Template talk:High traffic

Usage

{{High-traffic|site=siteName|url=http://site.org}}

On {{{date}}}, Template:High traffic was linked from siteName, a high-traffic website. (Traffic)

All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

{{High-traffic|url=http://site.org}}

On {{{date}}}, Template:High traffic was linked from a high-traffic website. (Traffic)

All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

{{High-traffic|site=siteName|url=http://site.org|date=~~~~~}}

On 20:50, 17 November 2005 (UTC), Template:High traffic was linked from siteName, a high-traffic website. (Traffic)

All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

{{High-traffic}}

On {{{date}}}, Template:High traffic was [{{{url}}} linked] from a high-traffic website. (Traffic)

All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

{{High-traffic|site=siteName}}

On {{{date}}}, Template:High traffic was [{{{url}}} linked] from siteName, a high-traffic website. (Traffic)

All prior and subsequent edits to the article are noted in its revision history.

site is optional, if omitted, then site = url.
url is optional, if site is specified, it will reference to site on wikipedia
date is optional.

--AzaToth 10:00, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of sites put up "welcome slashdotters/farkers!" notices when it happens. Maybe we do the same? Maybe we should recommend that they try to remember to link to a known good revision instead of the live page? - Omegatron 06:12, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Nice idea. I would also link to here from one of the Wikipedia:Template messages pages? Peter S. 08:58, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Slashdotter first impressions

Ideally, we would leave articles unprotected so the slashdotters could try it out and convert to our ways. :-) Allowing vandalism so easily gives them a bad first impression though. Here are the comments I could find about Wikipedia from having Peltier-Seebeck effect linked [1]:

"Bad pics at wilki - Certainly isnt what i was expecting"
"damn editable encyclopedias - I don't know if anyone has noticed yet but the wikipedia entry to the peltier effect linked from this post is now headed at the top with two images, a poo and a peenie (as my 6 year old nephew would call them). Um...."
"The Wikipedia link... - ...appears to have some informative material, but the images -- uhh -- don't seem to go with the text."
"Someone put a perverted picture on the wiki"
"Did anyone actually look at the wikipedia link for peltier effect. Have a look :)"
"Here's a better link [google.com] for the Peltier effect. Also it won't have pictures of a penis."

Other comments I remember seeing elsewhere on slashdot [2]:

"Without these services, the quality of publications would sink to the marginall level quality of most of the stuff on the Internet (including the fascinating but supremely unreliable Wikipedia)."
"I'm also of the opinion that there should be some sort of cost of entry to access the complete tome of science. Something has to set it off from blogs and wikpedia's"

Notice the lack of comments like this:

"Wow! An encyclopedia that anyone can edit! What a great idea! I totally see how this would be an advantage!"

I, for one, think that this is an unacceptable first impression. We can stick our heads in the sand and tell ourselves that the vandalism is being dealt with effectively, or we can do something about it.

Unfortunately, I don't really know what to do about it. :-) I think a slashdotted template might be a good idea. "Welcome slashdotters! Yes, you really can edit this article. Really. You don't even have to log in. Yes, that means you can vandalize this article. Please don't. If you want to experiment with the wiki, head for the sandbox. Also, in the future, we would appreciate if you link to a known-good revision of our articles instead of the live version. This will remove the major incentive for vandalism and help both of us out. Why in the world would we leave our site so open to attack? Click here for more about our philosophy" - Omegatron 15:54, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I like the idea of encouraging people to link to a known good revision. Because of the temporary nature of a Slashdot posting, nobody who views the story will be viewing an article revision that is more than a day or two old. Besides, Wikipedia links in Slashdot posts are usually science or math articles, and such articles are unlikely to need to change significantly during the time of Slashdotting. Linking to a known good revision has the effect of protecting the page without the effort of finding an admin to do it, and without all the unsavory side effects. It should take away the incentive for most trolls, since their, uh, "work" won't be seen by most, but those who insist on seeing the live article can still do so with a single click. Aerion //talk 14:34, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that linking to a known-good revision is quite such a clearly good idea. This is largely because it amounts to page-protection by the back door. There is little reason why I (non-Slashdotter), should come along to the article, make a perfectly good edit and then discover that, actually, Wikipedia's not interested in that right now. There would be the problems of choosing a "known-good" and who would have the authority to choose it, revert to it and eventually un-choose it. Presumably this would require an admin at some point, and we might as well just have them protect the page; at least that way nobody's edits will be discarded. Reports to WP:AIAV are often dealt with pretty quickly, and there's no need for 3RR with clear vandalism. Slashdot should also take a more responsible attitude and ask their users to behave themselves because their misbehaviour damages the image of Slashdot, and by proxy, their image too. -Splash 20:58, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand your comments. Maybe you don't understand mine. I meant "When you submit a Slashdot story with a Wikipedia link, go to the history tab and click the latest revision. Then link to that URL instead." This way, all visitors will come here and see this instead of feces. It may be slightly out-of-date or there may be slight problems with them editing the page, since they don't realize there's a newest live version or they don't notice the WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. But I think that outweighs the horrible first impression we are giving a lot of intelligent potential contributors.
You think Slashdot can prevent people from trolling or vandalizing by asking nicely? :-) - Omegatron 21:44, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I understand a bit more clearly now, thanks. I'm still unclear on where you mean to post that message though. The template on the article and that above message...on Slashdot? That might make sense. What would be the ramifications of the editing of an out-of-date version of the page, though? So basically, we'd draw the curtains while the vandalism was going on, if I udnerstand correctly. We'd still let real people edit it, and would retain their edits, but would still have to revert the trolls since the actual article would still show their artwork. That's not quite as protectivist as I thought, and sounds better. We should perhaps also post notices on WP:AN and WP:AN/I when such an article is linked and have a horde of rollback buttons and blocks to hand.
Well, quite. They are not completely innocent though; I'm sure they could block those of their users that we report to them as vandalising a linked article. -Splash 23:10, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Slashdot would be interested in blocking the IP addresses of people that have allegedly vandalized Wikipedia, especially with proxy server IP addresses. I like the basic idea, though, asking for historical links to be used instead of live. — PhilHibbs | talk 14:00, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have made this suggestion in reply to a story, anyone got any mod points? :-) — PhilHibbs | talk

We would put that message in this template, and then put {{slashdotted}} at the top of an article that's been linked to. Then when some of them see it they will know why it's being vandalized, and will see the message that they should try to use an old revision next time they link to us. I don't know what you mean by "draw the curtains". If they do link to an old revision, then everyone who clicks the link will see the old revision and will never see any vandalism. Trolls will not have as much of an incentive to vandalize since people clicking on the link will not see it. But we're not protecting the article, so people can still edit it.
I don't think we are going to get any help from Slashdot in preventing vandalism of our pages. - Omegatron 14:02, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Removed Slashdot logo

Sorry, but the Slashdot logo is fair use only, and this template is certainly NOT fair use. Ral315 W_S 08:55, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There's a FAQ entry on Slashdot where CmdrTaco says he has no problems with people using their icons (which the logo you removed was one of) so long as someone e-mails him and asks permission (which I suppose someone could do). And as the anon says, this template talks about Slashdot, so it's reasonable to include a mini-logo. -Locke Cole 02:36, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Says who? it's talking about slashdot - it's as much fair use as slashdot's own use of the caldera logo in SCO stories [or any of a million other examples] is. --128.210.35.130 23:18, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Eliminating Slashdot-induced Vandalism

I think that for all popular articles, there should be a very prominent link at the top of the wikipedia article pointing to a well-moderated and unvandalized (I'm American, and Americans like to use "z"s instead of "s"s) version of an article that has a permanent link. This would greatly increase the reputability of Wikipedia for research purposes.

For instance, this would allow one to simply reference the "peer-reviewed" article in a research paper, while keeping the ability of anyone to edit the main article. When an article is voted-in as a "popular" article in need of the "peer-reviewed" service, a timetable for re-reviewing the main article (if edited) is decided upon (for instance, every 1 month or every 3 months or whatever).

For the Slashdot effect, a system could be enabled which allows a temporary version of any article to be "locked" so that, if it is a "popular" article, the latest "peer-reviewed" version would temporarily replaced the "main" article for 24-48 hours, and if it is not yet voted a "popular," then the latest version which has been left unedited for a certain period of time (say, 6 hours or 2 days) is put as the "default" article temporarily for about 24-48 hours.

This same model should also be applied if and when other ultra popular news websites cite a Wikipedia article. Also, when linking a wikipedia article to a major news website, the news website should be strongly encouraged to link directly to the latest "peer-reviewed" or (if not a popular article) the latest "stable" article (i.e. the last version left unedited for 6 hours or 2 days or whatever). Until that practice of direct linking to a reviewed or stable version of an article is used very widely by popular news websites, the previous model that I proposed for treating the "Slashdot effect" should be used.

I do understand that this may mean a lessening of the power of the average user, but with great popularity comes great responsibility.

As a general rule, the default displayed page should still remain the most recently updated version, since this is required for mistakes to be corrected and for Wikipedia to continue to grow.

What do you think? Robotbeat 17:26, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This has been suggested many many times in various ways. You all need to band together. :-) User:Omegatron/sig 22:39, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, see I was (am) a pretty new Wikipedian, so yeah. But, you're right. We're all like "oh! Let's do this one thing!" But then it never happens. Robotbeat 22:01, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

TfD nomination of Template:Slashdotted

Template:Slashdotted has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Slashdotted. Thank you. --Yath 00:14, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of the responses on TFD have been "keep if generalized to cover links from all high-traffic sites". I've made an example of what it might look like if so generalized. --Damian Yerrick 22:36, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's good and all, but most of them say "keep or generalize". I don't know of many other sites that would link and cause problems by it like Slashdot can. Also, it definitely shouldn't be a talk-page template. (See my comments on the TfD page for my reasoning). -Locke Cole 02:38, 8 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The TfD discussion can be found here. -Splash^talk 19:12, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Usage

Can we clarify what the appropriate use of this tag is? In short, I think the tag should 1) be used only on the article's main page, 2) should be removed once the high-traffic situation is over (eg. in the case of Slashdot, around 6 - 48 hours after the article was posted), and 3) should include the specific URL of the page as often as possible, so that editors know when the high-traffic is over. These issues were touched upon in the AfD discussion, but the tag is still new, so it would be nice to have these clarified. The purpose of the tag seem to be 1) to disuade vandals by warning them that lots of editors are watching, and 2) to let editors know that they should watch the page more closely. If you believe that the first one is more important, then a shorter stay on the main article may be warranted. If you believe that the second one is more important, then a longer stay on the Talk: page may be warranted. I wanted to clarify these usage-suggestions ASAP so fewer people are upset if this tag is removed after some time, or if the tag is added to a main article page. --Interiot 21:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Spacing

On the Paul Hellyer page, there are unnecessary spaces after the name of the internet site. Does anyone know how to fix the template to eliminate them? HistoryBA 19:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not seeing this. Perhaps the "external link" icon (which immediately follows the link) is not displaying properly for you. (Click here to see an example of what the banner should look like.) —Lifeisunfair 21:49, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The "external link" icon appears on the link you just gave me, but not on the Hellyer page. I can't explain why. HistoryBA 23:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I referred you to an image file (not to an actual template). What browser are you using? —Lifeisunfair 23:47, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Internet Explorer 6.0. HistoryBA 00:25, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And other images are displaying normally? Have you tried clearing your cache? —Lifeisunfair 00:40, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I just launched Internet Explorer 6, and I saw the same phenomenon that you've described. I don't know what's causing the problem, but it isn't limited to this template. —Lifeisunfair 00:46, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs in IE6 whenever an external link is forced to wrap. The problem is that the external link image doesn't wrap but the space for the it is still left after the link. Another example is at the bottom of my user page. My wikibreak is starting for real now, so please email me if you find a fix for this. WAvegetarian ^(talk) (email) ^(contribs) 00:01, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Specific instances

Might it be possible to change the image from the default to the slashdot logo, if the sitename=slashdot, or the google logo if the sitename=google/gmail? But only for a few of them? I think that would be prettier, and satisfy those with needs of having a {{slashdotted}} template. -Mys e ku rity 02:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As usually is the case with templates, the above wouldn't qualify as fair use. —Lifeisunfair 02:40, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Point taken. Your sn is perfect for the answer ;). Thanks and happy editing. -Mys e ku rity 03:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's not at all clear to me why it wouldn't be fair use to have a slashdot logo. --Random|[[User talk:Random832|832]] 09:10, 12 December 2005 (UTC) (EDIT) First of all, it's not at all clear that a green "/." has enough of a creative component to be copyrightable at all. There may be a trademark issue, but "fair use" has nothing to do with trademarks. Slashdot itself seems to think that its use of corporate logos when reporting about a particular company is fair use, and i'm not convinced they're wrong.[reply]

Comments

Is it acceptable to use this template if it was not linked from a slashdot article, but instead from a highly-rated/early comment? --Random|[[User talk:Random832|832]] 09:13, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is not specific for slashdot anymore, but any high-traffic reference is ment _→AzaToth 09:17, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but how prominent does the link have to be [on a website structured similarly to slashdot, fark, etc] to qualify?

Edits notice

What is the line stating "All prior and subsequent edits are noted in the page history." for? Looking at the history page I don't see anything particular extra markings next to the edits. Is it just a general reminder of what a wiki is and that all edits are logged? If that's all it's for it could probably be replaced by a more general statement. Peter Nelson 00:46, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It already is "a more general statement"; it replaced the text "Please keep an eye on the page history for errors or vandalism," which unfairly assumed bad faith on the part of visitors referred to Wikipedia by Slashdot. —Lifeisunfair 01:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Rationale

Is there a talk page or Wikipedia:Village pump discussion somewhere that explains why we need this template, and assuming we do, why it warrants so much screen real estate? 66.167.136.230 23:00, 16 December 2005 (UTC).[reply]

Please see the deletion debate for the rationale. I opposed this template's existence, but was outvoted by a vast majority of users. Also, when I generalized it (per consensus), my version was much smaller than the current one. —Lifeisunfair 23:45, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

talk pages

Can this template go on the talk pages of articles rather than the actual article? The template is really distracting as it was here at the top of Christmas. It makes it seem like the goal of wikipedia is to get 'high traffic' rather than being an encyclopedia 203.129.39.180 12:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There's been some debate regarding the appropriate location for this template. The present coloring is indicative of talk page placement, so the answer to your question is "yes." —David Levy 12:41, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed argument change

I'd like to propose collapsing the site and url arguments down into one, and using MediaWiki's inherent external/internal link syntax, rather than relying on increasingly complicated if statements:

Current	Proposed
{{High-traffic \| site=siteName \| url=http://site.org }}	{{High-traffic \| site=[http://site.org siteName] }}
{{High-traffic \| url=http://site.org }}	{{High-traffic \| site=http://site.org }}
{{High-traffic \| site=siteName \| url=http://site.org \| date=~~~~~ }}	{{High-traffic \| site=[http://site.org siteName] \| date=~~~~~ }}
{{High-traffic}}	{{High-traffic}}
{{High-traffic \| site=siteName}}	{{High-traffic \| site=[[siteName]]}}
as far as I can tell, not possible	{{High-traffic \| site=[[siteName (some long title)\|siteName]] }}

The issue that promted this suggestion is that for Half-Life 2 mods, we really want to do something like this, but apparently can't:

eg. neither of these work anyway:

{{High-traffic | site=Steam (content delivery)<nowiki>|</nowiki>Steam }}

The change would require an update of some of the backlinks, but there are approximately ~40, so this is not a hindrance. --Interiot 07:54, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Current	Proposed
{{High-traffic \| site=siteName \| url=http://site.org }}	{{High-traffic \| site=[http://site.org siteName] }}
{{High-traffic \| url=http://site.org }}	{{High-traffic \| site=http://site.org }}
{{High-traffic \| site=siteName \| url=http://site.org \| date=~~~~~ }}	{{High-traffic \| site=[http://site.org siteName] \| date=~~~~~ }}
{{High-traffic}}	{{High-traffic}}
{{High-traffic \| site=siteName}}	{{High-traffic \| site=[[siteName]]}}
as far as I can tell, not possible	{{High-traffic \| site=[[siteName (some long title)\|siteName]] }}