Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 22

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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (idea lab). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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New type of watchlisting for categories

Would it be possible to make a watchlist type (there would still be a normal watchlist) for categories that allows you to see when anything is added to the category? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 02:18, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

@Iazyges: Per Help:Watchlist#Limitations you can do this by fiddling with the settings in your preferences. Specifically the "Hide categorization of pages" option. --Majora (talk) 02:29, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Iazyges: in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist - uncheck "hide categorization of pages". — xaosflux ^Talk 02:30, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Wikimaps user group

I have made a proposal in IdeaLab to create a Wikimaps user group.

Do you think that would be a good way for mapping communities in Wikimedia to go forward?

Wikimaps activities have been focusing on historical mapping, but the user group would be made for all mapping related activities. The goal is that people with many different ideas for using the geographic component in their projects would come together, share their expertise and help each other forward.

The user group would give the community an affiliate status within the Wikimedia movement, while still keeping the group organic and without organizational structures. If you think you can endorse or join, please visit the page and leave your mark!

Best, Susannaanas (talk) 08:11, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Request for comment on PC protection

Hello. You are invited to comment on this RfC regarding (1) the streamlining of the pending changes reviewing process and (2) the proposed protection of certain articles with Level 1 Pending Changes protection. Please do not comment here—your support or opposition to the proposals should be indicated in the relevant sections, and general discussion should be occur in the "General discussion" section at the bottom of the RfC page. Thank you. Biblio (talk) Reform project. 21:14, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

The RfC has snow-closed as oppose. — Gestrid (talk) 05:32, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Comparing new article names to search volume

An article titled Newchellberry fissure (now deleted) was on here for quite a while, albeit being a blatant hoax. I discovered the hoax by making an exact match search ("title") on Google, which returned about 70 results, most of whom were mirror sites, and all of whom were more recent than the article itself. I was thinking that a bot could reveal similar hoaxes by automatically comparing the names of new articles to the search volume of one or more search engines, and then mark the articles as suspicious if the search return is very low. What do you think? — Neuraxıs ^{talk - email} 23:37, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

I think it sounds like a fine idea. Topics which return a low volume of search results have a good chance of not being notable as well, so it would be a good thing to look at. That being said, I imagine that there would be a lot of work put into this if user review is required: consider that dozens of new articles are created each day, many of which are not notable, so they would probably set off such a bot and make user review an unnecessarily redundant process. If such a bot can be implemented without too much work, aka a new boatload of guidelines and a backlogged user review system, then it's a fantastic idea. Icebob99 (talk) 01:00, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Reduce RfC default from 30 days to 21

Wanted to test the water on this. It seems to me that, generally, discussion and !voting slow to very little to nothing after about 3 weeks, so why not put the RfC to bed and move on? If there is any activity in that last 9 days, it's almost invariably "me too" !voting rather than any new arguments. It would still be only a default, and could be made longer when needed. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:58, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure it matters. Policy at WP:RFC already states "Editors may choose to end them earlier or extend them longer. Deciding how long to leave an RfC open depends on how much interest there is in the issue and whether editors are continuing to comment." I.e. you're encouraged to ignore the 30 day rule as needed. If we're looking for general guidance, 21 days is a nice number; I'd also suggest adding "21 days or 7 days since the last substantive contribution, whichever seems more appropriate" --Jayron32 12:23, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

@Jayron32: It does, because {{rfc}} is automatically removed by a bot 30 days after the first edit in its talk page section. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 12:27, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure that it does matter. Default is what happens if there is no discussion and agreement to do something different. Most people don't want to bother with that, so they just let it run the 30-day course. Which is not to say that they wouldn't prefer it to close at 21. My proposal, if any, would be to change the bot's action to 21 days. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:32, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

If it changes bot behavior, that's fine too. I still think the guidance of "...or 7 days since the last substantive contribution, whichever seems more appropriate" is necessary also. We don't want people closing a discussion at exactly 21 days if discussion is useful and active, and we don't want people requiring a discussion to stay open to 21 days if no one commented at all after the second day. --Jayron32 13:38, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

@Jayron32: Actually, given the "7 days" suggestion, maybe the bot could just wait until a week after the last comment. The discussion could always be closed manually before then. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 13:50, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

"The bot" is Legobot (talk · contribs), so Legoktm (talk · contribs) would need to be involved. It's also not "30 days after the first edit in its talk page section": Legobot looks for the {{rfc}} template, and looks from that point to the very next timestamp - and it's 30 days from that. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:30, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I think that we should say "30 days, or 7 days since the last substantive contribution, whichever seems more appropriate" - i.e allowing a close for an RfC if there are no more relevant additions, but requiring keeping it open the full month if discussion is still on-going. I see no reason to shorten the 30 days unless discusison ha, in fact, ended. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:49, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

What is a substantive contribution, and who decides that? Can a bot decide that? How do you know when discussion has ended? ―Mandruss ☎ 18:36, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Who decides? The same as everything everywhere on Wikipedia. Any uninvolved, experienced editor in good standing may use proper judgement to do so. --Jayron32 01:53, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

That wouldn't change what happens when people do nothing, which will continue to be the case more often than not. So I wouldn't support it, but I could make it an option in a proposal. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:39, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Since the bot exists (at all) because people so frequently did nothing, then this factor needs to be considered carefully.

If you wanted to take an intermediate approach, then perhaps stalled RFC discussions could get a note that reminds editors to remove the tag if they're done (and to add it to WP:ANRFC if they want a closing summary written by a fellow editor, or to remove it from ANRFC if someone else listed it and they think a closing statement would be a waste of a volunteer's time). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Contrary to my previous comment, after further thought I wouldn't take anything but my opening suggestion to VPR. I don't see justification for making things more complex. As it stands now, I tested the water and it wasn't very warm. Obviously this does not preclude someone else from taking something else to VPR. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:29, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Pending changes admin bot

The following discussion 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.

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Basically a bot with admin powers coded to, if it detects that two to more users have rollbacked each other (the both role backing would be a good way to not have a problem where a user continually rolebacks vandals, and it's protected, (although that is another idea)), it will apply pending changes two protection to it. Thoughts? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 15:47, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure how often two editors use rollback on each other or whether that is the best response. What makes you think it is a common enough phenomenon to merit a bot and also that the appropriate solution is to apply PC2? Can you give some diffs showing incidents involving this in the last few days? ϢereSpielChequers 19:05, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Its usually on contriversial or highly viewed pages like Donald Trump see: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Trump&diff=prev&oldid=74862999, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Trump&diff=prev&oldid=748629336, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Trump&diff=prev&oldid=748630267, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Trump&diff=prev&oldid=748630154 ,https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Trump&diff=prev&oldid=748629994, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Trump&diff=prev&oldid=748629681, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_Trump&diff=prev&oldid=748629336. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 19:13, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

As far as I can see, not a single one of the diffs above is a rollback. Are you just talking about general edit-warring? If that's the case I unequivocally oppose this proposal since it would create a means for anyone to get a page bot-locked into their preferred version by reverting a couple of minor edits. ‑ Iridescent 19:16, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Almost all of them are rollbacks or reverts. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 19:21, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

At no point have you mentioned reversion; your proposal is explicitly about rollback. A bot capable of monitoring every Wikipedia page in real-time for reversions would take the computing power of a decent-sized corporation, since it would need to be constantly downloading every change and comparing it to the two previous versions. ‑ Iridescent 19:24, 12 November 2016 (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.

Simplyfying translations

Hi, I have several articles (most in Polish wikipedia) that could be translated into English wikipedia. In my (small, but sufficient) experience I see that 70% work related to translation is to work out hyperlinks and bibliography. This work seems extremely well-suited for some sort of script. For exmaple if I have a link in Polish wikipedia say to a "bazalt" then I have to click it, see it suggests en.wikipedia.org basalts and then link in the translated content to the basalt. This is something that a script should do - often there are tens of links in good-quality articles. And verifying links is much less work than actually manually figuring out that "wapienie" (PL) is "Limestone" (EN). The same could be said about citations: Polish and English wikipedia use different syntax for references, but it is similar enough that some sort of automatic translation should be possible. Are tools like that available? I am looking for two tools in the end:

• automatic translation of links from one wikipedia to other wikipedia
• automatic translation of ref commands.

--Azzifeldman (talk) 15:44, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Nowiki button

How useful would a button that visually changed all of the wikimarkup to nowiki format, i.e. you could see the bare code. Obviously it wouldn't change the markup itself, just how it was viewed. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 18:26, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

In what way would this substantially differ from clicking "edit this page" or the individual section "edit" links? (Or the "display source" link, if I remember the correct wording, when encountering a protected page?) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:47, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Ease of viewing its location within the article. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 19:41, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Sounds like something that would make a decent gadget if people had a desire for it :) ^demon^{[omg plz]} 03:01, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Hm, I think the gadget idea might be better. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 03:05, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Iazyges, this sounds like a pretty good idea - how do you think this could work? As an additional thing besides the "edit source" link on each section/the page as a whole, maybe? Enterprisey (talk!) 04:10, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

@Enterprisey:, hm I thought it would be to the right of the edit button on the top, as long as to the right or left (depending on if preferences push edit button to far right) of the edit button. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 04:29, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Oh yeah, sure, that works fine too. Enterprisey (talk!) 04:34, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Proposing Idea for military history-related infobox template

I'm wondering if I wanted to propose a infobox template related to the Wikiproject Military Project group, is it better to propose what kind of infobox that I want to do? Ominae (talk) 12:50, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

@Ominae: This is probably best discussed at WT:MILHIST, rather than here. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:23, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Visibility of AFD discussions

It is not uncommon for someone to write to OTRS and requests deletion of the AFD discussion. I have generally rejected such requests, on the argument that our goal of transparency requires that we keep a record of our deletion discussions. However, there may be valid reasons for rethinking this position. I'm not wavering on whether we need to keep a record of our deletion discussion, but I think it is worth discussing how public this record needs to be.

Please keep in mind that many deletion discussions include comments about notability. While regular editors know exactly what "notability" means in the context of Wikipedia articles, our term is not exactly in line with the ordinary English use of the term. For example, there are actors with multiple roles, authors with multiple books, and academics with multiple published papers who do not pass our hurdle. While we understand this, a discussion throwing around terms like "not notable", "solidly non-notable", or similar phrasing comes across very differently to the subject and to non-editors who might stumble across the page as a result of a search. Given the prominence of Wikipedia articles and searches, it is not uncommon that the deletion discussion will be included in many searches.

In some cases, the subject's main objection isn't that the editors chose to delete the article, the concern is that the wording used in the deletion discussion reflects negatively upon them and they aren't happy about that.

I wonder if it would be technically possible to make it so that deletion discussions were only readable by registered editor's, or perhaps some other class of editors. Obviously, straight out deletion would make it readable by admin's only, which is an option but I wouldn't mind a restriction that's not quite that severe a restriction. Of course, one aspect is the technical ability, and the second and more important discussion is whether the community would support limiting the visibility of AFD discussions either in general or upon request.

I have deliberately posted this in the idea thread rather than the proposal thread because although I have some specific thoughts about a proposal I can think of multiple approaches and I thought it would be useful to have a general discussion before codifying into a specific proposal.

What do others think?--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:18, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Are the complaints about active discussions or about completed ones? For the latter, there is {{afd-privacy}}-based courtesy blanking. For the former, maybe cutting back on the overuse of "vanity" and synonyms in deletion discussions could help, that word is seldom an useful formulation anyway. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:23, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

I have seen requests related to both, but the recent particular interest (not linked for obvious reasons) is a completed one. I confess I was unaware of that template, and may use it in the present case, but I hope the general discussion will continue.

As for your specific thoughts about language used in such discussions, I totally concur but I didn't emphasize that point because I think in the heat of trying to deal with all the issues associated with whether an article should be deleted, it is asking a lot to ask all participants to think about everyone who might read it at any time. I wouldn't be unhappy if people contributing to such a discussion That thought in mind, but if they were not and were brutally honest about the thoughts, I don't want to be in the position of post editing cleanup because there is far too much to do to start doing that except in egregious situations.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:58, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

It's currently not possible to restrict tvviewing thewse pages, except through admin-level deletion (which we won't do for obvious reasons). Feel free to mae a request at the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey, although I doubt that there will be much support for it. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:24, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Aye, and and it's unlikely that developers will implement such a thing as it is unfeasible in MediaWiki software, it isn't designed to do per-page read protection. Any process to decide which biographies can stay and which have to go will generate some ill-feeling among the subjects especially when the particular discussion goes against their own preference. So blanking out problematic AfDs after they close and moderate the language used by participants in active AfDs are the only ways to go. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:36, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Given the technical hurdles, which were more onerous than I would have guessed, and more importantly, and acceptable workaround, I'll not pursue this any further. Thanks JoJo for the template which I have added to my toolkit.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:52, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Blogs & forums as reference for issues that are mostly online

Here on Wikipedia, blogs aren't considered a good reference due to their lack of credibility. Ironically, certain cultures rely almost entirely on blogs & forums for their survival. A good example would be the ace-spectrum community, it's crowded mostly in AVEN forums and Tumblr. It's difficult to write a detailed article on demisexuality excluding these sources. Especially since books and people we source would be using these blogs as sources. A lot of information we get is second-hand knowledge derived from whats written on blogs. These people discovered this concept by communicating via social network. They've formed various new words and understandings of human sexuality solely thanks to these online sites. We wouldn't have these concepts without it. Most of the information derives from self-publications.

There is also the issue of when a culture has an online community and a real life community that are vastly different; such as neopaganism. Another pagan in real life identified me as an "online pagan" based on my terminology and ideas on paganism. I've found that the communities you find in real life tend to have different values from what I've learned. For example, a pagan pride I visited was filled with Native American-based objects. So have the few pagan shops and group rituals (from multiple groups) I've visited. Online, you'll find many communities & "local" celebrities frowning upon this practice as cultural appropriation and racism, especially the ones with the most influence. The online community shuns Native American objects being used by non-Native people; while the real-life communities (at least in the U.S) actively encourage it. I literally couldn't write anything about these differences, due to the current blog policy in place.

Both of these examples have hundreds, if not thousands of people relying on these sources as the basis of their knowledge and life. But I can't use it on Wikipedia, even though most of the viable sources would have gotten there information straight from these blogs & forums. I can cite a book that used these sources, but not the sources themselves? The policy doesn't make sense. I think it allows for misinformation and neglect of providing the proper information for certain articles. I think the policy should be changed to include self-written publications when they are influential.Artheartsoul1 (talk) 09:08, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Bot for author removal of CSD tags

Pretty much anyone who's done a good long run of NPP has gone through the dance of:

1. CSD tag
2. Retag all removed CSD noms on watchlist
3. Repeat

Since there is already a Special:Tags category for removal of CSD templates, shouldn't it be too easy to make a bot that:

1. Checks all edits with these tags
2. Checks whether the person making the edit was the original page creator
3. Checks whether the edit was a page blank
4. Reverts the removal if 1 and 2 are true but 3 is false, and leave escalating {{uw-speedy}} templates on the user talk
5. Tag the page with {{Db-blanked}} if 1, 2, and 3 are all true

Seems like this should be easy to implement and would save a bit of time. TimothyJosephWood 17:15, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Proposing another protection level

I want to propose another protection level, but the level cannot be higher than Extended Confirmation Protected (ECP). Instead, the level must be between semi-protection and ECP. How many edits and days? --George Ho (talk) 05:19, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Can I ask why? What purpose? What need is there for it? What gap in the protection policy would it fill that isn't already filled? ECP was only created by ArbCom as a last resort measure. I don't see why we would need anything else and I really don't see the community supporting anything else at this time. --Majora (talk) 05:29, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

The discussion about re-establishing the PC2 protection is happening now. Whether or not PC2 passes, another protection level might be needed to make PC2 less necessary. Also, ECP would be less necessary. WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED says that the total EC users amount to nearly 30,000. This is low amount compared to 1.4 million autoconfirmed. Of course, the amount of users with such privilege will increase. --George Ho (talk) 05:39, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Notability tag

Basically, an editor would tag an article, say, of an artist, with a tag (on talk page) that says "Article is notable under Notability:_____(#______) as of Month Day Year. There would be a special page of articles that's notability tag's guidelines have had an RFC pass, so that people could go through and check if it was still covered under the new notability. Perhaps the tags would also get put on a special page that lists articles that haven't had their notabilities updated in a timespan, say a year, so people could check if it was still notable (for redundancy) and then update it to the new date. Thoughts? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 19:18, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure I completely understand you but if I do, notability isn't temporary. Once something is deemed notable it stays that way. No need to reconfirm it. --Majora (talk) 19:23, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

@Majora: true, but under that same section, it mentions that articles that are years old can become non-notable if the guidelines change. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 19:34, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Seems interesting-- this tool streamlines the process of checking for notability, right? I have two concerns, but I think they are solvable. One is the problem of scale. There are 5.2 million articles in the English Wikipedia, so that means 5.2 million tags plus redundancies. Second concern is the problem of differing notions of what is notable. Not talking about inclusionist/deletionist debate but rather areas of expertise: physicists might think that one single equation on some kind of industrial coating would merit an article, while the layperson would see that page as a blatant example of scope expansion, and thus remove any notability tag. Seeing as only physicists would really look at that kind of article, it would be notable to physicists, and thus notable because of its application and coverage, but that notability wouldn't be apparent. Maybe WikiProjects would be in charge of tagging the articles within their scope, that way we don't run into that kind of problem? Icebob99 (talk) 19:27, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

@Icebob99: Basically it would streamline the process of notability as you said, if it falls under any notability guideline, it would help in cases like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Khaz-Bulat Askar-Sarydzha, where the article was notable, even if it didnt appear to be. It should in theory cut down on the number of AFD's, with people checking the talk page to see if it has been labelled as notable. Perhaps there would even be a WP: page for people wishing to challenge the notablity tag. I admit the scale is a problem, however I think with a group of editors willing to help, it can be done, I don't really like the idea of a WP tagging things in there domain, because of the risk of bias in notablity, and how that could flood the potential WP of people challenging tags, but I think initially it may be neccesarry. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 19:33, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

This might be a crazy counter-idea, but rather than having editors tagging talk pages to claim a subject is notable - what about have them write content, including reliable sources that show the subject is notable? Sam Walton (talk) 19:48, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

@Samwalton9: I don't think that you understand my proposal at all.

@Iazyges: you're right, that problem needs to be addressed. I'm trying to think of ways to make this less tedious, though-- some articles would be a gimme on notability, but others would need a bit more of a time commitment. I'm going to guess that at least 3 million articles aren't gimmes, so that would be quite a lot of work. If the inspiration for the concept was reducing the amount of time and energy spent at AfD, that's great, but this method just shifts the work from AfD to a notability tag project, which are essentially the same thing. Since a notability tag decision is like a mini-AfD, seeing as a failure to be notable would result in an AfD page, might as well just keep the debate in AfD. So the status quo would be significantly less work because it only decides notability on a more efficient case-by-case basis rather than a blanket blitz. Now with all that said, I do think there is value in a notability tag, or rather a "non-notability" tag. Consider WP:VPD#Comparing new article names to search volume, where lack of notability is often exposed through search volume. Perhaps a bot could be built that flags for review articles which have an unusually low search volume, since those articles probably wouldn't be notable. Icebob99 (talk) 19:51, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Too much bureaucracy for little gain. Technically, a mechanism exists between AFD, GA/FA processes, and Wikiproject assessments (as I don't think any WProject should be marking an article C class or better if notability is not shown), and I think this bogs things down far too much. --MASEM (t) 15:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Changing google.xxx links to google.com

Hello all, there have been two recent bot tasks where updating google domains from http to https have been undertaken (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Mdann52 bot 11 and Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Bender the Bot 2). Changing this from http to https received prior support; and changing the link parameter from the original to English has does not seem to be controversial (?hl=en). A concern I have brought up is in changing the domain names from country specific domain names to the .com domain name - especially for Google Books. The reason I think this is an issue is that Google Books is used as a reference, and the link may provide the reader with a means to obtain the book through retailer matching - however Google will customize this based on the domain name. A generic example would be to send the reader to Amazon.com instead of Amazon.co.uk. In some cases the .com site may offer no retail options, while the site the editor originally provider may. I think we should not have bots change this reference link from what the human editor provided. Any thoughts? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:26, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Ping to bot operators: @Mdann52: @Bender235: — xaosflux ^Talk 00:27, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, we should link to the generic .com TLD for all Google services. This may sound like a tinfoilish issue, but some TLDs may put our readers under suspicion from ISPs or their nation's SIGINT. Remember even though all of those links are now HTTPS, this does not conceal the IP address of the domain you're connecting to. The British .co.uk is not so much a concern as is the Israeli .co.il (for readers in Arab countries) or the Taiwanese .com.tw (in mainland China). And to be clear, this is not just about Google Books, but any Google service (or actually any website). --bender235 (talk) 00:41, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

• Instead of being sent to the Hungarian, Spanish or German Google book sites, the reader gets results in the language based upon the reader's IP address.
• We aren't here to sell books. With the book info, anybody can find where to buy the book or see if it's at a local library. That being said, going to the Google site where the reader is located only makes it easier to buy books as one is given local options.
• Any restrictions made by the copyright holder is based on the reader's IP address. If the preview is only available in the UK, a US reader can't view the preview no matter what specific country address they try. From Google's API docs, Google Books respects copyright, contract, and other legal restrictions associated with the end user's location. As a result, some users might not be able to access book content from certain countries. For example, certain books are "previewable" only in the United States; we omit such preview links for users in other countries. Therefore, the API results are restricted based on your server or client application's IP address. Bgwhite (talk) 06:50, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Ping Users

We need some kind of Ping user button. Half the time in a discussion, I have to go through pages upon pages of my contribs to find where I replied on a talk page to see if another person has replied back to me.. and I don't get a notification when they reply to me because they don't use the Ping button. There needs to be some kind of button or easily available way to just hit "Ping" or "reply to user". Or maybe there's an easier way and I am not privy to it. PS please ping me so I see your reply ;) --Jennica✿ ^{talk / contribs} 02:28, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Jennica, that might be a good idea, but even then I don't think the presence of a button is likely to encourage many more editors to use the ping functionality. And there are people who don't like being pinged all the time. A specific solution for your particular case might be to modify your signature so that it says "ping me" or something of the sort. That way anyone replying to your comments will be know that you would like to be pinged. – Uanfala (talk) 14:32, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

@Uanfala: ahh, I didn't think of it like that. I wish we could have a link you could put in your signature where it would insert the ping code. --Jennica✿ ^{talk / contribs} 22:46, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

@Jennica: do you mean {{ping|Jennica}}? A button would probably be just as much effort as typing into a template. Icebob99 (talk) 15:54, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

@Jennica:@Icebob99:. A button would be better, I think. It's 1 keystroke instead of 10+ and it prevents typos when pinging people with less-than-simple usernames. Like "Bangabandhu", for example. Yintan  14:44, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Recent changes page: show count of characters changed, not difference in article size

This may sound like a subtle difference, but as of late while looking at recent changes for vandalism, I've noticed some edits that show as a low numbers of characters changed, sometimes even zero, even though there were clear changes to the article. Here is one recent example; if you view article's history you'll see "0" for the size difference - which is completely accurate, the editor replaced one character with another. Or in another case, some IP vandalism tonight - the article's history page indicates that this edit added one character - again, true, but a significant number of characters were changed.

Would it be possible to have the length of the diff indicated in the summary instead of the difference in article length? --Mr. Vernon (talk) 05:36, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

@Mr. Vernon:Sorry, I don't understand. How is the length of the diff different from the length of the changed article? If a vandal changes "20 july" into "20 june", won't both lengths say 0 characters difference? Yintan  14:26, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

@Yintan: In that case the length of the diff should be four characters (remove "ly" and insert "ne"). --Mr. Vernon (talk) 14:35, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

@Mr. Vernon: What if I changed 21 July to 12 July? Or where words are anagrams of each other, how would the software know that words had changed when characters hadn't? Even more broadly, what if a 24 character sentence is replaced with another, that contains 50% of the same characters? Wouldn't reading that 12 characters have changed be kind of meaningless, compared to reading that the length of the article is the same? Sam Walton (talk) 14:40, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I think "length" is the wrong word in this case. "Number of changed characters" might be clearer. Yintan  14:49, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

See Delta encoding which explains how source control systems typically store differences between large text files (code in this case but it applies to any form of text.) Diff may give you some more readable output, but that's a specific implementation of delta encoding. I'd propose leveraging, if possible, what already exists in the Wikipedia code base, but that's getting into technical details. I am of course assuming that Wikipedia uses delta encoding; if not then generating a diff on the fly with an agreed-upon algorithm for how to handle "21 July" to "12 July" (which could be anything from "1" - moving a character - to "4" - replacing two characters with two other characters - or more depending on implementation.) --Mr. Vernon (talk) 15:01, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Complete Reliability/Factual Accuracy Solution

• Problem: Wikipedia acknowledges that the encyclopedia should not be used as a primary source for research, either academic or informational. According to Academics [1][2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] & Harvard [8] ,Carleton [9],livescience [10] ,forbos [11] ,guardian [12] ,nature [13] wikipedia articles are "not enough RELIABLE" for academic research/study.some educational institutions have banned it as a primary source while others have limited its use to only a pointer to external sources. [14] [15] [16] . And there is "Lack of methodical fact-checking "...Inaccurate information that is not obviously false may persist in Wikipedia for a long time before it is challenged. [17] .. For a list of hoaxes that have occurred on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia .

1. Accuracy is the biggest problem about Wikipedia . Anyone can add subtle nonsense  or erroneous information to articles that can take weeks, months or years to be detected and removed (which has been happening since at least 2002). Deliberate hoaxes can also be perpetrated.
2. Even unregistered users are capable of this. For example, some one can just come and edit this very page and put in "khats r four doughs onlee" or add mention of some unrelated topic: ===like how great pineapple pizza is===
3. Dross can proliferate, rather than become refined, as rhapsodic authors have their articles revised by ignorant editors.

• Who would benefit: all wiki reader & editor . 18 billion user every month . pageview 18 billion every month.[18][19][20]

• Proposed solution:I have a five step solution .

1.(Easy reporting): by Making it much easier for people to report "factual accuracy", misinformation faster. google,google news,facebook [21] ,twitter,bing everyone have a interactive reporting & feedback system .We can have a interactive reporting in wikipedia similar to google feedback [22] (with screenshot ; highlight issue in "yellow" & Black out private information private information) for highlighting a specific block/line . In wikipedia articles , we can have a [Report] link in every section ,beside [Edit] link . In reporting , there should have features for adding ,section dispute template & inline dispute template with Citation needed template & Accuracy disputes category., There are several noticeboards (for  inaccurate content  &  factual inaccuracy) at which accuracy disputes may be listed to gain the views of other editors, particularly the Dispute resolution , Fringe theories , reliable sources, no original research, neutral point-of-view, Conflict of Interest and biographies of living persons noticeboards.All report should go there or open a request for mediation (RFM) & Requests for Comment . some report should go here and here.In this way, we have a possibility  to get 18 billion "factual accuracy" report in every month  :) . [23][24][25]

2.(Algorithm): Leverage algorithms and artificial intelligence.Stronger detection Algorithm .Facebook already using machine learning—different algorithms than the ones that drive the Trending section—to try and catch misinformation on the platform . We can have a Algorithm similar to google,facebook [26] [27][28] [29] [30] [31] & twitter  [32] fake news algorithm .When a user create a article with Factual Accuracy/misinformation,claim,Fringe theories , original research ; without proper citation ; then the Algorithm should automatically add section dispute template & inline dispute template with Citation needed template & Accuracy disputes category. ...from reliable sources guideline , we can create a algorithm for "cross check ". when a editor insert a citation then it & will automatically start cross-checking the content with other similar reliable source & will create a " reliability meter ".

3.(Third party verification): Over the last several years, fact checking has come into its own. Led by many respected fact checking organizations like the International Fact-Checking Network, rigorous fact checks are now conducted by more than 100 active sites, according to the Duke University Reporter’s Lab. They collectively produce many thousands of fact-checks a year, examining claims around urban legends, politics, health, and the media itself. Google added a fact check tag on Google News in order to display articles that contain factual information next to trending news items.[33].Facebook using snopes [34] .snopes.com is a well-known resource for validating and debunking such stories in American popular culture, receiving 300,000 visits a day. [35] The Reporters’ Lab at Duke University maintains a database managed by Mark Stencel and Bill Adair of fact checking organizations. The database tracks more than 100 non-partisan organizations around the world. Articles are also examined based upon whether the site examines transparency of sources and methods, tracks political promises, examines all parties and sides, and examines discreet claims and reaches conclusions.

4.(User Right): We can have a user right group "Fact Checker". This user group will have some expertise & tools .Or, this right can be added to Admin group. they will get notified , when point 1.(Easy reporting) will happen , mainly for good , A ,GA &  B  articles. They will try to solve Factual Accuracy from these category as much as they can .

5.(reliability meter): in visual editor cite templates , we can add reliability meter . from the help of point 2.(Algorithm) ; every reader will see "reliability meter " , when they click in the "citation " & in "REFERENCES" .there is third party databases [36] [37] [38] [39] or we can create our own . when Reliability/Accuracy 100-81% ; we will see . when Reliability/Accuracy 80-61% ; we will see . when Reliability/Accuracy 60-50% ; we will see . We can have a system that designed to flag all citations to academic journals in Wikipedia, like Green (free to read): ,  ; Yellow (free, with conditions): , , , , , ,  ; Red (not free): , 

• Proposer:--- md masum (talk) 17:38, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
  

Here are just a few of the thoughts that this set of proposals has prompted.

• I am not sure that using services which collectively provide "thousands of fact-checks a year" would be a lot of use on a web site which has hundreds of thousands of edits per day. I am also not sure that those services would be willing or able to take on the task of checking Wikipedia edits, as doing so would swamp them, leaving them unable to do any other fact checking.
• We have algorithms to detect likely misinformation: they are called edit filters. If you have ideas for specific algorithms which would be better than the existing ones, then by all means suggest them.
• You say we should make it much easier for people to report factual accuracy. What specific suggestions do you have to do so? How would your proposals make it easier than the existing array of provisions such as Twinkle, Huggle, AIV, ANI, etc?
• How will it help to have a user right group "Fact Checker"? Will they have some sort of rights to check facts that other editors don't have? If so, what will be the benefit of restricting such rights, rather than letting anyone check facts?
• If we get 18 billion factual accuracy reports in every month, as you suggest, what will happen to them? Will they get filed away in some archive somewhere? Obviously, there would be no way for the few thousand active Wikipedia editors who try to cope with problematic editing to deal with more than a minute fraction of them, even if they were to dedicate all their time on Wikipedia to the task, and do nothing else. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 14:49, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi JamesBWatson , thank you for your response. firstly,

• Last month Zuckerberg say's "we have relied on our community to help us understand what is fake and what is not. Anyone on Facebook can report any link as false... ...We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties..." .there are over 1.79 billion monthly active Facebook users .Every 60 seconds on Facebook: 510 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded... Facebook doing it. & they only have 15,724 employees.
• no i have not.
• We all editor's know that Twinkle, Huggle, AIV & ANI are not easy for most of the wiki readers.we need a easy one like, facebook reporting. Or , a [Report] link in every section ,beside [Edit] link .
• i am agree with you.
• as i said earlier , Facebook doing it. & this month wiki active user: 127,642
  

I think you have some unique idea about "" Complete Reliability/Factual Accuracy Solution."" .what can we do ? . please share it.THANKS. -- md masum (talk) 11:25, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Specific templates

I have been thinking that we used template aimed at something that constantly change. For example, instead of write the new president, we could use some kind of template (for example {{POTUS}}, for President of the US). Sorry for my english. Hddty. (talk) 08:27, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Could you provide an specific example where this could be used? For the president of the us, either it would be a specific president that did something or it would be a general mention about the office of the president.Brightgalrs (/braɪtˈɡæl.ərˌɛs/)^[1] 18:30, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

@Brightgalrs: I mean instead of using this:

| president = [[Barack Obama]] | vice president = [[Joe Biden]]

We could using this:

| president = {{POTUS}} | vice president = {{VPOTUS}} Hddty. (talk) 22:49, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Hello, I think that Wikidata is meant to allow that kind of data requests. --167.58.90.46 (talk) 19:30, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Automatic 'shared/static IP' template bot

During my vandal hunting I've noticed that, when dealing with vandalizing IPs, adding the {{shared IP}} template to their Talk page usually stops them in their tracks. When they see their WHOIS info pop up about half of them seem to think "O shit, I'm not that anonymous" and stop vandalizing. So, what about a bot that would automatically add the template with WHOIS info on those Talk pages once they've reached (for example) a level 2 warning? Maybe it could be an extra task for ClueBot? Yintan  14:32, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

@Yintan: I personally add the shared IP templates straight away if I get the feeling that it's a mobile IP or a school IP, because I want to keep it documented just in case. While a bot might not exist to do this yet, there is a userscript (I made) that automatically fills out the Shared IP template for Twinkle users, so you don't have to go to the WHOIS link and then to the rDNS link to grab the AS and the hostname. Hope that helps. – 🐈? (talk) 18:51, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@What cat?: That's interesting, I'd like to give it a try. How to install and make Twinkle see it? Yintan  19:00, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Yintan: It should work if dropped in common.js, as it waits for Twinkle to load before doing anything so it'll work loaded at any point in time. – 🐈? (talk) 19:01, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@What cat?: Yep, works. Now that's a pretty cool script. Thanks! Yintan  19:09, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Acquiring property rights

I was thinking, maybe there are photographers who might be interested to donate their photos to Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), after they die. Or their families might be interested to do that. Or maybe they would be interested to sell their rights for decent amounts of money. Probably for the vast majority of photographers, their work is not sold and never licensed and their families never benefit from it. That's a big loss for all the humanity. WMF can ask the photographers associations if there are such photographers who might be interested to sell or donate their work, in order to add it to Wikimedia Commons. Considering that such an action is enriching the cultural heritage of the world, I think it is possible to secure funds and donations from the government and corporations for such acquisitions. I'm completely sure that there are lots of journalists who work(ed) for local papers and making modest incomes who would be interested in such a deal. Or their families are interested in such a deal, after they die. Outside of the USA there should be plenty of such photographers also. In the poor countries, probably more than 90% of the photographers would be interested in such a deal.

Maybe this is a perennial proposal, I don't know. If that's the case, I apologize for that. —  Ark25  (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Just because you buy a photo doesn't mean you own the copyright to it and can release it under a free license. That is a common misconception in copyright law. Think of it this way. You buy a book. You don't own the copyright to that book just because you bought it. Donation is a very different story and we already have a process for that. See WP:COPYREQ. But just purchasing a work doesn't meet the same standard. Copyright is a complex legal issue with loopholes, traps, and laws within laws (and I'm only exaggerating a little there). It is just not as simple as you make it out to be. Copyright terms also expire automatically. Sure, it is 70 years after the death of the author in the United States (every country has different laws) but it does happen. Living photographers can already release their photos under a creative commons license right now. This is not the public domain. The work is still copyrighted and reusers still have to follow the terms. --Majora (talk) 00:34, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Even Wikipedia uses the term "donate" to mean release under a free license or into the public domain. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:00, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

@Majora: — @Finnusertop: I already knew that, but thanks anyways for explaining it. I was talking about buying the ownership, not to pay for the license to use the photos. Let's imagine that I'm a photographer working for local newspapers in Happyland and during a few decades of work I made and licensed some 10,000 photos that I still have on my hard disk. Nobody wants those photos anymore, and they take too much space on my hard disk. So I decide to transfer the property rights to someone else who can make use of them. So I will donate them to the WMF - or to sell them for a modest amount of money - say for $100. After doing this, the new owner of the photos is WMF and they do whatever they want with them: they can release the photos the Creative Commons or even in the public domain. The thing is: I can't be bothered to release my 10,000 photos into public domain or creative commons license and to upload them. I simply want to give them and forget about them.

I am quite sure that there are lots of photographers who would be interested or even happy to do that. Even more so if this move is going to help them to become known - when uploading the photos on Wikimedia Commons servers, the photos can mention the original owner. So they get free publicity simply for getting rid of the photos they don't want to bother with. Others might do that just for making sure that their name remains written and never completely forgotten.

And this applies even more for the deceased journalists: their families are interested to donate or to sell the ownership but they certainly aren't interested in learning what Creative Commons or Public Domain means and into uploading thousands of photos on a free internet encyclopedia. It's important to understand their position and to help them do do this easy, without complications. Various people might do this for all kind of reasons if only they could do it easy.

I have a few questions though: Is there any known case of a photographer selling the ownership of their work? Or families of deceased photographers selling it? And how much of the photographers' work is lost simply because nobody cares to archive it (rough estimate, ofc)?

Sorry for the long reply. —  Ark25  (talk) 02:45, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Going to try to respond to every aspect of your post. Forgive me if I miss something. Family members do not automatically gain copyright ownership after the photographer dies. Copyright continues to lie with the dead author unless already transferred by legal contract (such as in a will). And if they are going to transfer it that way, just release the documents into the public domain in the will.
Second, we already have a method of donating large numbers of works. OTRS handles this. We have a whole queue dedicated to photo submissions.
Third, if they were taking the photos as part of their work for another company the copyright very likely doesn't belong to them. It belongs to the company as a work for hire. So every journalist, unless completely freelance, would be off the table here.
As for your question at the end, nobody can answer that with any sort of mildly definitive answer. --Majora (talk) 02:55, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, that's really informative. Please forgive me for answering with even more questions. However, this is a big topic and eventually those questions will be asked anyways.

• First, maybe there are photographers realeasing their photos in the public domain in their will, but their photos remain forgotten on their hard disks. And then, the WMF should be aware of that. To me, it looks like the best way to find such instances is to approach the photographers associations. Otherwise, how can the WMF find that, say, last year, a happy photographer from Happyland died and released their work in the public domain?
• Second, maybe many photographers didn't contemplate much about releasing their photos in the public domain, because they don't know anyone interested to make use of those photos. If WMF would encourage them do do so, I'm quite sure that many photographers would think about it.
• Some photographers die before even thinking about making a will (accidents for example). And then, the families decide what to do with the owned photos.
• For the families who managed to gain the ownership of the photographs: Is there any known case of a family selling the ownership of those photos for modest amounts of money? And probably some families are simply not interested to gain ownership because they have no idea how to make use of those photos or they think they have too little value - so why bother? And then, if the WMF would help them to do the paperwork to gain the ownership, then those families might be interested to do the transfer and then to donate / sell the ownership of the photos. For example I recall a psychologist telling me that some famous psychology tests used in the USA were invented by a Romanian scientist and then the Americans bought the ownership of his work from his family, for very cheap.
• In the USA, from the photographers who got their work published in the news media (not in ads, ofc), how many of them are hired photographers and how many are freelance? I was told that big names like Reuters works with freelancers for example.
• When a newspaper goes bankrupt or simply closes, their liquidators are interested to sell the photos the newspaper owned (photos made by hired photographers). Is there any known case of such an outlet selling their database for modest amounts of money? How about outlets failing to find clients for their databases, even for modest prices?

To me, the bottom line is: OTRS is very good but whenever there is a photo collection available for free or for cheap, the WMF should be aware of it and it should benefit from it. And that can only happen if there is a serious mechanism in place to make it happen. —  Ark25  (talk) 05:53, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

You are more than welcome to approach anyone you want. You don't need anyone's permission to do so. The WMF doing this is probably not going to happen. They neither have the staff nor the will to get involved in that manner.
Your third point is untrue. If there is no will the copyright continues to lie with the author until automatic expiration (70 years after their death in the US). Copyright is property. So just like a house wouldn't automatically pass to the children upon death, neither does copyright. This site explains that in a little bit more detail.
I'm sure it has happened that heirs that have actually gained the copyright over an image have went on to sell that copyright to someone else. I don't have specific examples of that.
I also can't answer your question about how many are freelance. But just because they are freelance doesn't necessarily mean that the work is still not a work for hire. It depends on how the contract was written and how the payment was made. I'm also not aware of any newspapers going bankrupt and selling all of the copyrights to their images. But that is not to say it hasn't happened. The true bottom line here is that you are more than welcome to send out requests to each and every photographer, every association, and every newspaper asking for donations. I don't see the WMF ponying up money for this and I really don't see them helping. Sorry. --Majora (talk) 22:10, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind answers! That's a really good idea, someone should try to contact associations, newspapers and photographers in order to ask them for donations or cheap deals. I'm quite sure there are enough funds to support such an activity. Hopefully I'll find the time to do that, one day. —  Ark25  (talk) 14:05, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Proposing "Good lists"

What I propose is creation of new category in Wikipedia assessment, Good lists. Presently we have Good articles project article (prose) type ones, but there is no such thing for list type of articles. The primary reason behind this, prose type articles have assessment at different levels. Individual projects review for stub, start, C, B classes. A few also have A-class review. But for lists there is no such thing. It is a list or a FL, that it (MILHIS project has assessment for lists—CL,BL,AL—only one such project). Once a list is nominated for FL, directly from list class there are a lot of issues that has to be dealt, also the process will be grueling for the nominators. So I propose to create a WikiProject Good lists as it is WP GA, and create the necessary stuff. I think the LegoBot that is currently used to manage good articles can also be used for this. I know this is not an easy task, it can take 3–5 months once the proposal is approved to be effective at full scale. But it has to be started somewhere. Please share your ideas regarding this. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 04:07, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Your idea is already a RFC (check T:CENT). Should probably go there. See Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Request for comment on stand-alone lists being nominated as Good Articles. --Majora (talk) 04:22, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Disparity

Requirements for deletion: none, you can delete whatever you want and then people need to individually resource and justify everything when they undo your vandalism. Adding something: painstaking process, resource everything, justify everything on the talk page, inevitable edit warring, insults and ad hominems, constant stress.

This is a big, big problem. Some guy deleted a sentence in a wikipedia page which had been there for almost four years, without proof, despite the phrase being factually correct. It took several weeks and edit-warring and someone getting banned to even get it back to how it was before his vandalism. This is ridiculous. EVERY CHANGE, whether deletion or adding, should be discussed on the talk page and justified. UtherPendrogn (talk) 13:11, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

@UtherPendrogn: Discussing every change on a Talkpage first would slow Wikipedia's development down to a crawl. Furthermore, it would generate even more vandal warnings since a lot of editors wouldn't do it anyway. Because where do you draw the line? A simple typo fix can go without discussion? What about changing 1961 into 1962? And why discuss a deletion, or addition, if it's clearly within Wikipedia guidelines? Etcetera. By the way, which article and sentence are you referring to in your message above? Yintan  14:21, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

It's been dealt with, so there's no point. If you want to see an example of it, go on to every single article of this "encyclopaedia". Perfectly valid facts are deleted, yet unsourced lies aren't corrected. Perfectly valid facts can't be added either. Methamphetamine is factually similar to amphetamine, but if I added that fact to the page, it would be deleted within an hour. Hell, let's put that to the test:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Methamphetamine&action=history UtherPendrogn (talk) 14:34, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

@UtherPendrogn: No, there is a point, I want to see your previously mentioned example for myself. And adding an important claim without a source, as you did in Methamphetamine just now, is against WP policy. WP:V and all that.... Yintan  14:38, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

It's not a claim, anyone who went to secondary school knows it's true. http://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/EP0371253A2/imgb0001.png UtherPendrogn (talk) 14:40, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Oh, it's TRUE? Well, in that case, why do we bother with references and citations at all? Seriously, that's just not how Wikipedia works. Add a reliable source and you can add anything to any article. But without it, you'll be challenged. Quite simple, really. Yintan  14:45, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

And where do you stop?

Methamphetamine (contracted from N-methylamphetamine) is a strong central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Methamphetamine was discovered in 1893 and exists as two enantiomers: levo-methamphetamine and dextro-methamphetamine. Methamphetamine properly refers to a specific chemical, the racemic free base, which is an equal mixture of levomethamphetamine and dextromethamphetamine in their pure amine forms. It is rarely prescribed due to concerns involving human neurotoxicity and potential for recreational use as an aphrodisiac and euphoriant, among other concerns, as well as the availability of safer substitute drugs with comparable treatment efficacy. Dextromethamphetamine is a much stronger CNS stimulant than levomethamphetamine. Methamphetamine is similar to amphetamine and the two are sometimes confused for one another.

UtherPendrogn (talk) 14:48, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Don't play dumb and don't edit my replies, thanks. Yintan  14:54, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm not playing dumb. It's ridiculous that idiotic statements go unsourced, yet even the most basic, secondary-school level chemistry facts don't pass without excessively pedantic sources. UtherPendrogn (talk) 14:56, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Unsourced "idiotic statements" should be removed. Simple, too. Yintan  14:58, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

They aren't. This isn't a utopia, you put far too much trust in "the system". Plenty of glaring mistakes in articles I've seen. UtherPendrogn (talk) 15:04, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

@Yintan: A reliable source isn't enough for inclusion. See WP:NPOV. In any case, this is really about a dispute at Fuck and I've blocked the OP for a edit warring. Doug Weller talk 15:26, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

@Doug Weller:Of course, and there are other considerations too, but I didn't want to link to all guidelines here . Anyway, I had just about given up on this thread, WP:NOTFORUM, so it's a good thing it ends here. Cheers, Yintan  15:32, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

. You have no proof it was about Fuck, since it isn't. UtherPendrogn (talk) 15:42, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Earlier you wrote: If you want to see an example of it, go on to every single article of this "encyclopaedia". That is completely false. We have five million articles. Most of them are uncontroversial. There are probably more than a million where no information has ever been removed for any reason. Some articles are controversial and require discussion of many things but it would be an absurd burden on editors to demand that everything on all articles must be discussed on the talk page. Consider for example the tables in 2016 WTA Tour#Schedule. They are updated hundreds of times during a tennis season. Do you really want editors to discuss on the talk page before every time they add the name of a player who won or lost a match? It's all easy to verify on the website of the tournament or WTA, and there are never conflicts about it. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:58, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

• Someone expressed this as "Do I need a reference to prove that the sky is blue?". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:56, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

A new button "contest edit on talk page"

I'm suggesting a new button for the diff/s-view that for challenging edit/s on an article's talk page:

next to the (undo)-button there could be a button saying "contest", "challenge" or something with e.g. "contest edit on talk page" as hovertext.

Pressing the button would automatically open up the talk-page-editor with some info prefilled, like the following example:

Subject: "Contested edit 4353 (03-05-2015) by UserA"
Description: "[linktouserA UserA] recently [linktodiff/s made an edit], saying "[automatically fill in edit description/s here]" in which he/she [insert action/s here] which I challenge, because [insert reason here]."

The user just needs to replace "[insert action/s here]" & "[insert reason here]". Maybe much of it could be standardized further - like by the type of dispute etc. and instead of having the user to manually edit the talk-page entry wikitext one could have a form that just asks for e.g. actions made & reason for the contest in the appropriate way etc.

So here's why I think it might be useful:

• it streamlines such contests in that they all follow one familiar and efficient style/setup
• it encourages users to contest edit/s which is useful in that
  • they don't just revert edits on their own but first let themselves in for a discussion on the talk page with the person who did the change/s as well as other people watching the talkpage which leads to better mutual understanding, consensus and ultimate content on the page
  • they are encouraged to participate and bring arguments for/against specific changes of an article instead of doing nothing at all: this leads to better ultimate content and increases participation

As a sidenote the (undo)-button could get "Alternatively contest the edit/s on the talk page by pressing 'contest'." added to its hovertext.

This could also be implemented for the Twinkle gadget even though much of its use would be lost by not having it built into Wikipedia itself (maybe Twinkle as a whole could be built in?).

--Fixuture (talk) 14:08, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Bot proposal

If there are x (this can be determined by replies) amount of reverts in a space of x time, then the bot will make a request for page protection. MusikAnimal and I agreed that adding a bot section would be simplest, and CP678 said that it is also easy to incorporate in their bots' code. Thoughts? Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 16:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I think this needs to be given more thought. Will this only run on mainspace pages? Are good-faith reverts counted? What if the reverts are only for one vandal, shouldn't it report to WP:AIV and not WP:RFPP (since a block would be more appropriate)? If does go to AIV, will the bot know that the user was properly warned first? How would the bot know the reverts are actually vandalism in the first place? What if it is two editors edit warring, shouldn't it go to WP:ANEW instead? Again, how does the bot differentiate vandalism from an edit war, so that it knows what noticeboard to report to? — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:11, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

It runs on every space. Every edit with an edit summary of "revert", "undo", "undid" will be counted. However, it is possible to check if there's good-faith/good faith in the summary (I believe in ruby there's the scan command?). I'm not sure about checking if there's more than two users since also edit wars should be protected as to avoid disruption of the project while attempting to reach consensus. I rarely see users rollbacking/undo-ing edits that aren't vandalism/disruptive in any way. If they do, then they'll be stripped of rollback. I could add it so that it might report to WP:AN/EW. In addition, the bot could check if there are only two editors, both are extended/autoconfirmed, and will request protection of the page to the appropriate level. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 17:24, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

If there are only two users, page protection generally is not the answer, blocking is. If it's an edit war, you'd report to ANEW, but the bot has to somehow know it was an edit war and not someone reverting vandalism by a single user. Next, you don't need rollback to "revert", "undo" or "undid". What if I as a new user I wanted to undo my last 10 edits, so I "undid" each of them, one by one? What if I was testing the undo function in my userspace? What if my edit summary said "The Queen of England has undone her decision...", etc. You will need to use regular expressions. Overall I would actually forego reporting to noticeboards entirely, and instead have the bot generate a report in its own userspace, listing pages that have recently experienced numerous reverts. Admins can then refer to it at their leisure, and we don't risk false positives polluting the noticeboards, or having the bot report to the wrong place. With time we'd be able to see how accurate it is, and reconsider if reporting to noticeboards is appropriate — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

If there is consensus, I will run the bot in my userspace to see how many false positives there are. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 06:44, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Bot is nearly done. Pinging frequent administrators who work at AIV for comments @KrakatoaKatie, Drmies, CambridgeBayWeather, BethNaught, Samsara, and Vanamonde93:. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 19:13, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Link to previous discussion at WT:RFPP. Samsara 19:22, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

So, is there a page in your userspace that shows the results from a test run? I think that will be the best time to ask for comments. Samsara 19:34, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Agree with Samsara that I'd like to see test results before commenting further. I can see the need if it's done correctly. Katie^talk 22:39, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

• Sorry, but I'm way too old-fashioned for this. Sure, a test run etc., but for now I don't see the benefits. Drmies (talk) 01:58, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

  So long as this is making low-speed edits to its own userspace go for it - if it seems useful after that you will be able to get more review after filing a BRFA. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:15, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• Not opposed to this in principle, remains to be seen how the practicalities will be worked out. It might be helpful if the bot could somehow use Cluebot's reverts as a starting point, because the filters/algorithms on that seem decent. Vanamonde (talk) 05:25, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
• As protection is a variable term nowadays this would need to be conditional. If the reverts mainly involve IPs and or newbies then semi protection could be useful. If this is an edit war between vested contributors then semi protection isn't going to help anyone, but maybe a note on an admin noticeboard might be appropriate. ϢereSpielChequers 14:15, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:discussion review

I've been thinking. Perhaps we should have another venue on reviewing closures of non-deletion discussions in general. It can function like WP:DRV or WP:MRV, but the scope should be wide, i.e. it can be anything unrelated to deletion discussions. Someday, when "discussion review" venue comes true, I thought about merging MRV to "discussion review" (DCV?). --George Ho (talk) 23:58, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

What do you think the benefits of this are going to be? Increased visibility/transparency, or maybe keeping discussions of this type off AN? I'm asking because I don't think AN is currently that overwhelmed, although I may be wrong. Enterprisey (talk!) 02:03, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

The discussions at a user talk page prompted me to think about the idea. Now maybe I broadened too much. It should apply to discussions at talk pages, project pages, and project talk pages. WP:arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment already reviews decisions done by ArbCom, so take that out of the scope. Overwhelmed or not, sometimes either administrators might not handle controversy well, or they... I don't see much of discussions yet at AN. --George Ho (talk) 02:51, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

While anyone can comment on closures brought to AN for reveiw, having a venue called "discussion review" would be more inviting to non-administrators, and separate discussions of that nature from other things that are posted there.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 03:25, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm glad you liked the idea, Godsy. I'm thinking: the discussion shall review anything unrelated to deletions, titles (until merged there), and ArbCom cases. It reviews closures of anything not related to those venues. Shall I develop the idea more, shall I wait for others to respond, or shall I propose it like that soon? George Ho (talk) 04:40, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

@George Ho: A well thought out and planned idea always has a better chance to gain consensus than one that isn't. If you choose to draft a proposal, I'd be happy to take a look at it and offer my two cents before you launch it.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 05:56, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

How do I draft the proposal then, Godsy? George Ho (talk) 05:57, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

@George Ho: WP:PROPOSAL explains it well. You could draft it at Wikipedia:Discussion review, just make sure to put {{Brainstorming}} or {{Draft proposal}} at the top of the page.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 06:04, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

 Created the page, Godsy. Still working on it, but tagged it as "Brainstorm". Maybe you can help me out. Where else can I notify others about this? --George Ho (talk) 06:39, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps a note requesting input from WT:Closing discussions and WT:Requests for comment or anywhere else that may be interested.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 07:28, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

signature timezone

We use UTC for signature timezone now. Let's use each users' timezones in Special:Preferences. --ㅂㄱㅇ (talk) (Bieup Giyeok Ieung) 13:06, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

That would probably just make discussions very confusing, and there's already a gadget in user preferences to change timestamps in UTC to be relative to the user's local time. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 13:26, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Right now, each user can easily see the relative time of any 2 posts (simply see which has a later timestamp, and subtract the times to know how long passded between them); this would no longer work if we each used our own time zone. Additionally, any user can easily check out once which time zone (s)he is in (and probably most of us know anyway) to see how long ago a specific post was made; if each user used his/her own time zone, this would be much more difficult, as the user would need to check out the time zone of the posting user. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:40, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jc86035 and Od Mishehu: I mean read, not write. The user who use UTC can read the time by UTC like now, and the user who use non-UTC timezone can read the time by own timezone. --ㅂㄱㅇ (talk) (Bieup Giyeok Ieung) 10:05, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

@ㅂㄱㅇ: If you want this functionality, there is already a gadget in your preferences available. --Izno (talk) 15:01, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

@Izno: the time in history, recent changes and watchlist, etc is, but signature time is not. --ㅂㄱㅇ (talk) (Bieup Giyeok Ieung) 02:07, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

@ㅂㄱㅇ: I think you want to turn on the gadget Wikipedia:Comments in Local Time. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:02, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

"I just thought it hadn't posted"

I've noticed quite a few editors trying to edit a page in good faith and getting reverted & warned quickly. The issue is, they get reverted so quickly, they assume "oh, it didn't go through" and readd the edits. Here's an example: IP editor who obviously doesn't know any better thinking their edit didn't go through and trying to redo it. This happens way too often for my comfort, because it makes me guess that "well, if these users posted about it, what happened to the users that just gave up?"

My thoughts are we both need

1. the warnings to be simplified, kinder, and more applicable (imo welcome-anon needs some diversification, as then people can use it as a first warning)
2. messages to be more obvious to new users (make the current notification type opt-in, have a notice banner by default)
3. possibly a way to automatically tell a user that they're making an edit after they got reverted?

Any suggestions? This might be a hard issue to pinpoint because it's...well, a layer 8 issue. – 🐈? (talk) ^{(ping me!)} 21:17, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

A wholly different direction than what you were looking at, but it might help if the pop-up message at the top of the page 'your edit was saved' after an edit was submitted either stayed around longer, was more visible, or both. (Though in such a case, a preference should be added for editors to keep using the current, more discrete form. Preferably automatically set that way for all registered, (auto-)confirmed editors at the time such a change was deployed, even). It wouldn't solve all issues, but it'd be a more visible confirmation that the edit did go through. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 07:07, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Table generated chart

Wikipedia should have a way of displaying a table as a simple area chart, so that charts doesnnt have to be uploaded as a bitmap (impossible to keep up to date for other users than the uploader) Sorry if I'm not using the correct syntax here. If this is the wrong place or way to express this wish, please do it right for me, the function is needed! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.255.85.192 (talk) 20:45, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Graphs and charts for some current options. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:44, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Table generated chart

Wikipedia should have a way of displaying a table as a simple area chart, so that charts doesnnt have to be uploaded as a bitmap (impossible to keep up to date for other users than the uploader) Sorry if I'm not using the correct syntax here. If this is the wrong place or way to express this wish, please do it right for me, the function is needed! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.255.85.192 (talk) 20:45, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Graphs and charts for some current options. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:44, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Diderotpedia?

Denis Diderot was a key contributor to the first Encyclopedia which was 28 volumes total. This is why I think Wikipedia should be renamed Diderotpedia in honor of Diderot on a certain day such as his birthday October 5th. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.24.135.235 (talk) 04:06, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

The Encyclopédie to which Diderot was one of the contributors was in no possible way "the first encyclopedia". Chambers' Cyclopædia predated it by about 20 years, and there are earlier "compendiums of all knowledge" going all the way back to the early Romans. ‑ Iridescent 13:18, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

But the Encyclopédie was arguably the oldest, most important encyclopedia since it got across the Enlightenment ideas and also changed the way people thought. It advocated secularism and focused more on facts and science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.24.135.235 (talk) 15:15, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

How can it be "arguably the oldest"? That's like saying "Britney Spears was arguably the first pop star". It's indisputably not the oldest even of the big Enlightenment encyclopedias (Chambers predated it by decades), let alone the oldest encyclopedia per se. ‑ Iridescent 19:55, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Handling articles about events

After past failed AfD nominations, I want to know how to reduce atrocious but huge number of such nominations. I thought about improving or downgrading WP:NOTNEWS, but past discussions proved themselves to go nowhere. Then I thought about proposing "Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Events", but I don't know whether it is too broad. Maybe Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Current events, which focuses on events that have been happening now? Hmm... too narrow? Is another guideline too redundant? Any other ideas? --George Ho (talk) 05:40, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

@George Ho: Could you clarify the problem? Is it with the content of articles on current events, the act of nominating them for deletion, or something else? Sam Walton (talk) 16:14, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Many articles of current events at the time of creation have been nominated for deletion; the results were "kept". Nevertheless, articles that were created at the time of such incidents would need either some updating, expanding, or rearranging. "NOTNEWS" has been discussed over and over just to try to limit the number of articles without success. However, failing AfD nominations keep popping up. I started one discussion a year ago to discuss rising number of failing AFD nominations, but the editors discussed the notability of the then-current events. Actually, I am more concerned about then-current events, though might historical events apply as well? --George Ho (talk) 18:09, 16 December 2016 (UTC); Pinging Samwalton9. 18:51, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

In that case it would likely be Notability/Current events, as MOS, so far as I know, holds no weight over page deletion, only the content in pages that don't fail notability, which decides if a page should exist or not. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 07:07, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

There is already WP:notability (events), but is it really sufficient to handle current events? Actually, I don't want the idea to suffer from the same fate as WP:notability (fiction). Also, I wanted MOS:EVENT to be like any MOS subpage. Wait... maybe we can discuss two things: MOS:EVENT and WP:NOCE. George Ho (talk) 07:27, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

My sense at AfD is that people who vote to !keep events tend to think in terms of GNG. Arguing about NOTNEWS is difficult because, as I've observed as a closing admin, the distinction is largely a matter of opinion. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:39, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

A translation tier

The Spanish (and probably) other Wikipedias have a lot of decent articles in need of translating into English. I like to create articles which have pictures and proper references, by translating them into English alongside my own research. Would it be to possible to have a list of articles in the Spanish (and other) Wikis without a corresponding article in English. Ideally the list should only include at least Start class articles or we should be able to see the ranked list of these articles according to their size. If somebody can make a script towards this and populate the results on a page for all to view (at least a basic one which can find out most of such articles) it will go a long way in reducing the imbalance of articles which are skewed in favour of those from Anglophile nations. Jupitus Smart 04:17, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jupitus Smart: d:WD:Request a query should be able to help. They'll definitely be able to help with a list without English articles, but I'm not sure about the rest of the request. --Izno (talk) 10:11, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

If you can't get a list that is limited to articles with refs and images, then you might consider requesting only featured (and other quality) articles. I did a quick check of the German Wikipedia's recent Today's Feature Articles about a month or so ago, and about 25% of them had no article on the English Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing and Izno, thanks for your suggestions. I have acted upon your suggestions and requested a query on Wiki data. Let us now wait for the results to arrive. Jupitus Smart 08:06, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I have proposed a solution here Mduvekot (talk) 17:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Navbox request template

It would be great to have a template that could be placed on the talk page of a category or list, in order to request that the Wikipedia pages listed be turned into a navbox. Submissions would go into a category (similar to Template:Infobox requested and Template:Logo requested).

Daylen (talk) 19:21, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Probably never to be serviced. My suggestion, is that you make such requests at the applicable WikiProject. --Izno (talk) 21:18, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Some way to sync up glossaries with articles?

I'm not exactly sure where the proper place to propose this is, but I had an idea that would make technical articles much more readable. What if there was some feature so that when you click on or mouse over a technical term (perhaps one not warranting its own article), a concise definition of the term would appear (something like WP:Hovercards but for glossary definitions). Ashorocetus (talk | contribs) 17:03, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Limited Duty Admins

Withdrawn

As a recently-returning editor, I've noticed a shift in RfA expectations. See, for example, this discussion in K6ka's RfA. At least part of the community will want expectation for previous experience in many different areas, even ones the admin candidate has no expressed interest in, in almost all serious RfA's. There are some fairly strong opinions that the entire process of creating admins is broken expressed even at the highest level. At the same time, there are frequent backlogs in areas that require admininstrator involvement. Clearly we can use more editors invested in these areas. There have been prior attempts to reform RfA of varying degrees of success, apparently. Instead of reforming the process of creating admins, why not reform adminship, or at least part of it? We have done this before, creating Rollbacker and New Page Patroller rights to improve those areas. The model of authority I am most familiar with, that of the U.S. Navy, has a feature called a Limited duty officer. I wonder if that is something we might make usage of. The Limited Duty Admin would be a user that has admin rights but only uses them in a limited number of areas. This would not necessarily need a programming change, the way that creating a separate rollback right did. Imagine that user:RichardRoe has good experience with and wanted to help out in article deletion. They request adminship in only CSD, Prod, and AfD. They show they have experience and good judgment in those areas, and a new account user:RichardRoe_DeletionAdmin gets created and the bit added. user:RichardRoe remains a regular account and any admin tasks are processed through user:RichardRoe_DeletionAdmin. Any attempts by user:RichardRoe_DeletionAdmin to act outside of deletion would be obvious both to users and to other admins, especially "full" admins. In the case that Richard saw something that required emergency admin action outside their area, a simple post on WP:AN would clarify their actions quickly. This is motivated by a semi-outsider perspective, so I no doubt have missed things or am ignorant of similar attempts. Please fee free to chastise me here;). Thanks for reading this far. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eggishorn (talk • contribs) 20:43, 2 January 2017 (UTC) D'oh! Thanks @Mandruss:. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 20:57, 2 January 2017 (UTC) See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Hierarchical structures for some background on unbundling administrative privileges. (Note this doesn't mean that further unbundling can't take place, but understanding what has been previously discussed is helpful.) Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#Planning for a post-admin era is the most recent thread on the RfA discussion page with some discussion on unbundling, and Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Archive 244#Moderator proposal links to what I believe is the most recent proposal made on that discussion page. isaacl (talk) 22:35, 2 January 2017 (UTC) I like unbundling and I would take on some limited duty myself, while being completely unprepared for the whole mop. I have not read all prior discussion, but the opposition arguments I've seen have been unconvincing. When I have advocated a try-it-and-see approach as opposed to a WP:CRYSTAL approach, the responses have either been absent or of the nature, "Yes, but [repeat of WP:CRYSTAL]." En-wiki is risk-averse in the extreme. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:38, 4 January 2017 (UTC) People have put the admin bit on too high a pedestal. The old "it's no big deal" concept needs to make a comeback and quick. Trustworthiness is the only factor that matters for RfA and that should be the central focus. A large portion of editors have become unreasonable in how they factor content creation towards trustworthiness and I think it's currently the single worst element of the RfA process. As for "limited duty admins", I barely do any admin stuff. I don't have the time or desire to do a lot of it; something I truthfully stated in my RfA and which caused many people to oppose me. The admin work I have done I think has been very beneficial to the project yet despite my history establishing that I am a respectable editor here for the common good, many people were willing to forego giving me a chance based on their own negative biases that fear the worst. Bottom line: we need to get better at identifying trust. The community lets too many people through we shouldn't make it (look at how often admins end up at Arbcom) and are presumably denying people who should make it. I think the process is inherently biased against those with cautious/meeker/transparent personalities and biased towards those with with bolder or Machiavellian personalities. An example of "machiavellian" behavior I would give is those who answer RfA questions, not from the heart, but by seemingly writing in the way that they suspect the community wants to hear. There's no onus to have to use the tools. It's not like becoming an admin means you must do admin work, which is how many editors seem to treat RfA. This is especially true since it's unreasonable to expect the editors to be fully aware about what they can (or want to) do until after they get the tools. In fact I think the current RfA process encourages people to jump head-first into the fray when I think a "dip your toes" approach is much wiser. "Don't walk before you can run" should be the parting advice after a successful RfA. Anyway, I don't really think it's the RfA process that's broken so much as the mindset of the participants. (Mandruss, I've seen you around and have a favorable impression so if you know your editing history to be clean, you should have them too.) Jason Quinn (talk) 09:52, 4 January 2017 (UTC) After hearing many complaints about WP:AE I have started paying attention to ideas for reform that links to a user space scratch pad file and anyone's additions there are welcome. We might get more admin participation while at the same time cultivate community trust, by creating a class of admin that have AE rights, limiting the number of them, appointing them for short-ish terms, and emphasizing that re-appointment depends on particular factors the community really wants to see exhibited by those admins. On the list of factors, I propose the #1 thing should be community assessment as to how well the candidates arrive at their opinions through the application of the principles and remedies articulated in the arb ruling that authorizes DS in the first place. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:21, 4 January 2017 (UTC) PS Having read comments here and at the "perennial proposals" page, it's seems pretty likely that a feeler "what if" (like this good faith thread) will produce a lot of no's, just because history repeats. However, if a proposal is packaged in outline and/or graphic or tabular form.... has a short concise bullet list of goals to be achieved... and inventories the various admin tools to be parsed between admin the different admin levels .... then the proposal will hopefully get some more specific opinions ... they might still be "no", but it will require more thought to back that answer up. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:04, 4 January 2017 (UTC) I agree that adminship is WAY too precious and that RFA needs reform, but I don't know that unbundling is the way to go. "I don't intend to use this tool" is not the same as "I cannot be trusted with this tool", and we should assign adminship based on trustworthiness primarily (i.e. do we believe a person will misuse a tool). It's not an award we give to people for doing certain things right at Wikipedia, it's a set of tools we give to people who we believe won't abuse them. We NEED to get back to that mentality, and dial back the strictness of RFA, but I don't believe unbundling helps that at all; it merely increases the workload and complexity of adminship (because now we need to consider 3-4 different RFA processes rather than merely one) without solving any of the problems of RFA (unrealistic and unhelpful expectations of what qualities a good admin needs). If an admin has no use for the protection tool, they can simply not use it. I see nothing useful of specifically not giving it to them. It does no harm. --Jayron32 18:58, 4 January 2017 (UTC) Not that I want to constrain discussion, but I was not thinking so much about further tool unbundling. Rather, I was thinking along the lines of what might be called responsibility or area unbundling. The Limited Duty Admin would have access to all the same tools as a "regular" admin, preventing any programming changes. The only change would be in community-granted expectations. This would address the "You don't have enough content creation/AIV presence/deletion experience/whatever" objections used in RfA as roadblocks to otherwise-qualified candidates. It would also address the "An admin needs to be trusted everywhere" objections. If the community doesn't trust the candidate on vandal-fighting and the candidate doesn't want to vandal fight, why make vandal fighting an issue? Thanks. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:51, 4 January 2017 (UTC) So a candidate states that they will never be involved in Admin work in area X but within days starts working in area X. What happens next? Leaky Caldron 20:03, 4 January 2017 (UTC) Another user reports it on AN and, if no explanation is forthcoming, the new admin is blocked and life goes on. No big ArbCom mess needed. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 20:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC) What happens next? Next, the community takes a close look at how they could have been completely wrong on trustworthiness. As long as we demand perfection, no improvement will be possible; that's the one thing we can be sure of. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:23, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

User-performed deletion of user subpages

It seems like a bit of a waste of time for admins to have to go through and delete pages in people's user space instead of letting them do it themselves. I can't see any real potential for abuse here, as {{db-u1}} requests are usually granted right away anyways. goose121 (talk) 05:01, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Sample scenario for "why not" (1)Go to any article (2) move it to your user subpage (3) delete it ... — xaosflux ^Talk 05:07, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

These do not take much admin time. It just needs a check of the history. Some other speedy deletes are much more intensive in work, eg checking for copyright infringements, and seeing if there is a good revision in the history; or checking for a banned user, when they are not blocked or banned - just a suspected sock. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:28, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: that doesn't work: speedy deletion criteria apply only if all revisions of a page meet those criteria. In the case you describe, the pre-move revisions obviously fail the criteria. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:32, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I was referring to the existing software capabilities, which do not care about prior revision owners when performing a deletion. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:47, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

It would probably be difficult to make the software check for incoming page moves; and this trick has even tricked human admins. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:53, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Then have software just check to see that the page started out in the person's userspace / has ever left the person's userspace. Dustin (talk) 20:35, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

WP:PEREN#Grant non-admins admin functions within their user space. BethNaught (talk) 23:55, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

At that section: "if users could delete pages in their namespace, they would be able to move pages to their user space and delete them." – At least in theory, having a move log check / edits by user check doesn't seem like it would be too complex, and it would ensure that that problem never occurs. Perhaps someone else could assess the actual difficulty of such an implementation? "Gives the impression of user space ownership" – If users don't de facto control their own userspaces, why are they allowed to request deletion of pages? I get that users aren't allowed to outright violate general Wikipedia policy in their userspace (spam, personal attacks, harassment, general vandalism, etc.), but if a user is allowed to request deletion of userspace pages, I don't see why barriers should remain in place that slow down this process if faster alternatives that still prevent abuse are possible. "and has been rejected by the developers" – They seemed to be partly following the "own" bit (which I mentioned earlier), which seems to be flawed reasoning in my opinion (it could at least be expanded upon). Really doesn't strike me as compelling rationale. But alas, I am not the person writing the software. Are there significant software barriers, perhaps? Dustin (talk) 20:35, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be possible. But so far the administrators who actually do these deletions have not complained about the workload, so it's highly unlikely for anyone to bother actually doing the work to make anything like this happen. Time to drop it. Anomie⚔ 22:36, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Its a good idea and we have had consensus more than once in the past to do it. But not the IT resource to make it happen. As I remember the ballpark figures, providing we put in the logical safeguard of not allowing this for a page that had been moved, were that it would save us admin time equivalent to appoint an extra admin a year. I'm hoping that eventually we can get this actioned, as much because it would empower everyone to do something they should be able to do as because it would lighten the admin load. ϢereSpielChequers 18:00, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

New Editors - or are they?

I do a few bits and pieces of reviewing the work of new editors, typically looking at their first 4-5 edits. Generally speaking, they fall into three categories:

• Some are obviously constructive. Their first few edits will be making useful corrections to articles or expanding an article which is (I guess) of interest to them. A few of these I template with something appropriately welcoming, but generally I just let them get on with it.
• Some are obviously unconstructive. You know the sort of thing; either it's spamming the same URL into half a dozen articles, or user XYZCorp is editing a page coincidentally called XYZCorp, or it's about lunch-time in Wales and half a dozen new editors all turn up making "funny" edits to a Welsh school's article, or someone, hilariously, replaces a whole article with the word "gay" repeated about six hundred times. These get reverted, warned, and if it's particularly unconstructive twinkled to AIV.
• Some have edits that appear constructive, but... there is no way on earth that that is a new editor. These accounts begin their careers by making elaborate changes to infoboxes, or go around adding the same category to dozens of articles, or launch straight into detailed policy discussions on talk pages. They frequently have very elaborate user pages within their first couple of dozen edits and are sometimes prolific editors - often averaging 50-100 edits per day for weeks or months. They often make multiple page moves in their first few days and sometimes show a detailed knowledge of the MOS.

What do people do about that last category? They do, reasonably often, end their days indeffed as sockpuppets, but without any particular evidence to link them to any master account, it's not clear to me what can be done. There seem to be certain people around who have a, well, encyclopaedic knowledge of the styles of the usual suspects, but I'm not one of them.

For all the obvious reasons I'm not going to link to any examples of active users I feel fall into the third category, but User:Johny5000, User:Team61ROLL and User:White Flower are the sort of thing I'm talking about. Going to [40] and checking out the recent editors with thousands of edits will also demonstrate the kind of pattern I'm talking about.

Is there anything to be done? GoldenRing (talk) 13:48, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

beats me. Still I would like to applaud your effort hereNewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:00, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Thing is, we get so used to dealing with the users who create an account and immediately plunge into editing - getting stuff wrong and generally attracting a pile-on of helpful advice and/or warnings - that we tend to forget how much of Wikipedia you can look at without actually editing. I for one spent a good long time looking through project pages and guidelines before I ever saved my first edit, and I suspect that a lot of other users do as well. There's no proscription against lurking for a few months and learning how things work before getting stuck in, and I expect a lot of people do exactly that - we don't want to introduce anything that will discourage them because frankly, they are exactly the sort of users we want to attract. Sockpuppets and illegitimately-returning users are generally picked up on other issues than their immediate competence at editing, and what you're suggesting would also have repercussions for those users attempting a clean start, as well. The system you're asking for already exists - it's called WP:AGF! Yunshui ^雲_水 14:12, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

(ec) @Yunshui: It's a fair point. There are a couple of subcategories of the third type, most of which are perfectly acceptable: Some are coming from other non-en wikis and know their way around the software pretty well (saw one of these today). Some I guess have been editing as IPs and know their way around. Some start by doing one of the tutorials and hit the ground running that way. And others, as you say, have just been lurking for a long time. But others tend to get several hundreds or thousands of edits in (those three accounts I linked managed well over 1,000 between them) before someone tumbles to the fact their a sock of a banned user, and someone ought to be going back and reviewing those thousands of edits to see what needs reverting. I suspect no-one is, because it's a very big job. In a way it makes me wish CU was just a form where you could pop a name in and it would generate a report - but of course that's never going to happen and for good reasons. Or maybe just that CUs would accept, "That's a new editor? BS!" as a reason to run CU. Also, it seems, not going to happen. GoldenRing (talk) 14:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

There are also the promotional undisclosed paid editors who drop in a complete article on their first edit. For those, even if the article is not an obvious {{db-advert}} you may want to consider pointing them to WP:PAID or placing a {{uw-paid1}} inquiry on their talk page. Sure there are editors who 'spent time learning Wikipedia before making their first edit' and nearly every one of these accounts will say that is what they did if challenged but 98%+ of the time that is BS so the actual WP:BITEing risk is very low. Jbh^Talk 14:42, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

This whole exercise is also leaving me tempted to start WP:Taxonomy of new editors - only slightly tongue in cheek. GoldenRing (talk) 14:49, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

That would actually be very useful. Particularly to help train new page patrollers/reviewers. Jbh^Talk 14:53, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

@Jbhunley: A start can be found at User:GoldenRing/Taxonomy_of_new_users GoldenRing (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• Maybe there should be a WP:Database report for "New user articles" or "Users less than X days with greater than Y edits". This might also help sniff for WP:ECP gamers. --Izno (talk) 15:06, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I guess this is roughly how I use the edit count part of [41] GoldenRing (talk) 17:14, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

One thing to remember: Some of these cases may be genuine clean starts. We must respect this right, and not start assuming that these users are blocked or restricted users trying to get around their block or restriction. Only when we have clear evidece of this my we start to make such assumptions. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 21:55, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

• This reeks pretty strongly of assuming bad faith right off the bat. As someone that was the target of a witch hunt that ended nowhere you really need to understand that what Yunshui describes probably happens a lot more often than you think. Remember, the Wikipedia and Help namespaces are completely indexed and anyone can easily Google anything they are looking to read up on and find information on it. My first edit was to a table, after reading extensively on Help:Table and Help:Table/Introduction to tables. I also used the preview button before actually saving, which made my first edit pretty much perfect from a syntax standpoint. That edit was, of course, brought up in the witch hunt as "proof" that I was not a new user but I had never edited Wikipedia before that. If there are problems with their edits, of course gather evidence, request a CU, file an ANI report, tell them what they are doing wrong, do something. But if there is nothing wrong don't start a witch hunt and potentially chase off an editor that is working to improve. Especially if there is no evidence of any wrong doing. That is assuming bad faith and should be avoided. --Majora (talk) 03:37, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
  • @Od Mishehu:@Majora: - Please understand that my current strategy with these users is exactly to AGF and let them get on with it, because I have no way, early on, of distinguishing those that are going to be disruptive from those who are genuine. I understand that some come from other wikis, as User:xaosflux notes, though these are often good enough to note this on their userpage. I also get that some people are careful and painstaking about making their first edit perfect, though it would be unusual for these types to amass dozens of edits in their first 24 hours for the obvious reasons. Regarding clean starts, that right is not absolute - if the user is banned or blocked, they are not entitled to a clean start. I guess I posted this here to see if anyone had tips on sorting the disruptive ones from the genuine ones. GoldenRing (talk) 14:15, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• One thing to look for is: Do they have edits on other WMF projects? (Check Special:CentralAuth). I know I can personally be found showing up on other projects and could appear exactly as "class 3" if this wasn't checked by that local community. (e.g. w:ba:Махсус:Өлөштәр/Xaosflux) Not all cross project users will have a global user page either. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:39, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
• The way to spot a cleanstart by someone who is not entitled to a cleanstart is to keep an eye on your watchlist and especially pages where certain blocked or banned editors were problematic. If you see someone new turn up and continue the disruptive behaviour that someone else just got blocked for then file an WP:SPI. Otherwise best to AGF. ϢereSpielChequers 16:26, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
  • The only way to have any basis for saying that the new user is anything but a legitimate CLEANSTART is if the user is showing obvious signs of being a specific blocked or restricted user. Keep in mind, for example, that had I wanted a CLEANSTART, i could have participated in this discussion just as much as I am now. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:27, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Why don't we use PCPL2 or PCPL2 /w Semi anymore? I see how they could be very useful and I am not sure why they aren't used.

Like the title says, I am confused about why we don't use Pending Changes Protection Level 2 or Pending Changes Protection Level 2 with Semi Protection. I see many cases in witch these could be used, and In many cases they could even stop edit warring. Can someone please answer? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Creeperparty568 (talk • contribs) 22:07, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

There is no community consensus for it to be used. See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Make PC2 no longer available to admins. — JJMC89 (T·C) 22:31, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Wording my proposal on ‎Wikipedia:Files for discussion#Old discussions

I want to describe my proposal on ‎Wikipedia:Files for discussion#Old discussions. However, I must be concise and neutral in my proposal. Also, I need to go to an appropriate venue. However, the backlogging description is done by Anomie's bot tool. Also, I'm planning to use {{Wikipedia:Files for discussion/Old discussions}} as a transclusion tool. Shall RFC tag be needed? If not, what else shall I do? --George Ho (talk) 07:07, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Protector

I think we should have a Protector user right, which would grant an editor the ability to protect pages, and edit protected pages, just like an administrator. —MartinZ02 (talk) 12:25, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that non-admins could help with semi-protecting pages, but not to protect or unprotect them. --NaBUru38 (talk) 00:01, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I could see this if it only went up to semi-protection. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 00:06, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

We already have template editors. Could we trust them to protect up to template editor access required? I would be reluctant to have this for articles at Admin only, as there are quite a few protected pages that if edited could disrupt all users, or even cause privilege escalation. However perhaps many fully protected pages could be downgraded to template protection so that some trusted non-admins can edit them. Then template-editor may not be quite the right name. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:19, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

This is somewhat of a perennial idea, but I think Fastily is working up a proposal on something quite similar, you may want to collaborate. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:27, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

If he is, I'm interested, it has a lot of promise. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 00:33, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I've drafted a proposal for an interface-editor right. Currently in the process of refining the idea/concept. Help and/or feedback would be appreciated :) -FASTILY 03:26, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Wrote a comment on the talk page. As others have pointed out, having the user right granted by admins is probably not going to be OK for developers. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:10, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

How are software developments prioritized?

Often, the community (and its sub-communities) establish consensus decisions on how aspects of the MediaWiki software should behave, and these decisions require developer action to implement. Any editor may create an account on Phabricator to create and track tickets, but there seems to be no transparency to the way these tickets are prioritized, or any means of compelling action, or even a timetable for action, on tickets that have languished unaddressed, often for years. It seems that, for what is otherwise a consensus-driven project, software development should be more responsive to the will of the editor community. What proposals have been put forward to address this in the past, and what were their strengths or weaknesses? —swpb^T 16:35, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

The developers, i.e the people who write and understand software, decide what gets which priority. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:53, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Here is a current chance: mw:Developer Wishlist. "Propose your ideas by 31 January (23:59 UTC)". PrimeHunter (talk) 20:11, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Note the Developer Wishlist is a wishlist for things developers want. If there's something you'd want to better write bots, or tools, or user scripts, or gadgets, or modules, or complex templates, or server-side code, it would fit into that wishlist. If it's something for editing articles, reviewing edits, administering the project, or the like, you wanted the m:Community Wishlist for a "wishlist" type thing (but you're still always welcome to make requests in other ways too, no need to wait for next year's wishlist process). Anomie⚔ 14:21, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

@Swpb: If the request pertains to a project being actively worked on at the Wikimedia Foundation, reaching out to the relevant team is often the best way. If the team has a product manager or community liaison then they're often a good start. You can look at the public goals pages to get a feel for what's going on and who you can contact. This same process applies to teams within the Wikimedia Foundation, for what it's worth; we reach out to each other with requests, and prioritise them accordingly... which sometimes means saying no! :-) --Dan Garry, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:33, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Note that, much like writing the encyclopedia, if there's some development that isn't being done that you think should be being done you're welcome to contribute (it's not hard to create an account!). That's how I got started as a developer around 2008, I noticed bugs and missing features and started submitting patches. Or, unlike paid editing, there's nothing against paid developing so you could also hire someone to do what you want.

Otherwise getting a change done is in some ways similar to WP:AFC: people propose ideas, and people with the time and talent and interest can pick up those ideas. Code changes (from everyone!) are similar to posting an article to the Draft namespace where it gets review and eventually someone may publish it. Of course there are differences too, not least of which is that some people seem to expect WMF staff to write all the code but don't expect wiki administrators to write all the articles, but digging deeper into the analogy seems like it would be getting off-topic here. Anomie⚔ 14:21, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanking IP editors

I've found this but wasn't sure if it's been discussed otherwise - is there a reason that the "thank" feature doesn't work for IP editors? I've encountered many IP editors who make long term positive contributions and wish I could send a simple "thanks" (using the feature) for edits I've come across. Garchy (talk) 02:36, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

I suspect because there is no guarantee it will get to that specific "person" behind the IP address. Then again, the same can be said for talkpage notices, too. ^Avic_ennasis @ 12:53, 1 Shevat 5777 / 12:53, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Production Designer credit listings-- on all individual Film Wikipedia pages

Good Afternoon,

I’m reaching out to the editors at Wikipedia urging for an amendment on all individual film Wikipedia pages that would reflect the proper credit for Production Designers. Since Wikipedia’s inception, Production Designers have not been credited on individual film pages, while both Cinematographers and Editors—our equal peers—are credited at the top of the page, along with the Director and Producers. This can be seen on the page for La La Land for example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_La_Land_(film) ) but also for all other films.

I’m a film and TV Production Designer. There is a lot of confusion outside of the industry regarding our position and title as Production Designers. My fellow designers and I are continually addressing this issue and having Wikipedia make this change would give us the proper credit that reflects the great contribution Production Designers make in film. Making this amendment would bring more visibility to our craft and our positions as department heads equal to Cinematographers and Editors. As you of course know, Wikipedia is a powerful information tool and having these credits listed would be an extremely positive addition to design recognition.

Thank you for taking the time, it is highly appreciated. If I’ve posted to the idea lab in error, please let me know the correct forum to contact.Meredithlipp (talk) 23:34, 28 January 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meredithlipp (talk • contribs) 19:08, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Greetings. I suspect that these product designers aren't listed because we don't have many sources to establish who they are and what their effects were on a given work. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:09, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Both the Oscars and Emmys have a specific award for production design, thus at that level at least it is a "notable" role in film and tv production. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:36, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

@Meredithlipp: The infobox in film articles is usually made with {{Infobox film}}. Articles can only add a field to an infobox if it's implemented by the infobox code. If you have infoboxes in mind then Template talk:Infobox film or possibly Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film is the place to discuss it. Archive searches [42] [43] of "production designer" find old discussions. I haven't read the discussions but guess there has been no consensus to add the field. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:02, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Option or tool to show sortkeys?

I'd like to propose that either an option be created or a tool added that would show the sortkey when viewing a category. So that the entry in the category would have the sortkey after it. This would be useful in seeing the set for each article in maintenance categories like Category:Pages using infobox university with unknown parameters.Naraht (talk) 15:59, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

mw:API:Categorymembers can do it: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=categorymembers&cmprop=title%7Csortkeyprefix&cmlimit=200&cmtitle=Category:Pages_using_infobox_university_with_unknown_parameters. The API is meant for programs but at least the data is there so somebody could make a script with human-friendly output, if it doesn't already exist somewhere. As you may know, {{Infobox university}} and some other infoboxes display unknown parameters in preview. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:36, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm not sure that the api is doing quite what I want, but as you said, it could be altered. What I'm actually looking to do is to get the articles that have specific unknown parameters so that I can get a group into AutoWikiBrowser, so I'm not sure my original request is what I really need either. :(.Naraht (talk) 20:08, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

It has a parameter cmstartsortkeyprefix=, for example accreditation. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:21, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Awards and Nominations

Apologies if I am doing this incorrectly.

For some animations, there are many awards and nominations that are not listed. Do only Emmy or Annie Awards get listed? Example, for Rick and Morty, there are won IGN awards for Best Animated Series 2015 and BTVA Television Voice Acting Awards for Best Male Lead Vocal Performance in a Television Series 2015 and 2016. Are these deemed too obscure? — Preceding unsigned comment added by RainbowCardboard (talk • contribs) 09:45, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

If there are reliable independent references they can be listed. However excessive awards listings can look like an advertisement. Another consideration is does the prize/award have an article? If not you cn leave the prize name with a red-link, and that will make it look non-notable, or perhaps someone will write the article. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:34, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Bots, Tools, and Reports for the File Namespace

I'd start an open dialogue about bots, tools, and reports for editors who work in the file namespace. What kind of tools/bots/reports would be most helpful to you and your workflow? I currently maintain WP:MTC!, FastilyBot, and several database reports. I'm also interested in taking on a few new tasks/tool requests, so I'd like to hear what everyone is interested in. Thanks, FASTILY 04:04, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Pinging possibly interested parties: @czar, @Jo-Jo Eumerus, @BU Rob13, @Explicit, @Sfan00 IMG, @Salavat, @Ronhjones, @Ww2censor, @George Ho, @Majora, @XXN, @Iazyges, @Magog the Ogre. This isn't an all-inclusive list, feel free to add anyone I might have missed. -FASTILY 04:12, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

I proposed this bot, which I'll take up if there's consensus for it. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:13, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

I like your idea User:BU Rob13, I have little experience with NFUR, having not really go into it, but it sounds like a "bot-assesed commons" sort of deal, the massive backlog stops people from trying to fix it, which makes the backlog grow unabated. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 04:28, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

@Iazyges: If you don't mind, please voice your opinion on the discussion at WT:FFD. (Same goes to anyone else, regardless of whether their opinion is positive or negative.) Important to keep that in one place for a future BRFA. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:30, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Non-free reductions. I'm busy tagging supersized non-free images. We now have a new bot User:DatBot6 to do the reductions, as Theo's bot often stalls. So the bottleneck now is likely to be processing the entries at Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions - we have User:Legoktm/rescaled.js, but it's still a long manual task. Since the image have sat in the category for 7 days with no change/opposition before being flagged in Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions more than 7 days old, then I think a bot would be ideal to process the files when they reach the 7 day target. Just for information on the size of the problem, I am estimating that currently somewhere between 100,000 to 150,000 files are in excess of the image size guidelines (and more appear every day!). Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 19:53, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Also Category:Wikipedia non-free file size reduction requests for manual processing is filling - mainly with svg files. These are only text files (usually - although one can have an embedded jpg - defeats the purpose!). A bot to reduce the svg page size (that's all we can do with svg) would be nice - would need someone with knowledge of svg format - otherwise it's a manual job - I use the method at User:Ronhjones/SVGreduce. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 16:49, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

You know, there was some discussion about how to "reduce" SVG files a while ago since their resolution is wholly arbitrary mostentimes. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:40, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I just tried a different method to "reduce" svg, it's quick and easy, and I think a bot could handle this method. Example is File:1972 Summer Olympics logo.svg. Method explained in full at User:Ronhjones/SVGreduceTest Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 17:46, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Scrub that - it works sometimes, suspect due to what has made the svg in the first place - back to the drawing board... Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 00:24, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Lack of a specific edit link for lead sections may be problematic.

Please see WP:Teahouse#Error: Mary Tyler Moor Show..How fix? where a new editor expressed the idea that the lack of an edit link for the lead means he/she is "not qualified" to edit it. There is an option to add such links to pages, but it is a user gadgets setting that is off by default, thus not newbie-friendly. If the belief is common among newbies, perhaps we should rather set the option to on by default? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:26, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree it's best if this is on by default, but there's the caveat that an edit link right at the top of the article could be easily misunderstood to be a link for editing the whole article rather than the top section. – Uanfala (talk) 00:35, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

suggestion - flagging article links as Prerequisites

To enhance wikipedia's value as an educational resource, how about being able to flag specific links as pre-requisites for comprehending an article. Examples would be:

• vector calculus for maxwells equations;
• vector,function (mathematics) for vector calculus
• complex number for mandlebrot set,
• matrix for invertible matrix;
• computer memory for cache memory
• tensor for einstein field equations

Perhaps this could be done with a template, or an annotation in the link itself e.g "blah blah [ [ prerequisite: complex number] ] blah blah".

Clearly not all links fall into this category. For example, in vector calculus is says: "It is used extensively in physics and engineering, especially in the description of electromagnetic fields, gravitational fields and fluid flow." ... none of those are pre-requisites to understand the what vector calculus is, whilst the earlier links ( ".. is a branch of mathematics concerned with differentiation and integration of vector fields, primarily in 3-dimensional Euclidean space") are all things you'd have to understand before that page makes sense.

it would also remove any ambiguity about the level at which an article should be written (what assumed context?). Instead of flagging the issue "this article may be too technical for some readers to understand..", just link to the appropriate pre-requesites.

motivation

• This could be visualised as highlighting of the link itself (reducing the overlinking hazard), e.g. via the shade of blue used.
• Later enhancements to the UI (or external tools) could let users prioritise what to read next / or enhance search.
• If a user's profile tracked which articles they had read, pre-requisites that the user is already familiar with could be de-emphasised
• It might provide further focus on how articles themselves should be divided up.

Fmadd (talk) 06:38, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

This sort of structure could also be put in a portal, or an outline article eg outline of hydrology. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:44, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

This looks like a good idea - most readers will be warned "you probably won't underrstand this if you don't know some facts you can read in article X". A user who has a reasonable background in X will know that they should understand it, and someone who doesn't will know that anything they don't understand is due to lack of knowledge in X. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 17:50, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Prioritize Donald trump and his nominees articles in protecting them from vandalism

i believe that Donald trump and his nominees such as Betsy DeVos and Jeff sessions should receive a high priority for fighting against vandalism and upgrade the protection on all of his nominees and supreme court appointments considering that trump and his workers are probably going to receive a lot of vandalism from a lot of unhappy people who do not like his presidency such as the people who are currently protesting this does not violate wikipedia is not as i am not advocating for or against him on wikipedia but objectively I want to make sure that we don't have to worry about Donald Trump or nominee articles being vandalized on a constant basis thus making more work for those who fight against vandalism and when everyone emotions are calmed down from the recent election then downgrade all of the protection on Donald trump and his nominees as i also care about the anonymous editors most of whom do productive edits. i would say downgrade all protection for Donald Trump and his nominees articles after the first 100 days--Jonnymoon96 (talk) 03:49, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia generally doesn't preemptively protect pages. I will add that I have seen some very good additions by IP's, in fact the article on Trump's executive orders has been largely edited by an IP. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 03:57, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

New label for edits in Recent changes

Some edits listed in Recent changes are later reverted. So I'm thinking about introducing a new label, like rv or some other. In the Legend it would be written: rv This edit was later reverted. User checking Recent changes clearly sees it was most probably a violation or some other kind of unproper content. --Janezdrilc (talk) 12:53, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

This is a great idea. There's a related task to get revert metadata implemented. See Phab:T152434. --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 16:40, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Help needed with controversial editorial opinion.

I am about to publish an editorial in The Signpost titled "Wikipedia has cancer".

I would invite anyone interested in WMF spending to take a look at it, comment on the talk page, and edit it if you see any glaring errors or obvious improvements that can be made. The basic point I am making is sure to cause heated arguments, so I want to make it as clear as I can.

A draft of the editorial is at

User:Guy Macon/Draft of Signpost Editorial

and the page for discussing it is at

User talk:Guy Macon/Draft of Signpost Editorial

Any help would be appreciated. It is really hard to see flaws in something you wrote yourself. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:16, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

"Confirm" revision flag

On the revision history, it could be helpful to have a "Confirm" revision check box that could be flagged by veteran editors. When an edit gets made by an anonymous IP, for example, everybody watching that page potentially ends up checking the revision. If I saw several confirmations of the edit by reliable editors, then I would know that I probably don't need to spend time on it and can go do something else. Praemonitus (talk) 15:34, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

@Praemonitus: How many pages would this affect? If the purpose is merely to stop vandalism, we already have pending changes protection that does exactly that, requiring edits to be approved before going live. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 16:34, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Not necessarily vandalism; the edits may be well-intentioned but incorrect. The purpose of this is to reduce redundant reviews of revisions on watched pages. Praemonitus (talk) 17:51, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

This sounds interesting. Probably harder than it sounds to implement, but an intriguing thought. I can easily image that many edits are being check multiple times (and some not at all) and this would be a more efficient use of resources. --S Philbrick(Talk) 16:23, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Admin Stats and Verify Admin should indicate deceased users, and perhaps ex-admins, etc

• I was recently looking at a user page which displayed a link to Admin Stats, and which also had the box "This user is an Administrator on English Wikipedia (Verify)". Clicking on Admin Stats told me the user was not an Admin. Clicking on Verify told me the same. I was wondering whether to make a fuss, when I spotted what I hadn't seen before, a notice at the top of the User's page saying 'This editor is deceased'. So problem over. But it also occurred to me that I had narrowly avoided quite a bit of personal embarrassment mostly through pure luck, and that it might be a good idea to get some changes made to avoid similar possible embarrassment to others (or even to me if I forget this lesson).

• A simple solution would be to amend the Admin Stats and Verify to show the user was deceased if he was listed as such.

• But other people might want other things shown, such as when an admin stopped being an admin, while others might object to this, and yet others might think the whole idea more hassle than it's worth. And so on.

• So I'm suggesting the general idea here, to see what others think. Tlhslobus (talk) 15:54, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

I will comment that the ex-admin one seems like grave dancing. The deceased ones maybe, but likely in another section. I will also comment that the system isn't perfect, I have four deletions to my name on some of them and I've never been an admin. (Likely because of me moving over redirects?) -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 12:58, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for your reply, Iazyges.
• Re grave-dancing - maybe that will be how it will be seen, but it's not the intention. The idea is that if he's claiming to be an admin and he isn't but used to be, then it's probably just a matter of politely suggesting he update his user page. But if he never was, then that's a potentially serious issue. So we arguably need some quick way of telling the two cases apart. On the other hand, if people think it's not worth the possible downsides, then I'm not too bothered, as it's only the deceased bit that brought me here.
• Re "likely in another section", what section(s) did you have in mind? (And, if it's not too much hassle, why?) Tlhslobus (talk) 13:50, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

If ex-admins is to be included, I think it should only be those "honorably discharged" for lack of a better word. I.e. Those who asked to have the bit taken, or those who lost it due to inactivity, but not those that got indeffed. The seperate section thing would help more IMO, it would be a section under that would say "former admins". One reason i don't think a formal list will happen is that the system is somewhat rudimentary, as I mentioned some of them credit me with deletions, when I have never been an admin. Deceased would likely be its own section. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 14:49, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Recognition for closers

Closing discussions is one of the most difficult and most thankless tasks any editor can volunteer to take on. As it stands today, aside from the occasional "thank" notification or user-talk appreciation post, the best possible outcome for the closer is silence. While a few closes are objectively faulty, they are (in my finite experience) far outnumbered by partisan attacks from the losing side. This has to be a large part of the reason for the perpetual backlog at WP:ANRFC; not enough editors are tough enough for the job. Certainly not me, even if I had the competence for it. It's a rare person who doesn't need recognition for hard work.

I think some per-close system of recognition should be devised and formalized, and I'm not sure that barnstars are suitable for that purpose. Both admin and non-admin closers should be included equally. Any ideas? ―Mandruss ☎ 17:40, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, although I don't have any ideas yet to offer.--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:24, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Magenta links (red+blue)

(i) Highlight links to disambiguation pages as magenta (a blend of red & the natural blue of standard links). This can draw attention for users to look at it and improve the context

(ii) consider only showing this for logged in users, so it doesn't obstruct the view for non-editors — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fmadd (talk • contribs)

Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets has the option "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange". PrimeHunter (talk) 11:23, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

They are orange for me, I thought it was a system wide change. Maybe I enabled that gadget and have forgotten?--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:26, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

For me they are displayed with a yellow background, thanks to a script I use. Magenta is used for links to pages that are at XfD (by the same script). Anomie⚔ 23:25, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Re: Canned ES

Why does only the mobile app have them, and not the website? I was wondering about the abuse of CES, and am thinking that perhaps they should be only for logged in users? This would solve all the IP vandals who lie by using CES. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bodhidharma&diff=765473345&oldid=765472502 L3X1 My Complaint Desk 16:22, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

'clarification' link 'multiple redirect' (similar to but not quite disambiguation)

Could we have a template to mark a page as a 'clarification' which merely redirects to several other pages, without adding any significant information itself (at best a few lines to just add clarity).

Example industrial civilization is a very common phrase (for which I felt there should be a page). we have articles for industrial society, industrialization, and industrial revolution - but none of these actually describe the meaning of industrial civilization. The meaning is the intersection of some information presented in these other articles.

This happens over and over again. This is why we have all these RfDs going on - you can't always quite pin down the right redirect, and yet there are complaints about making 'trivial' articles'. ("oh we dont need that, it's already here..").

• It's not always possible to work a clear definition into another article.
• It's not always clear where a glossary definition would go (the fallacy of trying to classify things hierarchically rather than with a tag-cloud).

Fmadd (talk) 12:46, 15 February 2017 (UTC).

render a search-page when you click a redlink

Consider a redlink that is refered to multiple times. When you click, about automatically showing the contexts where it is used (and have an option to create it at the top). This would be like using the redlink as an automatic search term. Such a redlink could be rendered in a different shade (e.g blend of red & blue)

The page could look like the 'search results', or see the similar suggestion above about an augmented 'what links here'

This and similar links (disambiguation-pages, and list-of pages) could be considered "exploratory/search" links rather than "comprehension" links. Maybe it would make sense to highlight them all in a similar colour.

Fmadd (talk) 00:29, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Distinguish 'standard links' from a new class of 'navigational links

So people are concerned about 'overlinking', How about if links to (i) disambiguation pages, (ii) List-of, (iii) redirects to Categories, (iv) and possibly multiply-used redlinks were classified as navigational links, not there to enhance the understanding of the article, but just to make surfing/searching wikipedia easier. (using it as an exploratory tool).

These could be rendered in a less obtrusive shade of blue, so they dont clutter.

(clicking an multiply-referenced 'redlink' would be similar to triggering a search for that term - but if it was based on 'similar uses', it would be more solid than an unguided text search.)

Fmadd (talk) 01:14, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Fmadd, there exists User:Anomie/linkclassifier, which colours links based on what type they are, but it's a script that must be installed. I see almost no way that this would become the default setting for new users, who have a hard enough time distinguishing blue and redlinks. Primefac (talk) 14:26, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, that is interesting. I'm sure if the colour coding was intelligent the red-links would still stand out. What if the colour coding was carried through to page titles.. it might help inform us of the difference. I realise it's not so obvious what an 'important' link would be , but redirects to 'list of..' pages would be an obvious candidate to automatically *de-emphisise* by simply making them much closer to pure-black Fmadd (talk) 14:42, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Primefac - imagine if this script was enabled by default - but with a colorscheme almost identical to normal, except contraversial pages are significantly 'de-emphasized (e.g. #000040, closer to black), instead of emphasised (as in his colour scheme). That would instantly remove them from any readers view - if the issue is really 'unnecessary clutter', wouldn't that be a big step forward? You could also make it so that such pages aren't actually clickable unless you enable a preference. Fmadd (talk) 15:05, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

What defines a "controversial" page? How do we decide what to "de-emphasize"? If you're talking about making links not appear in the text because we don't need people linking to them, then just remove the links! Primefac (talk) 15:13, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Primefac well, you seem to be quite clear on what should be de-emphasized. I wouldn't object to any links being de-emphasized because I know the cursor can still find them. It seems the issue is what stands out. We also have other means of emphasising in the text (bold,italic,underline (if we specially want to draw attention to something)). just remove the links, no; because (i) they are still there for AI algorithms to mine (eg. improving auto-translation quality). (ii) people like me like using wikipedia in an exploratory manner. I like to find unexpected relationships between seemingly disconnected fields. I dont always have a goal in mind. I want it to inform me about something I didn't know I was looking for. The point is wikipedia itself has more information than either you or I, so SOFTWARE is more qualified to determine what should and shouldn't be linked (and the more information we encode, the more advanced the analysis it can perform). If there is a range of opinions on 'should this link be there', simply making it a graduated scale from black to blue would correctly reflect the situation , surely. Fmadd (talk) 15:17, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Primefac you want a binary choice , "link or no link". I assert that is unrealistic. The world is shades of grey. And here you have given me a software tool that is , literally, capable of displaying shades of grey. This should be a win-win situation , instead of an area of endless conflict. Fmadd (talk) 15:24, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Primefac thanks again for the script. I'm experimenting with it now; I have mine setup such that 'articles for deletion' are near black (I've toned everything else down.. I can see intense coding is too crazy for a default... but we wouldn't need that to fix this issue.. we just need to disable the highlighting of controversial links) ) Fmadd (talk) 16:28, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Links being binary is fantastic, it keeps things simple and consistent (seven link colors, total, always). It also keeps things readable, not just in the general sense that a thousand hues and shades all over the page is obnoxious to the general reader, but also in the specific cases of colorblindness, screen reading, et cetera. Customize to your heart's content, but please respect the years of work and discussion behind the status quo. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 20:57, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Non-SUL contributions

Regarding SUL, all local accounts of some user have been atttached to his global acount, no matter they have been registered before the registration of the global one. But in case of contributions of local accounts, they haven't been attached to the global account, if they have been made before the registration of the global account. I suppose it would be the right thing to fix this, so CentralAuth and other lists would give the correct statistics. --Janezdrilc (talk) 14:54, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

@Janezdrilc: can you give some examples (links) and more specifically describe what you think should be different? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:31, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Example for my case: I have made 18.115 edits on my home sl.wiki since 2006, but SUL counter has got 14.938 of them. That means 3.000 edits from the period before 2010, when my global account has been created, are missing. The number of my Wikidata edits is correct, since I've first logged in there in 2013. All tools (lists/counters) that operate with SUL numbers exclude pre-SUL contributions. --Janezdrilc (talk) 18:11, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Edit count#What is an edit count? mentions several factors which can cause different results in edit counters. Do you have any evidence that edits before SUL is one of them? You seem to have around 7000 slwiki edits before your global account was registered so it doesn't add up. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:43, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I see it's quite a complicated thing with all these types of counters. If I understand all counters are "correct", just explanations are missing, which contributions are included and which excluded. It would be good to add some kind of legend, at least to Global acount informations, what these numbers actually means. --Janezdrilc (talk) 15:03, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Automatic 1-line edit summary

If the edit summary is left blank, and the change is a 1-liner, automatically render the modified line of text into the edit-summary. This would streamline the reporting of changes into user watchlists, page history, and contributions. Fmadd (talk) 11:26, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

It would tend to give attacks on users or specific real people a higher level of visibility, including in cases which should be WP:REVDEL-ed. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:39, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

And if the change isn't a one-liner? What if the edit, as you have done in the past, significantly changes the page? Wikipedia has a bad enough time showing the diffs between two edits, and you're expecting it to be able to parse out exactly what has been done on an edit and constructively put in an edit summary?

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice idea, but it's simply not practical. It's much easier to stick a few words in there saying what you've done. Primefac (talk) 18:46, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

The edit summary is for "why", the rationale, the p&g basis, etc. The diff already shows the "what", and it does that far more effectively than a line of text without surrounding context.
Wikipedia has a bad enough time showing the diffs between two edits - Easily solved for that type of edit, by User:Cacycle/wikEdDiff. It can be used to view all edits or only those not easily seen the other way, your choice. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:03, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

the diff shows the what, but you have to click to see it; I assert that a small literal summary might be worth more than a rushed comment. Perhaps with an auto-summary feature in place, wikipedia could go as far as warning you by default if you submit no summary for multi-line edits - and the net effect wont be obtrusive.Fmadd (talk) 20:16, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

wikipedia could go as far as warning you by default if you submit no summary for multi-line edits - Software enforcement like that would only result in widespread use of the edit summary "x" - as well as the annoyance of all the editors who have to use it - or click to dismiss the warning, if that's made necessary - which is why we don't bother. People will do what they feel needs doing, so all we can do is try to evangelize good edit summaries, which we are already doing along with countless other things editors should do. No comment on the rest. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:37, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Mandruss, there is an automatic notice for blank edit summaries:

Preferences → Editing → Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary

It has to be enabled, but it does exist. Primefac (talk) 13:06, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I support the proposal of automatically setting the edit description for short edits. It would make patrolling easier. --NaBUru38 (talk) 19:43, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

"What links here" - enhance this view, and use it for RedLinks

• [1] How about rendering it to include the text around the context of the first link (a bit like search results)
  • the links could be sorted by category too, giving further structure to the list
• [2] save a little bit of space by omitting the (links | edit) buttons beside the title
• [3] how about placing a gadget for 'what links here' on the right of the article title. For a while, I didn't know this feature existed.

example - It would look roughly like this:-...

• [4] When you have a redlink used multiple times, clicking it could activate this page (along with an option to create).

Pages that link to atom

• atomic number ...number) is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom of that element, and therefore ...
• albert einstein ... attempted to interpret atomic phenomena from a statistical point of view. These papers were the foundation for ...
• Alloy ...time passes, the atoms of these supersaturated alloys separate from the crystal lattice, becoming more stable, and form ...
• alpha particle ...'decays' into an atom with a mass number that is reduced by four and an atomic number that is reduced by ...
• angular momentum ... Central force motion is also used in the analysis of the Bohr model of the atom. ...

... Fmadd (talk) 11:26, 11 February 2017 (UTC) Fmadd (talk)

This looks like a good idea; however, there are issues here, such as:

1. Multiple links from a single page to a specific other page - for example, Cama (animal) has muiltiple links to Llama.
2. Links which are in template parameters, e.g Cama (animal)->Chordata
3. Links which are parts of templates, e.g Cama (animal) -> Coydog
4. Links which are a combination of a template and its parameters, e.g Dog->Chordate.

עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:37, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

sure. in the case of multiple links, perhaps just show the first line; usually there's just one due to overlink guidelines. The rest I haven't thought about, hmm. Fmadd (talk) 20:19, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

I'd like "What links here" page to have columns for the last edit date and the file size. --NaBUru38 (talk) 19:44, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

A thought about Paid Editing

So we have a problem with various companies hiring people to create articles on their arguably notable companies. But has anyone done a study on just how many people view these articles? My guess is practically no one -- except devoted editors looking for these articles -- ever reads them. I know if I'm looking for someone to do business with, the one place I won't look for information is Wikipedia. If someone could perform a systematic study of just how many eyeballs see these articles -- & maybe compare the traffic to articles on other companies -- it can be a useful tool in fighting this abuse. No credible business is going to pay for advertising no one will see, & if this can be proven it might help to put an end to this problem. -- llywrch (talk) 21:48, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Actually, many people check Wikipedia articles do decide which companies they will get products.

Therefore, the most viewed articles are the most likely to be captured by PR agencies, since they are more valuable.

--NaBUru38 (talk) 23:16, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

considering that people can just disclose their paid work on wikipedia i would not entirely consider it a problem as long as the rules on wikipedia are followed plus after a while of editing article you know if they are promotional or not as long as the paid editors follow the rules on wikipedia and show that they are a paid editor than i don't really care that much--Jonnymoon96 (talk) 03:10, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

My proposal Wikipedia Article Incubator tries to address this issue. I would be glad if you put your inputs into it. The main issue with such editing is that such editors are usually not aware of the Wikipedia way of thinking. Such a thought process needs to be induced. Anasuya.D (talk) 16:33, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Syntax highlighting for Maths

How about something to make formulae easier to read:

• tooltips (encode the assignment of meaning to variables, have a visible tooltip under the cursor as you move it around, maybe even make the variables clickable links with anchors)
• coloured syntax highlighting .. e.g. distinguish between variables vs constants, differential 'deltas', functions vs variables, exponent vs index-superscript, vector/scalar/matrix/tensor quantities,

Fmadd (talk) 10:38, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Deprecation of the term "anonymous editing"

(NB, not proposing the elimination of IP editing, just proposing how we should describe it.)

I recently fielded an email at OTRS from someone who had edited “anonymously”, i.e. without creating a user name, and made the understandable error of thinking that editing anonymously would be, well, anonymous.

They now realize that was not correct. While I have remedied that specific situation, I propose that we, as a community, cease using terms such “anonymous editing” and “anonymous edits” (except in the context of explaining that they are not anonymous). Terms such as “editing while not logged in” or “IP edits” would be better.

I suspect that we may have some WP pages which should be updated, but I'd like to see if I can get community support before searching and changing those pages.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:33, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more, I edited something and my IP popped up unexpectedly, I am not a fan of my IP being shown so i created an account. Some description like, If you edit this page your IP will be publicly visible, should be clearly stated, perhaps when you hover over the submit button.

SageWater (talk) 15:10, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

If you are logged out, then you should see this, in a colored box, at the top of the page:

You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to a username, among other benefits.

This provides the warning before you spend time editing the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

We've been through a lot of pages previously doing this, like here and here. Maybe there's more to do. I don't think you'll find many objections. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:51, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

How about making the Watchlist usable.

The Watchlist is so useless. There is no point in adding anything to it because you don't get any notifications of any activity on it. There should be a list of all your pages in it, and wether or not they have been changed since you last visited them, not some sort of faux log with an itty bitty dot that is either blue or green, or bolded entries. Should also have who also changed it, edit summary, and who made the changes. Most pages get to much traffic to be added to the watchlist, and I have to rely on my memory or my RAM not croaking from having so many videos open. Should also have number of edits to page in a sum since last visit. L3X1 My Complaint Desk 21:58, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

As far as i've seen, 'watchlist' basically does give you a running list of page activity (the watchlist page accessed from the top?). Maybe it would be nice to be able to fold that view i.e. sort by page, sort by time to just show the most recently changed pages (rather than every change)? .. it could also perhaps prioritize pages you have edited (so you can see how followup changes go) Fmadd (talk) 14:41, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

@L3X1:, for the short-term, there are some existing preferences that might help you. 1) In the "watchlist" tab of your preferences, select "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent". 2) in the "recent changes" tab of your preferences, select "Group changes by page in recent changes and watchlist". (This will cluster together all the changes to a single page, but limited to each 24-hour timespan. Highly-active pages like VillagePumps tend to be overwhelming, but it works fairly well for most other pages). -- Those 2 changes will add a few of the features you suggest, albeit imperfectly, but still a probable improvement.

For the longer-term, there have been a lot of ideas/discussions about how the watchlist might be improved, over the years. The tip of the iceberg can be seen at mw:watchlist wishlist (with much much more scattered in a hundred places). Everyone has their own definition of "improved" of course, and it's a critical tool for most editors' work, which makes any kind of change very complicated (for both technical and social reasons). Personally, I remain optimistic that it will improve over time, and with a few of the proposals once various people have time to focus on them (not soon). HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:49, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Make Huggle not as frustrating for new users

I've noticed multiple anonymous users going up against Huggle users and being confused as to why their edits won't go through and what they're doing wrong. For example, view 2601:1C2:1402:3E60:683B:1B6B:9435:4773 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) attempting to go up against a Huggle user. Their mistake is not understanding talk pages. Instead of a concise warning, Huggle seems to always give the default "stop vandalizing" warning. Therefore, the user hits a block and simply doesn't understand what's going on and gets frustrated. This is terrible for retention. What should be done to solve these sort of issues? – 🐱? (talk) ^{(ping me!)} 05:25, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't use Huggle but [44] shows many other types of warnings, e.g. [45][46][47][48][49]. Twinkle lets you choose from a large subset of Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace. I guess Huggle is similar. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:03, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

@PrimeHunter: Ah, so it's just the issue Twinkle has of "well I could help the user out or i could slap them with a uw-vandalism". I have seen Huggle users do this more, though, so I don't know if it's a UX issue that actively encourages it, or... I do use Twinkle though, so who knows, I could just be biased. Frankly, new editors getting stonewalled by unhelpful warnings is something that I think is just an issue with Wikipedia in general. The person who types out advice for a new user will be slower than the person who slaps a uw-vandalism on it, and at that point the new user gets tunnel vision because they're so frustrated with this, so they'll simply keep reverting it, and then get blocked. Then they never try to edit again. – 🐱? (talk) ^{(ping me!)} 16:22, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

What cat? I'm pretty sure anybody that is misusing the templates via an anti-vandalism program would be subjected to warnings and/or a block. "Warning: You take full responsibility for any action you perform using Huggle. You must understand Wikipedia policies and use this tool within these policies, or risk losing access to the tool or even being blocked from editing." It's also suggestive whether or not an IP editor will understand why the template was left on their talk page/how to follow it for future. Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball} 13:07, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

–You might be interested in trying out WP:Snuggle as an alternative. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:00, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Peak page view statistics

I know some editors dislike emphasizing page view statistics, but I have an interest in these metics. I'm not the only one -- even The Signpost includes Wikipedia's most-view articles each issue. Sometimes I browse page view stats for an article I've written, or random articles just to see how much traffic they receive on average. I am often curious about when the article received the highest number of visitors.

Unless I'm overlooking something, standard page view statistics do not provide this data (when highest traffic occurred, and the maximum number of visitors). I think this data would be helpful, especially if a talk page can also possibly explain why a page may have had a traffic spike, such as the "online press" template. Knowing when a traffic spike occurred may give editors insight into when they may want to focus their research because a topic received increase coverage and interest. Peaks can also occur for internal reasons: perhaps an article is featured on the Main Page, or linked from an "In the news" or DYK post. In other words, page view peaks may give insight into an article's history.

Do any other editors think this information would be helpful? I could see this stat being displayed on page view statistics for all articles, information uses access via a separate tool, or even a template manually displayed as a banner on talk pages. I'm open to different ideas and options... just floating the idea by others for feedback. Thanks! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 17:37, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Are you looking for the exact time of day that traffic peaked at, rather than the 24-hour day with the most views? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:56, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Either would be fine, but I was thinking the 24-hour day with the most views. Is this stat displayed somewhere? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 22:58, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

The Page Views tool gives you the numbers for the last 90 days (e.g., for this page), so you should be able to find the recent peak for any page that interests you. (This page's peak was 349 views on 2016-12-18.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:52, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Sure, but what if an article is 8 years old and its peak was 6.5 years ago. It would take some time to find this. What I'm suggesting is a more immediate way to identify an article's point of peak readership. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 03:12, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I think we'd have to ask Kaldari or MusikAnimal to do that. However, I've heard that some of the older page views data is less than ideal, so it might give you "that day when the bot got stuck" or something like that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

As mentioned by WhatamIdoing, data before July 2015 isn't very reliable. I'm not aware of any existing feature to accomplish what you want, but looking at the charts between July 2015 and now is probably the best solution that currently exists. This is an interesting idea for a new feature, although I wonder if most people are satisfied just using the existing charts. Kaldari (talk) 18:55, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

@Kaldari: Thanks for contributing to this discussion and for confirming the reliability (or lack thereof) re: pre-7/2015 data. Glad you like the idea. That's all I can offer--the idea. If others also think this stat would be helpful, I'd love to see this implemented though I'd have no idea how to make this happen. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:01, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

@Another Believer: If you click on the date range input, and select "all time" it will show all the available data (since July 2015). From there you should be able to easily see where the peak is, click and drag to zoom in, etc. Does this meet your needs? Eventually we'll have data for pre-July 2015, but you probably shouldn't use it as a basis for comparison — MusikAnimal ^talk 19:25, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: Thanks. Sure, this gets the job done. I guess what I was hoping for was to not have to go manually searching, and to have a stat automatically displayed in the Page views stats, or even as a template on the article's talk page. We have Template:PageViews graph, which I've seen displayed on some talk pages, but I'm usually more curious about the peak traffic stat, not necessarily page view stats for the most recent 90 days. I could see a peak stat sometimes corresponding with other talk page templates, such as the "in the news" or "online press" templates. These templates are all ways for readers to understand an article's history and when/why an article received increased traffic. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 20:00, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Accessible Citations/Notes

• Letter from Rome (PDF). Rome, Italy. 1871.

Communicating with content creators?

It strikes me that we have noticeboards to communicate with many different groups (administrators, bureaucrats, bot operators, etc.), WikiProjects to communicate with a specific topic area, help desks for new editors, etc. but no central area to communicate with content creators in general. Does such a place exist? If not, would it be beneficial? It seems like it would be a decent idea to have a place to deliver announcements about major changes in sister projects that may benefit our content creators, things like The Wikipedia Library or WP:RX, deliver news about changes in content policies, solicit feedback from the "front line" on changes to our notability criteria or other content policies, etc. Thoughts? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:32, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Most of the large WikiProjects serve that function, with the advantage of communicating with people who are working on your kind of content. If you want more general subjects, then WT:FAC might be your cup of tea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:05, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

{re|WhatamIdoing}} Eh, FAC isn't particularly what I'm after, as those content creators likely follow what's going on around the project. For instance, I'd like to advertise WP:RX a bit better so that we can reach more content creators who don't have any access to major university libraries. I'll drop a note on WT:FAC on the off-chance anyone there isn't familiar, but that's not really going to reach the large audience I'm hoping for. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:20, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

This is a good idea. I'm not sure if there's a large audience of self-defined content creators who aren't watching any of the various review processes, but it seems worth a try. There is the now-defunct Wikipedia:Content noticeboard as prior art - might be worth digging up what prompted it to be deprecated. (I have no idea, and five seconds proved too little to find out ;) Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:18, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

WT:COUNCIL used to serve as a central clearinghouse for some kinds of information, but I don't think that as many editors follow it now. The Village Pumps may be your best central location. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I like this idea... I only just now discovered both of those because you posted them here and I just happened to see them. Popcrate (talk) 22:47, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

WP:NOR and Twinkle welcoming templates

Hello everybody. I've been using Twinkle for a while, and suprisingly have never caught this before. There is no WP:OR-related welcoming template for Twinkle. If an welcoming template was left on my talk page as a new user that did not specify exactly how I did not follow guidelines, and explain accurately why my edits were reverted, I know that I would be more than confused. Would the Village pump be the right place to suggest an additional Twinkle welcoming template covering WP:OR? If so, would you all be willing to get behind such a proposal? If not, why so? Thank you for your feedback. Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball} 03:56, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

@Boomer Vial: WT:TWINKLE is the best place to request new functionality. --Izno (talk) 17:17, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Izno Thank you. Boomer Vial^{Holla! We gonna ball!} 22:08, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible for a special editnotice to appear for non-autoconfirmed users?

I think that having something similar to Template:Notice Anti-vandalism appear to registered, unconfirmed users would be useful to mitigate some test edits from new users. Maybe a template that basically says "Yes, you are editing Wikipedia! Your edit will be visible to anyone who reads the article. Please read our policies on what is acceptable before submitting." I think that would be a good idea. (I would hesitate to put it for IP users, since many IP users are wonderful contributors who don't need to be told that their edit will appear.) I think it's possible to do that. MereTechnicality ⚙ 20:09, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

There is a way to make it appear for registered users only or autoconfirmed users only by using CSS, but I don't know about IPs. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:16, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

IPs are already displayed this: MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:00, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Exactly, they don't need another warning. If I proposed this idea (and made an example template), would there be major obstacles to its implementation? MereTechnicality ⚙ 01:26, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Do you intent this to only be for articles - if so then the change would be able to go in to Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main, with some css hacks to basically hide it for everyone else. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:11, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Yes, that was the intent; maybe a slightly different one for the project namespace, since those are less publicly visible. MereTechnicality ⚙ 03:26, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Here's the proposed template. Template:Notice newuser MereTechnicality ⚙ 03:43, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm actually going to make an edit request over on that page. Thanks for linking me to it! MereTechnicality ⚙ 03:49, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata of references

Making good references take much time when creating or translating a long article. With a Wikidata of references, the user would just enter <ref>http://www.reference.com</ref> and the MediaWiki engine would automatically return the formatted reference to the reader on his own language, or register the url in the Wikidatabase. Many of the available references today could be reused in other articles without any changes. Faltur (talk) 02:46, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

That's probably the future. A bot (can't remember which) already handles broken references somewhat like this. If an article tries to invoke a named reference without defining it, <ref name="Smith2001p33"/>, it searches other articles for refs defined with the same name and makes suggestions on the talk page. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:57, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

This is a good idea and a database of sources would be very useful. Not only would it be helpful for making quick references, but you could see all of the articles that use that cite that specific source. If all the references linked back to a wikidata item, you could also show how many citations there are (similar to google scholar/books). That bot could compare the references it finds wth the database instead of other articles, and then identify a match, or add a new entry to database (if its a new reference). Also..When editing, you would still want to add in access date, and page number (for books). Does anybody know if something like this already exists? Surely the references are already part of the main database... but maybe they are split apart based on article? Or they havent been matched up yet? Popcrate (talk) 01:17, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

You might want to try out the automatic citation generator in VisualEditor (which works like a word processor). Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing to enable it. It doesn't translate the bibliographic citation, but it does create it from a URL (for most popular sources).

There's also some long-term interest in creating a central list of citations; I believe that m:WikiCite is the main page for that work. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:12, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Allowing extended-confirmed editors to turn off protection

There's a lot of... something.... in this Village Pump conversation but it did spark one notion. I don't believe many pages are protected unnecessarily but some protections are unnecessarily long. Specifically, when topics are "in the news" IPs flock to a page, and start adding content based on rumors and unreliable sources. Pages are semi-protected against this disruption and eventually autoconfirmed editors add the content when and if reliable sources report it. This happens frequently with sports figures and trades/signings. Now, the protecting admin can only make a guess as to when the content can be reliably sourced so the protection length is based off that guess. It might be useful to have an option that the admin can check on at the time of protection that would allow any extended-confirmed editor (or set up a new permissions level) to turn off the semi once they deem the new content is properly sourced and can stay in the article. This would allow IP editors to once again edit the article, adding or tweaking details. I think this would help in our mission to attract new editors as they're often drawn in by "low-hanging fruit" (i.e., editing a pop culture subject they're interested in). This would require a not-insignificant software change so would need broad community support. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:20, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think this is a good idea. Extended confirmed is a fairly low bar, and I've seen sockmasters try to get their sleepers to extended confirmed before. That alone shoots this idea dead in the water for me. Editors who haven't been vetted in some way aren't likely to understand how to evaluate whether an article still needs protection given the totality of the circumstances. I might support a user group along these lines, but probably not. The simpler solution is for admins to deliver protection lengths in line with the disruption. If an individual admin isn't doing this, I'd recommend talking to them. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:49, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree that a user group is the way to go. I disagree that editors aren't likely to understand how to evaluate. Many of them are subject matter experts and thus have a better understanding of when the disruption is likely to be over. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:54, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm with Rob on this one (for the moment). Most protections I give are in relative proportion to the length of time the page has been vandalised (and also how frequently the page gets protected). Is it really a huge deal if a page is protected for a month over two weeks? Given that it's relatively easy to request decreases in permission (and/or edit requests) I see this as a potential for more harm than good.

However, if consensus is to go with it, I agree that (another) user group would be best. However, that sets up even more PERM requests and more paperwork. Is it all worth it? Primefac (talk) 17:01, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

• If you believe a page protection is no longer valid, then make a request at WP:RFPP for the protection to be removed, and it will be. I don't see this as an onerous process. If there is a problem you need fixed, ask someone who can fix it, and they will fix it. --Jayron32 17:19, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
• That's definitely a good idea. I've got several large groups of pages on my watchlist that get protected pretty often (and for good reasons), and the protection length (if reasonable at first sight) is often excessive (this is an area with very few admins who do a great deal of work and it's understandable they might not have the time to make detailed assessments). Of course, it's easy to open a request at RFPP, or talk to the responsible admins, but these actions have normally been above my hassle threshold. – Uanfala (talk) 02:38, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

References

This is how they look in the article:

Sentence. Another Sentence

Accessible Citations/Notes

---

Letter from Rome (PDF). Rome, Italy. 1871.

References

---

( hundreds of other references )

Thoughts? Criticisms? Suggestions? =) Popcrate (talk) 01:23, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea, but I think the standard syntax is foo.pdf#page=N, not just a bare number. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 01:54, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

• 1. This is an unusually well formatted proposal by Wikipedia standards.
  2. It is not my understanding that the efn template should be used to present a citation, which is what I think you are doing. "Efn" is for author's notes.
  3. I would have expected this to be a variation of the {{sfn}} template, which has functionality to generate a citation based on an author, page number, and its own reference to a full citation.
  4. Wow, this is deep thought into an important but uncommon problem.

  Thanks for inviting me to comment. I could say more - ping me if there is conversation to continue. Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:51, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Simplified Visual Representation from the Reader's Perspective. The Goal is simplicity of access.

@^demon: Thanks for that syntax, I just tested #n and #Page=n , and both work (for me). I'm not sure if this Always True, but the link I posted in the example seems to also work.

@Bluerasberry: I actually want to pursue this a bit. I think it would be insanely useful and beneficial to combine the power of internet protocol with higher quality resources (which are often found inside files like .pdf) There are other projects working on this sort of accessibility -> WP:PAGELINK is a perfect example!

ATM, the example I posted relies on Mozilla PDF.js Project on Github, which appears to be default in updated browsers. However: my smartphone, for example, tries to download the page, so this is a limitation (which may be outside of the scope of my example). Check out the screenshots on the right of screen for ideal example from reader's perspective.

Also, I'm willing to program, I just need a nudge in the right direction (I'm new to contributing to wikipedia, so I'm unfamiliar some of the details of how to help in this way) Let me know what your thoughts are! Popcrate (talk) 04:32, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

User:Anthonyhcole might be interested in this.

You might also be interested in mw:How to become a MediaWiki hacker, if you want to do programming work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

I love this, Popcrate! When you're done, please spam the news widely across this project, so as many users as possible can incorporate it into their editing. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:30, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Update

@Bluerasberry: @WhatamIdoing: @Anthonyhcole: I'm back with an update! Also TBH, I'm not really sure how or where to "spam" effectively (once It's done). Popcrate (talk) 12:29, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

---

Version: almost.there

Updates:

• Using {{ref}} to allow for cleaner in-line wikicode.

Still TODO:

• Find a way to avoid repeating example.org/example.pdf URL, and just name page numbers.
• {{Citation}} versus <ref>? (would clean up code even more)
• build a template specifically designed for this?

Templates:

• Many of the templates don't allow for extra external links to be placed in the footnotes, and creating a new template would also fix the problem of having to repeat the URL. It would make it easier to automatically link to PDFs
• Instead of building a new template, add this feature into an already existing one?

---

Example: based on Template:Ref/doc#id

Another Example of Accessible Citations, with cleaner in-line article code (could still be cleaner)

Code
MIT Server downloaded articles.{{ref|a}} [[Aaron Swartz]] is legendary.{{ref|b}} Normal Referenced content.<ref name="jstor-evidence"></ref> == {{open access}} Accessible Citations == :1.{{note|a}} JSTOR Evidence.<ref name="jstor-evidence"></ref> [PDF]. [https://ia601504.us.archive.org/23/items/JSTORSwartzEvidenceAllDocs/JSTOR-Swartz-Evidence-All-Docs.pdf#3127 View Page 3127.] :2.{{note|b}} JSTOR Evidence.<ref name="jstor-evidence"></ref> [PDF]. [https://ia601504.us.archive.org/23/items/JSTORSwartzEvidenceAllDocs/JSTOR-Swartz-Evidence-All-Docs.pdf#3142 View Page 3142.] == Suggestion == Could they create a robot based on a platform like [[open source]] [[clamav]] that was updated online to clean the site of malicious references in the articles? Thanks in advance. [[Special:Contributions/187.20.21.197|187.20.21.197]] ([[User talk:187.20.21.197|talk]]) 15:35, 4 March 2017 (UTC) == Purge == {{archive top|reason=Obviously not a serious proposal. <b style="color:#c22">^</b>[[User:^demon|<b style="color:#000">demon</b>]][[User_talk:^demon|<sup style="color:#c22">[omg plz]</sup>]] <em style="font-size:10px;">06:39, 6 March 2017 (UTC)</em>}} Designate every March 31 a WP-wide [[The Purge|Purge]]. For 24-hours the admin toolset will be shutdown. [[User:BlueSalix|BlueSalix]] ([[User talk:BlueSalix|talk]]) 18:04, 4 March 2017 (UTC) :And then for the following week all admins clear up the mess? How about 31st February instead. -- [[user:zzuuzz|zzuuzz]] <sup>[[user_talk:zzuuzz|(talk)]]</sup> 18:20, 4 March 2017 (UTC) {{archive bottom}} == What are the pros and cons / benefits and costs of changing title capitalization? == Why are article titles of subjects that are not proper nouns capitalized? It looks like it might be a hybrid form of title capitalization, since the words that follow aren't capitalized unless they are proper nouns. Wikipedia could become a much better linguistic tool if the starting words in titles reflected the general capitalization rules for words. Programs, for instance could rely on titles to identify proper nouns. Scripts that create titles from existing ones (History of x), could do so much easier if the terms were correctly capitalized. "History of Acupuncture" just doesn't cut it. I post this concept at the idea lab, to explore the benefits and costs, and pros and cons, of changing titles to relect appropriate capitalization. I look forward to your replies. [[User talk:The Transhumanist|<i>The Transhumanist</i>]] 03:27, 1 March 2017 (UTC) :{{tq|Why are article titles of subjects that are not proper nouns capitalized?}} Examples please? Possible reasons include 1. Article creator was not aware of [[WP:TITLEFORMAT]] and 2. Article creator was aware of TITLEFORMAT but didn't care about it. Cost of changing a title is miniscule, as a redirect using the old title is always created pointing to the new title. Thus the cost is the few seconds required to do the move. Benefit is often a matter of contentious debate that gets all philosophical about "what is MOS?" and "what is a guideline?". I generally sit out such debates because I see little community will to establish high-level consensuses on such foundational issues. ―[[User:Mandruss|<span style="color:#775C57;">'''''Mandruss'''''</span>]] [[User talk:Mandruss|<span style="color:#AAA;">☎</span>]] 04:39, 1 March 2017 (UTC) ::   :: I don't think it has anything to do with the article creator. Pretty much every article is capitalized, meaning pretty much every word that isn't a proper noun is capitalized. "Dog", for example, doesn't show up as "dog". According to [[WP:TITLEFORMAT]], "The initial letter of a title is almost always capitalized by default." I'm here to talk about possibly changing that default. My questions about pros/cons & benefits/costs pertain to that. ::   :: According to [[WP:NCLOWERCASEFIRST]], "The MediaWiki software is configured so that a page title on the English Wikipedia (as stored in the database) cannot begin with a lower-case letter, and links that begin with a lower-case letter are treated as if capitalized, i.e. [[foo]] is treated the same as [[Foo]]." ::   :: So, it looks like we have to come to consensus first, before putting in a community request that the software be modified accordingly. Oh damn. What are the chances of that happenin'? [[User talk:The Transhumanist|<i>The Transhumanist</i>]] 21:01, 1 March 2017 (UTC) :::The first word in a sentence is always capitalized. Thus, "Dogs are creatures with four legs." should be capitalized. However, "Furry four-legged creatures are called dogs." should not. Even though the title of an article is not a complete sentence, the first word of the title should still be capitalized regardless of if it is a proper noun or not, as it represents the beginning of a thought. ~ ''[[User:ONUnicorn|<span style="color:#0cc">ONUnicorn</span>]]''<sup>([[User talk:ONUnicorn|Talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/ONUnicorn|Contribs]])</sup><small>[[WP:P&S|problem solving]]</small> 21:39, 1 March 2017 (UTC) :::The software setting is [[mw:Manual:$wgCapitalLinks]] where https://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=InitialiseSettings.php (which controls Wikimedia wikis) says: <pre> 'wgCapitalLinks' => [ 'default' => true, 'jbowiki' => false, 'wiktionary' => false, ], The current settings make sense to me. Wiktionary is a dictionary and we are an encyclopedia. jbowiki is the Lojban Wikipedia, a special case: "Lojban is written almost entirely with lower-case letters; upper-case letters are used to mark stress in words that do not fit the normal rules of stress assignment, or when whitespace is omitted." If we change our setting then Dog and dog become links to different pages like GOLD and Gold. We would need to rely on redirects or start sentences with piped links like "[[dog|Dogs]] have four legs" instead of the current "[[Dog]]s have four legs". Search result pages would mix article titles with and witout a capital which I think is ugly. Categories would also do it but only to a limited degree since most categories would be dominated by one of the cases. In wikitext like lists, see also sections, navboxes, disambigutaion pages we could decide whether to use piped capitals or mixed capitalization. Our current system works fine to me and would cause a lot of confusion to suddenly change, especially if other Wikipedias don't do it. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:04, 1 March 2017 (UTC) Interesting. It's engrained into Wikipedia culture as well as the infrastructure, and would therefore be difficult to change, and almost impossible to get consensus. I went looking around and was surprised to find that while Encyclopædia Britannica capitalizes its articles (see Domestic cat), it does not capitalize them in their search results (see search for "cat"). Weird. The Transhumanist 01:36, 10 March 2017 (UTC) Yeah, sorry, I misunderstood earlier. Lowercasing the first letter when it's a common noun is so far outside the box that it didn't occur to me that's what you meant. What PrimeHunter said. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:16, 1 March 2017 (UTC) ISBN formatting This tool can format many ISBNs, but it is javascript and you have to do it manually on every page and include it in your .js files. Is there a bot that does this, or does anyone have a suggestion for which bot to ask to add this as a task? https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benutzer:TMg/autoFormatter.js Here is an example of me running this auto format tool (it does more than just ISBN's): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zenodotion&diff=prev&oldid=768496080 Lastly, can anyone think of a reason that this would be a bad idea? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:19, 4 March 2017 (UTC) There was a BRFA but issues were thrown up. I don't have a direct link to it though. It's referenced in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/CitationCleanerBot and you can review at your leisure. --Izno (talk) 22:19, 4 March 2017 (UTC) Summary: ISBNs, can be unhyphenated, although this is not recommended officially. The bot in question specifically left ISBN hypendation out since that's a legitimate stylistic alternative actually found in the outside world (e.g. Google Books does not hyphenate ISBNs, many books have unhyphenated ISBNs on their information page). A different bot hyphenated ISBNs for a while according to ISO rules, which are not used by the Library of Congress, Amazon, or Google books. Hyphens might interfere with finding books with google. With dashes is the approved method of display, according to ISO, The International ISBN Agency and Wikipedia. Dashes conveys information about the book in human accessible form, such as publisher is a section. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 01:29, 6 March 2017 (UTC) My ISBN tool is built around a very basic API I wrote (example) that'd be sufficient, and I think I technically wrote some code to output CORS headers … but since I haven't gotten around to getting SSL certs for the domain that's relatively useless (you can't pull from it on-wiki). In the first version of my tool, I converted all the hyphenation data from RangeMessage.xml into a big JSON object and then embedded that in a pure-JS tool. Then I noticed that the ISBN Agency's TOU forbids sharing the data file, proxying it, etc., and they don't provide CORS for the file. :( To be compliant I had to rewrite my tool from pure JS (which exposed the converted data), to one that pulled from the aforementioned PHP-based API (the underlying data file is only available server-side). {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 23:29, 13 March 2017 (UTC) Accessible Citations (Experiment with .PDF#page links) >>>> Updated Version =) <<<<< The Goal: Find the easiest/quickest route to follow a reference all the way back to the original paragraph/sentence on the original document in which the writer/editor was reading. Current Experiment: Create Links directly to a specific page in an PDF file online. Building upon the functionality of: Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Linking_to_PDF_files Using some already existing wikipedia features from: WP:CITESHORT Where this can be Improved: Ideally, use one of the simple {{command|name|#page}} when citing sources in the WikiCode, and automatically create http://example.pdf#pageNumber external links to the specific pages. Use something other than {{efn}} Example (still in experimental phase): This is how it looks in WikiCode: <nowiki> Sentence. {{efn|[https://ia601509.us.archive.org/18/items/LetterFromRome/Letter_from_Rome.pdf#56 ''Letter from Rome'', page 56.]}} Another Sentence. {{efn|[https://ia601509.us.archive.org/18/items/LetterFromRome/Letter_from_Rome.pdf#71 ''Letter from Rome'', page 71.]}} == References == {{reflist}}
Result
MIT Server downloaded articles. Aaron Swartz is legendary. Normal Referenced content. Accessible Citations 1.^ JSTOR Evidence. [PDF]. View Page 3127. 2.^ JSTOR Evidence. [PDF]. View Page 3142. References

---

Popcrate (talk) 12:29, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm dubious about using the {{ref}} template, which is unpopular. I believe that mw:Extension:Cite.php isn't meant to support nested refs like that anyway. Why don't you just make separate citations for the source when you change the page number? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:01, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Insert plug for the Comm Tech tasks related to phab:T138601. --Izno (talk) 12:52, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@Izno: this looks very related to what I am thinking of =) It would definitely be better to program in some functionality, rather than misuse a bunch of other templates and references ;) How would you recommend I get involved over there? Popcrate (talk) 23:34, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Whatever we do, it should allow the linked to page in the PDF to not be the page number that the person sees on Wikipedia. That is because page XYZ of the PDF is often not page XYZ of the document. For example, extra intro pages are included often or the PDF is just part of a larger document. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:05, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Good point, AManWithNoPlan , and I agree... A further use I could see for this, is to add links to existing references with page numbers. For example... let's say a book becomes part of the public domain, or is already part of public domain, and can then add links to the new book. <- That would make it especially important to have a separation of actual page number versus PDF page number (in order to preserve the "real" page number from original text). Popcrate (talk) 04:58, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Because User:Izno referred me to the phabricator page, it looks like I'm not the only one to consider this, and I would definitely be willing to program it in. I think there just needs to be some consensus on how it should appear on Wikipedia. I think there's a lot of potential having very accessible reference links in Wikipedia, and having a way for editors to easily create them will be essential. Popcrate (talk) 04:58, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Clarification that some lists are not intended to be exhaustive, but only should include items which are standalone notable

We have quite a few articles in Wikipedia which are lists or contain lists. (More information can be found in the MOS - Lists)

There are quite a few types and they can be categorized in various ways but for the present discussion I'll break them into two categories:

1. Lists intended to be exhaustive (The list itself must be notable while the items in the list may or may not be separately notable.) E.g. List of characters in The Lion King
2. Lists not intended to be exhaustive, and inclusion means the entries should be individually notable. E.g. List of Medal of Honor recipients

At OTRS, it is quite common to receive an email from someone who notes the omission of an item in a list and asks us to add it. In some cases, the request is legitimate and we attempt to be helpful, but in many cases, they mistakenly think the list is intended to be exhaustive rather than a list of items which in addition to meeting the inclusion criteria, are also notable and have an existing article.

I think it would be useful to add a head note to lists of type 2, to let readers know that the list is not intended to be exhaustive with respect to items in the universe but only exhaustive with respect to items that are individually notable. Like investment my motivation is to cut down on the number of people who ride into OTRS to request that their friend or relative be added to some list, I think it would provide a useful service to readers who might otherwise be misled.

I emphasize the two types of lists, because if we could agree on wording for such a head note, it should not be indiscriminately added to all standalone or embedded lists, it should only be added to those that qualify as type 2.

I'm including this in the idea section rather than as a formal proposal because I think there are some details to be worked out. For example, it may be unobtrusive to add such a head note to standalone list articles, but I'm not sure how best to include this information in this case of school and location articles which often have a section for notable alumni or residents.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:55, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

The difference between lists that are intended to be complete and those that are not can already be signaled: {{Dynamic list}} (not intended to be exhaustive) versus {{Incomplete list}} and {{Complete list}} (intended to be exhaustive).

Of course, there are various list inclusion criteria (notability being just one of them) and there has never been a convenient way to signal editors, let alone readers, what the criteria is. There are lists that are dynamic (not intended to be exhaustive) but individual entries don't need to be notable. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:09, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't see that as adequate. For example, the specific motivation is this article: List of books written by children or teenagers. A reader wrote in to tell us about a book not on the list that was written by someone under the age of 20. I'm not sure which template you think belongs on that list but I don't see how any of them would send the message that a non-notable book should not be added.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:12, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

List articles are expected to be clear about their inclusion criteria. However, many such lists identify the inclusion criteria without stating that this particular list also requires that the individual items be notable. My guess is that this is not mentioned because most experienced editors treat it as implicit. I don't disagree, but I can tell you from experience that many readers do not pick up on this. I am not attempting to propose ways to improve the general inclusion criteria discussion — I am only pointing out that the implicit need to meet the notability hurdle is misunderstood by many readers and I'd like to find a way to make it explicit rather than implicit.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:18, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Moving pages such as List of books written by children or teenagers to List of notable books written by children or teenagers could go a long way to solving the problem. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:14, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I suspect that most readers don't know what we mean by "notable". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:17, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

If we're compiling a list of members, all of whom must be sufficiently notable to have their own article, maybe it shouldn't be a list at all but a category? Chuntuk (talk) 12:46, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

A "Wiki word processor"

I'm so comfortable and familiar with wiki-markup that I frequently find myself using it while working on MS Word. Then I get frustrated when the headings, italics, footnotes, etc don't appear as I want them. I find it so muck quicker and easier to simply type raw wiki-code than having to constantly click toolbar buttons. Is there a way to "teach" MS Word to parse some basic MediaWiki markup? Or how about some clever coder(s) create a "Wiki word processor" app that uses MediaWiki markup. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:10, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

You can look at this. Ruslik_Zero 20:46, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Ruslik0, thanks but that is actually the exact opposite of what I'm looking for. That MS addon converts the MS Word document format to MediaWiki markup. What I want is a word processor that natively uses wiki-markup. The rules of Wikipedia does not allow me to use my sandbox for my own personal, business and academic writing. What I'd like is the MediaWiki "source editor" as a standalone app. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:31, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Almost certainly not. There's no single standard for wikitext, and even within WMF projects there's variation between how formatting is handled—those footnote templates are mostly en-wiki specific templates, not Mediawiki modules. I suppose theoretically you could embed Parsoid into a word processor, but I can't imagine anyone would bother, especially since the devs are trying to discourage the use of Wikitext markup. (As a very clumsy fudge, you could use Word's autoreplace function to turn Wikitext markup into Wordstar markup (e.g., '''text''' becomes *text* and ''text'' becomes _text_), which Word can be coaxed into understanding, but it seems like more trouble than it's worth. (Is typing three apostrophes really any easier than ctrl-b, anyway?) ‑ Iridescent 16:25, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

(Adding) This may be a stupid question, but if you want something with the look and feel of Mediawiki but without using Wikipedia, why not just install Mediawiki on your own computer? ‑ Iridescent16:29, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's not exactly what you're asking, but you don't actually have to "constantly click toolbar buttons" in MS Word. You just need to learn the keyboard shortcuts. For example, you can tell it to put things in italics by holding down the "Ctrl" button and pushing "i" ("Ctrl+i"), bold is Ctrl+b, underline is Ctrl+u, etc. Headings get a LOT easier if you learn to use styles. The biggest problem with MS Word is that people don't know how to use it, and the designers want it to be as intuitive as possible, so they hide some of the more powerful features like styles. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:31, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

If you know (or are willing to learn) Markdown, pandoc can be used to convert it to html, pdf, epub, or even .docx formats. Many text editors support it – vim comes with markdown syntax highlighting out-of-the-box, I believe; emacs, if it doesn't have it by default, certainly has a package for it. For a fuller-featured, but more complex and harder to learn, alternative, LaTeX might be worth investigating. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 10:55, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

mw:Extension:VisualEditor can be run stand-alone (with or without MediaWiki). With its new built-in wikitext mode (which might or might not be packaged up for third-party installation right now), you could type in wikitext markup, switch to visual mode, and then copy and paste the contents to a word processor if you needed a particular format. I would be worried about it not handling complex formatting though: character formatting and links would probably convert nicely, but ref tags would be hopelessly lost or garbled.

The last time I used Microsoft Word (which was a l-o-n-g time ago), it was also possible to define all manner of keyboard shortcuts, and if that's still possible, then you could probably define keyboard shortcuts that way. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:25, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it's still possible to define keyboard shortcuts; I do it all the time. How you go about doing it depends which version of Word you're using as they're always moving features around and hiding them in different places. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:35, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Idea: proof of self teaching with Wikipedia

Just an idea that could be discussed.

Wikipedia has a lot of knowledge and many people are eager to learn from it. What if an automated quizz could be offered to the reader at the end of an article so that eventually, if passed, the latter would receive a "proof of knowledge", like a MOOC but self-taught.

At the end of the day this person eager to learn could receive this kind of certificate and put it on his/her CV and LinkedIn profile for example.

If this idea is taken further, companies could ask their new recruits (or even candidates for a position) to pass these tests so that people could prove they have some kind of knowledge on a specific topic.

One issue we could see: the answers could be put online and everyone could cheat very easily and obtain 100% on any topic. Thus one solution would be to develop a smart algorithm to draw more or less randomly generated quizz. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:120B:2C4C:7BB0:D8E:38E8:7AF2:752 (talk) 11:27, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea. I wouldn't do it but I could see how some people would eat it up. I'd suggest it be limited to FA articles, though. There's a lot of terrible articles here which study of shouldn't entitle one to even a PDF download of a certificate. BlueSalix (talk) 03:44, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki 4 Coop

Hello everyone,

I come to you to invite to re-read the submission of a new partnership project between the Wikimedia movement and the Belgian NGOs. The project is titled Wiki 4 Coop and I invite you to discover its submission page on Meta-Wiki. Do not hesitate to endorse the project if you like it and even correct my English if you have a little time. A beautiful end of day for all of you, Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{(French native speaker)} 11:44, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

The effects of milestones on achieving A-class articles

I've been improving articles in an effort to get GA status, and eventually FA status, but I came to the realization that it completely undermines the value of A-class status. A-class is supposed to be when an article is "considered 'complete'", according to Wikipedia:Article classes. In fact, look at the statistics: there are more Good Articles than A-class articles, not because A-class status is hard to achieve, but because GA and FA status are both milestones that are preferable to A-class (which, incidentally is why there are far more FA as well; note that I don't have the full statistics, but in WikiProjects such as CGR and Military History that is the case, whereas WP such as Video Games have eschewed A-class altogether). Why do we settle with GA status, if A-class is supposed to be the goal? People just edit until they've reached GA status and stop because that's considered the milestone, and only settle for A-class if they can't get if Featured. A-class IS the goal, because a complete article is the goal.

I'm not suggesting we get rid of GA and FA status, but that we should give reason for people to bother writing an A-class article - which is supposed to be the highest point of completion achievable in articles, spare Featured. So:

1. What are everyone's thoughts on some WikiProjects eschewing A-class altogether?
2. Thoughts on ways to encourage people to achieve A-class after GA status?
3. Is there a point in claiming A-class is the point of completion when, in practice, FA status is that point? Psychotic Spartan 123 07:07, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

One factor is that virtually no wikiprojects have functioning A-class review processes - milhist does; I have not seen CGR's a-class review used since I have been around, and iirc the last discussion on CGR's a class review essentially concluded that it was dead... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 09:05, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

The other issue is that these X-class schemes are effectively obsolete; a remnant of the now dormant Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team process and should probably be scrapped except in these projects where they are still in use. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:52, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I looked at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team and it has the full statistics there: only 1,678 A-class articles, but 5,945 FA and 27,948 GA as of this time. Unrelated, but it's sad that the majority of all articles are stubs and vast majority are below C-class. Should it be proposed that we give A-class a review process independent of WikiProjects, i.e., have an A-class project page similar to GAN and FAC? That way at least you won't need to rely on possibly dead projects to get an article promoted. Psychotic Spartan 123 13:31, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't see that there's a great deal of point. We already have two review processes which would ideally be more active; adding a third would just further split this effort. And I don't see any great advantage of having A-Class reviews back in action. It's another stepping-stone on the way to FA status, but many FAs don't go through the existing stepping-stones already. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:55, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Fixing Special:WantedCategories

Users have created user categories for the purpose of collaboration and humor. However, some categories that people place on their userspace haven't actually been created. This causes the category to appear on Special:WantedCategories, which creates clutter on the page and hinders users who try to create wanted categories. For a more detailed explanation, you can read this RfC[52]

Technical Proposal

• Add a new namespace called the User Category: namespace. It functions exactly like the Category: namespace, however categories in this namespace do not appear in Special:WantedCategories.
• Naturally, a User Category Talk: namespace will have to be created for their talk pages.
• For the purpose of this discussion, let's assume that the above proposal is possible. We can ask the devs to implement it if there is consensus

Policy Proposal in conjunction with technical proposal

1. Categories (red and non-red) intended solely for use in the userspace should be moved/changed to the User Category: namespace
2. Pages moved via the above criteria shall have their talk pages moved to the User Category Talk: namespace.

Discussion

If anyone can think of any ideas to improve these proposals (or suggest a better alternative proposal) please share. Gamebuster19901 (Talk║Contributions) 18:27, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Maybe we need a MediaWiki:Wanted-categories-exceptions message to list all these unwanted categories rather than an ad hoc namespace. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:31, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah. That'll still allow us to find redlinked categories for userspace that we genuinely want to be blue, and would likely to be much easier to implement. —Cryptic 21:32, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I'd expect a request for this to be declined as "no, just don't do that". There are many things developers' time could be better spent on than making it so people could fool around having redlink categories on their user pages. Anomie⚔ 23:10, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

That, and the implementation details are not trivial. There's a *lot* of weird logic behind how "special" namespaces like NS_FILE and NS_CATEGORY work. Replicating those for other namespaces isn't easy (I've tried before and gave up). ^demon^{[omg plz]} 21:43, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Developing the deleted articles

I think it would be a very good idea to help the users to move the deleted articles into their own user space or at Wikia, so they can keep working on them. I noticed there are a lot of articles about artists and writers who are just a bit below the notability line. For example this article Ioan Groșescu which was deleted from the Romanian Wikipedia. We are talking about people who, even though they are not important enough for Wikipedia to keep an article about them, they are quite significant for the Romanian culture, and it's a big waste to completely forget about them. And many times those people are notable, but the users who created the articles are simply don't have enough Wikipedia experience to prove it when building the articles. IMO, when the users are notified that the article they created was proposed for deletion, they should be aware of the fact that:

• They can ask for the article to be moved in their userspace so they can keep improving it until it's good enough for Wikipedia
• Or they can ask for moving the article at Wikia, so the article will not be completely lost, even when the person the article is about is not notable enough for Wikipedia. Or to keep working at the article at Wikia until they satisfy the higher standards at Wikipedia.

The users should have access to very easy to use tools that can place such requests.

I think such a facilitation would have a significant beneficial effect on developing Wikipedia. —  Ark25  (talk) 22:18, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Anyone who wants the text of a deleted article can already just go to Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion and ask for the deleted text back. We're not going to host userspace drafts that aren't viable Wikipedia articles indefinitely (we're not a free webhost, and we delete drafts after a while if nobody's actively trying to improve them). What Wikia—which is a private company and has nothing to do with Wikipedia—does, is entirely a matter for them. ‑ Iridescent 22:27, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Sure but I think that Wikia + Wikipedia can have some cooperation that is beneficial for both of them and for developing the access to knowledge in general. There is a lot of valuable knowledge that was deleted from Wikipedia simply because the users didn't know how to prove that those articles meet the notability criteria. —  Ark25  (talk) 10:05, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Take a look at http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page which is a "Speedy deletion Wiki ". It does not have everything, and afaik prople don't develop pages there. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:14, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Improving backlogging of WP:templates for discussion

The insufficient participation at WP:templates for discussion was discussed in September 2016, the same month when the stagnation of the process was also discussed. Currently, the process still has a huge amount of nominations that have very little participants. Now that the consensus agreed to apply WP:PROD to "File:" namespaces, what about applying PROD to templates? Alternatively, what about creating a separate PROD for templates? If neither solution is helpful, how else do we resolve the backlogging and participation issues? --George Ho (talk) 04:17, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Intelligent Wikipedia that talks to you interactively

@Rich Farmbrough, Anomie, EpochFail, Headbomb, Beeblebrox, Redrose64, Magioladitis, and Od Mishehu:

Either in voice or text. Or both.

It could start out by saying:

"How can I help you?"

or...

"What would you like to learn about today?"

or...

"What would you like to know?"

You answer its inquery, or ask it a question. It then uses algorithms to access its vast collection of data (Wikipedia, as a corpus, and indices/tables constructed for this project), and provides an answer.

This concept was proposed as a WikiProject to develop something like this way back in 2010, and with the technology advancements that have occurred since then, this project idea may deserve another look:

Dear Wikipedia,

I am Giuseppe (Joseph) Zaccaria (Zachariah), an Italian citizen resident in Iran (my mom is Iranian) born in 19 October 1993, I study mathematical physics in the third year of high school in an Italian school in Tehran. I speak 3 languages fluently (English, Italian, Persian) and have also studied for 3 years Latin and 1 year Spanish. My dream has always been to become a scientist in NASA (although the odds for that are overwhelmingly low), since I love space and anything related to that. I really hope to be able to come to the US, possibly to study.

Now, I use Wikipedia constantly, especially for school projects and studies, and I must say BRAVO!! i think all the students of the world are more than glad to have a site in which you can find almost anything. Nevertheless, each time i have had a question (the answer of which might have been just a few words), Wikipedia gave me a huge array of articles that it thought could be related to what I was looking for, and i must say that that is always a bit disappointing. So, i thought why not add another part in Wikipedia (you know, like wikibooks...) called something like Wikibrain, or WikiAnswers..., where you write a question, and the program automatically searches the articles it thinks might be related to the question, and then finds the answer, without giving you the option to go and look for the answer in the articles yourself. I mean a new program capable of relating words given from the user (i mean the words that are in the question) to other words already existing in the domain (pretty much what it already is doing), and then finding the words in the article (found in the domain) which are most likely related to the primary words that formed the question (given from the user). So, when you ask "distance between Paris and Rome?" the program would automatically find the answer in its articles and say "500 kilometers" (of course this is just an example, I'm sure that if you work on it, it will resolve more complex questions). I am sure that something like this would be a huge step in improving Wikipedia, so I really hope that my idea has interested you and that i might help you in some way. I am really looking forward to receive an answer from you,

Yours sincerely,

Joseph Zachariah

The technology exists for this, right?

What would it take to develop something like this? Would it be any harder than developing WP:AWB, for example? How was AWB developed?

What other features could this thing feasibly have?

What should it be called? WP Genie? Alfred? Jarvis? WikiJarvis? The Transhumanist 20:23, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

You may want to consider just why Wikipedia:Knowledge Engine is a red link—User:GorillaWarfare's summary here is a very good place to start, if you're not familiar with the back-story—for why this is not a rabbit-hole you want to go down. (And no, the technology doesn't exist for this; multinational corporations have spent—literally—billions developing Siri, Google Now and Cortana, and they struggle to answer questions more complicated than "What is the capital of France?".)  ‑ Iridescent 20:29, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I understand why the idea might be cool, but even if the technology existed, it would be too expensive to implement for a website that, every year or two, has to beg for donations just to remain ad-free (I don't mean "beg" to be an insult). Psychotic Spartan 123 20:36, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Technology is being developed to do these kinds of things, but as Iridescent said above, it requires immense resources and isn't something we could just sort of "plug in" to Wikipedia. As for your question about whether it would be any harder than developing WP:AWB: yes, considerably. The two are really not comparable.

This is not a project that could be developed by a handful of bot developers; it would require buy-in from the Wikimedia Foundation and the devotion of significant resources. Again, as Iridescent pointed out, this would be a similar move to when the Knowledge Engine project was created, and that's not something I expect the WMF is keen on repeating. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:42, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I know the idea lab exists to entertain ideas and not to vote on anything, but it hurts my head thinking about the resources in time and money it would take to do this. Wikipedia's dedicated editors can barely keep up with vandalism, struggle to create quality articles, and I think even hypothesizing on something of this natural is asking a lot. If you think about it, Wikipedia is not a browser, it is a destination. Services like Ceres and Cortana already do this, and under the (basic, usually crappy) answer, a list of sites are given. Among those sites, Wikipedia is usually on the top of the list with an article to answer all the questions on that subject you could possibly imagine (because it, of course, would be a quality article and not a stub). The last thing we need is another project, and another backlog, to add to the list of projects with backlogs that we cannot even keep up with as it is. The idea is cool, but the work it would take far exceeds the return. Just look at all the other backlogs we have and imagine adding another one. Psychotic Spartan 123 21:26, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Please save the bucket of cold water for the proposal, if this brainstorming session ever inspires one. :) Right now, we're just kicking around some ideas. The most interesting aspect of this exploration (IMHO) is on how much and how could this be automated? It would give interested persons something to apply WikiBrain on. How could that tool be applied to something like this? The Transhumanist 21:36, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

What would it entail? A question generation algorithm, and a database of stock answers? And algorithms to generate the answers in the database? Optionally, editors could provide answers in the database? This is the idea lab -- a place to explore ideas. And so, I'm interested in exploring this idea further. What would such an idea consist of? What would it be built out of? What would its structure be? Any and all thoughts are welcome. The Transhumanist 21:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC) P.S.: Let's brainstorm some more. How about question redirects? (See section below).

One place you can start to see what it would entail is Watson (computer) § Description. isaacl (talk) 05:55, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

What would be needed? Teetering on the edge of The Singularity. In other words, computers that design, build, and program computers that design, build, and program computers that design, build, and program computers... — Neonorange (talk) 06:21, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

More generally, it's a leading-edge, high-technology proposal, and Wikipedia is a trailing-edge, low-tech operation. Yes, we'll get this kind of capability, many years after it has been heavily used by Microsoft, Apple, Google etc. Jim.henderson (talk) 19:28, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I have a feeling, that this is a very farfetched idea and might be implemented to the Wiki years after this proposal. Cheers, FriyMan ^talk 18:03, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Strong Oppose. Is this a joke? KMF (talk) 02:11, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Would like to see wikiproject hotels more active

I feel that articles in hotels are lacking in quality and quantity. Many of them are written like advertisements and wikiproject hotels seems abandoned. I would like to see more quality articles about hotels. I think the way to do that would be to make wikiproject hotels more active, I do not know how to propose this/where to propose this. Admins feel free to move this to where it should be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yonikasz (talk • contribs) 02:53, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I think the most effective way to make a dormant wikiproject more active is to do it yourself. If the former coordinator (or whatever they called themselves) is still active, you might want to drop a note on their talk page. Otherwise, don't wait for permission - start improving articles. Anyone can edit still has some meaning here, after all. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:24, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Yonikasz, you can try to WP:REVIVE the WikiProject. You might also be interested in wikivoyage:, which is a travel guide. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:51, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Unify Templates in wikidata

is it possible to Unify Templates and add it to wikidata for all languages. only Variables can be translated. so it will make it easy for newbies, save time and storage space for Wikipedia hard drives.Waso99 (talk) 06:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

@Waso99: See meta:Community Tech/Central repository for gadgets, templates and Lua modules. ~barakokula31 (talk) 12:37, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

@Barakokula31: that's great. Thanks Waso99 (talk) 13:58, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Factual Accuracy indicator in the Revisions

The following discussion 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.

---

Wikipedia articles undergo a lot of revisions everyday, and a casual reader going through an article has to re-check to be doubly sure about the veracity of everything he is reading. I propose the introduction of an indicator (ideally a symbol) beside the last revision which has been checked for factual accuracy, in the View History section.

• Initially we can begin with Good/Featured Articles (which are subject to factual accuracy checks while nomination), and place a symbol besides the revision that granted the GA/FA status indicating that the article has been checked for factual accuracy till that point.
• Subsequent edits can also be checked for factual accuracy by other trusted users (we may give the privilege to extended confirmed users to check the diffs since the GA/FA and ensure that the factual accuracy is still maintained). These users can then move the symbol to the newer revision that they are authorising.
• In case the proposal turns out to be successful, we can extend the accuracy indicator to all the articles.

This can help improve the readability and trustworthiness of the encyclopedia. Here is an example - List of Delhi Daredevils cricketers is an outdated Featured List. The list is erroneous and incomplete and has not been actively edited post its successful nomination in 2012. It would therefore be ideal that a symbol be added besides [53] (the FL nomination revision) indicating that the article is factually correct as of this revision. Subsequent editors can continue editing the article, and trusted editors can move the symbol to a subsequent revision, post a fact check of the diff between the revision on which the symbol is currently placed to the current unchecked revision. Jupitus Smart 13:09, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

@Jupitus Smart: Wikipedia:Flagged revisions? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:07, 20 April 2017 (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.

Social media buttons

I'd like to discuss the potential for adding social media sharing buttons to Wikipedia again, but this time with less of the FUD that was present in previous discussions. Now I know this is a perennial proposal, but I've been reading over the previous discussions on this topic and they were absolutely filled with false statements and misunderstandings, so I think it's worth having a fresh discussion where the facts are straight.

There is a demand from our readers for social media sharing buttons (see the numerous examples at the Help Desk), and we should be doing what we can to aid in the sharing of our content as widely as possible. We regularly receive requests for sharing buttons, or questions asking why we don't have them, but proposals have been opposed based on a number of rationales. I've summarised the common rationales, and my thoughts on them, here; please read through before opposing based on a common reason:

Common arguments against, from previous discussions

Presented alongside my personal opinions on them. Sharing links can somehow track users. Some variations of sharing/liking buttons can do this - but our implementation would simply be pre-loaded sharing URLs, not like or tweet tracking buttons. An example is https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?t=Main_Page&u=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMain_Page Users can just copy and paste onto social media sites. Users with the technical know-how could, but many don't, and even for readers who can copy and paste, the process is made more convenient. For news sites, 10-40% of their social media links were generated from sharing buttons. Users posting on Facebook etc. reduces our credibility This is a very elitist attitude that I simply cannot agree with - users can and should use Wikipedia for whatever purpose they desire, wherever they desire. That's sort of the whole point of our project. Seeing how many likes a page has wouldn't be desirable This doesn't have to be a feature - the share buttons don't have to be the kind that also contains that data, per the first bullet point here. We have no reason to / Why should we / What's the point Our entire mission is to share knowledge with the world - making that easier can only be a good thing. A user in a previous discussion said "A share button is for sharing content, and that is a Wikimedia goal." Ultimately this is a reader-facing change; this is not designed to change the experience for editors. Many voters in previous discussions saw this as something that was somehow supposed to benefit the Wikipedia editing community. Possible (increased viewership -> increased number of editors), but totally not the primary objective. We're asked for this on a regular basis so there's evidently a desire for it amongst our readers. We would encourage vandalism/spam If we're really concerned about attracting more vandalism the more we allow people to link to Wikipedia then the logical conclusion is that we stop any external links to Wikipedia from anywhere working. Our aim should be more access and more views, not less. Also no evidence that sharing on social media would attract more of the 'wrong kind' of people than the 'right kind'. On the contrary, there's a chance that this could encourage users to share content with specific other users, encouraging content experts to join as editors. I don't want to see them The best implementation would be to have this as an opt-out preference for registered users, and it wouldn't be enabled by default for existing accounts. Wikipedia is not a social networking site Nothing about this proposal changes that - we would be allowing users to share our content elsewhere, not encouraging them to turn Wikipedia itself into anything different. Nothing about this proposal changes how users interact with each other on Wikipedia. NOTSOCIALNETWORK doesn't say anything about linking to Wikipedia from social media accounts; it says you shouldn't use Wikipedia itself as a social network. The one valid (in my eyes) concern is that we would need to choose which social media outlets to include. I'm sure we can come up with some metric to use, that will be updatable as trends inevitably change.

There are two types of sharing buttons for social media - the kind that are embedded and contain additional information, such as number of times shared/liked/tweeted, and those that are simply a pre-filled sharing URL for the current page. There is clear opposition for the first kind (indeed I would oppose them), but the second is much more reasonable. Users can't be tracked with them, we don't have to install anything from social media companies; we just generate URLs.

Such social media buttons aren't an entirely new thing for Wikimedia, and as far as I can tell widespread adoption has primarily been held back by the English Wikipedia discussions. Wikinews uses a social bookmarks template at the end of each article, and our own Signpost includes these kinds of sharing buttons already (example, click Show next to Share This on the right hand side). There was also, previously, the Sharebox userscript created by TheDJ, though this was dependent on a third party service.

What are your thoughts on this? Are any of my arguments above wrong? Why would or wouldn't you support simple sharing-by-URL social media buttons at an RfC?

This isn't an actual RfC, please don't vote Support or Oppose. Instead, please share your thoughts and concerns on the topic generally. When discussing this, remember that this is a change that would benefit readers of Wikipedia, not editors. Think about what readers want when interacting with Wikipedia and how we can share our content more widely, not how we can improve the editing experience for Wikipedians or how to attract more editors; much of the previous opposition seems to have been based on the latter. Sam Walton (talk) 13:11, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

• And FWIW, if we were to go ahead with this I would absolutely support doing some A/B testing and monitoring pageviews to determine whether this has an appreciable effect. Sam Walton (talk) 13:16, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
• I personally don't like the idea that the buttons would be on the page directly ("sellouts"), but one of the tasks proposing share buttons phab:T120487 has a way I do like. (Specific to phab ticket in question, I think "Share" and "Export" are functionally the same, but that's for someone else to figure out.) --Izno (talk) 13:35, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree with you that the idea as listed in that ticket would be a good approach for this. @Wittylama: was the original author of that community wishlist item. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:17, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
    • Some AJAX pop-up-y thing might be cool too, for Javascript-supported clients. --Izno (talk) 12:40, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it would be best for the readers if there were social media buttons embedded in the articles so that the reader simply has to hit the share button to share it on social media. If the social media button was designed in a way that it shared the URL on social media for the article, then I think that would be sufficient. Bmbaker88 (talk) 02:52, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

• My view is as it has always been. People want this. It's just a matter of the right UX design and the right technical implementation. We should do it, and most counter arguments have indeed had a very high level of FUD-spreading to it, with little basis in reality. The best way I think is to just build it, then make it available as a beta. English wikipedia will disable it, the rest will love it and at some time english wikipedia will catch up with the real world :) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:17, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
• Social media buttons are free advertising for their associated site. On that basis I'm strongly opposed to specific (e.g. Facebook or Twitter) buttons. I'm not opposed to options for sharing that are agnostic to the target use. A good example of an "agnostic" sharing feature is the mobile app's "share-a-fact" feature that turns text selections into shareable images—it doesn't care what you share it to (it relies on the OS to provide the sharing outputs), but packages it up prettily nonetheless, and adds value over an ordinary link by quoting the user's selected text. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 13:51, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
  • To what degree should we be concerned about 'advertising' some of the most used websites in the world though? Interesting point about platform-agnostic sharing, though I don't know how that would work on desktop. Apps have the benefit of being able to use the phone's Share functionality (which ultimately also provides free advertising in the same way as a direct button), but on desktop we would need to have our own set of sharing destinations, or this would basically just look like a Copy Page URL button. Sam Walton (talk) 14:26, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
    • Advertising the most-used social networks has the effect of helping cement their popularity, which is valuable to them. I agree that there isn't a terribly convenient option for desktop sharing, but then it's not as though copy-paste is terribly hard. Including a set of sharing destinations would be either a) promotional of the highlighted options or b) an unwieldy list, defeating its own purpose (convenience). For desktop, I think we should focus less on the convenience factor and more on added-value in sharing mechanisms, which is one reason I think the mobile app's "share-a-fact" feature is a great example. "Embeddable snippets" could be another idea along those "added-value" lines, maybe? {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 15:18, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I think link sharing belongs in the browser. MacOS and iOS Safari has Twitter and Facebook share buttons and apps can add themselves. Firefox has Pocket and a hidden Share This Page button (customize the menu to find it). Edge includes a prominent share button with Twitter built-in. Chrome the most popular browser is the only hold out unless you count Chromecast support. Even removed Email This Page—a browser staple since Netscape! Google has a conflict of interest here, promote competing websites verses its many Social Media Failures.

So this proposal is 1) only really addressing Google Chrome shortcomings 2) Goes against the open web and looks like Paid Placement 3) Make Wikimedia look even more of a tool of Facebook (Internet.org / Wikipedia Zero) 4) Is going to look like Book sources when we're done adding XYZ social network just announced at ABC.XYZ Hackathon. — Dispenser 14:42, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Mobile view already has this

Unless I've customized something on my mobile device - looks like we already have a "share" control on the mobile client - while it does link in 1 step to the places to share, it does call my mobile devices list of sharing targets to make it seamless; doing it from the web page is much more cumbersome. - Basically, readers are already doing this from mobile. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:59, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

To clarify - this is just the mobile app, and uses your phone's Share functionality, right? Sam Walton (talk) 14:22, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, this is for the mobile app; the app contains the "share" controls - which then feed to the phone's share list. If we really don't want people sharing content - we should remove the share control from the mobile app as well (I am not supportive of removing the control). — xaosflux ^Talk 14:44, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

It's not that we don't want people sharing content, it's that it's not our place to promote social networks. When we provide sharing functionality on mobile, our sharing is agnostic: the OS provides a list of sharing outputs, and (at least on iOS) lets the user also email or even simply copy the content to be shared. The difference is subtle, but when someone shares to Twitter on their phone, we're not providing or suggesting Twitter for sharing—via their choice of OS and apps, the user ultimately decides what's available, and we just implicitly support whatever sharing outputs they've got. Passively supporting the user's choices is very different from actively suggesting (i.e. promoting) a major social network. I know this isn't terribly helpful on desktop (where we can't easily rely on the OS or browser to supply sharing outputs) but we can instead look for alternative improvements, like added-value in sharing functionality. For example, the mobile "share-a-fact" feature conveniently packs user-selected snippets into highly shareable images, and that adds value over a simple URL copy-paste. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 15:40, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Verifier

Is it possible to design a verifier, a bot maybe, for assisting GA, FA and peer reviewers. The function will be simple. To verify the information in article from the source cited. This can be achieved by using simple AI, which finds the text of article in the cited source and returns errors and mismatches for editors to look upon. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 09:09, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm aware of the be creative and positive when commenting on ideas instructions for this page, but the simple answer is "no". At the level you're talking about the overwhelming majority of sources are offline—indeed, "all the sources are online" is an automatic red flag when reviewing at FA/GA as except for a few hyper-recentist fields like videogaming it's a clear sign that the author hasn't conducted "a thorough survey of the representative literature"; Google Books has an (openly admitted) huge systemic bias towards the United States and out-of-copyright English-language materials. Thus, what you're proposing is that we digitise every book ever published (which would itself be seriously illegal), and write a bot to compare the digitised texts with the Wikipedia text which has been specifically written with the intention of avoiding close paraphrasing and thus won't retain the sentence structure or narrative flow, and will generally synthesise material from multiple sources in each paragraph. This is a task even humans with the source texts in front of them find difficult; to automate it (even if one presupposes that copyright law were repealed to allow in-copyright works to be digitised en masse and all the source materials were digitised for free by an unspecified benefactor) would take software orders of magnitude above anything currently available even to intelligence agencies and multinational corporations, let alone a non-profit with an annual budget of $66 million. ‑ Iridescent 17:53, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, you could have a bot that checked the sources that contain a URL, and skip the others.

There's some work happening in reverse, that starts with a {{citation needed}} tag and attempts to find a reliable source. It's all got to be processed manually in the end (it'll suggest a few possible sources, but a human has to determine both whether the possible sources are reliable and whether the possible sources actually support the claim being made), but it's not far-fetched. See this April 2017 paper or the September 2016 presentation by Besnik Fetahu. It's basically the old Citation Hunt attached to a specialized search engine (news media, in the current version). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Agree with "Well, you could have a bot that checked the sources that contain a URL, and skip the others." -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 08:03, 1 May 2017 (UTC)