Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

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

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Splitting up the village pump

As a solution to the village pump regularly being 200kb or more, I propose a trial of splitting the pump into different areas. The five proposed sections are at Wikipedia:Village pump sections. If people want to still post on the main village pump, they can, but they find it easier to find replies to their questions on a more focused page. Angela . 22:46, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Good idea! My only reservation is that it might create redundancies, namely:

Wikipedia:Village pump (help) is redundant with Wikipedia:Help desk. Even if the former is for non-newbie questions, where do we draw the line between newbie and non-newbie questions — and is it worth it?
Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) and Wikipedia:Policy thinktank. The former is more brainstorming; the latter is for more formal proposals. But again, where do we draw the line, and is it worth it?

Fuzzy lines are generally a bad thing — we have hundreds of pages in the Wikipedia namespace. New Wikipedians are daunted by such a large menu — I know I was. We should minimize the amount of "I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but...". However, I do agree that 200kb is sinfully large, so some type of split is necessary. Splitting it as you suggest is an excellent idea, though it has a few kinks right now. • Benc • 23:24, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is a nice idea. --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]] 23:29, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ditto regarding the help page. It seems redundant with both the help desk and Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]] 23:32, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps proposals should be developed on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) until suitable for inclusion on Wikipedia:Policy thinktank? --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]] 23:42, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sounds fine. I would argue that Wikipedia: Village Pump (help) could simply redirect to the Help Desk. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 23:43, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

I agree the Help one isn't needed. That leaves just four sections. Is that a good number? Or would further subdivision be useful? The Wikia:Forums are planned to have about 11 sections, as well as additional topic-related ones. Would this be too many for the village pump? Angela . 00:37, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

I am about to violate my own maxim that disagreeing with Angela probably means I'm wrong: I monitor Village Pump and Reference Desk trying to help people out. I'm not interested in monitoring half a dozen pages for this purpose. -- Jmabel 02:49, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

I see your point, but actually, couldn't this also make your job easier in a way? It allows you to filter out those people who don't need need help (e.g., proposals). You can just put whichever topics you want to monitor onto your watchlist, and leave the others off. • Benc • 03:12, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe. I'm skeptical. -- Jmabel 03:33, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Good idea - lets give it a trial and tweak as necessary in the light of experience Apwoolrich 07:24, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Personally, like Jmabel, I'm skeptical about the value of splitting the village pump. The Help page definitely is redundant and people should go to the Help Desk, that's why it's there. --Michael Snow 19:52, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I too think it sucks, so what if it's 200Kb? just scroll down a little longer, this is confusing, redundant and will just mean that there are fewer eyes looking at each question. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 20:58, 2004 Sep 15 (UTC)

Why do we use wiki software for Village Pump at all, seems like something more along the lines of scoop or wordpress would be much more suited to what we're doing here. [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 05:54, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I like the idea. I particularly like the way these new pages can coexist alongside the existing Pump. Let's give them a go; If people like them they will prosper, if people don't like them, they'll just wither. Perhaps this particular split is not ideal, but that can be fine-tuned by creating further splits as they seem needed, and if a page is truly redundant, one of the two will wither and die. Very democratic, very Wiki. Andrewa 01:29, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

For people who don't mind huge pages, and want to see the whole village pump on one page, there could be a page which included all the other ones via templates. See User:Angela/Sandbox for an example. Angela . 09:36, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Doesn't help with watchlisting, though. -- Jmabel 05:35, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

Oh Angela, I had the exact same idea as you, except 12 hours later (see below). You brits always have a headstart on me. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 12:14, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I noticed that example had two tables of contents, since this page has a __TOC__. Since it was just where the TOC would be anyway I removed it. Goplat 15:30, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A new feature now lets you edit a page that is included in another one via section [edit] links. This means you can edit this section of this page directly from User:Angela/Sandbox, which makes inclusion of templates a lot more useful. I'm wondering now whether there is any reason not to split the village pump up since the subpages can all be included on one page, and people can edit those from that page. People who are only interested in one section can go straight there, and can watchlist that section, but those who want the whole pump still have that. Angela . 16:26, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

This page is now included on the main village pump, which hopefully is good for people who want the whole thing, and for people who only want to see sections. The next thing to do will be to move the "miscellaneous" section on the main village pump to a subpage, but I'll wait to see if there are objections to that first. Angela . 01:23, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

I was going to start categorising "miscellaneous" discussions into the existing subsections, and cut and paste one or two when I realised that screws up the edit history. Does that matter? Could I continue to get rid of the existing miscellaneous mess?

Also, I don't think we should have a miscellaneous section. Having clear sections should cut down on discussions not appropriate for village pump. Perhaps renaming the "news" section to "notices" would be better though? Do we need any other subsections?

Comments? zoney ♣ talk 15:29, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think it's perfectly acceptable (and helpful) to summarily move discussions to appropriate VP sections. Don't worry about the edit history issues: as long as you leave a good edit summary ("moved discussion from Wikipedia:Village pump to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)") on both pages, future Wikiarcheologists will be able to track changes easily. (Although I doubt that they'll be lining up out the door to track changes to the VP, though. :-))

As for whether we need a "miscellaneous" section in the first place: I'm not sure. Do our sections cover absolutely everything that should be posted to the VP? Even if they do, I'd wait another week or so to remove the misc section entirely. This would ease the transition into sections; people are still getting used to it. (Evidenced by the fact that we have so many posts still going into the misc section.)

If it turns out we do need a misc section, I agree with Angela that it should be made a subpage rather than be part of the main VP page. • Benc • 19:33, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Template:Notstub

Idea withdrawn for the time being

One minor thing that's always bugged me about how our stub system works is that there are some articles in existence that are stub-length, never likely to be significantly expanded, but certainly worthy of inclusion. Examples: Juturna, Fontus, Eanmund, and Setnakhte.

Putting the stub tag on articles like these is an eyesore for our readers. It's a futile cry for help — sources for these topics simply do not exist anymore. They're lost in the sands of time.

Despite this, well-meaning editors will inevitably mark these articles as stubs, no matter how many times it's reverted.

My solution to this (admittedly minor) problem is Template talk:Notstub, an "invisible" tag. Please read it over, and decide whether it's a good idea or not. Thanks, • Benc • 06:44, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay, thanks to everyone who's commented on Template talk:Notstub. I'm abandoning this idea for the time being in favor of increased visibility for Wikipedia:Stub categories. • Benc • 01:43, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for image manipulation --- Good or bad idea?

I was thinking of creating Wikipedia:Requests for image manipulation (WP:RFIM for short) as a place to handle requests to modify images. Any thoughts? [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 20:58, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This was originally one of the things Cleanup was going to be for. Is there any advantage to splitting it away from there? Angela . 21:39, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Things like this get lost on Cleanup, and the Cleanup page doesn't lend itself to discussion of images. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 21:41, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I was recently toying with idea of suggesting Wikipedia:Requests for assistance as a general "can someone fix this image/template/table/botched page move/whatever" page, given the number that appear on the pump. Never got around to it, though. Are there enough image manipulation requests to justify it's own page? - 22:01, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC) Lee (talk)

I think the Requests for assistance page is an excellent idea! Rick K 00:07, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

What will make or break this idea, and also the split of the Village Pump, is whether a sufficient cadre of competent helpers read it and answer the questions posed. I'm not sure I know how to attract such cadre, but that's the trick. I think it's a good idea, but I'm not competent to say how to sell it or what to call it. Andrewa 11:12, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Idea

How about we do a permanent split (no posting on the main Vil Pump page) and then do something like:

Village Pump -- News

Village Pump -- Technical

and then every heading under the main headings would have an 'add to this discussion' link (like Vfd) and we keep the box with the different village pump links (so we can post). — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 21:01, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I like this idea. The way it is now, it's sort of confusing whether to post to a subpage or to the main page, and when checking the Village Pump for new stuff, I often just check the main page and I don't bother clicking all of the links to the subpages, thus the posts on the subpages are probably getting less exposure. --Chessphoon 03:25, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Shortcut icons

It would be very helpful if each wiki had a different shortcut icon. For example, with several wikis open in different tabs, they would have a different icon depending on which wiki is in the tab. I have made some for Meta, Wikibooks, and Wikiquote with Fennec's help, and they are here. What do people think of that? And would someone kindly put those icons on the wikis? --Yath 03:13, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I like the idea. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:52, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The following line appears in the HTML for every page served from Wikipedia:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" />

which provides an icon to be used when your system makes a shortcut. (I think Mozilla can use it to decorate tabs as well, although IE seems to be behind in that regard :-) It seems to work in my IE Favourites menu. I don't know whether the other examples in your list already have such an icon: maybe yours coud be used if not? HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 14:59, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that all wikis in the Wikimedia foundation have the same icon, which is a capital W. I find it useful to have pages from several different wikis open at the same time. All of their tabs have the same icon. If they were different, well, life would be that much nicer. --Yath 03:03, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The logical way would be to add the appropriate language code to say the bottom-right of the Capital-W icon, which would likely be doable even if rather small. I did think of using a flag-type background, but struck out when trying to think which flag you'd use for :en: :-) I would have thought trying to come up with a distinct icon for each and every language wiki would be an impossible task, never mind the confusion of trying to recall which is which on your screen :-) --Phil | Talk 11:53, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Disclaimer?

I propose adding the following to the bottom of all article:

Disclaimer: All information provided on Wikipedia is presented 'as is'. No warranty is offered, express or implied.

or something like that. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:26, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is a link to Wikipedia:General disclaimer at the bottom of every page? -- Chuq 01:51, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is? If not, there should be. If there is, I never noticed it in my 1 1/2 years here. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:25, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It just says, in rather small letters, Disclaimers - which maybe isn't obvious enough. OTOH, a label with a summary of the disclaimers wouldn't actually be any more noticeable, except that it would take up a bit more screen-width, so maybe this is more of a skin-design issue: how can we make it so that people will actually notice our disclaimer link, so that it's useful. - IMSoP 14:33, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Enabling the instant revert button globally

I have been discussing with Angela the reasons behind disallowing normal users to use the instant revert button. Basically, there is no reason why an administrator can revert a page easily and a normal user is obligued to revert it by force (open > select history > click edit > save as). Angela's concern was that enabling it globally would allow vandals to revert fixes immediatly. However, this is an evitable situation:

We could simply have a timer that disallows simple users to use the revert button. Say that the timer is set for 5 minutes: if I revert a page, I can't use the revert button until 5 minutes have passed (as I'm not an admin, just a simple user). However, an admin is not constrained by this timer: he can use the revert button again and again and again without a time limit — just at it is now.

This can be achieved by comparing the timestamp of the user's last use of the revert() function on a certain page with the timestamp of the server; ie: user used revert() on X article at 14:00:00 09/20/2004 and the timestamp of the server is 16:00:00 09/21/2004: the user is allowed to use the revert() function. —Joseph | Talk 23:34, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Would you also disallow the use of &bot? Because if not, then they can hide their reversions from recent changes (if I understand how &bot works) and vandalism could occur completely unnoticed. --Golbez 23:37, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Very few people should be allowed to bot users, and nobody should ever be able to bot themself. --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]] 02:26, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Isn't &bot available to admins only? Why would we disallow it then? —Joseph | Talk 03:46, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

I am totally against the idea, and after this timestamp thing I still am really uneasy against it. Sysops are trusted members of the community. If you want to be one, simply petition to be one. If you have done good for wikipedia and people know you, chances are you'll be accepted. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 01:27, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's the problem Ilya, I don't want to be a sysop but I want to be able to revert a page without going back to Bedrock. It is absurd to have to revert manually when images themselves can be reverted. I don't understand why the timestamp approach bothers you, it is just that: an approach. There are other ways to do this, I just gave one suggestion for it. —Joseph | Talk 03:46, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

This seems reasonable. I'd like to point out that any delay at all would simply discourage malicious users from using the revert mechanism, instead vandalizing manually. Consider that automatic reverts are very clearly marked, while a normal user may use any summary they like and mark their revert a minor edit. Allowing all users to revert, without restriction, should generally be beneficial.

Some fair version of the three-revert rule should be implemented on the server, regardless. I'd suggest placing a limit of four consecutive reverts on a specific article, by any user, possibly comparing subsequent edits to the recent history for further protection. Unless manual reversion is a widespread problem currently, allowing all users to use the automated function would be harmless. --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]] 02:23, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Incidentally, are MD5 checksums generated for pages upon editing? That might remove considerable load from comparing previous versions. If not, MD4 would be a better choice, as it's considerably faster (on the other hand, it might just slow the server more, since reverting isn't much of a problem). --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]] 02:51, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Considering some of the complaints I've seen on some image talk pages where people were accidentally reverting images, I would have to argue against any instant revert capabilities. For the average user there should always be some type of confirm asking if the user is sure they really want to revert. —Mike 02:39, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

A problem with the image pages is that (del), (cur), and (rev) are cryptic (surely there's no reason for chopping the words in half; they're only six characters). If there isn't a confirmation button for reverting, there should be. --[[User:Eequor|η

υωρ]] 02:56, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Mike you said it yourself: ask users before reverting. Something like: "are you sure you want to revert this?" Once he answers yes then proceed to revert. —Joseph | Talk 03:46, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Then why give them the option at all, since that's the same number of clicks required for a regular non-admin revert? It would require recoding Mediawiki, I assume, to add this capability, and not merely a policy change. --Golbez 16:17, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

When you revert manually you have to do at least 3 clicks: select the version, click edit, click save. With automatic revert this can be short down to 1 or 2 clicks. The question of reverting could be a user preference: "do you want to be asked before reverting?" or simply "don't ask me again when reverting". —Joseph | Talk 22:41, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

The Accessible Wikipedia

I was just reading what some have said about Wikipedia... like you can now plug a phone line in anywhere in the world and suddenly have a tremendous encyclopedia at your fingertips. (Harold Rhinegold, I think). But, that got me thinking.

There is a large amount of official HTML code that is rarely used and, I would wager, not entirely supported by the major browsers. This code deals mostly with accessibility - web browsing made easy for the blind and immobile.

I was wondering if anything could be done to assist this important segment of the population. I don't know anything about accessibility coding, so some of these questions may seem horribly naive:

Is the site itself designed with accessibility in mind? i.e. when a blind person navigates to a page, and he has a page reader, does it read off "Main Page, Community Portal, Current Events"... etc. on every page?

Many articles on here are formatted specifically for visual presentation, but may gum up accessible browsers. Like my congress tables, or any article that begins with a table of information, or what not. Do readers and such bypass these, or do they read every word?

I guess what I'm getting at here is maybe there should be an option for a blind-compatible alternate page in some cases. I don't know, maybe people would have to select that they're blind (or need an accessible copy no matter why) at the front page, or in their login, or maybe just give the option on appropriate pages. Like {{accessible}} could lead you to a more accessible copy of the page, but remain invisible if you are using a normal browser. It almost sounds worthy for an entire other wikipedia (and maybe this IS better suited for simple:, I don't know) but only a small portion of the pages would benefit from this.

Just some rambling thoughts. I'm sure there must be information on the web somewhere about all this. --Golbez 21:46, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

This is an important matter and could be discussed and written about endlessly (and often is amongst those of us who design websites). Here's a very brief reply. The site does appear to be designed with accessibility in mind, and a fair bit of thought seems to have gone into the XHTML and CSS used. This sort of thing is best achieved with CSS rather than creating alternate pages, and that's what Wikipedia does. If you view a Wikipedia page with stylesheets disabled, or in a text browser etc., you go straight into the main content and all the "edit this page" stuff is down the bottom out of the way. Consequently if you were to use a voice browser or an embossed braile display, for example, it shouldn't be too much of a mess. There is a problem on Wikipedia with people sticking deprecated HTML into pages to come up with some fancy effect. The evil <font> tag is often spotted. People also frequently fail to give images a good "alt" tag. Tables often pose an accessibility problem, but if well designed there is nothing inherently wrong with them, except that they should only be used when there's a tabular relationship between data, and not for layout purposes. Whether a Wikipedia table is a horrible mess or not varies from case to case. — Trilobite (Talk) 22:03, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Precisely. The MediaWiki developers have done a good job (a really good job!) of producing validating XHTML code with perfect CSS, but we Wikipedians tend to ruin it by forgetting to close tags or adding obsolete ones that the server can't improve. We'll need <span> (see [[Wikipedia:Span tag poll) and either a bot or an HTML corrector before all the Wikipedia pages truly validate. --Ardonik.talk()^* 00:44, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

I voted against span. :) Because I wanted a pure wiki version of it. --Golbez 00:57, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Interlinking with WikiTravel

I don't know just how closely Wikitravel and Wikipedia are linked (in terms of brainpool; I know why travel is separate, and the differences in license, etc.) but I thought it might be useful to maintain a policy of interlinking between the two. I.e. their WikiTravel page on Charlotte would extlink to Charlotte, North Carolina, and ours would extlink to their page on it. That way, the two projects complement each other without actually joining together. Are there any objections to this, or comments, or? --Golbez 01:01, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Wouldn't hurt. Wikitravel already has a page on links to Wikipedia for the other direction. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:51, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Don't need an official policy, just be bold and do it. I'm sure many will thank you for it. --Phil | Talk 11:57, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

I've done a couple of these, but I'm no longer active in WikiTravel. Go for it, I'm sure virtually everyone will see this as a plus. -- Jmabel 21:47, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

WikiPiccy anyone?

I have wanted to add more images to small and medium sized articles.

Could a new Wiki, called WikiPiccy, be created, so that 5, 10 or more images could be uploaded and stored, and then some of them linked into WikiPedia? This would be a pictorial adjunct to WikiPedia.

N12345n 22:13, 2004 Sep 23 (UTC)

That's what m:Wikimedia Commons is aiming to do. The wiki is in its infancy, though. Feel free to help out in any way you can. • Benc • 00:30, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I suggest...

Let's make a 'Questions' section of the village pump. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 23:54, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be redundant with Wikipedia:Help desk? Maybe WP:HD the help desk be added to Template:Villagepumppages? And/or move the whole thing to Wikipedia:Village pump (questions)? • Benc • 00:33, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

~~I say move it all to Village Pump (Questions) -- because I don't think anyone uses the HD, and the VP would be a more convenient place to do it.~~ — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:42, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Have you actually looked at Wikipedia:Help desk recently? It's huge! We do not want all that dropped in here as well! --Phil | Talk 10:59, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Ilyanep, I can assure you that someone uses the Help Desk....a number of people, in fact. And the Village pump is so well-used that adding yet another function would be overwhelming. Help Desk was created to alleviate the problems here, as I recall. Jwrosenzweig 21:52, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay, then I am ignorant — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 22:36, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)