, it's not necessarily the Main Page that takes long to load. When your browser first loads any Wikipedia page, it has to grab some scripts and style sheets to display the page. Once your browser has done this though, it's able to cache the information for future requests and use those cached copies. Gutworth (talk) 02:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Trusted Users

I was talking to some users on IRC, and one was talking about giving trusted users some "special" features that admins have, like roll back and being able to view deleted pages. I was thinking about this, and it makes sense to give trusted users these abilities. This kind of goes along with the whole "partial admin" thing, but really it will just make things simpler. I think trusted users should get rollback, the ability to view deleted pages, and the ability to protect and unprotect pages. Yeah, this has been proposed at before for roll back at WP:ROLL and at WP:LAM, but with the increasing attention and vandalism Wikipedia is getting, this would lighten the load on the current admins (who can't seem to keep up with the backlog). I know this has been shot down, but the proposal at WP:LAM was nearly a year and a half ago, and things on Wikipedia have changed a lot since then. What harm could come out of having Trusted Users, or whatever term you want to coin? It would only be for the positive. This would help lead into RFAs because !voters would see what a user has done with there tools, and wouldn't go off of edit count so much, because edit count is generally something a !voter uses to see how well a candidate will perform with the admin tools because they don't have anything else to go off of (major run on-sentence there :-)). I don't see anyways in which this could really be harmful. You're not giving a user the ability to delete pages, so you don't have to worry about a "rob-rage" user (deleting the main page) and you don't have to worry about a user making a bad block and screwing the foundation over some how. Like its said in WP:LAM, give roll back (which you could use with TW, but it doesn't hurt anything), give the ability to delete pages created within two days (this would help with CAT:CSD, which seems to be backlogged more often then not), give page protection abilities (which again, doesn't hurt a user directly (see also:m:Protected pages considered harmful)), access to Special:Unwatchedpages (which will help with vandalism), and give the ability to view a pages deleted history (which again, can't possibly caused harm). All of this can't hurt anything, and would help with backlogs. Again, this would also lessen all the crazy standards at WP:RFA, and help deal with vandalism. Read over this and WP:LAM instead of marking it off as stupid. Thanks! ~ Wikihermit 03:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Like you say, this has been proposed, in part, at WP:RFR, it seems the community wants to keep the status quo -- those additional functions are what admins are for.

The ability to view a page's deleted history can definitely cause harm, as can the ability to delete pages, even new pages. It just means that more people need to keep a watch on more people. The oversight process takes a little while to complete, and before that, a page's deleted history can contain very sensitive information. That may be why it was deleted.

In my opinion, WP:RfA, though broken, is the best way we have currently to ensure that users who can rollback with one click; delete pages, even new pages; protect pages; and view a page's history are trusted users. If users would just remember that adminship is no big deal, there wouldn't be a need for proposals like this, any additional usergroups, or any additional bureaucracy. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 17:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

That's the problem. Users don't get that "adminship is no big deal." ~ Wikihermit 00:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. But adding another usergroup isn't going to solve that problem; it's just going to create another level of (arguably unfairly) scrutinization and another point of contention. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 03:16, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

If adminship is no big deal, why was everybody freaking when 4 admin accounts got jacked? Why do we have such a rigid system to promote users to admins by consensus? Why did we pay so much attention to RFA's like Danny's and Gracenotes'? I very much dislike it when people use "adminship is no big deal" as a blanket proponent statement. bibliomaniac15 ^{BUY NOW!} 20:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I never said that the hijacking of administrator accounts was no big deal; administrators have access to potentially dangerous MediaWiki functions. However, the RfA process had nothing to do with that; the community trusted the users in question not to abuse their administrator tools, and there was less of an emphasis on password strength at that time. The hijacking was not a process problem. I think your second two questions relate to problems with the current RfA system that would be not have been problems if editors could remember that adminship is no big deal. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 02:14, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Paraphrase: Adminship (i.e., being trusted with potentially dangerous MediaWiki functions) is "no big deal." Cognitive dissonance anyone? dr.ef.tymac 02:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

With regard to the last question, I think it's primarily because processes like RfA attract people to whom they are a big deal; people who, frankly, are more interested in power than they are in the community or its reason for being. This tends to include both supporters and opponents... Thus the process (when it goes wrong) tends to degenerate into squabbling over ridiculous minutiae rather than the larger picture of maintaining the encyclopedia, leading to bitter infighting and bad feelings all around. With regard to the other two questions, there are various reasons (IMO mostly oriented toward making sure that the community has ownership of its own processes), but I don't think they're relevant to the broader point that adminship isn't -- or shouldn't be -- a big deal, even if RfA squabbles frequently are. -- Visviva 02:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

It looks like Wikipedia:Flagged revisions may be implemented, and that will change the environment upon which this proposal is based. (SEWilco 03:41, 1 July 2007 (UTC))

Download By category

It would be very helpful, if along with the current wikipedia download mechanism, a download by category is also introduced. This will also help in decreasing the bandwidth constraints because people might not want to download the whole wikipedia. For example - a technical school in a place with low might want to have the wikipedia science/technology sections archived in their private network. For them download by category might come in use.

Rajmohan h 10:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Rajmohan h. This change has to do with a software change, which we here cannot do. To request a software change, please use bugzilla. Thanks! —METS501 (talk) 13:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried Special:Export? It does exactly what you're talking about. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 17:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Searching in Different Languages

I am surprised that this is acually the case but its true. I often happen to search Wikipedia in Russian and in English. But, when I am in the Russian Wikipedia(.ru) and I try to search in English, the results don't show up at all. Then I am foreced to go back and change language on the website to English and then proceed with my search. For example, just now I double checked this typings "помидор" in the english version of wikipedia and got no search result. And then I switched the setting to Russian language and typed the thing again and found what I needed. The same way is when I tried searching for "tomato" (I searched for that in Russian in the exmaple above) in the Russian language setting and got no result (I just read the article on the tomato. It was presented as article of the day or something like that).

Anyways, to summarize my rediculous example, I feel that there shouldn't be a need to have a limited search just within the language. If a user wants to switch sear from any other language to english, or vise versa, it should be possible without hitting the back button a couple of times to change the language, or retyping the wikipedia.org hyperlink.

Vitalyshmelkin 14:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

a devout wikipedia user

if i posted this in a wrong place please let me know

An interesting idea, but one that could cause many problems. For example, take the word "Venus". That's a word in tons of languages! How would the software choose? —METS501 (talk) 03:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

—well atleast it would give you the search options and the languages. my problem right now is that its troublesome to reload to main page and select language since many times i am looking for translations and explanation of terms in different languages.Vitalyshmelkin 06:12, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to create adult filter

The way search engines like google allow you to check filter adult content, it's true wikipedia is not censored, however someone (usually children) could easily be exposed to adult content, and I read from people complaining about it all the time on commons and here that they accidentally viewed an explicit image and trying in vain to request deletion, fact is that allowing people to be accidentally exposed to adult content is a potential liability and possibly unfair and this should be a good solution for everyone Bleh999 10:41, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a perennial proposal. Setting aside the ethical issues, the practical problems with implementing something like Google's filter algorithm are legion.

• Google spent a great deal of time and money to develop its filter. We don't have (very much) money, so we rely on people voluntarily giving up great gobs of time to accomplish things; this particular task probably won't draw the people with the necessary skills.
• Google's filter is proprietary. We'd have to redevelop it from scratch.
• Any filter – Google's included – will 'leak'. There will be false positives and false negatives.
• We have no good, objective way to decide what is 'adult' or 'obscene' material. (Google doesn't tell us what they screen, probably for good reason.)

We can't screen easily on words. Are breasts obscene? Do we lose breast cancer then, and breast feeding too? Picture are even more complicated. It's legal for women to go topless in public in many countries; it's not considered inappropriate for children to see a woman's breasts there. (Indeed, recent court decisions have held that it's legal in many parts of even the prudish United States). Is full nudity acceptable if it's line art from the Voyager plaques? What about if it's painted in full colour on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Perhaps as long as it's done artistically in black and white?

Even if we could decide on universal standards for what constituted 'adult' content there's no way to maintain those filters. Evaluation of article content would suffer from errors, lags in maintenance, and malicious vandalism. In short, your heart's in the right place, but it won't work. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:45, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not censored, Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates, Wikipedia:Profanity (Manual of Style), m:Should Wikipedia Use Profanity, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedians against censorship. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• Maybe I should be more specific, I don't just mean nudity but wikipedia hosts more explicit images and videos, such as sexual acts, masturbation, ejaculation etc, you can just click a random file and be exposed to it, I wonder if that would get wikipedia added to filtration software and lists used by educational institutions and many other places, I don't see why not since wikipedia is effectively hosting pornography. Bleh999 19:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

• Why is it censorship to not want to be exposed to explicit content? I don't believe that is true, if you present yourself as an encyclopedia you should give viewers the choice of not being unintentionally exposed to pornography. Bleh999 19:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Self-censorship is fine. But, as outlined above, it's impractical to develop an automated system for censorship on Wikipedia. Not to mention the false sense of security. As was mentioned, things will slip through the cracks of such systems. If you are concerned about children seeing things you don't want them to, be sure to be there when they're browsing Wikipedia and verify what they're about to click on before they go there. -- Kesh 02:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

We do not put images of potentially offensive material in articles where you might not expect to encounter such images. If you look at the article on ejaculation, you should expect that it might have an image which portrays that. If the image from that page was added to an unrelated article, that is vandalism and you should feel free to revert the article or report it. However, there are borderline cases, where some people might reasonably expect an explicit image and others might reasonably expect not to see one. One example is the article on woman. It currently contains a painting of a naked woman (but "below the fold") and has at times contained more explicit photographs or drawings of women. This has long been a matter of debate on the article's talk page.-gadfium 20:40, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposal - Adding New Code to Autonumber Tables

I would like to propose the addition of code to Wikipedia. The purpose of the code is to have the entries within Wikipedia tables and charts automatically numbered (as opposed to the author having to manually enter these numbers). For lists and charts that are very long, it is cumbersome and tedious for the author to manually enter each and every number. Furthermore, these numbers are subject to constant change whenever an entry is added to or subtracted from the list. Example: say an author creates a chart that alphabetically lists all of the 535 members of the US Congress. It would be laborious to list the numbers 1, 2, 3, … 533, 534, 535 near each of the 535 entries on the list. And next time the list changes (at the next election, when names are added to or subtracted from the list of Congress members), the author would have to repeat the laborious process of numbering the 535 entries on the list all over again. A Wikipedia user has developed code that addresses this issue. An example is below. Please indicate your support or opposition to this proposal so that, hopefully, consensus will allow the addition of this code to Wikipedia. If you have any questions or concerns, please post them here or on my Talk Page. Thanks. (JosephASpadaro 20:31, 28 June 2007 (UTC))

Example of output derived from auto-numbered tables code:

	Plain	Numbered
Wikitext	{| class="wikitable" ! Name ! Date |- | John | April 1, 2007 |- | Dick | April 2, 2007 |- | Harry | April 3, 2007 |}	{| class="wikitable autonumber" ! Name ! Date |- | John | April 1, 2007 |- | Dick | April 2, 2007 |- | Harry | April 3, 2007 |}
Display	Name Date John April 1, 2007 Dick April 2, 2007 Harry April 3, 2007	# Name Date 1 John April 1, 2007 2 Dick April 2, 2007 3 Harry April 3, 2007

Since this is a feature request for the MediaWiki application, try putting it on MediaWiki's bug tracker. NeonMerlin 00:36, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

User template: namespace

The problem with migrating userboxes into user subpages is that it leaves them rather disorganized and makes it difficult to assemble a complete list. It would also make it difficult to export the userboxes in bulk to another wiki. (I think a userbox-based social site would have great potential.) Nonetheless, I've seen fairly strong evidence that the Template: namespace is too front-end to contain things like userboxes, and that the Template: space should be subject to the NPOV policy but userboxes shouldn't. Thus, I suggest that to help keep userboxes organized while still separating them from article templates, we create a User template: namespace for all templates intended for user pages and not intended for articles.

This namespace would be treated the same as all others from MediaWiki's point of view; besides not requiring any new code, it eliminates the confusion that would result if the same template-transclusion code meant one template on article pages and another template on user pages. And while {{User template:whatever}} is a little awkward, it's a lot cleaner than {{User:Somebody1337/boxes/whatever}}. NeonMerlin 05:23, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the idea of a userbox namespace has been rejected before, and I think it was by User:Jimbo Wales himself. Unfortunately, I'm not sure of what link I can give you to find that discussion... Wikipedia:T1 and T2 debates maybe? That probably mentions it. --tjstrf talk 05:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a former rejected proposal; see Wikipedia:Migration of usercruft into new namespaces. --ais523 15:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Both the "usercruft" proposal and the May poll predated most, if not all, of the migration of boxes into user space. The idea has not AFAICT been discussed since. One alternative raised in the usercruft poll, which I would support, was the creation of a separate wiki for userboxes and personal content, with interwiki transclusion of templates similar to what happens with Commons images. However, this would take a lot of new code on MediaWiki. NeonMerlin 18:56, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Another fishy proposal...

Another idea from me: Maybe WikiProjects could have their own namespace??? This, that and the other _[talk] 06:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

And the advantages of this, other than being able to remove "WikiProject" from the title of the project, since that would be the namespace? (I ask, because if the advantages are minor, then it's really not worth all the work to move things, yes?) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Convenience templates for internal links in articles

See Wikipedia talk:Template substitution for details. 81.104.175.145 12:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Main Page

So, the Main Page is awesome. I frequently check it out and learn all sorts of new and fascinating things from "Today's featured article," "Did you know . . . " and "On this day . . . " all of which go a long way toward satiating my lust for trivia. But you know what would be an even more awesome addition? Most read articles--which I don't think would present the same security issues that a counter applied to every page would (as discussed in the Perennial Proposals), and might be really interesting.

We actually do have that feature (through an external server), available here. It looks like it is currently down however. Prodego ^talk 17:27, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Standard series of vandalism templates

It seems as though a number of the more common warning templates link to articles which wind up becoming vandalism magnets. Many contain links to wikipedia or IP address or other articles which keep getting hit by persistent vandalism. Would it maybe be a good idea to remove all of these sorts of wiki links from these templates?--VectorPotential^Talk 20:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes - either that, or permanently semiprotect those pages. I think Wikipedia is under perpetual semiprotection, so I think it's a moot point. Also, suppose we change the link from Wikipedia (article) to Wikipedia:About (project page), and vandals attack the project page. Is that an improvement? Shalom ^Hello 09:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Instead of "Warning: This file type may contain malicious code; by executing it, your system may be compromised."

How about something that says "use caution" rather than "it's not safe to download this file"? It could be something like this:

Files of this type may contain malicious code, and are not scanned by Wikimedia Foundation servers or staff. Users are reminded to follow sound computer security practices, treating files downloaded from Wikipedia as untrusted, and that use of the content of Wikipedia is at one's own risk.

We could also, if necessary, create and link to a help page about handling downloaded files securely. NeonMerlin 00:25, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The mess of company and corporation-related page

Right now, information here on concepts like company (in the business sense only) is rather convoluted, as even within the world of business, the term does not seem to have one set meaning — additionally, laws relating to companies are distinct all over the world. The best summary of various meanings seems to be {{CompaniesLaw}}, but even it is still lacking many definitions. I don't think that Company should redirect to Corporate law any more than species should redirect to biology (or alpha taxonomy). What in the world can be done about this? Is there really no single primary definition of "business entity" to which "company" might redirect, where all the different meanings can be explained properly? $\sim$ Lenoxus " * " 17:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Archive.org External Link Templates

Would it be appropriate to create external link templates to resources on the Internet Archive, if we haven't already? I would assume the IA would come under the first criterion (primary sources) listed on Category:External link templates, so this site would be eligible for this. Andrew (My talk) 23:28, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

There are are templates - see Wikipedia:Using the Wayback Machine. And the Internet Archive is in no way a "primary source"; it's a (gigantic) mirror. More to the point, the original source of information should always be cited even if a copy of that information happens to be on the Internet Archive, just the way that (for example) an Associated Press news article should always be credited to the Associated Press even if it happens to be published in (say) the Indianapolis Star. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:18, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism is pointless

I saw an essay on Encyclopædia Dramatica, and although their content is generally inappropriate *cough* for Wikipedia, this one may just fit a nice purpose. I Wikipediafied [1] and the result was User:Salaskan/Vandalism is pointless. Perhaps it would be a good idea to link to this page in vandalism warnings like {{uw-v1}} and {{uw-v2}}? Better not link to it from welcome templates to avoid encouraging newbies to vandalise, but we may just convince a few potential vandals to go edit constructively with this page. Obviously, when this page is improved and gains some acceptance, I will move it to the Wikipedia: namespace. Any ideas? SalaSkan 00:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

We need acceptance for essays that don't affect our policies? FunPika 01:26, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at User:Persian Poet Gal/Why Vandalism is Silly! BTW, "silly" rhymes with "Willy". Shalom ^Hello 09:29, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

FunPika, not really, but we do need acceptance if we're going to link to this essay in a vandal warning template, so I listed it here because it could do with improvement. SalaSkan 10:52, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Your essay completely fails to address the reason people vandalize and seems preoccupied with the idea that vandals are generally malicious, either because they're angry about the article or because they want to ruin Wikipedia. I had one vandal who changed Pan's Labyrinth to Flan's Labyrinth, with the edit summary of "yummy flan :)" and then reverted themself. Did they have a problem with Pan's Labyrinth? Did they want to see Wikipedia suffer? No. Also, the tone of the essay isn't as professional as I would expect for something we're masslinking to vandals, who are by nature outsider. Atropos 02:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Anon election notice

A well intentioned admin added a notice about the WMF election to Mediawiki:Anonnotice, the site wide notice shown to not logged in Wikipedia visitors. Since non-editors can not participate in the election, I feel this is a pointless distraction to the vast majority of Wikipedia visitors, and he disagrees. Since nearly no one watches Mediawiki talk pages, I am posting in a couple common places to hopefully draw further attention to this.

Please comment at Mediawiki talk:Anonnotice#Election notice is bad. Dragons flight 03:34, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Adopt Wikinews as a namespace of Wikipedia

Despite the hard work of the volunteers at Wikinews, it seems to be taking a bunch of hits on the chin. I'd like to suggest discussion about something that might help Wikinews and Wikipedia at the same time. It seems there are two big problems:

1. Wikinews could use more people.
2. Wikipedia is overrun with articles that are essentially "news reports".

My suggestion, create a new namespace on Wikipedia for News and establish a simple procedure for moving News: articles into the encyclopedia namespace when they're no longer a "current event", or to an inactive status/archive for when it's not something for the encyclopedia. Advantages: It would dramatically increase the "horsepower" behind the news reporting engine, would provide a place for non-encyclopedic articles that are covering breaking news, and would solve the licensing difficulties that currently exist with adapting Wikinews content into Wikipedia. This suggestion could be dumb, but on the off chance it isn't, I'm suggesting it here to see if any huge flaws can be identified before taking it to a larger audience. PS, please don't kill my family and pets because I suggested this, it's just an idea. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 04:05, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I oppose this in the strongest terms. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news service. It is true that they often overlap - Wikipedia will regularly have articles on things that are in the news. However, the style of writing is completely different - we are writing encyclopedia articles about current events, whereas Wikinews is writing news stories about them. The two are not one and the same. Rebecca 04:09, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this is worth looking in to. Wikinews is desperately in need of a larger userbase, and many Wikipedians are no doubt capable of writing newspaper style rather than encyclopedia style. Wikinews is too great an idea to let it putter along with less than 30,000 users and 8-10 articles per day. And as the recent New York Times Magazine article suggests, Wikipedia may be strangling Wikinews in the current arrangement.--ragesoss 04:34, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

As I said to you both on IRC, this proposal is fundamentally misguided due to Chairboy's apparent misunderstandings about the purpose of Wikinews. Any material moved from Wikipedia to Wikinews would be useless for the latter; as it would be written in encyclopedia rather than news style, it would at the very least have to be completely rewritten by Wikinews editors, and may still be of no use, since the Wikipedia article would still take the overarching view of one event, rather than the collection of single news stories approach necessary for Wikinews. This makes one of the major goals of this proposal: using Wikinews as a dumping ground for content on current events wanted off Wikipedia, completely unhelpful for all concerned.

As for the second stated intention of promoting Wikinews - did anyone think of talking to the Wikinews people about this first? I fail to see removing the independence of the Wikinews project would aid in getting it any editors. A more helpful approach would be to actually do a bit of useful coordination between the two projects, such as encouraging WikiProjects (particularly those of a geographic nature) to chip in and help at Wikinews from time to time.

Both Wikipedia and Wikinews are profoundly different projects, with a very different way of writing articles, and different editorial policies accordingly. I see no evidence that merging them in this way would benefit either project in the least, and indeed, I would argue that it would do serious damage to Wikinews. Rebecca 04:47, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not suggesting moving Wikipedia content to Wikinews, I think there might be some confusion there. Also, as I mentioned in my initial post, I'm running it up the flagpole here first before bringing it to a wider audience. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 04:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

The same issue would then apply in reverse. Any Wikinews material would be nigh-on useless for Wikipedia, since it would have to be completely rewritten into encyclopedia format. The practical effect would be that people would have to start from scratch whenever Chairboy deemed the topic to be notable to get an article on Wikipedia. There is also the serious problem of license compatibility between the two. Rebecca 04:54, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Why are you making this personal? C'mon now, that's not called for. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 04:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

If nothing else, we should be much stricter on saying "News gets immediate coverage on Wikinews. It then gets later coverage, if and only if it becomes clear that the event is of lasting and historic significance, on Wikipedia. Don't write "breaking news" articles here, not appropriate for an encyclopedia. Write them there. If one does get written, soft-redirect it to Wikinews until it's clear there's an encyclopedia article appropriate. Don't try to predict when that will happen, wait until it unambiguously has." I actually got the chance to see Wikinews in action today, and it works brilliantly. I don't want to roll it into Wikipedia, but I don't want Wikipedia to choke off its air either—and in this case, its air and the thing that will draw people to it is reporting breaking news. And they're set up to do that much better than we are. So let's let them, we'll write the encyclopedia article a day, or a week, or a year later, if and when it becomes clear there's one to be written. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:04, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Ragesoss, would you like to know what I consider Wikinews's primary failing? "Published" articles are no longer editable. Without that, you are just another news source. There is no reason one can't write in news style and focus on current events without wanting to lock everything that goes on the front page. By contrast, as Wikipedia covers items "in the news" the coverage continually improves. Even the AP will submit many rounds of updated stories during the course of major events and other publishers have various correction processes. Once upon a time someone at Wikinews wrote an article about my own real life research, but the article contained many fundemental errors in the basic science and I was told there was nothing I could do because it was "published". If you want to be more than a third tier news service, then I would encourage you to eliminate the concept of publication entirely. In the mean time, us Wikipedians will enjoy crushing you with vastly superior, continually updating coverage of current events. Dragons flight 05:11, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikinews has an incompatible license with Wikipedia. Corvus cornix 04:39, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Good point. The Free Software Foundation lists version 2.0 of the Creative Commons Attribution license as incompatible with the GFDL; while the compatibility of 2.5 is not listed, if I recall correctly it's incompatible, in which case this entire discussion is moot. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 05:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Chairboy suggested that his proposal "would solve the licensing difficulties that currently exist with adapting Wikinews content into Wikipedia". Could you clarify that statement, Chairboy? I'm not sure how that problem's solved at all. Even under a separate namespace, every contribution to Wikipedia must be licensed under the GFDL. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 05:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry! I should have clarified what I meant. Merging the Wikinews activities into Wikipedia would, as a side effect, put it under the same GFDL that Wikipedia uses because it would just be a different namespace of the same project. Past articles would not be affected, there would probably need to be a clean-break point where new stories were created in the News: namespace on Wikipedia while the live stories on the legacy Wikinews would be finished and published and, eventually, would become a static archive. Going forward, the Wikinews: or News: namespace on Wikipedia would be license-identical to the rest of the project. There are probably other viable alternatives if this is unpalatable, this is just the one I thought of initially. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 06:22, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Combining the projects is a good idea. I'm not sure a separate namespace is needed. I can imagine that there could be different standards for "news" articles than for other articles, if necessary. It is true that there is quite a bit of duplication of effort. Since Wikipedia has the bigger audience, articles about breaking news seem to be better at Wikipedia. I hardly ever look at the Wikinews articles because I find out more at Wikpedia.

There is a tendency for many people at Wikipedia to use the word "encyclopedic" to mean "like an encyclopedia" which usually means "like the Encyclopedia Britannica". The other definition, "having a comprehensive scope, especially of information or knowledge (either in general or on a specific topic)" [2] is much better suited to what we are doing. Why do we want to have these artificial constraints on the scope of the project? Wikipedia should be a comprehensive source of information and knowledge, be it old, new, serious, superficial, what-ever. Combining these different forks would strengthen the whole. News articles could have their own portals, wikiprojects, categories, etc... Frankly, I don't see how the policies and guidelines would need to change much. The biggest change is that Wikipedia would have to loosen up on what it calls encyclopedic.

While we're on the subject, there are other projects that should also be incorporated. First that comes to mind is Wiktionary. What is the OED if not an encyclopedia about words. Combined, there would be many less AFDs to argue about. Create a namespace for definitions -- "Word:" and it would so much easier to look up words (there could even be another button "word search" in the search box.) Yet another project to integrate is Wikispecies, with the addition of categorized redirects, we could create category pages at Wikpedia to replace the entire project. For an example of what it might look like, see Category:Genus Panthera. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:08, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm intrigued by this idea, Chairboy. On one hand, it would attract more users there, on the other the two projects are different enough that integrating would be difficult. As far as the issue of published articles, unlike Wikipedia, a Published Article is the same as a local newspaper publishing a reporters piece. Once it's printed, it's done. I absolutely love this feature because I wouldn't want my articles completely messed up by someone who thinks they know something about the subject, although in your case I would have tried to contact you if it was apparent that you were linked to the topic. Rider of the Storm^Aftermath|_Thunder 13:45, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear Wiki editors;

Page Counter

While checking to see what laughs Conservapedia had I noticed that on each page it has a counter telling how many times it has been viewed. Is there any way that this could be implemented, even if only as a choice registered users have. Yorkshiresky 19:12, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

No, because it would prevent us from displaying cached pages. Basically, if you don't know what caching is, just know that it allows us to display a static page many times without reprocessing it, so it can be delivered to users faster. When any content on the page changes, it has to be re-cached. —METS501 (talk) 20:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

A link to cache is useful. A.Z. 21:41, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

We do have a crude tool which shows the most popular pages. See [3].-gadfium 04:24, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipediannex

Whilst this is a proposal for a new wiki-style project outside Wikipedia, the suggestion is closely tied with Wikipedia, so I have posted it here. Apologies if this offends the forum by doing so.

The maintainers of Wikipedia, quite rightly, want to keep it free from too many unimportant articles or large quantities of information on trivial subjects. However, for some people, these unimportant articles may be important, and large quantities of information, useful. I suggest a sister site is set up (my suggestion for the title is Wikipediannex) where deleted articles are sent. Links in this site point to a Wikipediannex article if it exists, but, if not, default to pointing to Wikipedia. This way, all the information is captured, with links intact, but Wikipedia does not bear the burden of these lesser articles and any reputational risk that may be associated.

Many, if not most deleted articles are crud ("a tribute page to my best friend"). And what would happen, if it became known that Wikipedia (contrary to current policy regarding webhosting) never eliminated any article from viewing, just automatically moved it to a different project when the decision was made to delete it here?

There is also a project called Wikisource, where analytical articles (read: original research) is allowed. That other project should address most of the content that (arguably) has value but doesn't meet Wikipedia standards: Wikipedia:Verifiability or Wikipedia:Notability, for example.

So I think the questions for you are (1) if this new project isn't going to keep the sort of articles that qualify (here) for speedy deletion as nonsense, attack pages, and similar, who (at the new project) is going to spend the time sifting through the articles (and making the case) for what should and shouldn't be at that project; and (2) how much content out there is really important enough to become articles within the new project but not important enough to be included in either Wikipedia or Wikisource? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:10, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

You may also want to pay a visit to Everything2. --Ybbor^Talk 14:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Article adoption

I think we should set up an "article adoption" system. You could apply for adoption of a small article or stub in need of adoption, which would be assigned randomly. It would work much like user adoption; you could adopt multiple articles, and they'd "graduate" when they were expanded enough. It would be useful because there are many stubs and articles in need of expansion, and it would feel good seeing the article you started grow. Opinions? ~Crowstar~ 16:34, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Just find a stub using Special:Random or something. Everyone knows to expand articles and a taskforce like this isn't really needed. Sounds like too much work for something we already know to do; an article doesn't need to be assigned to you, just pick one out. Reywas92^Talk 16:49, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Could I set this up as a subpage on my userpage, like a just-for-fun project? ~Crowstar~ 17:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This "adoption" is treading a fine line and seems dangerously close to "ownership"....... Paul venter 20:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Drag and drop

Wouldn't it be nice if one could drag categories and subcategories to their correct positions instead of having to worry how to get rid of category mistakes? Paul venter 20:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be nice if we were older (then we wouldn't have to wait so long)? ...I'm no help ~ thesublime514 • talk • sign 02:23, July 3, 2007 (UTC)

Web references

This isn't a proposal - more of a question seeking a proposal. Has anyone addressed the problem that in fifty years' time, when Wikipedia will of course be "complete", probably 95% of all of the (extremely numerous) references that link to web pages will be dead and hence unverifiable? Should we be doing something about this now? Matt 01:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC).

No need. We can always go to archive.org --Steinninn 01:56, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

What about when archive.org becomes dead?! Ahhh! ~ thesublime514 • talk • sign 02:24, July 3, 2007 (UTC)

Certainly there is something we do. Provide a full reference for each source. Title, author, publisher, etc. See WP:CITE. (SEWilco 02:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC))