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I've always thought that it would be helpful to have the English translation of the languages in their table (the one near every article, with the links to other Wikipedia versions). I'm NOT suggesting to replace the native names with Enlish translations, but to make them pop out when you move your pointer over it, something similar to what happens in the front page of Wikipedia for languages written in non-Latin scripts (in that case what shows up is a translitteration of the native pronunciation). I think it would be very useful expecially for languages using Cyrillic/Arabic/Greek/bizzarre alphabets (العربية, ܐܪܡܝܐ, فارسی, مصرى, مازِرونی, پنجابی, اردو), ideographic languages (for example: 中文, 日本語, 粵語, 吴语, 文言, 贛語), languages with similar names (Gàidhlig, Gaelg, Gaeilge and Galego, Deutsch and Deitsch, Slovenčina and Slovenščina), counterintuitive names (Euskara, Hrvatski, Magyar, Nederlands, Shqip)... The only languages to retain their name in English would be: Esperanto, Volapük, Tegalog, Occitan, Ido, Afrikaans, Võro, Pangasinan, Scots, Zazaki, Novial, Arpitan, Wolof, Tok Pisin, Papiamentu, Igbo, Picard, Bislama, Twi, Sesotho, Kirundi, Choctaw, Afar, Kuonyama, Hiri Motu, Kanuri (27 over 271 wikilanguages).
Is it possible? --151.51.45.45 (talk) 12:54, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
What would it be helpful for? How often will people want toi look at a Wikipedia in a language they don't understand? For the few cases where they might it seems hardly very useful to me and not worth the bandwidth to send it to everybody who accesses a page. Dmcq (talk) 22:52, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
These are the main reansons I could think of:
It would be more user-friendly to give the possibility to people who speak only English to understand every word in their version of Wikipedia. Now almost every article has a (sometimes huge) list of links the averange user don't know what language they're linking to.
It often happened to me (but maybe it's just me) to seek a certain information in languages I don't speak or read at all. You could be seeking for the Japanese version of the name of a scientist/politician/actor to integrate it in the English article. You could be trying to check a list of Prussian kings looking in the German Wikipedia. You could be searching for the Catalan name of a tipical food. You could be searching for a picture regarding an obscure Korean politician in the Korean Wikipedia. You could be organizing a trip to Poland and want to know the Polish names of the city you want to visit. You could be checking a list of Hungarian exonims in Slovakia.
This is not really a reason but a question: why the main international page of Wikipedia (the one with the shelves of books and the list of every version) has the pop-out function? Why does it shows the translitteration of languages with non-Latin scripts?
This exact suggestion actually came up fairly recently. I forget which pump it was on. I fully agree though, it'd be great to have a tool-tip with the English translation. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:12, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
If you wanted this it sounds like you'd want to invoke a translator at the same time. Just clicking on such a link for a language you don't understand just sounds too low a requirement to cut down everybody else's bandwidth for. This sounds to me more like something that a special add-on would be for people who feel they want to do this sort of thing. Dmcq (talk) 18:16, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
I've got a slightly better script which uses Tra's script (screenshot to the right), but adds little blue (t)'s next to each link which links to a Google Translated version of the page. (The red t's mean that the page can't be translated). I had it proposed as a gadget, but I got no response (Ok, there was a response from Svick, but no definite 'yes' or 'no')
That looks like a quite a useful feature. I have sometimes gone to other language wikis to see what they say about something and having it translated like that makes it generally much more generally useful. Dmcq (talk) 20:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Template namespace synonym/alias
I propose that template namespace and template talk namespace acquire synonyms, since people keep making pseudo-namespace redirects that keep getting deleted at RFD.
I propose that "MSG:" be used for template namespace and "MST:" be used for template talk namespace, as aliases.
Reasoning behind this, is that "MSG:" is the old pseudonamespace name for template namespace, from when templates were first tested on wikipedia.
Again with the pointless namespace alias proposals... FYI, "msg" is the ISO 639-3 code for the Moraid language, and thus the "MSG:" prefix is reserved for possible interwiki links if the Moraid Wikipedia is ever created. This proposal is technically impossible. --Yair rand (talk) 07:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
There are a number of criteria which can be used to evaluate the usefulness of a particular namespace alias, including:
Would it conflict with a ISO 639-3 code? ("No" is preferred)
Would it conflict with any existing articles or redirects? ("No" is preferred)
Would it save time with linking and searching? ("Yes" is preferred)
Is the alias an intuitive shortcut for its target namespace? ("Yes" is preferred)
Are pages in the target namespace frequently linked or searched? ("Yes" is preferred)
For this proposal:
Yes, "msg" is the ISO 639-3 code for the Moraid language.
No, there are no pages with titles that begin with MSG:.
Not really. For linking, it is one less character to type {{tl|Title}} than [[MSG:Title]]. For searching, the difference between Template: and MSG: is only 5 characters.
No. MSG could stand for message, yet many templates are not messages or notices.
Not really. There are a few templates which are highly-used and -searched, but the majority are not.
{{tl|Title}} - that's not right. Since if you type "MSG:xxx" that's three fewer characters, plus an edit & preview less than {{tl|Title}}, and four fewer characters than "TEMPLATE:xxx". Further, if you type "MST:xxx" that's nine fewer characters than "Template talk:xxx".
I wasn't proposing this as a shortcut for in-wiki text, it is a shortcut for the purposes of users actually accessing the templates directly.
I chose "MSG" because that is what Wikipedia named templates itself in the beginning. If Wikipedia/MediaWiki people thought it was an appropriate name to use, seems pretty good to me.
Conflicting with a language code is pretty much a fatal blow. Plus there's a reason why MediaWiki no longer refers to templates as "messages", and stopped doing so many years ago. If anything, "msg" would be more suited as an alias for "MediaWiki:". However, there are also complications with {{msg:Foo}} which would also render it unusable. Happy‑melon21:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
This has been asked many times before I believe, and I think the argument against it is that it would be too taxing on the servers to find a page that isn't a stub or a disambiguation page every time a user randomly chooses a page to make it not worth it. Gary King (talk)06:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
There is User:AnomieBOT/RandomPage. I do think we should try and make a lot more use of randomness, to help guide people into corners of Wikipedia they otherwise wouldn't go. But for that to work well the randomness needs to be limited: not a random page from the entirety of Wikipedia, but a random page from WikiProject X, needing cleanup of type Y. Rd232talk15:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Why not create a boolean field in the page table that is set to true if the article is of a type that should appear in Special:Random and false otherwise? That field would also be useful for mw:Extension:PureWikiDeletion, which has a Special:RandomExcludeBlank page that finds a random page, checks if it's blank, and if so, runs the code again, etc. It would be more efficient and allow for reuse of the regular Special:Random code if there were that boolean field. And I don't see what would be so expensive about it. Tisane (talk) 21:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
stub grammar
Here is how a stub notice looks now: "This on a South Korean institution of tertiary education article is a stub. ..." This is a mauling of the English language. Can some-one please re-word it to some-thing like: "This article on... is a stub." Kdammers (talk) 01:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
I propose that you remove or rename the Skin in the Appearance tab in My Preferences area (http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Special:Preferences). The name of the Skin in question is "Chick" - it is the first one on the list; (if this is referring to baby birds, please just let me know and I will withdraw my proposal). Otherwise, the term Chick as you will see in the Dictionary is considered offensive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barb9 (talk • contribs) 05:12, 19 April 2010
It's an ambiguous term, who knows what it refers to? As it can refer to baby birds or even be a name I'm happy to assume that it isn't intended to be offensive. Fences&Windows19:34, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Are there any statistics available on skin usage? I couldn't find any mention in a few searches, but might not be using the right keywords... -- Quiddity (talk) 20:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
The name is somewhat odd. Is there any chance that it was just an unnoticed misspelling of chic? Or an abbreviation or initialism of something? Or just something not English? --Yair rand (talk) 22:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Add Userificator as a additional User Group
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Proposal deemed inappropriate as mistakes cannot be reverted
What do people think about adding Userificator as a additional User Group
The users in this group would be able to view the history of a deleted page, and also userfy articles to own userspace or another users userspace, however they won't be able to restore pages to the article space - a admin would need to do that. In brief the user rights in this proposed group would be:
Restoring Articles to Userspace (userfy
View Deleted History/Revisions(Page/User)
The things prohibited to this proposed group would be:
Deleting Articles
Restoring Articles to Mainspace
It wouldn't affect the sysop's tool but would enable workload to decrease at Request for Undeletion and make it easier for non sysop's to decided whether an article should remain deleted before getting sysop attention, also if the requester wants it non-admins would be able to undelete said article into their userspace, but not Mainspace as that would require a sysop to carry out. Paul238712:17, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Per [2], granting non-administrators access to view deleted revisions is a major no-no; any group having access to deleted revisions would need to have been through a vetting process similar in rigour to RfA. There is also no way to prevent such users from restoring pages into userspace, then moving them back to the mainspace once restored. Happy‑melon13:43, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
In addition to what Happy-melon said, giving people the ability to undelete but not delete is also a problem, as it creates a situation where someone can do something that they cannot undo on their own, which is something that is generally avoided. Mr.Z-man14:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Will drop this proposal, just thought I get other peoples opinion , but as the above two posters disagreed with it theres no point carrying this discussion further. Paul238714:17, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
It was very frustrating to see that this discussion ended up with only a bot caring enough to archive it, instead of someone implementing it or offering constructive criticism.
This is, to summarise, changes to existing templates to direct people to write news articles where they belong - on Wikinews.
Where Wikinews has an article (embedded titles link to nonexistent pages)
This article is about a person who has recently died or has recently been reported dead. Some information, such as that pertaining to the circumstances of the person's death and surrounding events, may change as more facts become known. Obituaries are not appropriate for Wikipedia; please consider contributing to the obituary on Wikinews.
This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. Wikipedia is not a news site; please consider expanding Wikinewscoverage, or writing a follow-up.
This article is related to a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. Wikipedia is not a news site; please consider expanding Wikinewscoverage, or writing a follow-up.
This article or section may be slanted towards recent events. Please try to keep recent events in historical perspective. Wikipedia is not a news site; please consider expanding Wikinewscoverage, or writing a follow-up.
Where Wikinewsdoes not have an article:
This article is about a person who has recently died or has recently been reported dead. Some information, such as that pertaining to the circumstances of the person's death and surrounding events, may change as more facts become known. Obituaries are not appropriate for Wikipedia; an obituary would be more appropriate on Wikinews, see here.
This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. Wikipedia is not a news site; in-depth news coverage is more appropriate on Wikinews.
This article is related to a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. Wikipedia is not a news site; in-depth news coverage is more appropriate on Wikinews.
This article or section may be slanted towards recent events. Please try to keep recent events in historical perspective. Wikipedia is not a news site; in-depth news coverage is more appropriate on Wikinews.
I see absolutely no points in the prior discussion that, to me, appear to make this an unreasonable request. Can this please be implemented? --Brian McNeil /talk03:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Oppose current proposed wording. Some directing to Wikinews seems like a good idea, but some of that language seems to send a confusing message, as if the subsequent content on tagged pages is being criticized for being on the wrong wiki. Equazcion(talk) 04:40, 8 Feb 2010 (UTC)
I'm certainly happy to try and improve the wording - if I can have specific actionable points. I think the proposed changes to {{Recentism}} is the only case where there may be 'active' criticism of Wikipedia content where the template is in use. ---Brian McNeil /talk10:29, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree with concerns about the wording. We don't want the template to send the message "don't add anything about recent events to this article," but rather "the article should reflect a long-term view of the subject." Dcoetzee10:37, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
I agree, the current phrasing might be interpreted to "don't add anything recent". Instead of the current comment, "Wikipedia is not a news site; please consider contributing to the obituary/article", perhaps something along the lines of "Although Wikipedia permits content regarding recent events, it should have a historical perspetive, as this is not a news site. In-depth news-style coverage is more appropriate on Wikinews", with a link to WP:NOTNEWS? But I don't have any real objections to the current phrasing either. Tempodivalse[talk]14:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
This is a baffling view, to me. It's not as though we'll be creating links to Google news, or even something like the NYT with this. Wikinews is a fellow WMF project, so the statement that it has no bering on us is simply silly, to me. I'd be very interested in hearing a reasonable explaination, though. — V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 22:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia should be the best encyclopedia possible. That a sister project also covers similar content does not matter. I you think Wikipedia should limit the content about recent events, then just say that instead of referring to Wikinews. These additions seems to imply that recent events should not be mentioned on Wikipedia because of Wikinews. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:27, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
I think that we can do better then agreeing to disagree here though, which is specifically why I challenged this oppose. There's a bit of a disconnect between differing viewpoints here, and their not mutually exclusive (meaning that both the opposition to the proposal and the willingness to disagree are somewhat misplaced). The main issue here is exactly what you said yourself Apoc: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is not a news source. On the other hand, Wikinews is not an encyclopedia. It's generally a good thing to define goals and structure for participants, especially in a collaborative, "headless" environment such as our WikiMedia Foundation projects. What I'm really curious about is this: what is it about the proposed changes that makes you believe that the proposal is attempting to convey that "Wikipedia should limit the content about recent events"? I don't see that assertion being made myself (at least, not so bluntly), but as an advocate I'm perfectly willing to admit that my own bias may be affecting my judgment. — V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 19:26, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Support The existence of Wikipedia policy does have bearing on Wikipedia content. (In case this isn't blatant enough: When content is inappropriate for Wikipedia according to Wikipedia policy, it is then appropriate to direct prospective constributors to the project where that content would be appropriate.) --Pi zero (talk) 13:54, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Support per Brian McNeil and WP:NOTNEWS. The existence of Wikinews has direct bearing on Wikipedia and its content. Although I think articles on recent events are okay on Wikipedia, they should have a long-term view over the topic, and people should know that there is a more suitable venue if they want to add certain things, such as obituaries (if someone very famous dies, for instance). One suggestion - don't italicise "Wikinews", I think that looks a bit out of place. considering "Wikipedia" is never italicised. Tempodivalse[talk]14:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
Oppose; just seems to make the templates more obtrusive without offering any concrete advice for reader or editor. Any relevant Wikinews content should already be linked as a sister project link. None of the new links do much to explain how to write content in a manner appropriate for Wikipedia. Christopher Parham(talk)16:22, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps a link to WP:NOTNEWS would solve that problem? Also, I'm not sure how adding a single small, barely visible line to the template makes it much more obtrusive than it already is. *shrugs* Tempodivalse[talk]21:06, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
I think you miss the point of the templates in the first place Christopher; to tell people certain content is inappropriate for Wikipedia. The addition is one line, one small line, suggesting where the content may be more appropriate. --Brian McNeil /talk21:11, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Strong support - This is good for Wikipedia, and good for Wikinews. We already tell people when content is inappropriate for Wikipedia; we should continue to do so. While we're at it, it's a good thing to tell them where the content really should go.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:18, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
Support It stikes a good balance between letting contributors know that their contributions are valued and finding the correct project for those contributions. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:25, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
At the risk of repeating myself, what are the proposals for an improved wording? I was, in crafting these changes, very concerned to keep the size increase on these templates to an absolute minimum. The proposed change by Tempodivalse above is really overly verbose; are there changes to the existing wording which I've not touched which might address this and keep the Wikinews-related small line a single line? --Brian McNeil /talk15:37, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
The Wikinews line seems OK. I think that people are mostly complaining about (our own) text above that. People don't seem to realize that these templates already exist, and the only addition that you're proposing is the addition of one line, in small font, with a link to Wikinews in it. — V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 18:03, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Support Though I do fear that most people simple don't understand that they are writing an obituary into the Wikipedia article. I'd be interested to see if this would drive any measurable amount of traffic to Wikinews. It can never hurt to a least run an experiment with something like this. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:24, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Oppose First, {{Obituary}} and {{Recentism}} are not only used on articles on recent events, so wikinews is irrelevant. Second, we shouldn't use our articles as proxy for wikinews per our policy of neutral point of view. We already grant enough leeway to post relevant sister links, but prominently linking to wikinews on articles related to recent events, which gamer lots of views, would be way over the top. Third, the first three templates are principally directed for readers, not editors; they're some sort of disclaimer to alert people that the information can change; so saying that 'Wikipedia is not a news site' out of the blue is totally inappropriate. It gives the impression that the article may somehow content inappropriate 'news content' while it may not be the case at all; and Wikipedia sometimes contain completely appropriate in-depth coverage of recent events, much more developed than wikinews (such as sport events, elections and so on), so linking to wikinews would be a disservice to readers, and unhelpful and confusing to editors. Finally, there seems to have been some inappropriate canvassing, see Wikinews:wn:Water_cooler/miscellaneous#Wikipedia.2C_again, which explains why several wikinews admins, Jimbo Wales and Philippe came here to support the proposal. Cenarium (talk) 18:55, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Please provide examples where {{Obituary}} or {{Recentism}} are not used on articles related to recent events.
As you apparently seem to be wilfully ignoring, Wikinews is a Wikimedia Foundation project and all projects are subject to a Neutral Point of View policy (see n:Wikinews:NPOV).
I strongly object to your characterisation of the solicitation of input from people who care about projects other than Wikipedia as "inappropriate canvassing". I would ask you to retract that accusation, and the implication that Wikimedians who are not primarily active on Wikipedia are not acting in good faith; all have justified their reasons for supporting this proposal and you are suggesting that such votes, including that of Jimmy Wales, be discounted on your say-so alone. --Brian McNeil /talk20:59, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
Would you care to explain in what way WP:CANVASS is violated? Cross-project co-operation is a cross-project issue. That's like notifying a WikiProject of an AfD. It is in each project's interests to know how they are used by each other. As for Jimbo, he had already expressed an opinion and hence an interest. Does my opinion cease to count because I contribute somewhere this affects? I have edited here since 2006; I am a long-serving WP admin. I am also a WN admin and Arbcom. Do you really view these as incompatible where interlinking and WP:SISTER/WP:NOTNEWS is discussed? Surely contributors to both projects are best suited to appreciating the intricate differences - and overlaps - in their respective missions. Blood Red Sandman(Talk)(Contribs)21:20, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
I would have no problem with letting know wikinews editor of this, if it were done in a more neutral manner (cf the diagram or the section 'campaigning' from the guideline) and not be emphasizing Jimbo's opinion (sought off-wiki). I's been some time since those changes are proposed (cf Wikinews:Wikinews_talk:Obituary_from_Wikipedia#Promotion_on_Wikipedia) and it's not this way that you'll make a difference (nor by calling naysayers those who disagree). The way it's carried out just doesn't inspire confidence or look like collaboration, but rather like campaigning. I point this out so that consensus can be appropriately weighted, it has no other implication. I'm not 'against' sister projects or whatever (I use and add links to wiktionary quite regularly for example).
See Category:Articles slanted towards recent events which includes articles tagged as far back as January 2008 (so the recent events are anterior to that). Those recent events could be from the previous decade or before; most of the time this tag is applied considerably after the related events. Recent can mean decades ago in a historical perspective, there are many examples (here's one). As for obituary, this is not even event-related (though it implies the person has died), and could be applied to any dead person (example from a 1998's death). So for those two templates, mentioning that wikipedia is not a news site or wikinews wouldn't make sense.
I've argued this point a bit quickly. We've extended NPOV far beyond its original intent, for example Wikipedia shouldn't be used as a mean of promotion. Of course we have a special relationship with other wmf projects, but we should keep the former in mind nonetheless. In my opinion, we should not use our articles (and templates therein) as a mean to promote sister projects. Promotion is not the intent of sister links (though in effect it does..). Linking at the top of articles or sections on recent events to a particular news source doesn't go well with our policy of neutrality. For another example, if the Wikimedia foundation were to advocate for some issues (see strategy:Task force/Advocacy Agenda), then Wikipedia should remain neutral on those issues nevertheless; in any case we would as a community. I appreciate that those proposed changes are primarily aimed to direct editors to more 'appropriate' places and wouldn't mind to stop arguing in this sense to appease the debate, but my first and third points remain.
You didn't address my third point, which is similar to what said other commentators in prior discussions: the recent events templates are disclaimers for readers, they're not there to remember policy; they are applied to pages where the content can be in full conformity to the policies and guidelines on recent events. Suggesting that there is a problem where there is none is bad; for our readers who are confused, and even more for our editors. It may even discourage editing. Cenarium (talk) 16:38, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, do you also object to notices in articles that say things like "Please help improve this article by expanding it.", "This page is a candidate to be copied to Wikibooks", or "This article contains instructions, advice, or how-to content. The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts, not to train. Please help improve this article either by rewriting the how-to content or by moving it to Wikiversity or Wikibooks."? Do you see these as "promotion" and a violation of NPOV? --Yair rand (talk) 19:01, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
(Disclaimer, for what it's worth: I am an arbcom member and bureaucrat at en.wikinews) Indeed. I fail to see how this proposed template is any more "promotional" than is {{transwiki}}. By the same reasoning, we should not promote ourselves either, or even encourage people to edit our articles such as in the templates {{cleanup}}, {{expand}}, etc. Also, I understand and agree with your argument that certain templates like {{recentism}} doesn't always refer to events that have happened within the last few days (and perhaps we shouldn't add the wikinews notice to them), but there are many others, such as {{current}} and {{recent death}}, that do. Tempodivalse[talk]20:10, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
FYI: the criticism with respect to {{recentism}} (and elsewhere, for that matter) is easily addressed with the addition of a named parameter which could turn off the Wikinews message anyway. This whole line of criticism is really a completely irrelevant red herring, although it at least brought the subject up now so that we could talk about the issue prior to implementation. I don't think much of the other criticisms either, personally, but I found the point about the message possibly being irrelevant to be particularly artificial. — V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 04:03, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Yair rand: I don't 'object', I say that we should consider the issue of promotion, intended or implied. I think that the cleanup templates asking to edit wikipedia, or to transwikify, are in their current state not overly self-promoting and appropriate for our projects which rely on user participation. However, I would have a problem if it were overly promotional (e.g. "Wikipedia is the number 4 site on the web, you should edit it too!" and such). I think this is an aspect to consider in fund-raising campaigns too: not being overly self-promotional, and there's actually been much criticism on those grounds in the latest campaign. We should apply policies with due diligence and not indiscriminately, but it doesn't mean we should completely disregard them in some instances when it comes to us (for another example, undue weight given to some events where wikipedia is involved comes to my mind).
Tempodivalse: By the same reasoning, we should consider (self-)promotion in regard to those templates, which is very reasonable, and as I said above, I would have a problem with such templates if they were overly self-promoting; but in their current state, they're OK to me. Policies should be applied on a case by case basis, neither indiscriminately, neither wholly ignored, and never on their sole basis.
Ohms law: Not addressed like this, see unindented comment.
Overall, in the present case, I do not believe that we should use recent events templates for promotion of wikinews, as too opportunist; however this is a reason among others for me to object, and the least - no need to make a big deal out of this. Cenarium (talk) 03:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I really don't see the problem. The Wikinews discussion has been done from a Wikinews viewpoint, and it has been agreed that WN would easily benefit from receiving such unwanted contributions from Wikipedia. With that out of the way, I come here to consider an entirely different question: What is right for Wikipedia? Had I honestly believed this was not in WP's best interests then with my WP hat on I would have opposed what I supported on Wikinews. Naysayers has no negative connotations; I am proud to be a naysayer on many subjects. I have, in fact, carefuly steered clear of the benefits to WN in this thread; they are irrelevant here. Obviously, since the idea initiated in The Other Place the benefits to WP were of relevence on loose terms over there ('is there any reason they require this?' - otherwise developing further would have been pointless).
Is constructive. I have no further comment on that, other than that some slight reword may be required on the appropriate templates.
That is largely already responded to earlier in this reply; although I again draw attention to WP:SISTER and WP:NOTNEWS in combination, noting my previous description of how these apply.
Wikipedia aims to attract new contributors. That is fundamental to WP - and to all the projects. How discouraging is it to someone who sees 'may change rapidly' and thinks "wow cool!" and races to update with the latest, only to see WP:NOTNEWS chop it out? That is very sad, and means someone who would be interested in both projects would be end up a member of neither. I can't see this 'poaching' editors; rather, I see this as forming more users who are able to do as I do, and straddle accross both projects, trying to help them compliment each other the way they are supposed to. Blood Red Sandman(Talk)(Contribs)21:35, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
This is still not a way to attract people to support one's position that I found legitimate, but I have no wish to argue on this now. Reply to the other points in my 'unindented' comment. Cenarium (talk) 03:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
As far as Cenarium is concerned, I will debate no more on the points Xe raised; I feel others have cast reasonable doubt on Xe's interpretation of the purpose of the templates I propose modifying. Incidentally, good luck getting Flagged Revisions on Wikipedia – if you look into my background on Wikinews you'll see I've been involved for over five years; I was the driving force in getting FlaggedRevs implemented there, as well as a project 'crat, Arbcom member, checkuser, Wikimania 2008 attendee, press corps member & speaker. And, I recently resigned from the Wikimedia Foundation Communications Committee rather than play politics and toe a partei line (just since this seems the section for willy-waving). I'm not out to discourage people from contributing to Wikipedia, quite the contrary. Wikinews and Wikipedia are meant to be complimentary projects – as, in fact, are all WMF projects. I feel I am entitled to be proud of my contributions to Wikinews, which include several featured articles. Over the years I would estimate I've spent well over $1,000 of my own money supporting Wikinews - not including donations to the Wikimedia Foundation's general fund; I'm the first member of Wikimedia UK based in Scotland, and every single person in WMUK knows full-well where I stand and what I think. Too young to 'technically' qualify for the moniker curmudgeon; too old to still qualify for the once-applied label of "angry young man". Yes, I am impatient, I am unreasonable; to quote George Bernard Shaw, "[t]he reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --Brian McNeil /talk23:56, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Right, I'll tell you something of my experience too (I'm just a sysop here, fwiw). When you bring up some proposal, of course you'd like that everyone support it right away and that it gets implemented as soon as possible. But in most cases, there's going to be problems and such after the implementation, it's going to need some fixing, and it may well end up in complete failure; because you needed an outside point of view, that some other people made a real, serious review of your proposal, find potential problems, possible improvements and so. From my experience, criticism is good. I'm probably the only one commenting here who made an in-depth review, I actually spent hours on this by now. I've decided to oppose those proposed changes, I've given my justifications, this is fair and helpful. I've pointed out some pretty obvious flaws that would have gone unnoticed otherwise. Interestingly, sometimes when someone reviews an issue for real, rather than taking a cursory look and giving some nice but useless comments, their intentions (or more) are attacked.
Re unrelated FlaggedRevs: My proposal (WP:FPPR) is quite different from 'classic' flaggedrevs; there's consensus for a two-month trial but we're still waiting for the implementation. Cenarium (talk) 03:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
(unindent for clarity) I've checked all of the transclusions of {{obituary}}, here, and there is not a single one used on an article on a person who died in the latest few months, most of them died years or decades ago. So it is totally irrelevant that wikipedia is not a news site or that people can contribute to wikinews.
I've checked all uses of {{Recentism}} in the recent months to see if it had been applied because of recent related news. The vast majority of uses are for articles or sections which put too much emphasis on the 2000s or latest decades. When it's been applied because of recent news, it's mostly trivial things like sport performances which then tend to accumulate, that's insufficient for a wikinews article. And in all cases, wikinews can be relevant only for the time just after the events, so you'd need a separate template to subst (like prods) so that it's hidden after some time. However, I'm still to find an example where it would be relevant. Incidentally, Wikinews is mentioned at Wikipedia:Recentism.
In the situation Blood Red Sandman describes, then I'd better see him/her editing, being bold is actively encouraged. There's only going to be a small minority of cases where WP:NOTNEWS will be a reason in and of itself to revert the edit. That person could be made aware of wikinews, which is mentioned in the relevant guidelines anyway. We should not discourage people from editing by citing potential but very theoretical policy violations. Only when there's actually a problem we should say it, while those templates take the position by default that something is wrong, and this is not acceptable, per WP:BOLD, and because our policies are non-prescriptive. Cenarium (talk) 03:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
What about instances where these templates are applied, then the article is edited and the tag is removed? I think that it'd be a fairly obvious sample bias to use currently in use template instances as being completely representative here. Regardless, {{Current}} doesn't seem to suffer from any of the criticisms that you're bringing up, which begs the question: is your opposition centered on adding it to only a few of the templates, or is it a general objection? Do you criticize adding a link to Wikinews (or any other sister project) in general? How do you feel about the use of {{Wikinews}}, {{wiktionary}}, and similar templates? (Incidentally, User:Blood Red Sandman does plenty of content editing, from what I've seen. It'd be nice if we could avoid the personal stuff here). — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)03:23, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
If you read more carefully what I said you'll see that I was referring to the hypothetical person in the situation which Blood Red Sandman described (otherwise it wouldn't make any sense..). My objections are specific: my first point was about {{obituary}}, the second one about {{recentism}} and the later about the current events templates. The representative bias you allege (which I had considered) is negligible with obituary and recentism, since the removal of those templates is largely independent of the characteristics I evaluated, plus I had the time to check several times for new ones in the last few days and it didn't differ; and my objection for the current events templates was not based on a statistical analysis but on the non-disputable fact that not all content about recent events is removable per WP:NOTNEWS (probably only a small minority, but even if were half of it, it would not justify a default position against the coverage of recent events; said otherwise, we should not assume that any content on recent events is bad/to be deleted). I said already that I had no issue with sister links but I prefer them at the bottom of articles for consistency and because wikinews links become outdated very quickly. I use wiktionary often, and place the template and edit the project from time to time; fwiw I've redesigned Template:Wi. Really, I've no issue with sister projects... Cenarium (talk) 04:26, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Lies! Seriously though, I'll re-read through the above tomorrow. It would be interesting to hear a counter-proposal and/or a suggestion to make this more acceptable, though. — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)05:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
The results are comforted by a very simple analysis of the situation: there are many articles about dead persons, and among those where {{obituary}} is applicable at a given time, a very small minority will be dead recently (in the last few days). Actually it's much more likely for such an article to be created in the form of an obituary initially, and much after the death, rather than existing prior to the death and being transformed to the point of reading like an obituary thereafter (this can be 'statistically' verified, :). For recentism, it's very similar: there are many articles covering content which can be subject to recentism (which can go from the latest hours to the latest decades or more), and at a given time, only a small minority will be about events from the last few days (so be relevant to wikinews).
For the recent events templates, a possibility to make this more acceptable would be to create an option to enable the warning about NOTNEWS and wikinews (default not shown), which was the initial proposal, and would be much less problematic, however it should be enabled only when the content is found to be in violation of that policy (cf my objection that warning about policy should be done only when presently justified). Although in such cases, a template like recentism would probably fit, so there's no real need for this.
Thus my suggestion would be to use an option in recentism which can be enabled to show the message about wikinews, but only for, say, 5 days after the given timestamp (which is supposed to be the date of the event), since after a few days wikinews is no longer relevant. A secondary template could be substed, so that we can quickly enter the current time as timestamp (like we do with template:prod). Cenarium (talk) 06:11, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Strong support - I can't see why anyone would oppose the general principle of this, to be honest. Wikipedia and Wikinews are sister projects, with the same fundamental goal - to spread knowledge freely. If we don't want content on one Wikimedia project, then why not direct that attention to a project that does want that content? We can haggle over the details as problems emerge, but let's give this a go and see what comes out of it. Mike Peel (talk) 23:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I am fundamentally opposed to templates which take the default position that there is something wrong in writing about recent events, and mentioning wikinews while most of the time, it will be irrelevant because the event was days ago. However, I have nothing against collaborating with Wikinews. Cenarium (talk) 03:12, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Srong oppose. This is a solution looking for a problem. If people are worried about recentism, we should add WP:BLP1E to the speedy deletion criteria: that would solve several problems all at once! If a page reads like an obituary, it should be tagged with {{inappropriate tone}}; but let's not forget that obituaries are often useful sources of information for biographies, and that includes obituaries written fifty years ago. There appears to be some idea that an item cannot have a Wikipedia article just because it happens to be in the news, which is, frankly, ridiculous: it is ignoring our readers for the sake of an artificial criterion. Physchim62(talk)10:02, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Strong oppose. Unless you're saying that no recent news should be in articles, which I consider absurd, the new text is inappropriate for most of the templates. — Arthur Rubin(talk)10:34, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Strongly support the principle even if language may need to be adjusted. Speaking with my Wikipedia hat on (before someone brings up the fact that I am indeed an admin on Wikinews), policy is very clear that Wikipedia is not a news site. There is nothing wrong—quite the contrary—in having the most recent information available on Wikipedia; however as an editor I am aware of the huge difference in writing styles between an encyclopaedia and a news site. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 20:22, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Support - Directing people to the right Wikimedia project is a good thing, and the other projects do need more advertising exposure. But the wording should probably be tweaked, since the main purpose of the current events templates is to inform readers that those articles might be rapidly updated at the moment. We don't want to discourage people to edit those articles. --David Göthberg (talk) 23:19, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
Oppose These warnings, pointless as I think they are, are for readers not editors. To also show editors a link to wikinews is overkill. If there is a wikinews article on the subject, there already will be a link in the article anyway. No need to duplicate that. Garion96(talk)13:31, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
Comment This template is, once again, not intended to discourage people from adding information about recent events. It is about *how* the information is presented. On Wikipedia, things can be written on things that have happened, heck, several minutes ago, but should be written from a historical perspective, whereas on Wikinews, they are written from a very recent perspective, like what one would find in a newspaper. The latter style is inappropriate for Wikipedia, according to WP:NOTNEWS; if people want to write things from a more "recent" point of view, as i've seen many Wikipedia newbies do, it *is* more appropriate at Wikinews and I feel that contributors should know that there is a place where certain info is more appropriate so they can contribute there, rather than their contributions be lost/reverted altogether. I frankly don't see what's "discouraging" about the template; for instance, we indicate that many other types of writing styles are not appropriate for Wikipedia (such as WP:NOTHOWTO and Template:Howto), and actually redirect people to Wikiversity/Wikibooks to write about topics in that manner, so why not extend that to Wikinews as well? If you believe the proposal implies that *no* recent events coverage is appropriate, please suggest a better way to phrase that. I think my original suggestion of the statement "Although Wikipedia accepts coverage of recent events, it should be written from a historical perspective; in-depth, news-style reportage is more appropriate on Wikinews" with a link to WP:NOTNEWS solved this rather well. The "It's irrelevant because the templates don't always refer to very recent events" argument doesn't make much sense either to me; sure, templates like {{obituary}} aren't necessarily used on such (and perhaps we shouldn't add the wikinews notice to them, or just make it an optional parameter), but there are many others, such as {{recent death}} and {{current event}}, that always do; imho that negates that argument. Tempodivalse[talk]15:42, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
That last argument was specific to recentism and obituary.
The big difference is that Template:Howto and other cleanup templates like recentism are applied only when it has been observed that in the current state, the article doesn't respect policies or guidelines. While if we put this in current events templates, then it assumes that there is something wrong inherently, initially, with writing about recent news. This is incompatible with WP:BOLD and the nature of our policies which are not prescriptive. The policy message of your proposed rewording is strikingly similar to that of recentism, so it would be akin to put a recentism template with mention of wikinews after all recent events templates. Again, this assumes that there's something wrong while there's not in most cases. Only when justified we should make prominent mention of policy, and never suggest that there is a problem where there is none.
It may not be intended to discourage people from editing, but in effect, it will do it. As I said, I wouldn't object to mentioning wikinews in the template recentism, but only when relevant, not days or more after the event; now that would be in line with what we do with other sister projects. It only just require some template magic similar to template:dated prod so that the message about wikinews is displayed only for a few days after the event (if we simply put it in option, then people would forget and it would remain there). Cenarium (talk) 16:50, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I have to say, the one thing that this has started me thinking about is the possibility that we should probably TFD {{obituary}}. Being worried that a link to Wikinews is incompatible with WP:BOLD, or that it would somehow discourage people from editing, strikes me as a preposterous argument. The wording could certainly be tweaked, and the templates that the statement would be used on could definitely be changed, but to take those criticisms in order to use them for panning the entire proposal is unnecessarily dramatizing the issue. The idea is simply to provide a link and a nudge, saying: "if you want to, we have a content space over here for news items". — V = IR(Talk • Contribs)18:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
user:Ohms law pretty much sums up my position on it, although he phrased it much better than I could have. I just *don't* see how the inconspicuous link, quitetly informing readers that certain styles of writing are inappropriate for Wikipedia, can be that harmful. I still think the proposed wording in my above posts solves any concerns with "discouraging editing" that some people perceive. It seems that it would be a good thing, and easier on us, not to have to bother with perpetually reverting newbies' obituary-style additions to our articles regarding recently deceased people (which I've seen quite frequently) by instead pointing them to a sister project where said additions are appropriate. Tempodivalse[talk]19:17, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to any link in any form, in fact I have proposed an alternative. To say it differently, I think the policy message driven by the proposed wordings is uncalled for in general. Making pre-emptive mention of policy, such as by alluding that something is more appropriate at some other place that on Wikipedia, will deter some editing, some of which could be bad, but some of which could be good too. That's why we make mention of policy only when justified and not indiscriminately, and why we have specific templates like recentism, obituary and so on instead of a list of things to do and not to do that all editors must read prior to editing. Bringing up WP:NOTNEWS for all articles on recent events seems indiscriminate, and I fail to see a wording which could be appropriate. For example 'in-depth' can be misleading: for 'news' events, Wikipedia often serves as a source for 'background' information, and presents a wider view of the topic, which could be considered 'in-depth' (and Wikipedia is often applauded for this), while news reports are more superficial, on the moment. Well that's the difference between encyclopedic style and news style which you try to point out, but it's not really feasible in a one-line sentence, and can give impressions that were not intended, that can be wrong or contradictory, especially when used indiscriminately. Instead, I propose to continue using {{recentism}}, when justified; with an option for temporarily mentioning wikinews. Cenarium (talk) 00:47, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Support People seem to think here that sister projects must be treated like any other site and that linking to them must follow standard linking guidlines. WP:SISTER as it stands does not say that and in fact encourages linking whenever useful. All the foundation projects function together, NPOV only applies where the project is talked about and discussed (see WP:SELF), rather than merely linked. I agree that promoting Wikinews on an editorial level (not on a content level) would help their cause and reduce recentism here.--Ipatrol (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Does it matter? NPOV has no real bearing except to the actual wording should we decide to implement. WP:SISTER is pretty clear; where appropriate, do it. If you interpreted NPOV in that way, WP:SISTER would have to be nominated for deletion. While the link is interesting (thanks!), I do think the distinction is big enough that it probably has no direct bearing. Blood Red Sandman(Talk)(Contribs)
Yes, it has no direct bearing. Neutrality would matter more if promotion were the only or major intent, but this is not the case. Here it's to point readers to more appropriate venue for some content, and for sister links, it's to provide related content. Cenarium (talk) 13:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Unless I'm mistaken (which is a significant possibility), there seems to be pretty clear consensus at the moment to have some kind of Wikinews link in at least some articles with these templates. There are some concerns that the wording could have unwanted effects and that an option to show the extra note with the default being the current version would be better than having the extra note shown by default, but there's pretty clear consensus that something like this should be done. Would it make sense to temporarily change the templates to have a switch-on version of the added note for now, until someone can think of a better wording and we can figure out whether having a switch-on or switch-off addition is better? --Yair rand (talk) 04:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I think the reasons for not adding it on obituary and recentism (without time option) have now been agreed upon. If we add an option to the recent templates, then we should think of when it should be used. I'd say when the adding editor feels that the article contravenes WP:NOTNEWS, similarly to when we add cleanup templates. Cenarium (talk) 13:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, this discussion has stalled; any chance we can work on getting this implemented in some form, as consensus generally seems to be to do so? Tempodivalse[talk]03:54, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I think the template(s) should be used in this manner on any event that is still unfolding and where it is already suitable to have the template(s) in the present form. There could be a date set and this could be reset whenever there were upadates; at such time as we reached 2-3 days from that date the Wikinews section of the template would 'expire' and disappear. This is why we are having the wording issue; doing it only where there may be a WP:NOTNEWS vio substantially changes the proposal. However, I do like where you're going with that; perhaps a better idea would be to create a brand-new {{Notnews}}, which would be a tag for when there was a perceived problem and would read something like:
A user has expressed a concern that this article or section reads like a newspaper article. Please edit it to move it towards a historical account suitable for an encyclopedia. It may be more appropriate to cover this event in detail on Wikinews instead, to prevent issues with recentism. If you are unsure if it is appropriate on this article, please be WP:BOLD and try it or ask at the talk page.
Again, the Wikinews bit would expire 2-3 days after whatever date was given. How does that proposal strike everyone? To be clear, this idea is not intended as an alternative to the above - which consensus is generally for, with a nod to wording - but to compliment it. Blood Red Sandman(Talk)(Contribs)15:43, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I really tend to agree with Blood Red Sandman here; yes, I do have a somewhat 'selfish' issue of trying to promote contribution to Wikinews. It strikes me as a good compromise to have a Wikinews-specific message be time related. If there is an "added=<date>" parameter then, addition of such cautions can appear for a limited time. I'd wonder about having an alternative parameter "reported=<date>", and possibly even a "wikinews=suppressed". The contexts within which such templates may be used would merit all three of these options. For example, labelling someone's hagiographic bio as an obiturary may have no relevance to Wikinews if the death was decades ago; however, it could be as a result of a new report into the circumstances of someone's death decades ago, and be news - meriting a "reported=" parameter.
My template-fu is not at expert level, I'd be delighted to see someone take the copies of these templates I've created and work in solutions for more complex situations. I do, based on many of the above comments, think there's a need for those contributing significantly on Wikipedia to go back to the original templates and think through the wording they have. It's frustrating to me how slowly some things work on Wikipedia, but I'm happy to see that hashed about and sooner (please, rather than later) some proposal that has a reasonably wide consensus be put forward.
Having a timer automatically eliminate the message after a certain time limit is not possible because of the way pages are cached; the template will only be re-processed when the page is edited. A wikinews=suppressed option could be done by putting {{#ifeq:{{{wikinews}}}|suppressed||Wikipedia is not a news site; in-depth...}} in the template. --Yair rand (talk) 04:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't know exactly what those templates do, but I'm pretty sure that #if,# ifeq, and #switch functions are only recalculated when the page is edited. To have a specific message go away after a certain amount of time (which is what I'm assuming Brian McNeil was suggesting) the page would have to be edited or purged after the set time for the timer to update the message. (There's a decent possibility that I'm wrong about this, though.) --Yair rand (talk) 22:47, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
An awful lot is done by bots following recent changes. In such a way it is possible to have a log of pages to recheck, do a null edit, and expire the template - or section thereof - as required. --Brian McNeil /talk19:04, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Another bump. I might put a bot request in, but I'm about as good with templates as your granny, so I won't be doing that bit. I don't even trust myself to copypaste into them. Blood Red Sandman(Talk)(Contribs)22:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
A few concerns, mostly gathered from the discussion above but also one or two of my own:
It looks to me like most users strongly supporting this are active on Wikinews and Wikipedia, while most users strongly opposing it are active primarily or exclusively on Wikipedia. Make of that what you will.
Several of those templates -- such as {{recentism}} and especially {{obituary}} -- are rarely or never used on pages with actual "breaking news". It might be unwise to link to Wikinews as a default position, in those templates. That said, I particularly think that {{current}} and its sibling templates could benefit.
A number of people have expressed concern with the proposed wording. In particular, it's editor-oriented language in a template that is otherwise aimed at readers. It also discourages editing and/or contributing to Wikipedia, which a number of our "natives" have expressed strong concern over. Since nobody much seems keen to propose new wording, here goes: "For more in-depth news coverage, see [link] on Wikinews." or possibly "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia covering topics in a summary style. For in-depth news coverage, see [link] on Wikinews."
I'd rather link to Wikinews only if there is something to link to. Using the wording above, something like this:
{{#if: {{{wikinews|}}} | For more in-depth news coverage, see {{{wikinews}}} on [[n:Main Page|Wikinews]]. }}
(In this example, you'll have to provide your own brackets and formatting for the Wikinews article link, but this allows more freedom for, say, multiple links or extra text.)
I agree that the additions should not be placed on {{recentism}} or {{obituary}}. As for being editor-centric, most templates are like that. ("You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.", "Please improve this article if you can.", "Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view.", "Please help improve this article", etc.) I'd prefer if the templates link to Wikinews even if there isn't an article on the subject there. Is the proposed wording assumed to be after the "Wikipedia is not a news site" bit (i.e. "Wikipedia is not a news site. For more in-depth news coverage, see X on Wikinews")? --Yair rand (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't say "For more in-depth news coverage, see Wikinews": the "in-depth" material belongs on Wikipedia, raw news belongs on Wikinews. There is obviously some (healthy) overlap, but there is no reason why stories shouldn't run on both sites. Indeed, a link to Wikinews articles on an ITN story (median view 20k/day) is a worthy advert for Wikinews. Physchim62(talk)23:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Er, not exactly. Wikipedia gives a historical perspective, and gives in-depth coverage of a broad subject, Wikinews gives a recent perspective, and gives in-depth coverage of a news event. Rather than leave contributors trying to add in-depth coverage of a non-notable event that violates WP:NOTNEWS, it would make sense to show them to the correct place to add in-depth news coverage. --Yair rand (talk) 00:13, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
If Wikinews has an article, I'm fine linking to it; if they don't, I'm disinclined to hand out freebies. Content worth linking to is a prerequisite of linking, in my opinion. – Luna Santin (talk) 06:16, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Do you mean that it needs an already published article? Wouldn't that somewhat ruin the point of the invitation to contribute, which was kind of the point of the link, to direct people to the correct place to add news articles and content that isn't appropriate for Wikipedia? --Yair rand (talk) 18:35, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
But those additions make people think that writing about recent events on Wikipedia is inappropriate, and we definitely don't want people to think this, and stop short of editing. We want to encourage people to edit Wikipedia, not turn them away. I'm pretty sure most users would read this as 'don't edit Wikipedia, edit Wikinews instead'. Further, recent events templates are destined to readers, and those additions seem to imply that there is a problem in the article or with editing this article while there's not necessarily one (only a minority of articles edited because of recent events actually have NOTNEWS problems). We shouldn't imply there's a problem where there's not, there are cleanup templates like recentism or obituary which can be applied when an editor thinks there is an actual problem. Overall, I'm in agreement with Luna Santin that only in the case where the wikinews article exists we should link to it, but {{wikinews}} does this already in a better way, so there's no need for it.
Consider my suggestion to add an optional time-limited addition of wikinews to obituary and recentism, in those cases it seems justified (similarly to template:Howto). There's no need for a bot, only a timestamp should be added, which can be done quickly with a substitution, like template:prod does. Cenarium (talk) 14:36, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
If it is possible to add a timer to the template, it could be helpful. Perhaps something like having the message be hidden after 36 hours or so? --Yair rand (talk) 17:14, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Support The purpose of the proposed templates is to flag news-only articles erroneously posted in WP. For example, if Jane Doe, who has no WP article because, say, she's not notable enough, dies, then an obituary could be posted to WN. The user may not know about WN and may erroneously post it in WP. These templates can be used to mark the article, its Talk page, and/or the user's talk page. If Jane Doe has an article in WP, then the death information is added to that article and the proposed templates are not used. Another example would be an announcement that daylight saving time has just started in England: belongs in WN, not WP. Yes, the wording isn't perfect, but anyone can edit a template. One reason for opposing would be that there are too many templates already--I don't find that argument compelling. David Spector16:10, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
No, that's not the purpose of those templates. If you want, you can create a template for the purpose you mention. Cenarium (talk) 18:55, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Please note that those templates already exist and have a specific purpose, the initial proposal was to modify them. Cenarium (talk) 17:54, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Conditional Support if the wording is changed to something more like the above suggested "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia covering topics in a summary style. For in-depth news coverage, see [link] on Wikinews." The current "Wikipedia is not a news site" strikes me as overly harsh and defensive.--Danaman5 (talk) 16:10, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Okay, so here's what we want the template to do:
Tell readers that while Wikipedia does include information about recent events, it is not a news source, and all content must have a historical perspective.
Tell readers that one of Wikipedia's sister projects, Wikinews, is a news source that covers recent events in depth, and invite readers to contribute to it. As Jimbo said above, "While we're at it, it's a good thing to tell them where the content really should go."
Not give readers the impression that all information related to recent events is not allowed.
And of course, we want the extra message to fit in the little space without looking ridiculous.
The original suggestion "Wikipedia is not a news site; in-depth news coverage is more appropriate on Wikinews./Wikipedia is not a news site; please consider expanding Wikinews coverage, or writing a follow-up." do the 1st, 3rd, and 4th of these quite nicely, but there are some worries that it might give readers the impression that recent events are inappropriate on Wikipedia. which strikes me as being a little long. Luna Santin suggested "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia covering topics in a summary style. For in-depth news coverage, see [link] on Wikinews." This loses the aspect of inviting readers to add coverage to Wikinews, which was a major point. Tempodivalse suggested "Although Wikipedia permits content regarding recent events, it should have a historical perspetive, as this is not a news site. In-depth news-style coverage is more appropriate on Wikinews." which is rather long, though it does get the point across clearly.
I don't think my suggestion was excessively long, although we could omit the "In-depth" and just start the sentence with "news-style" (because wikipedia does do in-depth, detailed stuff). Danaman5, I'm not sure what the issue is with "Wikipedia is not a news site", because isn't the project indeed that, per WP:NOTNEWS? That seems like the most direct and clear way to convey this (perhaps we could link to WP:NOTNEWS), and "Wikipedia permits content regarding recent events" should not discourage people from adding recent information. So, I have:
Although Wikipedia permits content regarding recent events, it should have a historical perspective, as it is not a news site. News-style coverage is more appropriate on Wikinews.
WP:NOTNEWS is not that sweeping, it doesn't support stating that Wikipedia is not a new site (which has different meanings and so is ambiguous and so shouldn't be used in any case). Wikipedia is widely considered as a news site, in a broad sense, that is, a site of information on recent events (and their background), especially in some occasions; but it's not the purpose of this template to make a point on this issue.
It seems several commentators thought it was a proposal for new templates, not modifying existing ones with other purposes. In addition, the objections to modify the purpose of the current events and recent death templates have not been addressed, therefore I believe there is no consensus for specific modifications of those three templates.
I suggest we modify {{obituary}} and {{recentism}} by appending at their end something like "If timely, consider moving relevant material to Wikinews.'; that's simple, along the line of what we do with other sister projects, {{howto}} for example, and can be added immediately. There's a date parameter so we can very easily show this for no more than two months after tagging but if someone finds a finer way to implement this (it's possible, similar to prod), then we can switch to it. Cenarium (talk) 17:54, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure User:Smackbot adds the date parameter automatically, so it should be simple. I put up some test cases for {{Recentism}}, they might work. As for the other three templates, there does seem to be an overwhelming majority in favor of adding a message inviting users to contribute to Wikinews to these templates, and the only issues are how to add the message without making it sound like Wikipedia doesn't allow information on recent events. Perhaps something like Although Wikipedia permits content regarding recent events, it should have a historical perspective; in-depth news coverage is more appropriate on Wikinews. would work. Note: there is currently a bot request open to have a bot remove the {{current}} and {{current-related}} templates from articles after a certain amount of time. --Yair rand (talk) 17:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - Advertising Wikinews via a current template is ineffective and inappropriate for multiple reasons. • The {{current}} templete, and some of its related cousins are monitored and promptly removed from articles that have few editors and few edits. The typical count for {{current}} is often less than ten, and sometimes zero. • The number of readers vs editors is a couple or orders of magnitude in difference. • Editors of wikinews are a couple of orders of magnitude less than the number of editors. • I further object to making the current template more complicated, or in any way advertising increasing use of the template. • The present template text of {{current}} at present is poorly aligned with its actual monitored use, and the proposed addition would make the alignment worse. Yellowdesk (talk) 17:32, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't see how the number of Wikinews editors is relevant, the template isn't aimed at them; it's aimed at Wikipedia readers and editors. The short amount of time on articles isn't really relevant either, it's on articles which are about recent events, which are the only articles that matter for this. --Yair rand (talk) 23:37, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Make "move" button gray for non-confirmed users
A very common request at the help desk is asking where to find the move button by a new editor. There are instructions telling them how to use the move button, but if they are not yet confirmed, they don't see it, and (reasonably) assuming they are just looking in the wrong place. It would be a better user experience if the move button existed, but was grayed. An even better solution would be to show the button, but have it link to a page explaining that it will not become operational until they are confirmed, but that change may be more difficult - I'm guessing showing it as a non-operational gray button might be relatively easy.--SPhilbrickT13:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Providing a button with an explanatory message seems like a good idea. A grayed-out button might be frustrating - "why can't I move it?". Rd232talk20:15, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
If it's not a difficult build (being more work than worth).Having the button an off color and pointing to a page explaining that it will not become operational until they are confirmed. I think it's a great idea and there's nothing wrong in adding to the incentive for an Editor with Good faith to become Autoconfirmed. MlpearcMESSAGE21:05, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
In the Vector skin (supposed to be made the default soon), the move function is hidden under the down arrow, where many might not see it either. Perhaps a message should be on the edit screen for logged-in users instead: "If you want to rename this page," and then "please use the move function" or "please ask for assistance at requested moves", depending on whether the user is autoconfirmed or not. The standard response at RM when an autoconfirmed user asks for assistance (currently 4 days, 10 edits) could be to move the page for the user and then leave a note at the user's talk page. Also, the help page should be made much more concise and should include screenshots. It is too hard to follow for a newbie and includes no visuals whatsoever. PleaseStand(talk)22:40, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi please join in the thread at here. Falling rain was compiled in 1995-1996 and lists false population estimated within a 7 km radius and altitude data which reliable government sources and google earth and consistently proved wrong, often dramatically so and oftne lists settlements or draws railway lines which no longer exist. Unfortunately many editors believe this data to be reliable and have used it or linked to it in over 9000 of our encyclopedia articles, presenting the read with false information or directing them to false information through external links. This site has recently been used as a source for the mass creating of generic stubs about Kenyan village. The creator is now aware of the problem and thanks to a Xenobot has now been dealt with but we still have 9000 articles using this as a source/link. I and other well trsuted experienced editors/admins such as User:Darwinek, User:Orderinchaos and User:Satusuro have called for this to be blacklisted asap and did so back in December. Four months later we are still stuck with 9000 links in articles and a lot of data which we know are false. It seems however this is not adequate enough for deletion and that a wider consensus is needed. Please can you comment on the black list page in the link given and offer your views on this situation. Thankyou.Dr. BlofeldWhite cat22:18, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Incident template proposal
An idea that occurred to me recently for no particularly good reason: It might be useful to have a small template designed to be added to discussion threads which does two things:
Adds a small floating template to the thread which basically says "Administrators are watching this thread, so please adhere to discussion and civility policies".
Adds the page to a category where admins could see pages that are so tagged.
The advantage to this (if it works) is that it might free up wp:ANI from some of the more mundane talk page problems - editors could simply tag a thread with the template rather than filing an actual "so-and-so is calling me bad names" type complaint at ANI, and admins could still hear about the issue and check out the page for problems. It's kind of an ANI version of the {{helpme}} template. I whipped up a mockup of it at {{watched}}, just so you can see how it might look (I stole the text from mediation boilerplate). There are pros and cons to this that I can't properly evaluate, but I thought it was an interesting enough idea to float out for consideration. Thoughts? --Ludwigs205:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
probably true, but beside the point. the question was whether or not this would help keep ANI a bit clearer. people are going to whine no matter what. --Ludwigs215:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Even if the wording were changed, it seems inefficient. Yes, ANI would be cleared up. But admins would need to go to different pages instead of having any salient points centralized. Maurreen (talk) 15:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
But keeping the discussion on the content-focussed page might keep temperatures lower by making it easier to focus on the content and smooth over other problems, rather than foregrounding them. Rd232talk15:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
That was part of my thinking as well - rather than exporting the problem to a new arena at ANI (where people usually start to vent at length), keep it contained where the problem already is and highlight basic civility and talk page rules. it's like adding flame retardant, rather than giving them a whole new box of kindling. --Ludwigs216:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
The Idea of keeping it "all local" seems helpful in reguards to, keeping the discussion where the problem is and help to keep the discussion "On Point" MlpearcMESSAGE17:00, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Subscription to JSTOR
I wonder if it is at all possible for the Foundation to provide us all with free access to JSTOR; according to JSTOR#Usage and contents "Licensee institutions can make JSTOR available to their members free of charge through the Internet." It might not be feasible and JSTOR might not go for it, but it would be worth the try. JSTOR I know comes in handy just about any grad student I know of couldnt possibly get through certain courses without it. It could help invaluably in our scientific and humanities articles by giving us indisputable reliable sources.Camelbinky (talk) 03:34, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Might be worth a try but the problem would be that WP is the "encyclopedia that anybody can edit". If anybody can create a free WP account and access JSTOR then there would be no point in anybody buying a license. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 03:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
JSTOR often makes abstracts of their papers viewable without charge. If you want to read a specific paper, it can be requested at WP:REX and someone can often get it for you. EdJohnston (talk) 03:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
We have an icon for http:/ hyperlink to HTML file type (e.g. [3]).
We have another for a link to ftp:/ protocol (e.g. [4]).
And another one for http:/ hyperlink to PDF file type (e.g. [5]).
How about one for
http:/ hyperlink to Microsoft Office Excel file type (e.g. [6]),
and one for
http:/ hyperlink to Microsoft Office Word file type
???
The scientific community is publishing supplemental tables on Microsoft Office Excel file type, nowadays.
If you do not have access to Microsoft Office,
it does not interest you.
Microsoft Office files might contain dangerous macros,
you might want to see an icon as warning. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 17:06, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
It's pretty trivial to add icons to filetypes. As far as I know, however, Wikimedia wikis ban upload of .doc, .xls, etc. The only files of this type are historical files that pre-date tighter uploading restrictions. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:11, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I think he means external links to files of those types, not internal links to our uploads. I seem to remember a script that adds file type icons to external links; or maybe it was a Firefox extension. In either case a script shouldn't be too difficult. I'm not sure that it's necessary as a universal feature. Equazcion(talk) 18:14, 21 Apr 2010 (UTC)
What icon would you use? Microsoft Excel uses different icons for Windows and Mac, but they are non-free images, so we can't use them anyway. There has been a stuck discussion on the PDF icon as to non-free status. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)talk21:11, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I thought of that too. I assumed the original are non-free. But, it seems ok now the PDF icon. How about the same as PDF, without the red image in it of course, "Excel green" X for Excel, "Word blue" W for Word? --Chris.urs-o (talk) 21:44, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
The MS office range of products are not the only ones that support these file extensions (Example: OpenOffice)... Even wordpad can open some .doc documents, So i would be recommending against that. Peachey88(Talk Page ·Contribs)04:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Which programm happens to open a file does not matter. Each file type is identified in order to allow its openning by the operating system. Another possibility would be to give an icon showing it is neither ftp:/ protocol, nor HTML file type, nor PDF file type. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 04:29, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
In 2007, Erik Möllerproposed that sysops be called "janitors" rather than "administrators." This seems like a good proposal. In educational institutions, at least in the United States, an "administrator" is typically equivalent to a "headmaster" or assistant principal, i.e. one who has authority over teachers and students. In colleges and in the U.S. Government, the "administration" is the executive authority that runs the organization. Wikiversity calls its sysops custodians, which is a similar concept as "janitor"; it conveys the idea that the sysop is a caretaker who cleans up messes and possesses certain tools only because he needs them to do his job, rather than because he's the head honcho.
I think this name change will reduce the issue of people viewing adminship as a trophy. We already refer to giving people "the mop" for this reason. Möller makes a good point that the name "bureaucrat" was specifically used because we didn't want people to view it as some lofty, prestigious position. Why not apply the same logic to the sysop position?
I may be comparing apples to oranges, but I saw on my own wiki that one of my users applied for adminship and, after he got it, posted a message on Facebook bragging about how he was the youngest administrator on the site; he then proceeded to abuse his tools and when it was suggested he give up his post, he protested on the grounds that he already told all his friends he was a Libertapedia administrator. I don't think he would have viewed adminship the same way if it had been called "janitorship," which is why the name was changed. Tisane (talk) 17:58, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I cannot see how this would be an improvement. Besides, the terms "sysop" and "administrator" are already very well established in Wikipedians minds. Immunize (talk) 18:09, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
I get the reasoning behind it, but I think it would cause a lot more problems than it fixes, a hell of a lot of WP pages have administrator in the title, not to mention categories, templates and user scripts. For example there's ANI, with over 600 subpages, all of which will have many permament links to discussions on them. Its just not worth it--Jac16888Talk18:13, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
CommentAs I said in my Admin acceptance speech, drying tears from eyesWP:RFA does well enough on en.wiki at weeding out those who want it as a trophy. This may not be true on other sites, including other language Wikipedias. But everyone else already can and in some cases does do their own thing. Rd232talk18:16, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
How uncool ... and un-PC ... wikipedia article on janitor provides far better alternatives. If caretaker is too scarface-style and Guest Service Associate too NSFW, how about dominators and dominatrixes? NVO (talk) 21:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
I'd be in favor of this if I thought "janitor" wouldn't actually become a prized position here over time, despite its connotation elsewhere. In my opinion the position itself will always be prized in people's minds, no matter what we call it. Janitor or not, they're still "granted" additional "rights" and "privileges" over other users. Make people feel like the position is actually that of added responsibilities, work, and subservience to others, and then you might have something; but merely changing the name of the group wouldn't really do it, IMO. Equazcion(talk) 21:57, 10 Apr 2010 (UTC)
Equazcion hit the nail on the head, it isnt the title that is the problem, though I believe the title does help feed into the problem. The problem starts with administrators not being told REPEATEDLY and FORCEFULLY that they serve us to perform extra duties and have special responsibilities in order that ALL of us can edit more effectively and efficiently; that being an Administrator is NOT a title that gives higher authority, insight, or greater voice in decisions. The arrogance of the group as a whole in their repeated inability to hold the very small minority of bad apples accountable to higher standards of civility is appalling; they should allow us "mere editors" oversight and allow us to hold them accountable instead of "policing" themselves, including allowing us to strip easily admins we find abusing their powers or for rude behavior (and yes with stricter standards and enforcement than what we expect from regular editors, including zero-tolerance policy for rudeness and newbie biting).Camelbinky (talk) 22:22, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Only if I get to go by Jan Itor. But seriously, as has been stated eloquently above - the title is fairly irrelevant. There will be those who abuse the position regardless of whether you call them "Sacred and High Executor of the Wikipedia" or "Scumbucket". Shereth22:41, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Comment - Did they actually think that bureaucrat will not sound prestigious? Well, it does. Anyway, this is an existing problem indeed, but yeah I don't think that changing the name alone will do any good. But, I do feel that there is need to address this issue. On a related note, there was a section called "no big deal" referring to the significance of being an admin and it was chopped away. That says a lot about the mentality of some/the admins. I think WP needs to return to its roots in this aspect. --JokerXtreme (talk) 23:13, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh, if only I wouldnt find myself blocked for calling admins "scumbuckets"....I have and will continue to refer to them as janitors however, I refuse to use the word administrator unless absolutely necessary. But I'm sure eventually we'll see admins begin to push for such use of the word janitor as being a personal attack and uncivil behavior and start censoring us from using the term. Watch, it'll happen.Camelbinky (talk) 23:16, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - janitor is not commonly used outside the USA - in australia I think we only knew what the word was as kids thanks to sesame street. I think of admin as secretarial staff where I work, so it is not a status thing where I am. Casliber (talk·contribs) 23:50, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. For the reason I'll just quote what I said in the original 2007 Wikien thread...
In the computer world, "System Administrators" and "System Operators"
(sysops) are those with special privileges on a multi user system.
They can do things that ordinary users can't do. Read/delete any file,
restrict user accounts. On some Unix type systems, they are members of
the "wheel" group thus the term "wheel war". Wikipedia is a multi user
system and Admins/sysops on Wikipedia have some of these same powers.
They can delete any article, restrict any user. They need these powers
and they are a necessary evil.
If a user tries to edit a page and can't because he is blocked,
whether he deserved it or not it's an insult to his intelligence to
tell him it was "cleanup" by a "janitor". I came to this list a few
years ago because I was blocked for a month, my whole ISP was because
of one vandal with an army of sock puppets and a slew of throwaway ISP
accounts. You are not going to get me to believe that drastic action
was done by the guy who mops the server room floor.
I say continue to call them what they are, "Administrators".
Wikipedia was made upon wishful thinking. I oppose the renaming as well; it doesn't address the real problem at hand. The only power admins have is the ability to enforce the will of the community. That is the whole essence of being an admin and that is not an actual power if it is not abused. It should be considered a burden, not a trophy. --JokerXtreme (talk) 08:19, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Firstly, they're officially called 'sysops'. 'admin' is more of a jargonned term. Secondly, Admins don't clean up WP as much as they run it ('Crats do basically admin stuff anyways, and stewards are off visiting other wikis). The ones who clean up WP are those who use Huggle, Twinkl,e and AWB. Thirdly, Renaming them to 'janitor' will degrade the value of the position. Admins have to go thru RfAs, and they shouldn't come out with a name like 'janitor'. It's like being 'promoted' from a journalist to a janitor. Fourthly, we could rename all groups, then. Rename 'rollbacker' to 'reverter' or 'undoer' (The term 'rollback' mystified me at first). Rename 'bureaucrats' (Also completely confusing) to '!votecounters' or 'decisionmakers', 'stewards' to 'Global trustees', 'founder' to 'God', 'autoreviewers' to 'autoreviewed'. Fifthly, this probably won't succeed anyways, judging by the failure of renaming 'Users' to 'Editors' (We had that discussion a while ago). ManishEarthTalk • Stalk11:38, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Good reasons have been give against. Many people wouldn't even understand the word janitor. And the equivalent term for administrator is used in other language wikipedias and most of wmf sites, it's well established; it would be destabilizing if we changed. Cenarium (talk) 18:25, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose as reflecting somebody's wishful thinking rather than reality; in the real world, janitors don't have the power to ban people like admins do here, nor do the janitors of an office building go rummaging through other workers' desks looking for papers that they think ought to be thrown out, instead of just emptying the trash of things others have decided to discard. *Dan T.* (talk) 19:27, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
I could easily refute every point given by each oppose !vote here, but what is the point of doing so, again this proposal will lose based on votes and not as it should be decided- based on the strength of the argument, in which case the anti-admins would win. I will point out to the last post that janitors (sorry, I mean admins) arent and shouldnt go around banning people, they should ban or block ONLY those that the Community has decided have done wrong, admins should not be using their own decision of "oh, I saw someone be uncivil, I will block them", neither should they be going through "other workers' desks", if something is brought to their attention and a consensus has been made by the Community THEN it is the admin's responsibility to close the discussion based on the consensus and "carry out the trash", whether that trash is an editor that needs to be blocked or an article that needs deleting. That is where admins get their arrogance and why we normal editors really get pissed off, admins see things and use their own discretion on enforcing policy as they interpret it, instead they need to simply do what we tell them and enforce policy as WE see fit. We are ALL EQUAL, they are not our "betters", not our "police", not our "judges", not our "parents", not our "teachers"; they are our servants. If they continue on their arrogant path it will lead to class-warfare in Wikipedia; and they will lose.Camelbinky (talk) 19:47, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't consider myself anti-admin, nor I have any complains from any admin (yet). Admins are indeed a "necessary evil". Yet, it is true that admins do not possess (or shouldn't) any real power. They don't posess any special decision making authority anyway, and their power is strictly executive, that is to enforce the will of the community. And that is how adminship should be treated to avoid "nasty" behavior on admins' part and frictions within the community. Once again, I'm not supporting the specific proposal about the name change, but measures must be taken to ensure that a harmful mentality about adminship is not being cultivated. --JokerXtreme (talk) 09:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. I think the truth (?) is more complex: I wish admins would be much stricter on vandals than they are other editors; some admins abuse their power; and too many other admins passively backup the power abusers. Naming admins as "janitors" will have no effect - there are already enough alternative names for admins :-) --Philcha (talk) 10:57, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Comment—I think would actually prefer the label 'custodian', as in a caretaker. That's a role I often think of myself as performing whenever I review my watch list.—RJH (talk) 21:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Very Strong Oppose: Administrators have power over ordinary wikipedians, while it may be used to clean up messes, it is still a power that the ordinary wikipedian dosen't have, however with janitors, anyone can pick up their own rubbish and put it in the bin, or avoid making a mess in the first place, meaning a janitor dosen't have any special abilities the the average person dosen't. In conclusion: keep it as admins and sysops, any change is unneccessary and wrong (for want of a stonger word that is still applicable).
They're administrators. Anyone can grab a mop and pitch in. But administrators have privileges, and they're a necessary evil on this project. We lose clarity when a "janitor" warns someone not to do something. Again, they're administrators. They administrate. Arskwad (talk) 16:12, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose To me it seems like it would be only a cosmetic change. Those who want to be admins so they can abuse the tools will likely see through the euphemism, while newbies will have no clue what purpose the janitors serve. RadManCF☢open frequency01:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose as it would seem to give support to the incorrect and misleading claim that they are just "ordinary editors with mops". "Magistrates for Life" would be more appropriate. DuncanHill (talk) 01:13, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Mop out this proposal right now. Don't call the admins janitors,admins are called as such because they are exactly like that. Also, while janitors can be anyone, not anyone can be admins. So, oppose. Narutolovehinata5tccsdnew11:41, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Editing feature
I notice that you do not lose ur editing here if u get in a edit conflict. Is it a big hassle to get this really very nice feature everywhere? --Chris.urs-o (talk) 05:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, I noticed here (Village pump (proposals)), I read one hour ago that Jimbo Wales got on his PC, I lost sometimes my edition because of edit conflict, so I assumed it was just on here. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 18:37, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
-ist Articles
I recently discovered the articles Computer scientist, Physicist, Chemist, and Biologist. From a quick look at some of these, some of them require cleanup, and some of them are somewhat redundant with the articles about their disciplines. Can anyone provide me with a good reason why these shouldn't be merged with the articles on Computer Science, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology (etc.) as a section on "Practice" or "Computer Scientists" or something? Thanks, — Ilyanep(Talk)06:19, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Merge not necessary. I have not examined the articles but they could certainly be maintained as separate articles if the content of the "people who do it" articles is restricted to training, daily activities, employment circumstances, stats, major societies, famous examples, etc rather than the content of the field of study. alteripse (talk) 11:19, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
See large examples to get a better idea of the intended direction. E.g. Architect vs Architecture.
Expansion preferred. Some stubs might warrant a temporary merge, until such time as their subsection becomes large enough to re-split. (depending on your personal approach to m:mergism vs. m:separatism...)
Add fields for commonly required citation information by different style manuals to Infobox book
So I'm not sure how the technical end of things would work, but what about providing information like, say (I'm familiar with MLA as its used at my school), location of publication, etc. in addition to what we already have.
Then, we could have a link to a dynamically/on the fly generated citation line for all the most common bibliography information, e.g.
Kolbert, Elizabeth. Field Notes from a Catastrophe. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing Co., 2006. Print.
I mean, this really needs to be something that is provided by a book database, such as google books, but we can do it too - it would be a great service to our users doing research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.241.91.54 (talk) 19:20, 24 April 2010
1) For books with an ISBN, there is the wonderful tool http://www.ottobib.com/ which will generate a citation on the fly. If you click on an ISBN link in Wikipedia, you'll get taken to Special:BookSources (eg ISBN 1596911255) which contains links to ottobib (and other sites).
2) Template:Infobox book already provides fields for all those parameters, except for City. (Some editors seem to add the City name to the Publisher field, eg The Metamorphosis)
3) I think there was discussion elsewhere about creating a comprehensive "bibliography citation database" for reducing redundancy&error in our article's references, but I'm not up-to-date on it. Hopefully someone else can cover that.
Make this old proposal (unwatch from watchlist) available as opt-in through My Preferences
Editing javascript files is intimidating for some. Folks who hang out around WP:Proposals maybe forget how intimidating this can be for some people. I've been on WP for more than a year and I still freak out whenever I'm told to edit my .JS ... Andrew Gradmantalk/WP:Hornbook04:04, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
You can always open the article in a new browser tab and then use the "unwatch" "button" at the top. But yeah, it could be smoother. --Cybercobra(talk)04:08, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
If you know of an already-existing script (i.e. that can be added to your JS) that should have a checkbox under the "Gadgets" sections of preferences, you can suggest the addition at WP:Gadget/proposals. Adding the "unwatch" links is one of them that has been proposed in the past but not acted on by an admin. PleaseStand(talk)05:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Many templates are permanently protected without {{documentation}}. Users can't do minor maintenance like adding inter-wiki links, and as a result, after some time the inter-wiki links are not up-to-date. I would like to suggest that every permanently protected article should have {{documentation}}. --Quest for Truth (talk) 14:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
or easier, if you want to do minor maintenance like that on a locked page, leave an {{editprotected}} tag on the page asking to have the {{documentation}} template added and the current documentation and links moved into it. then come back later when it's done. --Ludwigs214:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Looking at the Cat Scan link above, it seems permanently protected templates typically have a note on the talk page about {{editprotected}}. More documentation for many of these templates would be nice, but {{documentation}} may not be as necessary as it sounded. Rd232talk18:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
It is true that one can always use {{editprotected}} for these templates. However, such minor maintenance does not really need to bother an admin. {{documentation}} can make it simpler and more efficient for users to update the interwiki links and write some description for the templates. --Quest for Truth (talk) 10:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't disagree. But my impression is that this substantively affects fewer templates than you'd think. In any case, an editprotected request can be made to include a documentation tag, where needed (you can use the catscan link above to do that yourself). And admins should be encouraged to consider including the tag for pages that don't have them, when they respond to an editprotected request. Rd232talk11:12, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
According to the Cat Scan, the number of affected templates is only 440. The problem is that in the long run, it is quite bothering. One day you need to add an inter-wiki link to the French version. The next time may be the Chinese version. And then ... Spend a little time to do one more step when admins lock the template can save their time as well as provide convenience to other users in the future. --Quest for Truth (talk) 16:30, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
It's a lot less than that - the category for Catscan in the link above is all protected templates, not just permanently protected ones. So if you go through and make a list of those you want the tag adding to, I'm sure someone will do it - and the list may not be all that long (dozens maybe, rather than hundreds). Rd232talk22:11, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I can tell you that most of the protected templates are permanently protected. I'm now making a list by filtering them one by one. --Quest for Truth (talk) 18:11, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Quite a number of those templates have already contained some description. A bot may not do well if the script for the bot is not written carefully. I think doing it manually is better. --Quest for Truth (talk) 17:50, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Can I suggest:
Don't bother with any subtemplates. These rarely require separate documentation or interwiki links.
I'll try and develop a centralised documentation for the Lang-XX templates. As with other such systems (e.g. Template:Flag template documentation), this can automatically transclude a /doc page (if it exists).
I think this template would be useful, some users may find some article images offensive .. what do you guys think ? Dwayne was here! talk22:53, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I have deleted the template per CSD T2: Templates that are unambiguous misrepresentations of established policy. This includes "speedy deletion" templates for issues that are not speedy deletion criteria and disclaimer templates intended to be used in articles. For the purposes of this discussion, I will paste its contents here shortly. --Taelus (talk) 23:06, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
As Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles says While ideas like this have been continually proposed, the consensus is that they should not be used. In fact, all articles already have a disclaimer, linked at the bottom of this page and every page on Wikipedia. Additional disclaimers in encyclopedia articles should generally be removed, and disclaimer templates should be removed and deleted. Although that is a guideline, I see no reason why we would need a disclaimer such as that proposed by Dwayne. As NSD says, Wikipedia is not censored, and this disclaimer would be a form of censorship - who are we to decide if text or an image may be disturbing to some people? -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 23:16, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Additionally, it's impossible to find a neutral way to determine what's considered "offensive", especially since we're a worldwide cross-cultural encyclopedia. Are pics of gay kissing "offensive"? Which culture(s)'(s) taboos would we acknowledge? Why Culture X and not Culture Y? --Cybercobra(talk)23:46, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Honestly, why do we need another one of these discussions? Didn't we learn anything after all those goatse discussions? • ɔ∫→01:30, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
This article contains text or images which may be disturbing to some.
I have deleted it from the template space to prevent accidental misuse/misinterpretation of policy for now. Regards, --Taelus (talk) 23:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
We already have {{Censor}}, which is for the talk pages of articles. That's the appropriate place to remind people that articles are not censored, so offensive images or text should not be removed from the article just on the nature of their offensiveness. There's no need for any disclaimer on the face of the article—and for reference, I looked at Muhammad, which is probably one of the biggest flashpoints for an article with an offensive image. —C.Fred (talk) 23:36, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I had a look at the preferences and I can't see an easy way to set up a profile with all images disabled. I certainly think it would improve the acceptability of wikipedia if we could tag articles and pictures so people can self-censor if they want to. If creationmists, muslim, and prudes of various sorts want to self censor then why not let them is my feeling. We'd need controls on such tags so they didn't get out of hand as there are a lot of weird beliefs out there. Dmcq (talk) 09:22, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Which of these images (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10) would you mark with the template? What distinguishes between a belief that you think is acceptable, and one which you think is "wierd"?? Why should any one of those images (or any other for that matter) be identified as different to all the others? Happy‑melon09:57, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
I believe you have misread what I said. It would be up to editors to put on tags as they thought fit and it would be up to readers to self censor themselves as they wish. I am not setting myself up as an arbiter on all the worlds weird beliefs. The only restriction I was saying is that the tags would probably have to be controlled to some extent to reduce the number otherwise it would be hard for people who self censor to pick the appropriate tags for themselves and there may be logistic or vandalism problems if the number becomes too large. It would not be any different in essence from sticking a category on a page except you could apply it to images as well. I guess there would be arguments about some images whether they are reasonable to censor for a particular group but I don't see that would be of much interest to most people. As to vandalism some people might want to for instance show pictures of Mohamed to people who think thay should not see them or images of penises to anyone who doesn't want that sort of thing. Personally I can only interpret your sticking a whole lot of images which you think people might have problems with as expressing some sort of strong feeling about the subject but I'm not certain what can be behind it or what you think you are trying to accomplish. Dmcq (talk) 16:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Does an extract from a porn film qualify for a "nudity" tag? What about a painting of a nude figure? A glazing on a pot? A bas relief? Where does the line fall? My point is that you are an editor, and therefore have - whether or not you choose to assert them - opinions on which of the images I linked, or of the many others on Wikimedia, would merit inclusion in such a system as you propose. As a fellow editor, I have my own opinions, as does every person here. You are right to not consider yourself the sole arbitor of this issue, but the fact remains that someone, or rather a consensus of someones, would have to be. And those editors are no different from you or me; they have their own beliefs and opinions which fundamentally cannot be made to agree, because there is no objective line beyond which an image is universally 'questionable', and before which is is universally not. My challenge was not to you as an overall arbitor, but to you as a member of the consensus which would be needed to manage such a system, as a demonstration that such a consensus cannot be found which is not hopelessly biased towards some particular view of what constitutes acceptability. Happy‑melon22:17, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
We already have a perfectly acceptable "self censor"ing system: if you're likely to be offended by an article, don't read it. Adding images to inappropriate articles for sheer shock value is vandalism, and those images will be removed. However, legitimate images (of Muhammad in said article, or of genitalia in articles about said body parts) should remain, and there's nothing gained by adding a disclaimer to those articles. —C.Fred (talk) 16:54, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Seems like a bad idea. The reason censoring on the basis of potential offensiveness wouldn't be viable for Wikipedia is the same reason this kind of tagging wouldn't be viable for Wikipedia. People would just fight over whether the tag belongs, based on their personal standards for offensiveness, rather than fighting over the placement of the content itself. It's just shifting the problem over to a template. Equazcion(talk) 17:01, 22 Apr 2010 (UTC)
Even more, it's a template with weasel words. Who are those "some"? How much people qualify as "some": a country, a political party, Ned Flanders's biblical group? MBelgrano (talk) 01:40, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm definitely against disclaimers like the one shown. However I would be in favour of a facility to self censor. Then people who believe they will be corrupted or commit a sin or whatever if they read or see something in a particular class can set their preferences so they are warned in advance or the information or image is hidden for them. I'd leave a marker so they can click through. Otherwise such people are barred from using wikipedia. I believe in serving the widest audience not driving them to things like conservapedia. Dmcq (talk) 12:47, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
As I have stated before, I would not be adverse to external censoring or to self censoring by selecting preferences. One possible method would be to tag images and articles so preferences or external applications can detect the type. Even this would require careful consideration. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)talk12:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
The problem with tagging like that, is that in my opinion, if we offer self censoring facilities for one group of people, we should offer the same to others. So that means that we would have to allow people to tag images of mohammed or of gay people or the word fuck, or whatever they want to censor away. That's one big floodgate to open. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:10, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
We wouldn't necessarily be opening such a floodgate. There is a rather far-reaching bar for 99% of the internet community over which things are considered "naughty". NSFW would be a workable standard, maybe. Tagging according to that (invisible tagging, that is, for some external application or for our preferences) wouldn't necessarily mean also having to cater to "minority" groups who are offended by gays or fuck or Almond Joy. Equazcion(talk) 13:35, 24 Apr 2010 (UTC)
I don't suppose we could ever fully cater for people who hold up a crucifix if a liberal or atheist (or god-forbid the two in one) walks by but I believe wikipedia could cater for people who are just a little bit blinkered. Dmcq (talk) 13:51, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
The problem is that there is no objective way to determine that. What is considered mainstream or extreme varies depending on your own views and your surroundings. Mr.Z-man18:36, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
New Messages
If I have more than one "new messages" waiting, the orange bar only catches the first, but does not keep appearing until I have read those that remain. Does anybody else suffer from this glitch? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
It obviously doesn't know which individual messages you've physically read off the screen, it just knows if you've visited your talkpage since the notification was displayed. So, yes, but it's not a glitch. --Cybercobra(talk)13:06, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
I've noticed quite a few talk pages have a warning about missings <references /> where people have stuch a bit from an article with references into a discussion. I think it would be helpful if instead talk pages automatically assumed a references tag at the end. This would enable people to see what the refeences actually look like. Dmcq (talk) 05:30, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Better still would be adding said tag manually at the end of the discussion. That way, the references are in proximity to the discussion. —C.Fred (talk) 16:21, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
No talk page should be showing any Cite error messages. Namespace detection is implemented through {{broken ref}} and errors should show only on main (article), template, category, help and file pages. Please list any talk pages where you see a cite error.
{{Reflist-talk}} was designed for talk pages. It was designed for multiple uses on a page and explicitly closes the reference list. And yes, it should be added immediately after the associated references. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)talk16:32, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
We have to be realistic about this, it's all very well saying people should stick it in but they don't. I think it is only reasonable to expect that article pages should be always properly formatted. Dmcq (talk) 17:55, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Hey there wikipedia! I wrote a bot to find images on wikipedia that also exist on Wikimedia Commons that have the same name and Sha1 hash tag. I was hoping for some sort of community consensus to run an adminbot to delete these images off of en.wiki.x.io. This should help with the 11 images currently pending admin review. Please note the bot will only act if it determines the images are identical and have the same name. Thanks! Tim1357 (talk) 19:25, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
As having processed many of the deletions of recently bot tagged images, I have to advice against an adminbot. Mistakes are common and many of the transfers require significant additional verification of a human. I can only ask that more admins to help going trough all the CSD nominations. (over 10000 are left). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Bot could flag any hash mismatches at least, and maybe tag hash matches as checked. Could the bot assist with other verification time-saving? Rd232talk23:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
There are already 13000 images tagged by bots for being on commons or being transferred to commons. But you still have to double check for everything, since bot and usernominations are all mixed up, so you don't know what work has gone into the various nomination. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:37, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
In which case, there's a possible improvement there, no? As part of the tagging, provide whatever info the bot came up with. Rd232talk15:45, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, is it possible to somehow get the SHA1 hash of a file on Wikipedia without downloading the whole file? If not, why would you compare hashes instead of just directly comparing the file contents? —Bkell (talk) 20:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Please, no adminbot for this. Just because {{NowCommons}} is on them, doesn't necessarily mean they should be deleted. Some transfers aren't correct and by deleting the file pages, it makes it harder to check it. Thus, admins should check them first and take care of problematic files. A bot is too stupid to deal with this. --The Evil IP address (talk) 22:53, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
Template:Portal
As I described here, I want to activate my bot to add the syntax {{Portal|Portalname}} in all the pages that is related to the related portal. In this manner more readers will visit portals. This would apply to multiple categories and portals.
Do you agree?
I have to write "Portalname" in lower case or upper case?
Except to have bot flag, write code, and reach consensus here, what I have to do?
Disagree. Portals vary, the links to them are often crufty. Take a look a Louisiana Purchase is has a link to every US State portal that is part of the purchase (including, until recently, one that didn't exist), your proposal would add Portal:France to all the communes? Why? Unless you mean Portal:XXX gets added to article XXX? In which case, it is probably already done.
Also Portals are slip-sliding between The Project (i.e. being part of the encyclopedia) and Wikiprojects - look at Portal:Physics "Things you can do" "Fix a stub" etc. That makes the portal a selfref. RichFarmbrough, 14:39, 1 May 2010 (UTC).
I feel that this criterion for speedy deletion should be eliminated, and instead, all pages that would have fell under the criterion should be immediately converted to Redirects rather than deleted. Immunize (talk) 14:57, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
For the articles that are eligible for criterion A10, if they were converted to redirects, they would then be eligible for speedy deletion under criterion R3. Having an article criterion makes it easier to just delete the title in one step, instead of having to make and tag a redirect. It's also a lot more transparent to delete the article instead of deleting the subsequent redirect. Accordingly, criterion A10 is useful and makes the whole cleanup process easier for all involved. —C.Fred (talk) 16:19, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
And any article that would otherwise fall under A10 can be (and should be) made into a keepable redirect by any editor. Although I do agree that much stuff is deleted which should be made into redirects, merged or kept, that is not the fault of A10. Adn loads more trash is thrown out than good stuff. RichFarmbrough, 14:53, 1 May 2010 (UTC).
References
References
The problem there is that A10 specifically states that it only applies to articles with titles that would not make a plasuable redirect. If the title was a keepable redirect A10 would not apply in the first place meaning that converting a valid A10 speedy in a redirect would be pointless because by this critera's very nature all of the newly created redirect would already be deleateable under R3. In short there is no reason to convert valid A10s into redircts since they will be deleted anyway.--76.66.191.208 (talk) 00:50, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
R3 does not apply to articles that have been converted into redirects. I don't see any problem here. A10 says where the title is not a plausible redirect delete - otherwise create a redirect. Simple, does what everyone wants, status quo. RichFarmbrough, 19:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC).
Immunize, can you provide an example of an article deleted under A10 that shouldn't have been? Tisane (talk) 04:28, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
How to make Wikipedia more comfortable for users.
Hello! Much more users would think that wikipediais very comfortable if you could make a button in the top of the article, which turns off all links and tags<a href="...> </a> in the content. I think it is need, because when you're copying the text from article (with linking to wikipedia, of corse) you usually have to remove hyperlinks from words (but in MS Word it's quite inconvenient).
More to the point, every page has on the lefthand side toolbox "print/export" options including "Printable version", which has wikilinks removed and URLs revealed. Try it. Rd232talk16:41, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
The "Printable version" does not remove wikilinks, although it changes the formatting to be less obtrusive. The text is still linked. —C.Fred (talk) 16:48, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Oh. Oops. Well that leaves the "Keep text only" option when pasting into Word, besides other suggestions. Rd232talk20:31, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Automatic tagging of uploads without licensing specified
Is there a reason why the above hasn't been implemented at en-wp, but has at commons-wiki? When an upload's license has not been specified, the image is automatically tagged for lacking proper information (i.e., CSD F4). If not, why not? Blurpeace23:48, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure how it works on Commons (I assume either something in the upload form or some parser looking for copyright tags), but if a new file is uploaded without a copyright tag, what is the equivalent of {{db-f4}} shows up on the image page. This does not apply, I believe, for file pages whose tags are manually removed later, perhaps by a vandal. •ɔʃ→20:53, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
I think a few different bots check new uploads for any templates other than {{own}} and {{Information}} (or any of its equivalents) and tags it as missing a license if there are no others. I've noticed that the bots don't get all of them, but they do get quite a lot. Killiondude (talk) 04:39, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Mass rescale of FU images.
Hey there Wikipedia, I am here to ask for consensus to run my bot task to rescale fair use images that are blatantly defying NFCC 3.b, which states
Low- rather than high-resolution/fidelity/bit rate
should be used. From there, I used Wikipedia:Fair use/Definition of "low_resolution" as a hint to which sizes were acceptable, but the page is tagged as historical, and admittedly outdated. Is this page/policy still relevant to the going consensus?
The proposed bot task, right now, is to resize images where (height×width)≥600×600 into images that are the same proportion, only where height×width = 400×400. (trial example). And then tagg with {{reduced}} Tell me what you think! Tim1357 (talk) 12:03, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Can bots do it? I thought that the only way to modify the images was to actually download them, open with an image editor, and upload the result as a new version of the file. MBelgrano (talk) 13:45, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
If there is consensus to do this task by bot, can the bot ensure that both the height and width are at or exceed the minimum number that is chosen (e.g., if 400px is the minimum, then the trial example should be 400x534)? -- Black Falcon(talk)17:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
One number that I've seen floated around is that images at 0.1MP (megapixels) or less tend to not cause problems, so maybe that's a better measure (to go along with BF's commment). That is, assuredly if 0.1MP is less an issue, 0.3MP or higher (about 550x550px square) will definitely be too high.
However, I strongly suggest you need to offer an opt-out keyword for some images, as through some template that users can add to a page, to assert the reasoning why they are above low resolution. Your bot can skip those images, but we can then use "what links here" of the template to find those images and review the rationales on a case-by-case basis for the larger size. Thus, if you are going to enact this bot, give people a 2 week period or more to place this tag on their images they need to keep at the higher resolution. --MASEM (t) 17:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
0.1MP (megapixels) has been aired in the past and never accepted as definitive. It is even less appropriate now that higher screen resolutions have seen the upping of the thumbnail default size. 550 x 550 pixels at the standard print resolution of 300 dpi would result in a printed image 1.8" square, so hardly something to cause any significant commercial jeopardy. An image which is reduced to a size that loses key detail will weaken a fair use claim for educational purposes, as it won't be educational if you can't see what's in it properly. Ty17:45, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
First, again, 0.1MP would not be the limit for the bot, this is just a rough point where more NFC (let's avoid calling it "fair use" as that's not the standard on WP) would not be considered to be too big (though again, there are exceptional cases). Also, remember that most NFC is further scaled within articles due to being a thumb or other size.
Obviously, the question to ask is what is the initial material available in in terms of resolution. A 3000x3000 image reduced to 500x500 is likely low resolution, and the point you brought up - if fundamental details are lost in that - is still a consideration if that's too low. That's why I'm suggesting a tag to detail when this type of case exists, which effectively is a part of FUR to explain why that resolution was used. However, I will still contend that there is a lot of FUR (mostly of covers and screenshots from copyrighted works) where a resolution of ~0.1MP (which would allow for images of 320x240 for most 4:3 aspect ratios works) is sufficient to show what details are needed, particularly for live-action screenshots where fuzziness is ok. Obviously, when you get to less common types of FUR this is where the exceptions are needed. --MASEM (t) 18:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. There is no accepted definition of low-res, and there shouldn't be, since some things (e.g. maps / charts / other things with fine detail or embedded text) have to be relatively larger to serve their encyclopedic purpose. There is no crisis of external fair use complaints, so I don't see the need to impose arbitrary limits. A human uploaded the image, and assuming it is tagged correctly then a human already wrote a fair use rationale. Proposals like this assume that an arbitrary limit is better than the existing human judgment about what size is appropriate, and I don't see a good case for that in general. Even though there are undoubtedly some images that should be shrunk, this should be dealt with by human judgment not machine logic. If one wants to create lists / categories / tags for unusually large fair use images, then I don't see a problem with that, but I'd say bulk resizing is not okay. Dragons flight (talk) 18:17, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more. I've also never been a particularly big fan of the (somewhat arbitrary) limit on Fair Use images; when we get an image straight from the copyright holder, I don't see why we should have to shrink it (versus stuff from scans, where the final size is determined by the person uploading it). EVula// talk // ☯ //18:25, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Remember, WP's bound by non-free content, not fair use; it is purposely more restrictive to try to maintain a free content encyclopedia. To that end, we use the best resolution that still serves the reason to allow for non-free use (that it is critical to understanding the article it is in) while minimize its size. Where that point is is an arbitrary thing for each image, certainly, but clearly something that is huge (well well above this 0.1MP consideration) needs to be really justified to be that large resolution. That doesn't make it wrong, just that we need clear evidence that it's needed; thus, as I've pointed out, we simply need to allow for image uploaded to tag images that are above this critical size as being necessary at that resolution. That rationale can be challeged, for sure, but the bot won't touch it. I'm also thinking that the bot should be smart enough to recongize specific license tags, and make certain changes based on that. With the more regular tags (screenshots, etc.) we can be certain they should be able a given size, compared with copyrighted promotional material. --MASEM (t) 18:57, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
The uploader could have already written an explanation of why a large size is necessary / appropriate, but only a human would be able to read it. And even if they didn't, the required size still might be obvious if text or details become illegible when shrunk. Since a bot can't evaluate such factors, it shouldn't try to resize images. Again, tagging large images might be okay, but you need human judgment to determine sizes. Dragons flight (talk) 19:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Sure, that all is reasonable. But I also think that there is a point where if an image (and, if possible, an image of a certain license) is well above a given size, there's a potential problem. It could be a perfectly valid use, no question; at worse, we could simply have the bot note and log these, and then sent to human review to determine the appropriateness of each in question.
What may be useful to determine if such a bot is needed is to have a read-only bot simply parse through all NFC, and generate historgrams of image sizes, possibly broken down by license, and determine if there is really a large number of overly larger images to necessitate a bot for resizing or not. --MASEM (t) 19:36, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose, largely per Dragons flight. The term "low resolution", particularly as it applies to something like the fair use criteria, is highly subjective. Let us not forget that all images are not created equal; while one image may pass the criteria easily at an arbitrary resolution of, say, 300x300 pixels, another image of a different nature may still run afoul of policy. I could see some utility in a bot/script to create a list of images that go above an arbitrary resolution for review, but the decision on whether or not an image needs to actually be resized should be left to the discretion of human editors. Shereth20:41, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. As noted above, I have issues with the bot trying to make a call on whether an image is "too big." However, if there is some measure (0.33 MP, 600×600, etc.) that is an indicator of being too big, it would be reasonable for a bot to identify and tag those images for humans to evaluate. —C.Fred (talk) 00:03, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
The main problem with this is that a human has to download the image, open it in an editor, rescale and re-upload, which is pretty slow and an annoying amount of work. A much better solution is for humans to tag images for resizing, then a bot can come along and do all the tedious hard work. Possibly this can be the same template as the one you describe, and a human just comes along and adds |checked=true or similar. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 11:30, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Before we could even discuss a bot sensibly, we'd still need a list of images to look at. Tim, could you start by making a list of the images you are thinking of? The number and size of such images would be important factors in evaluating a bot job. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:10, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. Another drastic solution anxiously seeking a real-world problem. Catch the violations at the gate or challenge them individually when you run across them. No one-size-fits-all ex post facto destructive "fixing" via bots!!! Carrite (talk) 02:24, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
List of large non-free images
I put a list at User:CBM/Sandbox2 with images that are non-free and have either width or height over 1000px. It's slow but it does load. Browsing that, I see at least a few things right away:
Having a bot that would do the reduction upon demand would be nice. I could certainly write one, but maybe it's a project for someone who is still cutting their teeth. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:58, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
The Woolworth image is an SVG. It doesn't have a pixel size. Ongoing consensus has been that SVG's are okay, so long as they don't contain more detail than is needed for the article, or for the size of a PNG that would be acceptable. The issue here is that we should be able to set per-image a preferred render size, or per-image a maximum render size, for the image pages for non-free SVGs. But that might need a software patch. Jheald (talk) 17:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
The real question here: is there a reasonable threshold size so that an image over that size needs to have a clear reason to avoid being reduced? — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Why the obsession with reducing things after the fact? Graphic uploads are already, and I say this without a shadow of a doubt, the most hyper-analyzed, micro-managed aspect of Wikipedia. Images have run the gauntlet already, and now we're supposed to be all concerned because somebody has the technology to do this or that and is itching to use it?!?! LEAVE THINGS ALONE. DON'T FIX WHAT AIN'T BROKEN. A 1200 dpi 9 inch by 5 inch scan of a newspaper halftone photo is "low resolution" relative to the original photograph, even if the file size is as big as the moon. There is no one-size-fits-all magical threshold, particularly one that needs to be unilaterally and retroactively implemented by a bot. Carrite (talk) 15:35, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but a 1200dpi 9x5 image is obviously not "low resolution": it's 10,800 pixels wide. My current thought is to reduce the worst ones manually. If we did have a general rule, then a bot could be run. But even without a general rule, it's obvious that File:Sjl poster.jpg does not need to be 2,400 pixels wide. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:12, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
A high resolution scan of a low resolution image would indeed be low resolution relative to the original image — that's my point. There is no magical file size at which point "low resolution" becomes "high resolution." There is no problem that needs fixing here, or rather, this is a matter where someone thinks they see a bug next to the house and wants to build an effective flamethrower to kill it because they like fire. No offense, but just because one has programing skills and the capacity to do something doesn't mean one should be making mass DESTRUCTIVE edits of already approved files... Carrite (talk) 12:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
What do you mean by "approved"? There is no approval process for files; problematic ones are just cleaned up as people find them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:30, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
One thing that you could do is ask Tim to modify his current bot to run so that it gets data from a template placed on image pages by users that want to rescale images. That would appease most users, those images that need rescaled get it done easily, and its reviewed by humans. βcommand16:52, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
< Rather than agreeing on a standard size for a bot to reduce the size of non-free images, we could create a template where people need to specify {{large-non-free|bot=yes|widthnewpercent=60}} or something – manually specify that the width needs to be x% smaller? This would be better than nothing. Just a thought... ╟─TreasuryTag►duumvirate─╢15:33, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I think that's the idea. To make a bot that does the resizing on demand, based on some sort of template. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:42, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I go back to my original suggestion, and emphasis it more: it is not that high resolution (a total pixel count greater than "some number") images are necessary bad, and in some cases are necessary to prevent degradation of the image. But, that said, one of the points that we ask in NFC rationales is to address if the image is low resolution - both with respect to the original image with respect to conveying the information. When I look at some of these "large" images, the "low resolution" rationale is a joke (the TV show one above says "yes" to the FUR template "low resolution?" question.) The thing is, I bet that 90% of our NFC content can be classified into a limited number of media types - things like covers and screenshots - which we can ensure what the original size is, and more importantly, what it shouldn't be.
I would like to see a three step process. In the Correction phase, wiki-wide announcements would inform uses that in x weeks (2?) a bot will run through and tag images that are outside certain size parameters (left to be determined for now), but that if you do have an image that needs to be that size, it can be tagged with a template that begs for more information about the high resolution aspect, and that if present the bot will ignore tagging. After this period, the second phase would let the bot tag images and inform their uploaders of the large size and that either they should reduce it themselves, add the high resolution template, or it will be reduced (by a human) in x weeks. After that, all images tagged by the bot that haven't been resized or tagged with the template will be resized by editors to what they feel is the right size. There would also be a period to review all images that use the high resolution template to verify that someone isn't BS'ing it, sending questionable uses to a non-free content review if the resizing issue can't be resolved. --MASEM (t) 15:41, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Rather than doing everything at once, looking at specific categories might be productive. For example, just album covers, or just magazine covers. For example, this image File:Incontrolable.jpg actually says "No" in response to the low resolution question. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:52, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I'd still would start with one that uses a rather high level (say, more than 1 megapixels) to go through all images - which I suspect would only number in the 100s or less. A second round can focus on images from specific image categories like album covers which possible exceed, for example, 0.3 megapixels (eg greater than 500x500) for album covers. --MASEM (t) 16:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
According to a quick toolserver query, there are over 3000 non-free images over 1 megapixel. Of course not all of those need to be reduced. But there are 584 album covers, 363 logos, 279 book covers, 172 "publicity photographs", and 70 video game screenshots. Presumably most of those do not need to be a megapixel in size. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:37, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Certainly that ~1/3rd of the >1MP images are highly likely to be out of whack and we probably can fix those, but I think it's completely fair to check the other 2/3rds of those >1MP images and simply double check if they need to be that large. And we still have to consider things like album covers that exceed 0.3MP (again, this is not saying no album cover can be over 0.3MP, but that's the exceptional case). So I still think either a two-pass or a two-pronged approach (tackling both tasks at the same time) is doable once we set limits on what is reasonably expected for the more common image styles. --MASEM (t) 19:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Ability to edit edit summary
I would like to propose a feature to allow, for a limited period (say five minutes), the user or IP address who created an edit summary to edit that summary. It's really annoying when one has some finger trouble and writes something nonsensical and then can do nothing about it (other than make a dummy edit with a "what I really meant to say was..." summary). 86.136.26.144 (talk) 00:01, 24 April 2010 (UTC).
It may work with smaller Wikis, but it won't work on Wikipedia - the rate of recent changes is at least 50 edits per minute at some points, leaving only one attempt to get your edit summary correct for those doing quick patrols. If you want to clarify your edit summary, use the Talk page instead. --Sigma 7 (talk) 00:09, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't understand. What does the rate of edits have to do with anything? And what do you mean by "leaving only one attempt to get your edit summary correct for those doing quick patrols"? 86.136.26.144 (talk) 01:01, 24 April 2010 (UTC).
I think I see where Sigma 7 is going: one of the restrictions on changing your edit summary should be that it's the most recent edit. One, that's probably more easily implemented than a five-minute limit, and two, it avoids a situation where a user changes an edit summary when there's been an intervening edit. —C.Fred (talk) 01:18, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
As I stated, I'm proposing that only the original editor can change the edit summary. The only loophole might be if it's extended to IP users. Someone with a dynamic IP wanting to cause trouble could keep reconnecting (thereby getting a new IP address each time) and keep looking for recent edits by someone who had previously had the same IP. If they were still within the five-minute window that I suggested then they could change someone else's edit summary. My feeling is that this is low risk, but not impossible. 86.136.26.144 (talk) 01:44, 24 April 2010 (UTC).
I hadn't even thought of that - just being able to edit your own edit summary could be troublesome enough. Hence previous discussions of this have always ended up "not going to happen". Rd232talk08:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Just a thought, keeping in mind my opinion of this proposal in general below, the dynamic IP problem could be solved by restricting the 5-minute editing window only to the current session. Equazcion(talk) 19:36, 30 Apr 2010 (UTC)
This is a perfectly valid and feasible request. The details of how it could work have already been worked out, please see bugzilla:13937 for details. The discussion had already moved on to implementation details and patches, but has been inactive for a while now. But maybe it will continue now? Essentially, this should work (1) if it is your own edit (2) and if it is the last edit (3) during a short time span. Cacycle (talk) 19:37, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
I'd appreciate having the ability to correct edit summaries. Every now and again I make a mistake there, and there's no way to correct it -- all one can do it make a dummy edit with "the previous edit summary should have been...." It's in a very small subset of things I can do on Wikipedia but can't undo. Useight (talk) 20:26, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
I oppose this feature. I see no point in putting in such a feature and I do not like people sticking in things which confer no great benefit, it is feature creep and only helps vandals. The past is the past. You can always put in a dummy edit to explain if you really feel you must. The only ones I can see worth editing are ones that are offensive or give out editors details or other reasons where the originator can't be expected to show much sense if they were given the facility. If you mess up an edit you do another edit, you can't change the old edit and that's the right way to do things. Dmcq (talk) 13:19, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
No, there is no way this could help vandals if implemented as discussed (own edit, last edit, during a short time). Cacycle (talk) 06:44, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Editing your own summaries would be nice, but I can't imagine that the benefit of being able to would be worth the effort to enable it. It can remain one of those things we just get over not having. EVula// talk // ☯ //19:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Agree with EVula. Sometimes I wish I could fix an edit summary, (like when I accidentally type "rere" instead of "re") but it strikes me as more trouble than it's worth. –xenotalk15:17, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Strong support It would be very useful feature to correct spelling errors in an edit summary. However, I would support it being allowed only to Autoconfirmed users. Immunize (talk) 15:12, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Strong oppose—would cause so much trouble, people changing the past. Should we leave edit-summaries when editing the edit-summary? Can we edit those? (And do spelling errors in edit-summaries really matter?!) ╟─TreasuryTag►person of reasonable firmness─╢15:17, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I feel it should be not only IP's excluded but also non-autoconfirmed users (users who have not made more than 10 edits and have been registered less than 4 days). Immunize (talk) 15:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Support being able for autoconfirmed users to edit their own edit summary if it's the last edit of the page. A notice such as (edit summary edited at 19:48, 29 April 2010 (UTC)) should be displayed at the end. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 19:48, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Comment This has come up a few times. The conclusion is generally that it's more trouble than it's worth, as has already been expressed above, and that I concur with. It wouldn't just be a significant technical effort, but there would be lots of logistics to work out. If you leave a particularly troublesome edit summary you can always use a null edit to display a correction. Equazcion(talk) 15:56, 30 Apr 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. This would only work if we then also had records of the edit summary history, which is extremely unlikely to happen. Otherwise editors would start putting the worst insults against other editors, threats of legal action or violence, etc., in their edit summaries when they know that their opponent is likely to see it, and undo it immediately afterwards. Or perhaps they wouldn't – but then others would swear that it happened anyway. Possibly even in good faith. I don't think anybody wants to sort out such disputes. HansAdler15:58, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Is this really anything that a null edit and a "Oops, sorry, I meant diet COKE" wouldn't solve? ~ Amory(u • t • c)17:29, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Support. This is a good idea. In a related idea, I'd like to see a way for us to tag edits and collapse them out of the history to make it easier to see how a page has changed. I frequently want to filter out all the vandalism/revert, minor edits, and wikignome edits to see the substantive changes. I'd like like my watchlist to refer to the most recent substantive edit and ignore wikignome, minor, ect. edits. II | (t - c) 18:04, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Echo that. If I could mark specific edits "ignore" or "reviewed - don't need to see again", I'd wet myself. Rd232talk18:27, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, the only may to make it really work is for each editor be able to tag other people's edits, with those tags completely private for them, i.e. solely affecting their own recent changes/history. Rd232talk19:21, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
People's tags could be made public, and I could assign 'trust' to certain people. So if someone I trusts tags an edit not initially marked minor as minor, I would automatically accept that it is minor, and filter it as such from the history or watchlist. I could also set my filter up so that if enough people mark an edit as minor (say 4), I accept that the tag is valid and can filter such edits from my history. The history should show when a series of edits has been collapsed, and should be easily expandable. II | (t - c) 00:15, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
I know, that would be lovely; but I seem to remember this has been brought up before (possibly by me), and it was said that it would be very very difficult to implement. Maybe it's worth spinning off from this edit summary discussion and revisiting... perhaps at WP:VPD. It might be high cost, but it would be very useful, especially for editing the high-traffic pages which are often relatively poor quality. Rd232talk08:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
Considering the fact that ImperfectlyInformed specifically wanted to hide vandalism from their watchlist as well, I fail to see how my suggestion doesn't address their needs. :) EVula// talk // ☯ //20:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
If I hide minor edits, then if there is a substantive edit that happened on the same day as that minor edit, the substantive edit is not displayed for that day. So it doesn't work. Ideally when a person reverts a vandalism edit, their revert is minor and the vandalism edit would be tagged as vandalism, so I wouldn't have to see either edit on the watchlist, but rather the prior non-minor non-vandalism edit which occurred on that day (if applicable). The other problem is that enforcement of the minor tag under WP:MINOR is lax. If my above idea were implemented, I would want stricter enforcement. Many wikignomes don't mark their minor edits as minor, and under this idea we wouldn't have to pressure them, although they might get the point as people tag their minor edits. II | (t - c) 00:15, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - it's annoying when it happens, but the implications of making that data editable are far more serious, and are sufficiently problematic to make it absolutely not worth considering. That edit summary is an inseparable part of what happened at that point in history. Use a null edit. PL290 (talk) 18:41, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
This would be a useful feature as long as the ability exists only for: (1) one's own edits; (2) the last edit to a page; and (3) edits made no more than about 5 minutes ago. Under these restrictions, I do not think that there would be significant negative consequences. On the question of whether this feature request is important enough for the developers to spend their time on it ... well, that's really up to them—if they decide that their time should be spent on other things, then they're probably right. -- Black Falcon(talk)19:34, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
The dynamic IP problem could be solved by enabling the feature only for registered users. If there is still concern about misuse, the feature could (on a trial basis) be restricted to autoconfirmed users only . -- Black Falcon(talk)19:46, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
As I said further up, the dynamic IP problem could also be solved by restricting the editing window to the current session only. So for instance, logging out, or logging in again from another location or browser, would not allow the user/IP to edit a summary posted in a previous login. I'm not really in favor of this anyway, for the reasons I stated already above. It's not just a matter of programmer time, but of adding logistical complications for all of us that just aren't worth it to basically save people some embarrassment. Null edits are enough, IMO. Equazcion(talk) 19:51, 30 Apr 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, I'd not seen your most recent comment. I see your point about the added complications, but I don't think that they will be too significant (updating instructions on a few pages and occasional, minor confusion in those who are not aware of the feature and notice an edit summary change).
Overall, my perception of the idea is that it involves a small improvement (i.e., a feature that is useful in some cases, even if the usefulness is minor) at a cost of a small amount of added logicistical complication and an unknown amount of programmer time. In light of this, I support the idea in principle, but will not be disappointed if it is not implemented. -- Black Falcon(talk)20:04, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Let's implement it as an optional feature in the software and once we see exactly how this will work, then decide. It might not be a bad thing, but we should probably keep a readily-accessible record somewhere of what the original edit comment was. If we do that, we might not even need to limit it to 5 minutes, or require it to only be the most recent edit. Tisane (talk) 20:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - besides the huge amount of complexity for such a trivial feature as well as the possible abuse vectors, revisions should be considered immutable. If you want to change something in a revision, submit a new one. Mr.Z-man21:17, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
While revisions should be immutable, I think in principle allowing a third-party to describe the edit which the editor failed to describe appropriately is a worthwhile idea. I can see the mess it would make on Wikipedia although I can also see as highly efficient in smaller and more tightly integrated wikis. II | (t - c) 00:15, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. Too much lack of transparency for too little gain. "Show preview" also shows preview of edit-summary, so catching mistakes in edit-summaries is already no harder and is visible at the same time as you're catching mistakes in the edit itself. DMacks (talk) 20:05, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - This will only serve to create unnecessary confusion among editors working on same page as well as page patrollers. Having incorrect edit summaries is considerably rare if you pay attention to what you are doing. There doesn't seem to be a pressing need, and things will become too complicated when edits overlap. Deagle_AP (talk) 11:13, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Support - Provide safeguards so that risk of abuse is minimized, but it seems odd to have Wiki which is built on trust of its users, refuse a user-friendly fix because of fears of rampant abuse. Allow only edits of OWN edit summaries by auto-confirmed editors, for limited period (I would say something like 24 hours). Add rules. A record of the original summary can be kept for historical integirty. As has been pointed out, other systems seem to allow self-corrections and this doesn't seem to have caused mass problems. I think the requests for this functionality are genuine from people like myself who have made very minor spelling or other duh type mistakes and not caught them on review, and that this far outweighs the fears of some broad untapped avenue of vandalism. (Even the suggestions that the function could help reduce bad behavior make sense to me, but I haven't had to confront that myself.) Thanks. DBK (talk) 20:34, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
Known future updates
Resolved
I just added details of a forthcoming event, to be held on on 16 July 2010, to David Lack#Honours. It would be good if I could add a template, say {{Update pending|2010-07-17}} and/ or category, say "Category: Articles requiring update on 17 July 2010"; so that interested editors could watch for updates due on the given date, and make the necessary tense or other changes. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits11:21, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
If you have to make them, they are they really commonly available? As it is, that "article" is really more of a how-to guide, and not really suitable for an encyclopaedia. An issue that has been raised before, with nothing apparently done to address the problem. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 19:28, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Hey there. I have written a bot (currently pending approval) that is designed to help fixd dead links on wikipedia. The bot works like this:
Scans an article for dead links (that are used between <ref> tags)
Comes back 5 days later to see if they are still dead.
If yes, the bot looks for corresponding |accessdates. If none can be found, the bot uses wikiblame.
The bot then looks in the internet archive for the closest copy to the access-date (within 6 months).
The bot updates the |archiveurl and |archivedate parameters where available. Otherwise it uses the {{Wayback}} template.
All links that are dead that did not get archived get tagged with {{Dead link}}.
I did an example edit, under my own account, to show what a bot's edit would look like. The bot, of course, obeys {{nobots}} and {{bots}}. I had seem some support for this type of task, but I wanted some reassurance that there was consensus. Any and all questions/suggestions are welcomed! Cheers Tim1357talk10:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Good idea. In fact, their archives generally reflect the archived page better. I have emailed them to ask for permission to use my bot with their service. Tim1357talk01:49, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
There needs to be some limit to the age difference of the archives. This is because web pages change and archives need to reflect the content that was used in sourcing the article. Tim1357talk01:49, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Should GA and A-class articles have the corresponding symbol on the article page?
From the next software update (see r64228), blocked admins will no longer be able to block or unblock other users, and the ability to unblock themselves will become a configurable setting, a permission which we can, if desired, remove from the admin group here on enwiki. That would mean that blocked admins are technically prevented from unblocking themselves. In light of recent drama at WP:ACN, and our general distaste for the practice of self-unblocking, is that desirable? Happy‑melon19:54, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Out of interest, does the revision allow for admins to unblock themselves having mistakenly self-blocked? Otherwise it could cause a lot of hassle... ╟─TreasuryTag►senator─╢19:57, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. Of the 11 self-unblocks this year, 8 were after mistakes. 1 was a test. Only 2 were admins lifting actual blocks of their own accounts. –xenotalk20:00, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
As long as we're improving the blocking aspect of the software, why not just disable the ability to block one's own account? That seems like a superfluous ability anyway, and is only either done as a joke or by accident, as far as I know. Equazcion(talk)20:07, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
No, sometimes an admin is the only one willing to step up and block themselves for doing something daft. –xenotalk20:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Since blocks are supposed to preventative, blocking oneself seems rather paradoxical. If you have the forethought to block yourself then you apparently have already realized the inappropriateness of your behavior and resolved not to continue. So again the ability to self-block seems superfluous. Equazcion(talk)20:25, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Or a "screw it, burn the bridges" kind of thing - fullprotect/selfblock then m:SRP the bit. ~ Amory(u • t • c)20:14, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, but if those 8/9 were forced to get unblocked by another sysop, they'd only be slightly inconvenienced, and everyone else would get a proportionally larger laugh. ~ Amory(u • t • c)20:17, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I actually never even knew admins could self-unblock until I saw that little debacle, and was surprised. To be honest though, to me it's the same sort of ridiculousness as people in the same rights group being able to block each other (though I accept this isn't fixable without electing lots more bureaucrats or changing the hierarchy significantly). If this is to be implemented I'd like to see some sort of increased urgency in policy regarding the blocking of admins by other admins, ie. that doing it without good reason even once will get you de-opped (aside from accidental cases). Equazcion(talk)20:02, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Why should we treat admins like they're somehow better than other users? Admins can act just like every other user when they get blocked and follow the proper procedure. --Conti|✉20:07, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
(EC) So how many blocks with no good reason upon regular editors equal one block with no good reason on an admin?--Cube lurker (talk) 20:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm not saying we should treat them any better. Ideally they should be treated the same, but that would mean they'd have another rights group above them to dole out their blocks. As it stands they can all block each other, which is already a strange way of doing things, and not on par with the average user. Equazcion(talk)20:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't see the need for that. There's lots of admins around, and when one blocks another there's still a thousand others (plus tens of thousands normal users, of course) to decide whether the block was okay or not. --Conti|✉20:19, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I actually don't think it's the worst thing in the world for admins to have the ability to unblock themselves, but know they shouldn't. If they can't restrain themself in that situation, it's probably for the best that we learn about it.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
(EC)Excellent idea to stop blocked admins unblocking themselves. As for "accidental self-blocks" - hardly a sign of competence with the tools is it? Agree with Conti's response to Equazcion above too. DuncanHill (talk) 20:13, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Everyone presses a wrong button or two here and there. Sometimes it's submit, sometimes it's delete the main page. Shit happens. ~ Amory(u • t • c)20:17, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Then I'm sure a kindly and understanding fellow admin will unblock promptly in such a case, perhaps with some simple helpful hints on how to avoid blocking oneself. DuncanHill (talk) 20:26, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Without checking, I presume this is a right Bureaucrats inherit - would this change their ability as well? Is there any sense to letting the 'crats keep the ability? ~ Amory(u • t • c)20:14, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
By default, it's not granted to the bureaucrat group; they would inherit it from the admin group if admins have it. We could explicitly grant it to them if desired. Happy‑melon20:34, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
A concern of more substance. Without going too far into WP:BEANS are there concerns about the increased dammage that could be done with a single comprimised admin account?--Cube lurker (talk) 20:23, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
As in a rogue admin massing blocking other active admins? Yes, that is one potential problem - and I believe one of the reasons admins are able to unblock themselves. –xenotalk20:25, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
How long does it take to block 1000+ admins? I find this a rather unrealistic concern, to be honest. --Conti|✉20:28, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Probably not long with a script. A smart-cookie would start with the ones who were most recently active per contributions or log entries. But I agree that this is not even close to the most damaging thing that can be done with a rogue admin account, and all it would take is a steward to put an end to the madness. –xenotalk20:34, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
And in the end a steward could come along and undo the whole damage anyways. Or we could create a blocking limit of 100 blocks per minute, or something. --Conti|✉20:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Heh. Even in the worst case I can come up with the damage could be undone again somehow. Which leads me to another question.. can bureaucrats promote users to admins when they are blocked? :P --Conti|✉20:26, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
There are some actions that cannot easily be undone. The oversight feature makes possible a deletion spree that requires intervention of a sysadmin to undo. Further information withheld from public disclosure, but should be fairly obvious to the technical folks.PleaseStand(talk)22:56, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
I was under the impression that Extension:Oversight was going to be disabled at some point, what with RevDelete becoming the conventional method for hiding revisions. AGK00:28, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. I've seen cases of admins going bat shit crazy (or compromised account) and blocking a slew of other admins. Admins should be able to unblock themselves in such cases. If it's feared that a particular admin would unblock himself during a valid block then he can be temporarily desysoped during his block. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:52, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
So basically the way I see it either option (keep it as it is, or disallow self-unblocking) has bad possibilities, both uncommon. If we allow admins to unblock themselves technically, then we run the risk of them doing so when they shouldn't, fairly uncommon but obviously it happens. If we disallow it then we run the risk of a rouge account causing widespread damage, this is even more unlikely but much more damaging to the project. Which scenario is better? Higher risk of lesser disruption or lower risk of higher disruption--Jac16888Talk01:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. I'd rather have the risk of one rogue admin needing desyopping by a steward that the risk of one rogue admin running a script and blocking a slew of us in a matter of minutes. Useight (talk) 01:42, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
We trust admins to not go crazy with the tools; otherwise we wouldn't give them access to all sorts of special features. Self-unblocking is probably one of the least-misused abilities admins have, so in agreement with Useight that this isn't necessary. –Juliancolton | Talk01:55, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh come on guys. There's 1 (one) obscure, theoretical situation where self-unblocking would be useful and needed. There's more than one real situation (that actually happened before, more than once) where self-unblocking caused actual, needless drama. You can't tell me that you are genuinely worried over a rogue admin taking over Wikipedia. As has been said above, even if someone would try that one day, a Steward is all we'd need. Is it even possible to block every single admin within a minute, anyhow? --Conti|✉06:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
We could make it say, "You are about to block your own account. Are you sure you want to do this?" Tisane (talk) 08:23, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree with others above, that if we remove the self-unblocking ability, we need to remove the ability to block yourself. Otherwise, the unblocking code needs to include a check to see who the blocker was:
IF blocked-by == current-user THEN
unblock
ELSE
give warning message: "You can only unblock yourself if someone else blocked you."
ENDIF
On the whole, I see no reason for an admin to need to block themselves: there are test IPs/accounts which you can test-block at WP:NAS. If you need a block to stop editing for a while, there's the WikiBreak Enforcer. Why else would someone want/need to self-block? If there is no way to self-block, there can be no accidental self-blocking - and then admins won't need the ability to unblock themselves. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 08:35, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh, and as for the risk of a rogue admin blocking tons of other admins - has it ever happened before? If so, when? If not, I'd think the chances of it happening are remote, and even if all over admins apart from the rogue were blocked, a steward could quickly be contacted and an emergency de-sysop/mass unblock can be done -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 08:38, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
A rogue admin going on a blocking spree is not significantly more dangerous than a rogue admin going on a deleting spree; indeed by distracting them onto doing something entirely reversible, it might actually reduce the damage. Don't forget that there is already very little local admins can do to stop a well-planned admin rampage. But if unblockself is disabled, then the a rogue admin can be stopped if any of our 846 get to the block button before the rogue does, or when a steward gets here; whereas with unblockself, the rampage will definitely continue until steward help arrives. Happy‑melon11:49, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. Another solution in search for a problem. Admins do not unblock themselves every day, and when they do this without a very good reason, it may be a basis for an emergency desysoping. On other hand, the ability to block/unblock oneself may be useful for testing. Ruslik_Zero16:33, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
As has been pointed out above, this feature would actually dramatically reduce the harm a rogue admin could do. One block, and the problem would be solved. That seems like quite the solution to an actual problem to me. --Conti|✉16:43, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Just because the problem hasn't presented itself yet doesn't mean it's not a valid potential problem. There's no urgency felt until it actually happens, and then eveyone says "well why didn't someone just do ____ which could have prevented this whole mess". Well, now we've thought of it, so why not prevent it ahead of time? Equazcion(talk)16:46, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
While I really care very little for the outcome of the proposal -- it was simply something I noticed that tied in with software changes I'd already done -- I do intensely dislike the habit of presenting the "solution in search of a problem" response to issues where the problem very manifestly does exist. Admins occasionally unblock themselves in a way that creates drama. Drama is a problem; a problem which could be solved by preventing them from unblocking themselves. You can quite legitimately argue that the costs outweigh the benefits; indeed that's probably a convincing argument unless admins are also prevented from blocking themselves so easily. But to assert that the problem and benefits simply do not exist is totally disingenuous. Happy‑melon16:50, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
If an administrator managed to block a great deal of active local administrators, the solution is simple. I think this is a good idea per Happy-Melon's post of a few hours ago. NW(Talk)19:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment Regarding limits on blocks per minute, the checkuser tool allows for multiple simultaneous blocks for socks. I'd like to make sure that is not removed. -- Avi (talk) 19:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Looking at the discussion above, the justification for preventing admins from unblocking themselves seems strong to me and arguments against seem exceptionally feeble. If it helps those whose blocking activity is particularly erratic, it might be nice to prevent self-blocking. Thincat (talk) 21:05, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
How? Maybe I don't get the beans here, but if a rogue admin would do something now, there'd be nothing you could do. Block him, he'll simply unblock himself and go on. How could it be worse if he couldn't continue if an admin would block him? --Conti|✉21:13, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
You prefer blocking a rogue admin every second over blocking him once? Er.. I don't get it. --Conti|✉21:36, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, he'd go in and try to edit, see that he's blocked, and then have to spend time unblocking himself and refreshing and all that jazz... It's possible, considering stewards have to be extremely active and whatnot, and monitor the IRC channel. It'd only take like, a minute to get a steward.--UnionhawkTalkE-mail01:56, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, and if this were implemented he couldn't unblock himself in the first place, so there would be no need for a Steward in the first place. So, cleary, in this case that's the sane alternative, isn't it? --Conti|✉06:15, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Under the current situation it boils down to getting a Steward to desysop the admin. Under the new system it would boil down to getting a Steward to desysop the admin. In the former example, we need a Steward every single time. In the latter example we need a Steward only if the admin in question would manage to block every other admin before they act. Which is a thing that can easily be prevented by limiting the number of blocks that can be done in a minute. But I'm sure we're never gonna do that either because there's surely a handful of admins around who block more than 100 accounts a minute now and then, or something. --Conti|✉18:42, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
So? My point remains: You need a Steward either way. Right now, you'd need a Steward. With this, you'd need a Steward. If we're going into hypothetical worst cases, a rogue admin could have a script to automatically unblock himself, so the "Let's click the block button as often as possible to keep him occupied"-argument is a rather silly one when you also make the "Let's assume he'll block bloody everyone in a minute. "-argument. --Conti|✉07:32, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support - the code for this is already written. Its just a matter of flipping a switch. Even if the problem is minimal, the solution here is trivial. With regard to the rogue admin scenario, I think the ability to stop it with a single block outweighs the risk of someone being able to block every admin before anyone notices. Even then, the drama saved from non-rogue admins unblocking themselves far outweighs the both of the hypothetical rogue admin scenarios. Mr.Z-man21:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Let's see.. if an admin goes rogue now, we can't do anything at all (since he can just unblock himself) and have to run to a steward for help. If this would pass, we could deal with the problem ourselves unless that admin would manage to block every single admin before one of them would block him. Then we'd need a steward again. My apologies for the language, but, seriously, how the fuck is that a reason not to change anything? --Conti|✉21:45, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
It would be very easy, were an admin so inclined, to write a script which will block every admin account in a matter of minutes. Then what happens? I'm not saying its going to happen, just that its a possibility--Jac16888Talk21:48, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Then you go to meta and ask for a Steward, who'll desysop said admin. Think about it: what would you do if he would do that right now? Sure, you could unblock yourself.. and then what? He can unblock himself, too. So, in the end, you'd need a Steward to desysop the admin, again. Right now we need a Steward 100% of the time in case of rogue admins. With this implemented, we'd need a Steward only in one very specific instance. --Conti|✉21:54, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
What Conti said. In the worst case scenario, its no worse than it is now. And again, the rogue-admin-with-a-script thing is a hypothetical situation. Non-rogue admins unblocking themselves and causing drama has actually happened. Mr.Z-man22:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Support this proposal, and support making admins unable to block themselves as well while we're at it. Removing that capability removes the primary good reason why any admin ever needs to unblock him- or herself. Robofish (talk) 21:28, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
weak oppose. The balance of the "rogue admin" arguments is unconvincing; any really effective rogueness probably needs steward intervention either way, and Wikipedia has survived 10 years with the status quo and won't collapse even if all admins are blocked for as much as a few hours while stewards are mysteriously AWOL. Which leaves the ability to self-unblock to go with the ability to self-block, which we really ought to trust admins with. And, per Geni, inappropriate self-unblocking may be a useful signal of something wrong. Defining it as purely drama may be incorrect. Rd232talk21:59, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - what about a rogue admin (compromised account, probably) blocking bunches of OTHER admins? O.O Seriously though, if an admin needs blocking, then a steward should be called on the case to remove the bit and then block them. And, admins blocking themselves on accident is too funny to fix, honestly...--UnionhawkTalkE-mail22:06, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I've already opposed the idea of the software not allowing admins to unblock themselves but if it goes in anyway, why not also make it impossible for admins to block themselves? (or next April 1st say you have when you haven't and see if any admins fall for it :)--Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Better still, why not make it impossible for admins to block anyone, if they can't even be trusted not to block themselves by accident? Surely this is some kind of a bizarre farce? If there's a problem with the UI then fix it. MalleusFatuorum01:35, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Holy shit guys, I just had a really scary thought: If blocked admins can't unblock anybody, then in a hypothetical mass script-based blocking by a compromised admin account could feasibly take out every admin. That would be one hell of a mess for a Steward to clean up...--UnionhawkTalkE-mail01:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
No, the steward would only have to unblock one admin. Every admin unblocked could then unblock other admins. And it could be undone as easily with a script as it could be done. I do find it strange though that people are more concerned with hypothetical situations rather than actual problems that have happened before (admins unblocking themselves and causing mass drama). Mr.Z-man02:16, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
It would be the same amount of mess as if they all could unblock themselves, since only a small fraction will. But I don't think this is needed, admins know better than to unblock themselves. Prodegotalk02:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps. What I find way beyond bizarre though is that blocked admins are still allowed to block other users, presumably including other admins. MalleusFatuorum02:21, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment What surprised me in the recent event was how much admins block themselves by mistake. I think something has to be done about it, like disabling the autofill (if possible) for the name of user blocked. Sole Soul (talk) 04:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
There is no autofill (unless someone's browser is doing it), it's that people tend to have a lot of tabs open, including their talk/user page. Its easy to click the block link on the wrong page. I also sometimes click the block link on my own page, then fill in another username from there. Prodegotalk04:42, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
At least, a confirmation message. After seeing this, I cannot rule out the possibility that number of new users were blocked indef by mistake without anyone knowing about it and without being unblocked. Sole Soul (talk) 05:07, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
I blocked myself differently. I was showing a colleague what the admin interfaces looked like and I filled in the block user page with my own info, just in case a problem occurred. Lo and behold, when I went to grab my mouse, I inadvertently hit the enter key on the corner of my number pad. And I was blocked. Useight (talk) 22:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment Perhaps the solution better solution would be to disable admin self-blocking. There's no reason to block one's own account. If a test is necessary one can either create a second account (though there may be an autoblock problem), or pick one of the million used-once accounts. Will Bebacktalk23:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
That's not really a solution to anything. Admins blocking themselves by accident is embarrassing, but its not a real problem. The 2 problems here are the real problem of legitimately blocked admins unblocking themselves and causing drama and the hypothetical problem of a rogue admin running a script to block other admins and/or unblock himself. Mr.Z-man23:36, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Some years ago a very prominent admin blocked themselves for 3RR. I remember this particular instance well because I was one of the aggrieved parties! It was an honourable thing to do and I said so at the time. It does not look to me contrary to the wording in Wikipedia:Blocking#Conflicts_of_interest. However, it did rather seem punitive rather than preventative. Thincat (talk) 09:42, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm really not a fan of not having the ability to undo what I've done. If I blocked myself, I'd like to be able to unblock myself. There are very few things I can't undo, and I wouldn't want to add one more. Useight (talk) 15:38, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
After being informed of this, I realized that neither {{db-f11}} nor {{di-no permission-notice}} mention adding {{OTRS pending}} onto the images to prevent their deletion. Is this for some other reason I am unaware about, or has nobody just noticed? If it's the latter, I strongly support adding a note about this to prevent images from being deleted prematurely, possibly because of some unknown issue in OTRS proceedings. —fetch·comms03:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Editions of articles be verified for truth so that readers can look at a verified article
Some articles (including featured and good articles) have been vandalized, or created by authors that were misinformed when they were creating the article. I propose that there be a process for verifying a specific version of an article. This process would require the article to be verified for truth and that the verification process would require a number of users to all agree that this edition of the article is completely factual. This would create a set in stone copy of the article that is protected from vandalism.--Iankap99 03:48, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't think that would work... a) how could you get everybody to agree? b) what's the difference to flagged revisions?... (moreover, I'm skeptical about "truth"...) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556> haneʼ04:42, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
a) How do we get people to agree for featured articles now? b) What do you mean?
Isn't he really asking for a way of asserting that an article meets a higher level of quality? (I don't know about this "verified for truth", as that is pretty sticky, but there could be verification of references, etc.) The Good Article process sort of does that, but more as special cases. And the process suggested ("require a number of users to all agree...") is pretty naive. But perhaps some variant of the Good Article process that in a narrower respect (verifiability, "truth", general sniff test, etc.) sets some kind of standard of quality. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia is based in Verifiability, not truth. "Truth" is an absolute value, and things aren't always as clear and shiny as it sounds in theory. Some topics have no truths but instead opinions with varying levels of acceptance (such as everything related to good & evil), and sometimes truth itself is under dispute (such as with ovnis) MBelgrano (talk) 19:59, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Science articles have levels of truth. Maybe editions can be verified as vandalism free.
Yes, the contents of the periodic table are "true", for example. The problem is that when "truth" is so clear, nobody cares about it. Who would dispute the number of electrons of oxygen? When "truth" is called for, it's because there is a dispute and someone expects a higher moral authoritative concept to settle it. MBelgrano (talk) 01:52, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Template to request attention of experienced users
I sometimes feel the need to call the attention of experienced or tech-savvy users to a specific page that might not get much traffic otherwise, and I think other users probably might as well. Currently there doesn't seem to be a better option than using {{editprotected}}, but that's wrong on at least two levels: 1) the template simply isn't meant for that (e.g. when a page is not protected but there's a technical problem), and 2) not only admins are experienced users that could help.
I proposed here{{admin attention}}, from the top of my head, admittedly, and MSGJ pointed out that is was probably a bad name, and suggested me to propose the idea here. So, what do you think? Do you agree that this could be useful? And do you have any ideas for better names? --Waldirtalk22:43, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Is there a template for attracting the attention of an experienced admin, as opposed to the first dickhead with too much time on his hands? MalleusFatuorum23:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
There's not going to be a way of requesting the attention of someone who doesn't have too much time on their hands, since everyone who edits Wikipedia has an excess of that, or else they wouldn't be here. As for avoiding dickheads, no, I don't believe there is any such template. Equazcion(talk)23:40, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Your response demonstrates very well your problem. There are many here who believe in the idea of free information, freely available to everyone. Admittedly, very few of them are administrators. MalleusFatuorum23:59, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
You must mean "the problem with Wikipedia," then, rather than my problem, as I'm not an administrator. Besides which, having an abundance of time on one's hands and caring about Wikipedia's purpose aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Equazcion(talk)00:11, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Or you could go to their talk pages and ask them specifically. If they are "dickheads", that's your fault then. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:46, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Asking specifically is not a bad way to go. About once a week, I get a talk page comment along the lines of "I saw your edits to X; can you help with a situation at Y?" —C.Fred (talk) 00:48, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Re-reading the OP, he's suggesting a template for use at any page, to call attention for [technical?] help in that specific place. The templates we described in response are meant to go on a user's talk page, and are meant to only be responded to by one individual. We have RFC tags to call more attention over, but for technical help that'd certainly be overkill. Something in-between might be a good idea. Equazcion(talk)01:59, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
He actually said "experienced or tech-savvy", which suggests two templates. {{experienced attention}} and {{tech attention}} would do. In theory this could be a way to bring contributors to an article talk page without the complexity of an RFC (i.e. for lesser issues, or less well-defined). Currently we have specific noticeboards for specialised categories of "experienced attention", like WP:NPOVN (and VPT or helpdesk for tech stuff), so the question is whether this approach adds value to that, enough to justify the additional complexity. Perhaps Waldir could give some examples of where this approach would be better than those alternatives. Rd232talk09:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I think any general coding issue would qualify. If someone's trying to get a table or infobox to display correctly and can't figure out what the problem is, or there are other rendering issues on a page. Maybe even non-technical problems where someone wants to know if a page satisfies policy, or get general advice on a content issue... I can't predict specific situations, but it seems like something that could be useful. I created Template:Attention requested for the time being (shortcut {{attreq}}), which adds pages to the category Category:Pages where attention has been requested. I'm not sure how to get them listed at IRC the way {{helpme}} does though. Feel free to revise it. Equazcion(talk)09:31, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
For clarity, it would probably be better to put "tech" in the template/category names. Non-tech issues, I'm not convinced it's better to use this approach than to direct people to an appropriate noticeboard etc. And if it is, it should really be a separate template/category. Rd232talk09:41, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
The use cases were stated above by Equazcion. I have felt the need for something like this every now and then, especially when dealing with templates, which more often than not "feature intrincate syntax", to use their own wording. Also, I think approaching individual editors is ok if you already know one or more that could help, but you can never be sure in each specific issue, and besides you could be bothering someone who's busy, away, or simply uninterested in the subject. Not to mention newbies that might not have a clue on who could be a good person to contact. I also would support something like {{technical attention requested}} (shortcut {{tech-attreq}}?). Apart from the IRC warning, which would be really great (does anyone know how to do that?), I wonder what other ways we could use to advertise these templates. I was thinking that the pages they are added to could be placed in Category:Wikipedia requests related to help or one of its subcats; or maybe a new category could be created, what do you think? Also, a mention in the "see also" sections of {{editprotected}} and {{editsemiprotected}} could be potentially useful. --Waldirtalk20:50, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I get that - if it's set up, that's all very sensible in terms of how to do it. The question is the fundamental Catch 22: if you know about this template, you probably know about VPT / helpdesk and quite possibly someone to ask as well. How do you get the knowledge of either this template or the alternatives to the people who really need it? That's the problem, for me. OK, there may still be advantages, eg if users feel reluctant to bother people at those central locations... but those will be much reduced if the info problem isn't addressed somehow. Rd232talk07:00, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
By that reasoning, we might as well delete {{editprotected}}... I think that having users contacting individual editors to solve a given problem is a less-than-ideal way to deal with issues. For example, a technical problem can be solved much faster by someone who's already encountered a similar instance, than by a reasonably tech-savvy user who might have to investigate a bit. Multiple opinions also might help reaching a potentially better solution than the first approach. --Waldirtalk07:26, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Btw, posting in VPT is a good option, but I believe it might be better to have some issues dealt with in the talk pages of the pages they refer to rather than having a thread in VPT which inevitably will get moved into an immense archive. That said, a problem that might cover several pages would indeed be best served in the VPT, to centralize discussion. And now that you mentioned it, I think a good option to advertise these requests would be precisely a link in the VPT header, possibly with a count of items in the relevant category. --Waldirtalk07:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
I was just thinking... wouldn't it be cool if we could have Twinkle-style interaction for some of this? Like a box on {{talkheader}} (and/or elsewhere), for "attention", and you click it and get a popup to choose from different kinds of attention needed, enter a description, and the script does the rest (in terms of listing at NPOVN, or making an editprotected request, creating an RFC, etc). Long-term, Wikipedia really needs to try and move towards that sort of ease-of-use. Rd232talk09:40, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
That might be cool, if we could prevent it from being mis/over-used; and, if we could trigger javascript from within a template, which I don't think we can really do now (at least not without something being prepared by devs first). Equazcion(talk)09:44, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Well that's why I said "wouldn't it be cool" - I didn't think it was something possible right now. But I think (once Flagged Revs and RevDelete are handled) that could be a future milestone. Rd232talk16:35, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't think even that's needed, the withJS URL parameter could be used instead (it still requires editing page in the MediaWiki namespace). Svick (talk) 18:44, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Currently Wikipedia's "Cite this page" feature gives you a very nice BibTeX template, however it always contains the default identifier: wiki:xxx.
Arguably, every TeX user has his or her own preferences on which citation Id's to use, however in my humble opinion a default identifier of the format: wiki:en:Earth ( wiki:<language code>:<Article Name> ) could as easily be replaced by something entirely individual and would give users much nicer default. Masterfreek64 (talk) 19:29, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
OT: I just checked it on a random article, and the output appears incorrect. It gave title = "Leonhard Euler --- Wikipedia{,} The Free Encyclopedia", which means that in most styles the printed title would come out with lowercase "euler" and "wikipedia". The W in Wikipedia, as well as any words with capitals coming from the article title, have to be enclosed in curly brackets. On the other hand, the brackets around "," do not seem to do anything. There are other problems with the output (it does not handle diacritics, let alone more complicated Unicode characters), but this one shouldn't be that hard to fix. And do we really want to use a spaced em-dash in the title?—EmilJ.10:36, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Possible Suggestion For Making Wikipedia Even Better
Wikipedia is a magnificent online-encyclopedia—the, not least, but most magnificent online-encyclopedia in the world. However, there exists a thing or two missing in order to make it more magnificent.
One thing which “might” make it an improvement would be to link ‘each link’ in a sentence “at the end” of a sentence. Quite often young users (even older people) have a tendency to go to another link “before they even finish the sentence” (and, thus, get off-track onto another article rather than the one they should be researching/reading) since they may not understand the vocabulary/terminology/word which is stated. I have found myself doing this. Instead, wouldn’t it be better to say at the end of a sentence [See: and then name the terminology, such as: Greek Classical Books; Classical Books; Greek Books; Greek; Classical; Books] while providing a link to those things. This also shows a disambiguation hierarchy which students can follow. It also brings the editor/writer a means by which to find mistakes. For instance, I may have said [Classical Books; Classical; Books] while then thinking to myself: “What type of Classical Books am I talking about? Greek? Roman? or what?” This also aids the creation of in-depth "lists" as well as "category" pages.
Personally, I would get (even more) distracted by links inside a bracketed block. For me the best way of reading Wikipedia is by opening any interesting wikilinks in a new browser tab and then usually reading them later on (although I often go overboard with that and end up with 50 open tabs which I never would manage to read anyway :-) )--Duplode (talk) 23:50, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
This MIGHT have been an interesting something to think about (but almost certainly not implament) if tab browsing didn't exist. But since all the major browsers have tabbed browsing, it's pointless to even think about. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 13:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
I am sure that most people who lives in my home country, the United Kingdom, will have heard tonight on news that Gordon Brown is going to resign as Labour leader. Can I please propose that there is therefore a tag at the head of such a figure, stating "This person is currently in the news, and information may change rapidly with news news stories"? I am aware that there is already a similar tag on the talk page of such articles, but what about having one on the actual article per se?
I am aware that Wikipedia is not quite Wikinews, but this is surely the encyclopaedia which covers current events more than any other encyclopaedia (including online ones), and as not all people would go to the talk page,why not have a tag about a person being in the news at the head of the article? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:49, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Thank you Mr Z-man - I had not seen that tag last night.It is exactly then type of thing I had in mind.I suppose that I am proposing it goes at the start of the article, not the talk page. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:28, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
There are hundreds of people "in the news", the template should be just for really heavy cases, like when Obama took office and all media in the world was talking about it, or when Michael Jackson died, or... well, I can't come up with really good examples near at hand, they are supposed to be few and limited after all. In any case, I doubt that Gordon's resignation would be such an omnipresent news MBelgrano (talk) 16:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Examples like when the head of government changes in the United States…or the United Kingdom, as with Brown and David Cameron? I'd say it's as much a case for {{current person}} there as with Obama's election. —C.Fred (talk) 02:23, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Alternatives to TFA unprotection
moved from Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_article, including first two responses
There is a lengthy and inconclusive discussion about protecting Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article. The main reason given to keep TFA unprotected is to encourage visitors to experiment and get into editing. Yet it's agreed that we don't like having our best content mucked around with: we are, in a way, treating our best content as a sandbox. If we can come up with sufficiently good alternative ways to get visitors into editing, it would make sense to showcase our best content, and have a separate sandbox. So:
Add a sort of "poor man's Flagged Revs" by having a sandboxed version of the TFA prominently linked from relevant places - most obviously, MediaWiki:Protectedpagetext can detect the current TFA and display a prominent custom message "you can't edit the live version right now, but you can edit a draft version of this page", when you click the Edit button and don't have permission to edit. Basically, create Wikipedia:TFAsandbox and at the beginning of each day, seed it with the day's TFA. Allow people to muck around at will, and provide a custom Sandbox editnotice which (a) actually helps first-timers and (b) points people to the Edit Request button now available on the Edit button of protected pages (only shown if you don't have the right to edit the page). This would work best in combination with 2.
Change "view source" (which may sound techy and off-putting, and certainly isn't inviting) to "edit this page". "View source" is shown if you can't edit the page - so the status quo makes sense in a way. But you want to lead people into how easy it is to edit (just get an account, make a few edits, etc), give them some info and useful links - plus that tab now has an "edit request" button if you can't edit, so it makes less sense than it used to. Let's stop putting people off editing.
Drawing on Wikipedia:Cleanup, create an additional "learn to edit" box below the Featured Picture box, with various categories of Editing Things To Do. Perhaps include current content RFCs too - people might spot a controversy of interest. Include some basic instructions on how to do stuff like copyediting, wikifying, and link to more detailed ones. Bottom line: the slogan is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Yet the front page gives no indication of the different ways you might be able to contribute.
All of these are worth doing regardless of the TFA protection issue - but if they are done, the cost/benefit of keeping it unprotected would be quite different. Rd232talk14:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree with 100% of this. Simple, and if fully implemented, more inviting to potential new editors than an unprotected TFA. Well thought out, Rd232. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)\
Hellz to the yes! :D I especially like the last one. If this had happened in the past, I would have started editing years ago. It took a lot of work to find out how to help. (Well, not a lot, but who wants to look?) VerballyInsane03:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't like the idea of pushing TFA edits to some sandbox. One, a sandbox is going to be much less watched, meaning the chances of someone editing a vandalized version may be higher. And secondly, the chances of any good edits being incorporated into the main article will be much smaller. If we have to protect the TFA for some reason, it would be better than nothing, but as a reason for allowing the TFA to be protected, I don't like it. If it is done, we shouldn't call it a sandbox, as that's telling users that edits there don't really matter, making it a waste of time for new users and encouraging other users to just blindly revert to "reset" the sandbox. Mr.Z-man04:08, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
"chances of editing a vandalised version" - so? It has a radically different purpose; and removing vandalism is a far more realistic start for editing than trying to improve a featured article, don't you think? Changes aren't likely to be incorporated in the article, it's true; but then it is the TFA - changes aren't likely to be positive - and an Edit Request button is available for serious suggestions. As long as the nature of the sandbox is clear, and the Edit Request button provided (besides the talk page), it's fine. Rd232talk05:28, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
We might as well just protect it and leave it at that. If someone's first experience trying to make a positive edit requires them to jump through a bunch of hoops and ask for an edit to be applied or edit some sandbox and hope that it doesn't just get ignored and blindly reverted, most just aren't going to bother. Most changes won't be positive, but that doesn't mean that 0% will be, otherwise we should just protect all FAs, if they're so close to perfect that new users don't stand a chance at improving them. Mr.Z-man20:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
As stated before, the main justification for not semi-protecting TFA is to allow visitors a chance to experience editing. If that objective can be met reasonably well, then the attraction of using our best content as a sandbox declines markedly. By definition, improvements to TFAs are not reasonably to be expected from passersby - and I'd question to what extent meaningful improvements can survive the vandal-fighting required by the present approach. Alternatives exist for getting improvement suggestions heard; and if clicking the Edit Request button or going to the talk page is "jumping through hoops" we might as well all give up and go home. Rd232talk21:17, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Eh, is it really that hard to just do a diff from the previous day after it's done being featured and then clean the article back up? It's not that bad a trade for getting to be featured. --Cybercobra(talk)05:03, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Agree with all although I think they should be expanded to cover all semi-protected articles, not just TFA, especially proposal no. 2 (the changing of View source to Edit this page). It would really help us earn more users. Narutolovehinata5tccsdnew04:12, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't want to be a downer, but I think I said this before the last time this came up, and if not I'm saying this now just in case. I see little point pushing the TFA protection change angle at the moment. From Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Flagged Protection: update for May 6 & [8] it's apparent flagged protection isn't that far aware. I can't say you'd definitely convince the community to use flagged protection on TFA, but I do think it's pointless to spend time on this, when things could very well different in a few months with another obvious option particularly since a number of these changes may require enough work (the sandbox/poor mans flagged protection idea is an obvious one that seems a bit pointless) and that combined with the RFC and associated likely lengthy discussions to get any such substanial change to the way we treat TFA. Nil Einne (talk) 04:40, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
"I don't want to be a downer"... um, your various increasingly expansive posts wherever this idea is mentioned are starting to suggest otherwise. Rd232talk09:41, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, how often periodically is should still be decided but I personally think that once a week, or even less often, would be appropriate. This would not cause too much load on the server for something that I agree, is fairly low-priority. - EdoDodotalk20:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm not really that concerned in that regard... the userboxes exist either way. I'm just not sure if cosmetic userpage updates are something worth the overhead of bot edits. Userboxes are probably the lowest-priority things to worry about around here. Equazcion(talk)19:40, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
The userboxes may exist already, but when the editcount updates automatically, the count will take on a new significance (even if the boxes aren't used more widely as a result). As I said, encouraging editcountitis. The more I think about it, the more I think it's a surprisingly bad idea. (Surprising, because making things easier shouldn't ever be a bad idea...) Rd232talk20:13, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
(ec)I'm sure some would like this bot and it shouldn't bother people's watchlists (unless they have a bunch of user pages watched), but I tend to agree with the rest that this bot is unnecessary, though I'm not too concerned either way. But this is a good example to not declare in a request that edits non-controversial before asking about them. —Ost (talk) 19:55, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
It might be simpler and entail less overhead to simply make a user's total edit count into a magic word. This is already displayed in Preferences, so it couldn't be that hard to turn into a variable. I'm still not sure the devs would do it, because again it's a low-priority thing, and I'm not sure how much practical use it has. I don't think the bot has much chance at getting approved either. Sorry... Equazcion(talk)19:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree that this would be a far better solution, but unfortunately I doubt the developers would implement this, which is why I proposed this bot. - EdoDodotalk20:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Well I think this would be a very useful service for some (a lot of people are frequently updating their userboxes with new edit counts), and not cause too much load if ran at a fairly low frequency (weekly?), since I realize it is a low-priority task. I mean Wikipedia gets thousands of edits all the time, what is a couple of hundred of edits a week going to change if it makes things a bit better for some users? - EdoDodotalk20:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I am unfamiliar with this. Will this bot go through the edits of the user? And if so how can one access this information?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Iankap99 (talk • contribs) 22:06, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
The bot wouldn't need to go through all the edits and count them, it just uses the MediaWiki API to get the edit count (basically it asks the server how many edits a user has and the server replies). - EdoDodotalk05:29, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The new layout is nice, but is there any chance we could have the font on the "compare versions" screens (like here) put back to how it was, please? The new style is quite a bit harder to read and there's no obvious reason why it needed to change. 86.135.170.153 (talk) 01:57, 14 May 2010 (UTC).
Fixing the Wikipedia logo's errors
Read my project page. I have been fixing the Wikipedia logo's errors with PhotoShop. Before voicing your opinion, please, please read the entire page, and if you know any other typographical mistakes in the logo, please tell me on its talk page. For this, not only will I need support, because some people call the mistakes "a metaphor to the encyclopedia itself", (who will probably oppose) but I will also need authority to help me get the image onto all of the heavily protected files.
Interesting undertaking. Just know that only top-quality work would likely be accepted as the new logo. I just hope you're not wasting your time. But if you have the skills for it, then great. My only suggestion is that it would be cool, and beneficial, if you posted an image of your progress periodically, so people can provide input along the way. Equazcion(talk)16:03, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, I can't tell the difference unless I zoom in to more than 300% and increase the contrast. I'd love to upload it, but I'm afraid the upload will be destroyed by a faulty fair-use rationale. Uploading images has always confused me. I could upload it to an image sharing website, but that would be illegal due to copyright infringement, most likely. Could you help me? Awesomeness talk 17:09, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Image summaries confuse the hell out of me too. What I usually do is find a similar image and copy its rationale. For altered Wikipedia logos, this seems to work nicely: File:Wikipedia_Logo_addendum.png. Just edit the page and copy the summary; when uploading, don't choose any license from the menu, just paste this summary instead. Equazcion(talk)17:31, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
How's this? (File:Wikipedia-logo-fixed.png) I don't think it's perfect; there is great room for improvement, but this is just a rough draft to show you what I'm doing. Tell me if you like it, or if I should scrap it. PS: I hope I did the image upload correctly... Awesomeness talk 19:06, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
It looks like the overall brightness is turned up in yours. The character you fixed looks pretty good though. You uploaded correctly, as far as I can tell; I just added a description. As for whether to to scrap this, you might want to wait and see about the new logos already being developed, apparently, as TheDJ points out below. This might all be for nothing... Equazcion(talk)19:18, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
The brightness is turned up because my version of PhotoShop is messed up and it does that when you export it as a PNG. The PSD is fine, so if anyone wants that, I could give it to them. But he's right, it is for nothing:
"And, we’ll start roll-out of a refined version of the well-known Wikipedia globe logo, correcting small mistakes and representing new languages."
Nah, don't feel stupid. I didn't know about that either. With all the different venues here, and the roughly 10 different wikis where foundation stuff happens, it's impossible to always be up on everything. Be glad you found out after you only worked on one character in the globe :) Equazcion(talk)19:39, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I suppose. It was two, actually. The Japanese one was fairly easy, but the Hindi one was very difficult. Anyways, I'm just glad DJ found this before I started correcting other mistakes (apparently there were problems with other languages like Chinese, too) and really polished everything. Awesomeness talk 19:44, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
EDIT: Also, I just compared the images; it's not brighter, they just use an old thumbnail for the Wikipedia logo on the top left. (It has even more problems like a weird line over the backwards N and a quotation mark before the Omega) Compare it to File:Wikipedia-logo.png. Awesomeness talk 19:48, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
There are special legal rules for things like logos, and it's not unlikely that only the original artist who created this one has the legal right to fix it. HansAdler16:12, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
So there are some extra hoops for getting the new logo in place since anything he creates would be a derivative work, but derivative works can be allowed by the copyright holder, so it's not completely hopeless. VernoWhitney (talk) 16:23, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
It depends on the specific contract between the Wikimedia Foundation and the artist, which might well say that any changes to the logo must be done by the artist (and paid for). I remember reading about a serious obstacle like this in an earlier discussion, but I can't remember the details. HansAdler16:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
My understanding is that the logo is owned by the foundation now, so if they approve of the change it would be fine. I altered the logo once to fix some problems and improve quality, and got the site to use it without any real legal concerns. Granted those were smaller changes, but the only utterance of copyright issues was "the foundation needs to approve" (my changes were deemed to only be image quality corrections, so we didn't even end up asking them). Equazcion(talk)16:28, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, I was looking up a source for this, when i once again got distracted by the whole Commons debate. You can read about it here. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:09, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Ugh, it doesn't look right. I'm not sure precisely what's setting off my reaction, but I thoroughly dislike the logo examples given there. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}}01:08, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
I was about to say something similar. What bothers me, I think, is that it's a lot smaller, and the choice of font is pretty bad. They wanted to go with a free font this time; I guess the choices weren't so great... Of course we could all just need time to get used to it. Hard to be objective when you've been looking at the same logo for 5 years. Equazcion(talk)01:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The SVG version isn't small, but it's got really low-quality shading (unfortunately), which gives it a sort of matte plastic effect that tends to conjure up a school assignment in a design course for me. Of course, this isn't just useless bitching - I'm not certain it's all that easy to get high-quality shading in a reasonably-sized SVG, so if reproducibility was an issue, the plastic feel might be intentional. — Gavia immer (talk)01:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Looking at the SVG, you can really tell just how non-3D the indentations between puzzle pieces are. Those 3D ridges in the present logo are a big part of why it looks so good, I think. Equazcion(talk)01:31, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
That's probably it—the lack of, or effective lack of, convincing ridging on the puzzle pieces. I've seen some reproductions of the Wikipedia logo that failed on the same point, and it always bugs me. It's not even that the ridging is done badly, but that it's not shaded right. If you look at the 1000px version, it quickly becomes evident that the ridging's there but has such poor contrast that it appears as a solid line at low resolutions. This really ought to be fixed, at very least for the low-resolution versions. I've done a bit of (amateur) icon work, and one of the first things you learn is that low-resolution versions of icons often need tweaks—or even outright distortions—to look right. :/ {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}}05:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Main new logo discussion: WP:VPT#New logo. Please discuss there, to keep comments centralized.
Numbering sections not only in table of contents but also in the body of a wiki page
I think it's better to number every section/sub-section of any wiki page, whether it's an article page or a page like this, according to the table of contents shown at the start of the article. Of course, this is done automatically --Xeddy (talk) 11:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC)and hence we need some code for this. A reader may want to browse through the sections without going to the table of contents page, say in a long article. I think the average article is long so I think we desperately need this feature. I found this lack of feature annoying quite frequently. I think web pages are no different from other contents like printed docs or electronic docs, they should contain section/sub-section numbering in the body of the section.
--Xeddy (talk) 11:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
The advantage is ease of reading the article and of course strict content formality. Consider a 10 page article that has a table of contents, but then the body lacks the section numbers. What if you want to scan the TOCs and pick up three sections to browse through by remembering only their sections numbers. Remembering by their name would make you forget easily. This is also the issue of good design (accessibility) is it not. Certainly there would be no harm in being formal and this wouldn't put a blemish on the looks of wiki?
--Xeddy (talk) 11:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
It may be difficult to implement: each time someone attemps to add or remove a section, should go on editing all the following ones to match the numbers again. Too much trouble for something that is just 1 button away: just press the "Home" button, or keep "Page up" pressed, and the table of contents is there. And the table itself would help to return to the original point. MBelgrano (talk) 12:06, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
Note that human editors are not to generate the section numbers themselves, neither to edit them. They are to be appended by the system automatically
just like a TOC on a wiki page is generated automatically by the system through computer code. This is a simple case of computer programming and is not difficult at all.
--Xeddy (talk) 12:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
This theory will break down as soon as some clueless editor refers to another section by its section number rather than using a link.—EmilJ.12:48, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
Gadget beat me to it, the option already exists, and I've used it for some time. The only question would be whether it should become the default (I'd like it, but I predict it wouldn't gain consensus.) I have to catch myself, to make sure I don't tell some, "check out section 3 for the answer to your question." addendum (maybe I should have read to the end, e.g EmilJ comment, before posting :))--SPhilbrickT13:28, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Gadget850. What an excellent solution to leave the feature to those who want it. Now wiki is fantastic for me. --Xeddy (talk) 11:23, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
Re-upload Commons artwork that's been deleted by Jimbo Wales
Update: see the discussion on Commons, where previously deleted images are being reviewed. –SJ+
Original discussion
As posted by User:TheDJ: "Per comments of Jimbo on Commons, there is now a new interpretation of the existing polices regarding sexual content. Basically all images that might potentially require 2257 record keeping and that do not serve a current educational purpose are to be deleted instantly. Undeletion of these images can be discussed on a case by case basis. The effects of this new policy can already be witnessed by the removal of images in our articles by CommonsDelinker. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:29, 6 May 2010 (UTC)"
The proposal is still a draft; apologies have been made for deleting without discussion, and Commons is undeleting and discussing the ~70 images affected. –SJ+13:33, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Several Wikimedia Foundation members, and Commons and Wikipedia editors are in opposition to certain aspects of this policy. Of primary concern for the moment is Jimbo's unilateral removal of artwork from Commons, which wouldn't even fall under the 2257 act, which requires that "producers of sexually explicit material obtain proof of age for every model they shoot, and retain those records" (according to Wikipedia's article on the act). The rationale for these removals is that they are out of the scope of the project.
As was proposed informally at the VPP discussion, and I'm now proposing here, the removed artworks could theoretically be re-uploaded to Wikipedia for use in our articles. If broad consensus for this were to be demonstrated here, it would make for a stronger justification for re-uploading the material, and hopefully make it more difficult to reverse. Equazcion(talk)20:07, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose in general, support on case-by case basis I oppose this idea. EnWiki's role is not to store information for potential use, especially pornography. On a case-by-case basis, if there exists an image, already validly used in an article which was removed from the commons, that is one thing. But turning EnWiki into a porn repository because the Commons is being cleaned up is not appropriate. -- Avi (talk) 20:19, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
That's the intention, I believe. The proposal is not to re-upload the 255 penises that existed on Commons, but to re-upload valuable images that were being used in articles here. Jimbo isn't just deleting useless pics. He is deleting works of art and illustrations that were used in place of base porn images. Resolute20:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Correct. That was my intention. I'm not proposing a mass-re-uploading of all deleted images; only those that were in valid use at Wikipedia articles. Equazcion(talk)20:30, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Almost all of the images, it seems, that were deleted were already in use in articles and a number of them were sketches or art that does not fall under the cited law. SilverserenC20:26, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying. I agree that there are some images whose deletion may have been a bit hasty, but there is so much garbage on the Commons that the last thing we need is to turn EnWiki into PornoWiki. -- Avi (talk) 22:45, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Then Jimbo should have put up the ones that were clearly pornographic for deletion, but he didn't. Instead, he deleted entire categories of images, regardless of the educational and artistic images that could have been in the categories, of which there was a lot. SilverserenC22:50, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. For local upload of all deleted images that were in use in our articles, plus lesser support for those historical images and illustrations that do not fall under 2257. If necessary, implement a {{di-orphaned fair use}}-style system for those that do. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 20:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support If we follow Jimbo's suggestion of "destroy now, fix later" we are going to see many valuable and useful images fall through the cracks and be lost permanently. Moving useful and used images to en in the short term will not only allow us to maintain the quality of this encyclopedia, but will also present an outlet for Commons to restore some of the damage done by this bit of moral panic. We are seeing what images are being removed right now. Finding them later when their removal by the commons delinker bot has been buried under edit logs will be a much tougher task. Resolute20:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support This law does not apply to artwork and I think the pictures that this started with (the "child pornography" that Sanger told the FBI about) don't fit under the law either, as a majority of them were artwork from a historical piece. This whole situation is just ridiculous. SilverserenC20:26, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support but wait. As I suggested on Commons, I think patience is the best weapon here. We should take some time - maybe a few months - to let both Jimbo and the media calm down and divert their attention to other matters before we directly challenge his authority with a move like this. Jimbo does not hesitate to desysop admins who wheel war with him. The repealing of CSD T1, originally ordained by Jimbo, shows that his decrees can be reversed given community support and time. There is no deadline. Dcoetzee20:31, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Except this is a proposal, so it is not wheel-warring, it is consensus. He cannot desysop anyone for that. SilverserenC20:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
To the contrary, he has and will block people who take action against him, regardless of consensus. That's what it means to be a dictator. I just don't think a frontal assault can win in this battle, he's too powerful. He has a dreadfully short attention span and we should use that against him. Dcoetzee21:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Wheel warring requires the use of admin tools, which are not needed to upload images. More to the point, Jimbo's authority needs to be directly challenged on this. His shortsighted actions are causing damage to the encyclopedia, and it is the responsibility of the community to react. Frankly, if this was anyone else, he would have been desysopped and blocked for this. Nobody would stand for it if you or I did this, there is no reason why we should stand for Jimbo doing it. It is the responsibility of this community to protect the integrity of the project. Resolute20:43, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Because it's absolutely to remove perfectly valid pictures from articles. Ones that aren't in use, fine. But...yeah what they said above. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 22:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Per others regarding Jimbo, and because he could have consulted. And should have. By supporting, I merely support the reversion of what was done by an editor acting against consensus and who will not engage on talk page.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:12, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Strong Support. Unless Jimbo intends on taking down the servers, Wiki is no longer his hamster in a cage to play god with as he pleases. The copyright terms of the content and photos make this pretty clear: nobody is important, and everybody is equal. You are no different, and not an exception Mr. Wales. 7 years ago perhaps, but not today. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲτ¢22:17, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Blatant stupidity. Good quality educational images are not intended to be covered by the new rule at Commons, if there is a good quality educational image that's been deleted then it can be restored on Commons. The number of good quality educational images required per subject is small and the number of subjects requiring such images is also small. This should not be a problem to fix on a case by case basis. Wholesale re-uploading of material deleted as out of scope by Jimbo is a measure of such jaw-dropping stupidity that I am at a loss to work out how to explain to you just how stupid it is, if you don't immediately understand without it being explained. The way forward is to identify the images which are unambiguously of good educational quality and request undeletion, which will I am sure be honoured as several such requests already have. I am sure you have all seen people edit warring to have the photo of their dick on the article penis, that is not something we want to get into. Remember, our mission is to inform, not to prove to the world just how not censored we are - that would be juvenile in the extreme. Guy (Help!) 22:38, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
This proposal is to do exactly that: re-upload the educational images that we were using, that have now been unilaterally deleted and automatically removed from articles due to Jimbo's actions. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 22:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
We also want the educational ones. The thing is, a considerable amount of what was deleted was either educational or artistic. Artistic mainly. SilverserenC22:49, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
So ask Jimbo for undeletion on commons. For genuinely good images this will not be an issue. My experience fo Jimbo is that he is a reasonable man who is always prepared to listen to a reasonable request, but that he has little patience with people who butt heads against him. He does not often don the "god-king" hat and when he does it's because he has really strong feelings on something, usually because of some overall impact on the project itself. Try talking to him. Guy (Help!) 09:48, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Support: At least for some of the files, particularly for some of the drawings. I fully support deleting some of the grade F, shitty "porn" on Commons, but some of these deletions were completely off-the-mark. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:40, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support for encyclopedic content. I generally think Jimbo has this one right with regards to intention, but I think he's gotten things badly wrong in the implementation of his intentions. If we agree that an image is useful to English Wikipedia, I think we ought to keep it - meaning in practice that we must keep them here, and not on Commons, for now. I do not support dumping random unencyclopedic garbage here to "oppose censorship" or "archive Commons material" - we don't need even one badly-framed cameraphone shot of a penis here, let alone all the ones getting scrubbed from Commons presently. To Guy, above: I agree that the announced policy says that it isn't intended to remove educational images, but in practice, it is happening; the fact that images in use here have been deleted is proof enough of that. — Gavia immer (talk)22:42, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Alas, Jimbo was wheelwarring over some of his deletions earlier today, and we can't force Commons to undelete. All we can do on EN is bring the useful content here until sanity reigns there. Resolute23:10, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
The English Wikipedia is Jimbo's home project and the one he cares about most - I believe he'll delete them here too if we upload them today, and then we'll be right back where we started. I can only see two paths going forward: wait until he moves on and doesn't care anymore to reverse his actions; or appeal to the Board to hold a hearing regarding abuse of Jimbo's special privileges. Dcoetzee23:16, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
If the images are reuploaded today on this Wiki, it'll be because of community consensus that is established here. If he goes and reverts those changes here, then he would be directly going against community consensus. Not even Arbcom could protect him then. I say let this proposal run for another few hours, to truly gauge consensus (even though it seems rather clear from what i'm seeing right now) and then implement whatever consensus is to do. SilverserenC23:20, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
You think he cares about community consensus? This action is CLEAR he doesn't care about that. They got bad press, their funding was jeopardized, they stepped in and deleted anything remotely controversial to "make a stand". If you think the deletion of these images was JUST a unilateral decision of Jimbo, you're definitely mistaken. The only course here is to work with the processes and accept a higher level of censorship with images that could be considered "obcene" under the miller test and move on. The undeletion of works of art that FAIL the miller test will of course need done. But some images will never come back. Uploading them here is just going to get your account banned most likely. Thats why I support the undeletion of images that fail the miller test, and move on, afterall if it passes the miller test it shouldn't be here anyway since it has no encyclopedic value. — raeky(talk | edits)23:27, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
As has been stated though, a large amount of the deleted images will fail to pass the third portion of the Miller Test and, thus, would not be labeled obscene. And I never said I was advocating the re-uploading of all of the images. I just stated I object to the complete deletion of image categories, without even considering the value of what they contained. SilverserenC23:31, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I wonder if the press will catch onto the negative reaction Jimbo's abuse has received here and in Commons? We've gone from being the project anyone can edit to the project anyone can edit so long as they conform to the wishes of a dictator. Resolute05:57, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Support uploading relevant images locally. I look forward to the day when Jimbo is no longer permitted to use this and other projects like his personal playpen. Not only is it foolish to blindly delete content without thought and consideration, it is detrimental to every Wikimedia project that makes use of images hosted on Commons. At this point, the least we can do is repair the damage caused to this project. --auburnpilottalk23:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support - We should have gotten rid of the crappy homemade porn long ago, but deleting historical images and artwork is absolutely wrong. Mr.Z-man00:08, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Jimbo's authority to impose policy unilaterally has long since lapsed; particularly policy this unnecessarily draconian. --Cybercobra(talk)00:17, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. This makes no sense. Basically two things can happen: Either what we upload here would also be considered acceptable for undeleting on Commons. Then it should be undeleted on Commons so that all Wikipedias can use it. Or it wouldn't, so that we would fall in Jimbo's back by keeping lots of stuff here that he has made clear shouldn't be kept. That would of course lead to a similar deletion order here, probably with similar effects (loss of admins). Maybe Jimbo doesn't mind losing the kind of admins who would leave the project for such a silly reason. I know that I wouldn't. HansAdler00:33, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment- I can understand the rationale behind uploading those few images that have legitimate uses, because it seems Jimbo did have the idea of "kill them all and let God sort them out" (ironic because normally he's God and we're not, he reversed the roles on us ;)) and he seemed to have the idea that yes, some ok photos would be deleted with the bad and we can return them on a case-by-case basis. But it should be to Commons, I dont think Jimbo would oppose reuploading those that have justification. BUT any "supports" listed here where basically the reason for supporting is "I hate that Jimbo unilaterally did this, blah blah, he had no right, blah blah" should not be considered at all. If you support this because you want to spite Jimbo and reverse him just for the sake of "teaching him a lesson" that we're in control and he's not... then go some place else.Camelbinky (talk) 00:58, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
A great number of the commenters here seem to agree with me that this was a good idea that turned into a bad action; I don't see much in the way of "support because fuck Jimbo!!!1!1!!11" here. — Gavia immer (talk)01:03, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Although some people are angry, there's good reason for that, IMO, and that anger can serve a purpose. In a practical sense, this unilateral action shows something about Jimbo's current mentality regarding his ownership of the project, and one that we don't want to see demonstrated again. Gaining broad consensus that the action warrants immediate reversal could be an important step towards assuring that something similar doesn't happen in the future. The unilateral "shoot em all..." logic here was not warranted. Jimbo may have said that things can be restored on a case-by-case basis, but the idea with this proposal, I think, is to systematically get everything restored that was carelessly removed from legitimate use in our articles (side note, maybe we can get this list from the CommonsDelinker contribs). Equazcion(talk)01:40, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Thats the thing- "his current mentality regarding his ownership", yes he literally owned Wikipedia and any "powers" he has lost have been of his own free will. Who are we to say "this thing you created you have no power over, we have the power". Kinda arrogant and rude of us... and sets a bad precendent for anyone else who wants to create anything on the internet that others can use and work on... I know if I were to create a whateverpedia I have learned from Jimbo's problems here that I would make it clear that I am the final arbiter and would never give that up. I think the biggest mistake Jimbo ever made in his life was ever making any statements that he was voluntarily giving up any type of power or right to do anything. That was/is his downfall. And frankly I think he doesnt get the credit for being as good to all of us as he has, think of the alternatives. We all know LOTS of editors around here that if they were given even half his power we'd hate it more than we hate any abuse by Jimbo. I'd say 99% of Wikipedians could NEVER be trusted with a quarter of the rights Jimbo has had/still has.Camelbinky (talk) 01:54, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
We didn't say it. He did. If he had said it belonged to him and that he retained his right to unilaterally shape it as he saw fit, and retained that position within the Foundation, we wouldn't be telling him otherwise; and that would at least be in honest consistency with his recent actions, and perhaps some people wouldn't even mind. But I have a feeling many editors would never have even joined had that been the case. The fact that we believe this place to be community-run, with no dictator, is a big reason many of us joined. Maybe you're right in that Jimbo should seek to regain control of the Foundation and then re-declare that Wikipedia is his to mold (many of us would probably leave if he did), but barring that, he's obligated to keep in his place and not act like he runs everything, because the fact is he doesn't. Whether stepping aside was a smart move on his part or not, he still made it, and claims continually to abide by it. Equazcion(talk)02:21, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Could someone make a list of 5 historical artworks that have been deleted and which were used somewhere other than an article about sexuality? Such a list would be compelling, and it would help people like me see if there is actually much of an issue here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:29, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the number of images deleted is not very large [9], and it looks like all the ones that are works of art have been restored to commons already. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:58, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Sort of. That's only deletions by Jimmy. There have been a number of similar deletions by other administrators in the past few days. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:26, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
This thread is specifically about the ones bu Wales. But I also had looked at the CommonsDelinker contribs, and it looked like the vast majority there were for sexuality articles, at least the ones since May 2. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:58, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Commons needed a 'purge' of all those 'porn' images which are not used in any project (to which extent, I'm not pronouncing as that doesn't matter much to us), but it was badly handled (by Jimbo, the admins who made the deletions,etc), and images in use on local projects should definitely not have been deleted. Local projects depend on Commons, so Commons should be consistent in their inclusion - and deletion - policy, or make sure local projects are not impacted by changes (by notifying in advance, etc). Otherwise it means Commons is not reliable (which I've found to be the case for high risk images, fwiw), and in that case they failed. So we should take the appropriate steps to make sure our articles are not any more impacted by this situation, by locally uploading deleted images used in articles as suggested, immediately and not waiting for Commons to fix. Cenarium (talk) 03:31, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
There are now quite a few collected on commons: [11]. The response, as far as I can tell, seems pretty similar to the EnWP response— plus a few jabs at americans for being untrustworthy. ;) --Gmaxwell (talk) 05:00, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Support local uploading of all images that are used here and endangered by censorship on Commons. Of course, people who delete encyclopedic content against consensus should be desysopped, even if they happen to be Jimbo. See also m:Requests for comment/Remove Founder flag. —Кузьма討論06:18, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Wikipedia is not censored, and wouldn't images that were already being used in Wikipedia articles count as "for an educational purpose" by the very fact that they're used in Wikipedia articles? Also, I'm not usually around the policy pages much, so can someone explain to me why Mr. Wales has all these special powers? I thought this was a project built on consensus (with the narrow exception of obviously illegal things that could get the Foundation in trouble). --TorriTorri(Talk to me!)06:25, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Wait. People should not locally upload any content deleted on Commons before the Foundation policy or statement that Jimbo Wales has referred to as forthcoming is published. Even after that, I find it difficult to imagine the circumstances under which it would be helpful to locally upload an image that has deleted as inappropriate from Commons, as per Hans Adler above. Any questionable deletions should be discussed on Commons, not here, or we'll just needlessly multiply the drama. Sandstein 06:48, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
No, we'd be settling the drama per consensus. And it appears that the consensus is the same across all of the Wikipedias and Commons. SilverserenC07:10, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
It's worth mentioning that commons decision making is much slower than EnWP. You can't really say that there is a consensus there yet. It's also the case that uploading locally won't "solve" the problem for the hundreds of other projects which have lost access to these images, though I'm sure everyone at commons would understand enwp's taking care of its own content as an imperative while commons gets its act together. It would be helpful for more enwp regulars to come over to commons and express your views on how this event has impacted your project from the perspective of a "commons customer". Your positions are every bit as important as those of the regular commons community— as you'll have to cope with the ultimate results of this as much as the commons users will. --Gmaxwell (talk) 07:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I read that earlier...it really doesn't say much. I think we were expecting a more sweeping change from the way Jimbo made it sound, but...it's not. What we're doing in this discussion is exactly what it says to do, saying that the educational images should be reuploaded. And also expressing that their method of deletion was, we believe, not the right way to go. SilverserenC07:23, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
We're not bound to follow the same inclusion policies as commons, in fact we do not as we accept more types of copyright and licenses than commons. The foundation made a statement here which confirms that it is up to local projects to make their own inclusion policies within the general framework noted there and which were already existing. Commons need to be cleaned up of all those 'porn' images not used anywhere but images used on projects should not be deleted without alerting and it is entirely within our remit to locally upload images which we have already found to be appropriate for use in an article but which have been summarily deleted from commons without regard to local projects. Cenarium (talk) 07:25, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't disagree— although the same arguments would also apply on commons and I hope the community here will go make them there as well. --Gmaxwell (talk) 07:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Any images which could be liegitimately uploaded and kept here should be on Commons, rather than fighting for their inclusion here the communities not just enwiki and commons but pan wiki (this is affecting every wikipedia) should be working for their reinstatement at Commons.KTo288 (talk) 09:03, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Support: one thousand times over. Unbelievable that these heavy-handed and out-of-process deletions happened at all. We should salvage whatever we can that has encyclopaedic value. I'll link to these, as others have also done: remove founder flag and petition. Maedin\talk09:35, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Do please review the delinker history. If any project feels that an image has encyclopedic value, I expect that would be a strong reason for Commons to keep it. –SJ+08:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Support - many of the deleted images are/were notable works of art (and therefore 2257 is irrelevant). Jimbo was way out of line here, he shouldn't no-one should be doing large-scale unilateral deletions, especially with such poor reasoning. - Mobius Clock10:18, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Rather than reuploading, simply mentioning on Commons that an image is needed here should be strong incentive for it to be restored. I feel that inclusion policies should be handled at the individual project level, not at Commons itself (which for various reasons should have the most inclusive policies of all Projects). –SJ+08:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. Go to Commons and support undeletion there for files that deserve it. Some of the undeletions that have already been performed show that Jimbo went overboard and deleted items that he shouldn't have, but the very fact that they have been restored shows that the Commons undeletion process works. Making local copies of files that are acceptable for Commons defeats the purpose of having Commons in the first place, and there is no magic that makes a file unencyclopedic pornography on Commons but a useful educational illustration on en-wiki. --RL0919 (talk) 15:08, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I fully agree with Jimbo on this, and Wikipedia should not become another free porn server. If there are encyclopedic images needed for encyclopedic articles about sexual or other sensitive topics, I am sure there are ways to get them without violating any laws, and even if a few are missing, a brief textual description would suffice, as the goal is to inform, not to titillate. I trust Jimbo's judgment on what rules are needed for image content. Crum375 (talk) 15:09, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Even Jimbo is not perfect, and this was likely caught up in a big sweep of a lot of other stuff. As you can see, he didn't delete it again. Crum375 (talk) 16:06, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
One thing Jimbo routinely shows is incredibly poor judgment. Holding him to perfection is not reasonable. Holding him to the same standard as every other admin is not an unfair request however, and given he is not capable of exercising good judgment in using the tools, he should limit his activities to getting board support on writing directives commanding admins with good judgment to do the work so that good images and works are not "caught up in a big sweep". Resolute16:27, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I must say that i'm rather appalled that this ever got deleted, though I suppose that's what happens when you hit delete all in a category, which should never be done. I don't even know why there's a tool for that. SilverserenC17:41, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
It's like the big red "delete entire account" button that some systems offer you -- one click to oblivion. –SJ+08:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Not perfect is one thing. Doing something blatantly wrong twice though is pretty close to the opposite side of perfect. As noted below, he incorrectly deleted another historical work 3 times. Mr.Z-man18:41, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
That's...strange. When I checked that record yesterday, Jimbo had deleted the file three...oh wait, never mind, this is a different file. He deleted the Sainte Therese picture three times and it was restored by a different admin each time. SilverserenC17:41, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
None of them violated the relevant law, it's not the issue at all. Whatever happens on commons we should maintain the integrity of our articles; if we have decided by consensus that an image is appropriate for use in an article and it is deleted at commons without warning, then we should upload it locally and warn those responsible that it can hurt our trust in commons as media repository. Period. Cenarium (talk) 15:46, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
That could apply only to photos, not drawings or paintings. I'm not pronouncing on that, it's not up to editors to discus legal matters outside the framework defined by the WMF. It's to them to determine that but for now as you can see in their statement on func-l, they didn't ask for projects to change their ways in this regard. What I mean is that the deletions were not based on any kind of legal considerations mandated by the wmf but on the intent by Jimbo to clean up commons from 'porn'. So that potential legal justification can't be used retroactively especially when it evidently doesn't apply to the vast majority and commons' and wp's editors already screened those extensively and they remain displayed in wp articles for a long time. I support that endeavor to cleanup commons from unused 'unworthy porn', for lack of better designation, but it should not adversely impact projects. Cenarium (talk) 19:17, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Partial support. Artwork like File:Félicien_Rops_-_Sainte-Thérèse.png and File:Franz von Bayros 016.jpg probably doesn't require 2257 records. Pictures like File:Masturbating_hand.jpg, even if used for educational purpose, probably do require such records in the USA, where the servers are hosted. We should hear from Mike Godwin on this issue. It's sad that Mr. Wales has succumbed in such pathetic manner ([13][14][15]) to the pressure of Faux News. Read this for further details. Did I mention the Foundation is equally pathetic in their unconditional support for such actions. It's become nothing more than a PR machine of large corporation: almost completely disconnected from its "employees" (editors in this case). The head honcho does Soviet-style work visits and the party PR machine applauds. LOL. I see our ArbCom also supports this approach. I'd better watch out what I say here now, lest I find myself under wp:pedophilia style ban under the ever expanding written and unwritten wikirulz. Pcapping16:31, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm not seeing any evidence that this supposed legal concern was anything more than a sudden assumption by people who don't actually have legal expertise. Not to mention that this sudden realization that we're hosting illegal pornography came after it's already been hosted for what is it, 5 years? The concern over 2257 records has been brought to Godwin repeatedly in that time, as is my understanding, and he's never mentioned that any action might be required, at least not publicly. Godwin's say-so should rightly have been the only justification for all these removals. I don't doubt that Jimbo might backpedal as a result of all the criticism and tell everyone that he didn't just make some rash decision on his own, and that he did consult Godwin first; but if that were true then he would've said so to begin with. Equazcion(talk)16:49, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
There is no pressing legal concern. (Though it's about time images without clear model release forms and other paperwork started being rejected, just as we reject likely copyvios without a release.) –SJ+08:21, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps some more good faith needs to be given to Jimbo, one must assume that in his position he has access to information and knowledge not available to the rest of us. If the Foundation has not stepped up to say he was wrong, who are we to say "screw him". I personally dont think he has to explain himself, not when doing what he did, nor now. I would imagine that is why he's been quiet here, at village pump (policy), and his own talk page (amazing this discussion is occuring in at least three places....). He may simply feel that if other editors are going to basically say "screw what Jimbo says/does" that he should do the same about you who criticize him. I dont see the Foundation doing anything against him, and unless they do there's nothing anyone can actually do against him. Wikipedia IS Jimbo's reputation, he and it are linked in name long after he dies, he has a vested interest that none of the rest of us have. Please understand and try to see it from his point of view. Yes, he may have overreacted, I have this question for any of you who are criticizing Jimbo- would any of the rest of you really not do the same if you were personally being singled out in the media? If you answer that you wouldnt, then either your lying to me (and/or yourself) or if your being honest I sure wouldnt want you in charge because you'd do a worse job than Jimbo around here.Camelbinky (talk) 17:53, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Please don't spread misinformation. There is no reason to believe that there is any perceived legal risk involved. --Gmaxwell (talk) 18:04, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
What? Where in my post did I say anything about legal risk? Others have been legitimately talking about the legal risk, this whole thing started because of being afraid of violating an actual US law. Gmaxwell, did you read anything in my post?! I dont understand anything about yours! This entire thread has to do with legal risk.Camelbinky (talk) 18:11, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Of course there is a reason to believe it, although I agree that the reason is also speculative. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:57, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) You're not describing good faith, but blind faith. We assume good faith in all users up to a certain point, but Jimbo exceeded that point. To demand the assumption that no matter what he does, there was good reason for it, is to regard him as god or king, rather than his actual position. You can understand his motivations if you like; I do too. You can even feel bad for him if you like; I have before. But he still isn't allowed to escape the reality of the situation by doing inappropriate things, no matter how bad you feel for him. Equazcion(talk)18:12, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Good faith is not a synonym for good judgment and there is no way to sugar coat just how lacking Jimbo is in the latter. As to your question at the end - that is the price Jimbo pays for wanting to be the god-king of Wikimedia. If he wants to play at being the central figure of the project, then he's going to have to have the fortitude to withstand the criticisms that will come his way. If he can't, then he needs to step aside completely as his knee-jerk reactions are only harming the project. As it is, his antics have already led to the retirement of eight admins on Commons along with several other users - and that is a project already lacking experienced admins. Resolute18:26, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Please let us address this at Commons. Trying to distance ourselves from Commons, where there is overwhelming opposition to the change and/or the manner in which it was carried out (see Commons:Village pump#Support?), is not the solution. We must address the problem—namely, out-of-process deletion on Commons of content which depicts sex or nudity—at its root, rather than trying to isolate ourselves from the problem.
Pages on Commons at which relevant discussions are taking place include:
Oppose there are webpages for that kind of content and is not here. Anyone that can read will understand what an ejaculation is without having to see some editor acomplishing his exhibitionists fantasies at the expense of the seriousness of this project. Im with Jimbo on this one. Andres rojas22 (talk) 22:28, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - this is really a matter for Commons rather than here, but no, the images Jimbo deleted shouldn't be re-uploaded en masse. They should instead be considered on a case-by-case basis. Personally, I support Jimbo's actions in general, but I agree he went a bit too far. Robofish (talk) 22:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
For reference purposes, I'm listing some works here that were either deleted on Commons under the "Jimbo rule" and later restored by consensus, or are deleted under the Jimbo rule and not yet restored but under consideration for being restored, with links to external mirrors. A gallery is below. Taken from commons:Commons:Undeletion_requests/Current_requests.
Unfortunately, such a list would be quite difficult to generate, as CommonsDelinker has already removed links to images that were in use on the English Wikipedia. Dcoetzee20:01, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
You can use the CommonsDelinker contribs to generate that list (at least until it got blocked, but that happened pretty late in the debacle). Someone's already working on that. Equazcion(talk)20:15, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Wait - give the board a chance to sort itself out rather than make more work and more people unnecessarily upset. In the meantime, compile lists to your heart's content. Rklawton (talk) 23:01, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
The board has already made a statement with no special directive to divert from our normal operations. So images which we have found appropriate for use in articles can continue to be used unless they state otherwise in the future. And if we need to upload them locally then nothing prevents anyone from doing so. Hopefully commons is in the process of restoring the deleted images which were in use on local projects, and most have already been restored at this time. Cenarium (talk) 23:29, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
This is correct. There is no reason to divert from anyone's normal operations. In general, content policy and direction are decided by the Project communities, and would not come from the Board to begin with. (There should really be a cross-Project community-run body to consider content issues, but that's a topic for another thread.) –SJ+07:58, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Ok, but he gave his opinion on the purported legal issues and as recognized attorney it has infinitely more credit than user's speculations, or Jimbo's opinion for that matter. Cenarium (talk) 13:20, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Jimbo saved the day!
[17] Good lord, I din't realize we were so close to loosing all those sponsors! "Wales himself marked hundreds of images for deletion, all of which involved graphic images of sex acts." Excellent reporting. Pcapping21:36, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. Either way, let me just say that we were not close to losing any sponsors at all. As can be seen by Yahoo!'s response in the article at the bottom, they totally see through Fox's BS, as i'm sure all the other sponsors do. They are not so stupid as to believe anything that Fox News says (and hopefully neither is anyone here). SilverserenC22:05, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I didn't know Fox News counted as "all media". I certainly hope that's not true or we're in more trouble than I thought. To the bomb shelter! SilverserenC04:54, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
If fear of bad PR from a low-quality US news source influences content decisions on global projects like Wikimedia Commons, then I'm out of here for good. Note that the German Wikipedia recently had de:Vulva as main page FA with a detailed photograph; this was heavily opposed by Jimbo, who was laughed at and ignored by the community. It caused no bad press at all, just made Jimbo lose support. —Кузьма討論09:25, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
For what's worth, they call the most recent Commons snafu "vulva reloaded" [19] Can you imagine our Signpost publishing something like this?! Pcapping16:55, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
And the German press was less impressed with Jimbo's latest initiative. [20]. To balance the Board's support for Jimbo, they even cited Flo saying: "Jimmy is behaving like a vandal and breaking with the very notion of placing the decision-making power in the hands of the community". They obviously don't understand NPOV: former board members are finitto in wikiland, they shouldn't be given any air time. What can you expect from vulva-loving Germans... Pcapping18:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Do you know what really worries me about this whole affair? I fear that as part of the fallout from the crisis from now on we will have lots of people jumping on the bandwagon and screaming "we must implement content filtering now!", or even " 'Wikipedia is not censored' must be revoked!" because "Jimbo is with us!" - and that will obviously make any constructive discussion about policy very difficult.--Duplode (talk) 00:20, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh, and Fox has a 3rd article, saying, of course, that porn still remains. [21] What did you expect? The BBC also covered it now [22]. Pcapping04:39, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
...*holds forehead* I long for the day when the news will actually be able to correctly tell the news. Or have accurate reporting, though that's probably a pipe dream. The Fox News article repeated itself three times, word for word. I guess they were trying to bang home the point or something, but it makes them seem like a stuttering child giving a speech in front of the class. I don't know how anyone can believe this crap. As for BBC, there's barely any new content in there. Almost all of it is a rehashing of old information and the information itself is woefully out of context. Though I guess it is folly to expect any better. SilverserenC18:07, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
It really would help if editors with any interest got involved in the undeletion requests. In order for images to be restored there has to be a consensus in favor. Only admins tend to take part as only they can see the deleted images. Many liberal admins (and other users) left the project when this started and the pro-censorship lobby is weighing in using the "new policy" as justification, even though this has largely been dismantled after debate on the Commons. Peter Damian is joining in on the side of a pro-deletion "consensus" and is probably organizing more via the Wikipedia Review. I think Wikipedians are sitting back, waiting and expecting this all to be fixed but all that's needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. --Simon Speed (talk) 22:52, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Fixed [1]. –xenotalk 01:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Seriously though, I'll re-read through the above tomorrow. It would be interesting to hear a counter-proposal and/or a suggestion to make this more acceptable, though.
People seem to think here that sister projects must be treated like any other site and that linking to them must follow standard linking guidlines. WP:SISTER as it stands does not say that and in fact encourages linking whenever useful. All the foundation projects function together, NPOV only applies where the project is talked about and discussed (see WP:SELF), rather than merely linked. I agree that promoting Wikinews on an editorial level (not on a content level) would help their cause and reduce recentism here.--Ipatrol (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
The purpose of the proposed templates is to flag news-only articles erroneously posted in WP. For example, if Jane Doe, who has no WP article because, say, she's not notable enough, dies, then an obituary could be posted to WN. The user may not know about WN and may erroneously post it in WP. These templates can be used to mark the article, its Talk page, and/or the user's talk page. If Jane Doe has an article in WP, then the death information is added to that article and the proposed templates are not used. Another example would be an announcement that daylight saving time has just started in England: belongs in WN, not WP. Yes, the wording isn't perfect, but anyone can edit a template. One reason for opposing would be that there are too many templates already--I don't find that argument compelling. David Spector 16:10, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
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Resolved
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