User:Wavelength/Village pump (proposals)

This page has a list of ideas which I have submitted at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), and relevant links. The first version of this page was made from sections copied from User talk:Wavelength, sections which are now at User talk:Wavelength/Archive 1. Subsequently added information is preceded by a bold italicized ampersand &.

Subject (difficulty) level[edit]

Each page on Wikipedia can be given a rating for difficulty of subject matter (distinct from difficulty of language, although simpler language would be less able to be used for expressing more complex subject matter). Most pages would have the simplest rating (possibly indicated by the number 1), and higher levels of difficulty might be indicated by 2, 3, 4, and so forth. This rating can appear as the last part of the page title (possibly in square brackets: [1], [2], and so forth).

Each page can begin with a row of levels for any page(s) which otherwise have the same title (apart from disambiguation differences). All levels except the current page can be shown as links. Each page indicated in such a row can be a prerequisite of any following page(s) indicated in that row. An additional wikicode can be devised in order to save editors the time used in repeatedly typing the same title in these instances.

A typical row might appear as follows: level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 level 5

Each page can next show a list of links to any other page(s) considered to be prerequisite to understanding the page in question. If Simple English Wikipedia has a page corresponding to the current page, this fact can be highlighted here (in addition to there being a link in the language list in the left column).

If the context of the article contains any link which is considered to be such a prerequisite, it can have a notation to indicate this fact.

Likewise, each page can have a separate section (like the sections for "See also" and for "Internal links" and for "External links" and for "References") for pages on other topics to which the current page is considered to be prerequisite.

These matters of rating and prequisiteness would have some degree of analogy with book chapters and with school grade levels. Someone would decide the ratings and the prerequisitenesses.

Wavelength 02:06, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Some ideas similar to these have been expressed at Talk:Mathematics road map Wavelength 22:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I copied the text above and pasted it (20:23, 22 July 2008) [1] at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).

-- Wavelength (talk) 20:39, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

It has been archived, with very much additional commentary,

at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 35#Easy as pi? (subsectioned and sub-subsectioned),

more specifically, at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 35#Proposal: page ratings & prequisitenesses.

A related discussion is at

(Temporary link) Talk:Mathematics#Making mathematics articles more accessible to a general readership and

(Permanent link) Talk:Mathematics (Section "Making mathematics articles more accessible to a general readership").

Another related discussion is at

(Temporary link) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#Making mathematics articles more accessible to a general readership and

(Permanent link) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics (Section "Making mathematics articles more accessible to a general readership").

-- Wavelength (talk) 14:57, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: article-naming wizard[edit]

I have posted this suggestion (07:48, 14 January 2008) [2] at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).

Is it possible to add a wizard to Wikipedia to guide editors in following naming conventions for new articles and moved (renamed) articles, as well as articles resulting from merged articles and split articles? I have in mind a series of menus beginning with options, such as the following.

Is this article about:

a person?

a non-human living organism?

an abstract idea?

a human-made gadget?

a field of study?

a part of a human?

a part of a non-human organism?

an event?

a procedure?

Subsequent menus would fine-tune the type of article even further, and then the editor would be presented with a checklist of things to consider, such as:

capitalization, hyphenation, American and British English spelling differences, diacritics, numerals, and so forth. Someone can decide on what specific guidelines should be applied to specific types of articles.

At this time, we have article names such as the following.

Please notice the difference in capitalization. Recently, I moved Bali Communique to Bali Communiqué, and 100,000 year problem to 100,000-year problem. (Please see list of English words with diacritics and hyphen#Compound modifiers, paragraph 5: "Hyphens are used to connect numbers and words in forming adjectival phrases". There is also Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Hyphens, section 3, point 7.)

This is just a preliminary plan for what such a program might do. More refinement of the plan would require more time and reflection than what I have spent on this. [end of suggestion]

This suggestion has been archived, without additional commentary, at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 16#Suggestion: article-naming wizard. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:56, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

(See Wikipedia:Article wizard.) -- Wavelength (talk) 02:10, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

& [See Wikipedia:Article wizard 2.0. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:14, 10 September 2009 (UTC)]

Suggestion: researching correlation of article size with number of incoming links[edit]

I have posted this suggestion (21:49, 14 January 2008) [3] at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).

I have noticed what appears to be a high correlation between (a) the number of lines in a typical article and (b) the number of links listed when I click on "What links here". I do not know to what extent, if any, "a" affects "b", or "b" affects "a", or "c" (another variable) affects "a" and/or "b". Also, there may be some significance to different types of lines in the article (for example, main text, outgoing internal links, and external links) as well as different types of links listed in "What links here" (for example, article pages, article talk pages, and user talk pages). (My interest in this correlation began with my interest in adding incoming internal links to short articles in order to help in their expansion.) Do the benefits of researching this correlation outweigh the costs? Also, please consider correlations between members of other pairs of variables in Wikipedia statistics. [end of suggestion]

I improved the wording by adding "members of" (19:06, 18 January 2008) [4] in the last sentence of the suggestion. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Correction: (03:04, 19 January 2008) [5] -- Wavelength (talk) 03:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

This suggestion has been archived, without additional commentary, at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 16#Suggestion: researching correlation of article size with number of incoming links. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: readability test(s) for Wikipedia articles[edit]

I have posted this suggestion (05:47, 15 January 2008) [6] at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).

Is it possible to add a program to Wikipedia to perform one or more readability tests for each Wikipedia article, and to place

the current score(s) for each article somewhere on the article page;

the current score(s) and projected score(s) on the edit preview page;

and the score(s) for each version in the article history?

At this time, the article "readability test" lists the following tests.

If it is desirable to include consideration of each word in the article as to its frequency in the English language, can that be a part of the program? (Maybe the Wikipedia community can originate a new kind of readability test.) In regard to readability tests of Wikipedia articles generally, do the benefits outweigh the costs? Also, please consider applying this suggestion to Simple English Wikipedia. [end of suggestion]

This suggestion has been archived, with additional commentary, at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 18#Suggestion: readability test(s) for Wikipedia articles. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: searching for contributions by a specified editor to a specified article[edit]

I have posted this suggestion (16:52, 15 January 2008; 16:53, 15 January 2008) [7] [8] at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).

(After the first posting, there was a message that the server had stopped responding, and, without looking at the page I was editing, I saved my changes again, and that is why my suggestion appears twice at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).)

[beginning of suggestion]

I am interested in there being a program which would facilitate a search for contributions by a specified editor to a specified article. Many articles have long histories of contributions, and also many editors have long histories of contributions, so, at the present time, finding such information can sometimes require visually scanning many contributions on many pages.

This program could be designed with the possibility of choosing one of two methods to perform such a search. (An editor can be either a registered user or an IP address.)

With one method, a searcher first selects an article and then clicks on a button ("Editors"), which displays the number of editors and a list of all editors which have contributed to that article (and the number of contributions to that article by each editor). Clicking on that number displays a list of all contributions by that editor to that article. Clicking on each contribution displays a page showing a comparison of different versions before and after that contribution.

With the other method, a searcher first selects an editor and then clicks on a button ("Articles"), which displays the number of articles and a list of all articles which have been edited by that editor (and the number of contributions by that editor to each article). Clicking on that number displays a list of all contributions to that article by that editor. Clicking on each contribution displays a page showing a comparison of different versions before and after that contribution.

This program for a two-dimensional search might be extended to other namespaces besides the article namespace.

[end of suggestion]

This suggestion has been archived, with additional commentary, at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 16#Suggestion: searching for contributions by a specified editor to a specified article. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia password limits[edit]

I have posted this message (02:16, 22 July 2008) [9] at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).

It has been archived, with additional commentary, at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 31#Wikipedia password limits. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

[beginning of message]

Wikipedia's page for creating an account or logging in has a link to the article "Password strength". I have the following questions:

What is the set of all characters acceptable for use in a Wikipedia password? (Does it include: punctuation marks? Greek letters? Russian letters? Armenian letters? Devanagari characters? Japanese characters? Korean characters? mathematical symbols? webdings? wingdings?)
What is the maximum allowable length for a Wikipedia password? (Does one Chinese character count as much as a Latin letter?)
Does Wikipedia truncate the password after a specific number of characters, and disregard the rest?
Why are the answers to these questions not visible on the page for creating an account or logging in?

[end of message]

I have posted it (04:09, 22 July 2008) [10] at Wikipedia:Help desk.

It has been archived, with additional commentary, at Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 July 22#Wikipedia password limits. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I have posted it (05:08, 22 July 2008) [11] at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical).

It has been archived, with additional commentary, at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 42#Wikipedia password limits. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)