Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive AQ

I'm concerned especially about the short (one to five sentence) articles which describe chemicals, minerals, and the like. An exapmle is MDP2P. Articles like this are marked as stubs and often appear on the list of articles to be reviewed for deletion. I think that these articles should either

1) be protected from stub status;

2) be compiled into one article that describes each item.

The reason for this is that while the articles are short like a stub, and do not give extensive information, they usually give all the information that is available. So, articles such as these should have some kind of special 'acceptable short article' status. Either that, or there should be a Chemicals page (sort of like the list of chemical articles that exists now), a Minerals page, and so on.

This wasn't in the FAQ, so I'm bringing it up. Thanks. OES23 17:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that anyone's ever nominated that article for deletion. But surely there is more info about MDP2P. Who invented / first synthesized it? What's it used for? Does it have any use, or potential use? What does it do? Does it appear in nature? On and on. I don't think people are all that anxious about notability of chemical compounds but it's the same theoretical issue. If it's not something that anyone would want to know about, it's not notable and it should be deleted or merged. If it's notable it deserves its own article, however short. Better to have one subject per article than to make extensive lists, because lists are unruly, hard to maintain, and messy for hyperlinking. ::Wikidemo 13:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to clear things up, I didn't mean this article in particular was nominated for deletion, but I was providing an example of the type of articles that are frequently nominated. OES23 13:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Wikidemo. I clicked on that link and, as a layperson, I don't begin to know what the heck MDP2P is. Therefore the article can be expanded quite a bit. What is MDP2P used for? Is it deadly to me? Will it damage my eggs? Did it come from outer space? Will it reverse baldness? Is it used to make Meth? Has it always been known about since the days of Lucretius? Or did some raver synthesize it while living in Miami Beach or Ibiza. If you had enough of it would it appear blue? Glow in the dark? I think the information that is already there is great for people re-taking O-Chem for a better grade, but it doesn't help art historians at all. Saudade7 12:44, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The newly written proposal/essay/how-to/whatever Wikipedia:Gender-neutral language and its talk page essentially state that singular they is common practice on Wikipedia, apparently with the intent of promoting this as a good idea, and likewise state that this practice is frequently disputed. Outside opinion is requested on (1) how "common" this practice is, (2) how "frequently" the dispute is, and (3) whether people consider it a good idea. >Radiant< 14:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the article you link to in the subject summarises it pretty well. WP:GNL suggests it as an alternative to gender-specific language but notes that it's objected to, largely because people objected to it during drafting. It could turn into a whole stack of turtles, as some people objected to the objection. This whole discussion was had a week ago, wasn't it? SamBC(talk) 14:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Use of "they" and "their" as singular generic pronouns is almost universal writing and informal speech. It's on the level of using "you" instead of "one" or using contractions. It does not stand out as wrong, but rather informal. We try to be a serious reference source, so I think most people try to avoid it where they can. Using "he" or "his" as a gender-neutral pronoun is even more awkward so people try to avoid that too. You can almost always word things without the need for a singular generic pronoun, so that's what people do for the most part in formal writing, including here in Wikipedia. Incidentally, in the history of English, using "he" and "his" to stand for a person of indeterminate sex is relatively new and never caught on. Before 1850 or so "they" and "their" were considered correct, but some succeeded in promoting "he" and "his." That got written into the rules of formal writing but never completely followed or accepted. I don't think the original intent was to make talking about men the norm, and women only by implication, but that's what happened with the new pronouns, and it's the reason why people are moving away from them today. The best advice for main space, I think, is to do whatever you have to do as long as you don't use "he" to stand for "he and she." You'll find that borne out in the articles. It's rare to come across one that uses male pronouns in the generic sense. Wikidemo 16:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

As a further thought, I'm not sure anyone wants to promote singular they in any general sense, just to give it as a way of avoiding non-gender-neutral language. SamBC(talk) 16:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

There are ways to use non-sexist language without violating plurality, such as using the word "s/he".ACEOREVIVED 19:10, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

If you're going to use awkward constructions like that, how about using my favorite: s/h/it? --Carnildo 02:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Heh, you have a point; "s/he" is pretty awkward. I'd say just go with the singular "they" where it's necessary and avoid it whenever possible. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 14:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it's very clunky when a sentence has s/he. To me, it implies laziness to type he or she and is an admission that the three-word pronoun is awkward as well. The singular they is well established, and according to The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, they is more established than he as the gender-nonspecific singular pronoun.—Twigboy 15:32, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

In theory "they" is grammatically accepted now, although I have to admit that I cringe a little whenever I read it in a student paper because it *sounds* so unproper. In philosophy classes I was taught to use "one" but I think people read that as British or pretentious. As a feminist I prefer "he or she" or "she or he" because it establishes that both genders are being taken into account, that their is no bias being implied and it doesn't inadvertantly multiply the number of people being referred to and sound as if the numbers are not in agreement. Using "he or she" / "she or he" tells us that we've at least *tried* to take human/sex/gender rights into account. P.S. I *did* sign my comment! Wiki is being weird! Saudade7 18:06, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I've felt that we need a more organized system of managing articles for some time, but I'm getting tired of seeing an important article get trashed by a vandal, have the vandalism go by improperly fixed by a novice, and the article as a result deteriorate over time, with nobody being aware that anything has happened. We need a more organized system of article watching and regular review, though we just don't have the manpower to do it. Beginning with watchlists would be a start though. We need to be able to look at an article and know if it is being watched. If one watches an article for a while or spends some time going through the history section, one can probably figure out who seems to keep an eye on it. But this isn't good enough - an experienced editor should be able to obtain this information immediately and with certainty. If I find an article is being messed around with and nobody is repairing the damage, I want to know if there is somebody watching it or not. If not, somebody needs to; an appropriate Wikiproject could be contacted for example. If there is, they need to get their act together and do a better job of keeping it in good condition. If they can't do it alone, more watchers need to be recruited. We have the 'maintained' tag, but that has always tended to suggest the 'maintainer' is a scholar in that field. Ideally, we would have an expert on each subject watching that article, but anybody would be better than nothing.

Let me give an example from my experiences today. I visit the article animal, one of the most important in biology. I see it is somehow smaller than before. Something has happened. I go to the page history, replete with thousands of edits, and try to find what happened. Eventually I reach something almost two weeks ago that seems to be the problem: a vandal deleted sections, and a relatively new editor tried to fix it but missed some of the deletions [1]. If somebody was watching this article they would never not notice something that major. Yet it still happened, and nobody seems to be any wiser. The reality is that someone probably is watching this article and has let it slip by. But I have no way to be sure someone is watching it. And if there is, I can't exactly complain to them can I?

We need to put in place a system where people can see who is watching an article. If people don't wish others to know that information, perhaps they could opt out via preferences (though it is no more of a privacy issue than being able to look through their contributions really). Alternatively, people could add their name to the talk page or somewhere else as a 'watcher', or via some indirect means, e.g. adding a template that links to articles they watch on their user page and being able to find these (e.g. via 'what links here') from the page itself. Another option is letting people select articles from their watchlist that they publicly proclaim to be watching and thereby take responsibility for their maintenance and care. They could appear in bold on the list, for example.

One problem is that vandals can find unwatched articles, but most vandals are unlikely to even know about the watchlist system, let alone how to access that information, and I believe the benefits would outweigh the costs anyway. If it was a concern, don't let anons or even newly registered users see the information. Another is that users may no longer be active but still have things on their watchlist, or they may not go through their watchlist carefully. A way of excluding those who are currently inactive would help with the first issue. On the other hand, if they had to explicitly opt in as a watcher, there would be few people doing so at first, and they may feel reluctant to take on that responsibility. There will also be those that whine about 'ownership', even if the job of the so called 'owner' is nothing more than cleaning up graffiti. But we need to be more responsible for our encyclopedia. Someone coming here should have someone they can complain to if an article is not being looked after. There should be someone there who will get the vandalism that slips through recent changes. It's a very big task to embark on but we need to start working towards it. We need to work out how to put this in place and then get people involved. Hopefully in future we will be able to say that every article on Wikipedia has someone out there looking after it, and those that receive a lot of traffic will have a dozen such people - perhaps even someone watching 24/7, or near to it. We could even start a WikiProject - perhaps "Wikipedia:WikiProject Quality control", to implement and coordinate such an effort. Is anybody with me on this, or do we just want to hope that a disorganized system will catch all the problems by itself? Richard001 02:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

IMO, the above is a mixed bag of proposals. Wikipedia:WikiProject Quality control is not a bad idea (too bad the shortcut WP:QC is already taken); it would overlap to some extent with Wikipedia:RC patrol, Wikipedia:New pages patrol, Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit, and such. A "these users watch this article for vandalism" template like {{maintained}} might not hurt, although it could as easily be a part of the banner for the above mentioned WikiProject as a generic banner. I think public watchlists are not such a good idea, although if anyone really wants one they can always just create Special:Mypage/Watchlist and use Special:Recentchangeslinked to watch the pages on it. I think the chances of vandals looking for unwatched articles is greatly underestimated. Anomie 03:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah that's why the unwatched articles special page is restricted to admins. Not a good idea. The template thing maybe.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 03:25, 09/23/2007

You are already aware of the problems with keeping a list or count of the users watching each article. A substantial proportion of the really active users are admins and have access to the list of unwatched articles, but that list only includes the first 1000 such articles and currently doesn't get as far as articles beginning with the letter 'a'. Providing a complete list of unwatched articles, or a mechanism which allows an admin to see a count of watchers for any page, would be more helpful, but I think this latter cannot be done efficiently with the current database structure.

I think a public watchlist is a better idea. I maintain one for vandalism-prone New Zealand-related articles. If Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology doesn't do so, perhaps you could start one.-gadfium 04:07, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Placing a template "This uses watches this page for vandalism" would be too trivial a thing for most purposes to place on a talk page, and it would require a lot of work for a person to manage them. If unwatched pages were a problem for vandals, we could solve the problem easily by only letting trusted users see the information, however we have no way of knowing telling apart trustworthy users from those who are not in an automated fashion. Even so, blocking users who have not been around X days and/or made X edits would almost certainly filter out any mischief. The administrators tool sounds useless, though it points out there are far too many articles not being watched, based on your description. People shouldn't have to become admins just to see such information though.

Having a public watchlist that is systematically gone through by people may be a functionally similar alternative or compliment. I'll think more on that possibility. Richard001 05:58, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't want the world to easily know what articles I am watching. I know it is paranoid, but as someone who is a citizen of the United States, I feel over-surveilled already. I don't actually do anything wrong, mind you, but in my country it no longer matters if you do something wrong or not. Interest in a subject is enough to get you on certain watchlists. I don't mind if the information is all encrypted and just shows numbers/statistics, but I don't want it to be like when the government records who you travel with, what books you check out of the library, who you call on the phone. Globally, there are also academics being arrested now in Germany because they were "intelligent enough" to have written certain things. I just have my reservations about "lists". Thanks, Saudade7 18:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, it isn't really an issue, Saudade. People can opt out, or, probably better still, opt in. My point was it's not all that different from look at your contribs. People seldom watch articles they've never edited. I can browse every edit you've ever made here quite easily, seeing both what you've edited and what you've written with ease using popups. I could stalk you if I wanted to, and you wouldn't even know I was doing it. It wouldn't be that big a difference. But the problem is, at the moment, I have no reasonable way of finding out if anybody is bothering to watch an article. With animal, I ended up posting a message on the talk page asking if anybody watches it. I got no reply, though someone else volunteered to start watching it. I'm still no wiser as to whether anyone was watching it in the first place; all I know is that if there were any they don't want to reply. I don't see any way in which we can hope to have decent quality here if there is no system in place to see that articles have at least one person keeping an eye on them. A public watchlist would only work if it included all articles in a given category or categories, and if it was systematically checked by everyone. I think this option is a much better idea, but nobody seems to be interested in it. Richard001 03:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

But there is a difference. I don't watch anything I edit and vice versa. I use my watchlist only to bookmark articles I've stumbled across but think I might not remember later. There are at least 100 articles that I am "watching". That said, I am a private person. I think of my edits as my publications but my watchlist as a personal journal. I know full well that people can see what I edit and thus I do so with that knowledge in mind. I spent some time before putting things on my watchlist trying to see what was on other people's watchlists, when I found that I couldn't I started adding stuff to my own. It isn't really that I have things that are perverse or dangerous that I am hiding. And as a cultural historian I am able to look at all the perverse and dangerous stuff I want without consequence. (I'm not some closeted politician from Idaho, e.g.) I just don't think people need to know everything I am slightly curious about or interested in. I don't like the way the world is turning into a system where people, with more power and access to information than I, can find out every single thing about me and yet I am kept in the dark about what corporations and my government etc. actually know about me, and especially what *they* are up to otherwise. I know it sounds paranoid, but I prefer to err on the side of caution. This world, especially the U.S. is going to hell and I just want to keep some things to myself. Saudade7 13:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's another case [2]: A driveby anon fiddling with a low profile chemistry article that I just happened to be watching. With an organized system of watching we could cover all the low profile pages systematically, avoiding this sort of crap. Richard001 00:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm advertising this page here as well because fewer people seem to read Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous). A.Z. 22:49, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I am trying to connect with individuals in the wikipedia community who are interested in working on an open source programming project to create a visualized interface to map wikipedia. I have started to draft a proposal in my Sandbox, but am not sure where the most appropriate location is to post such a proposal or connect with interested people. Does anyone have suggestions, feedback, comments? Thanks! SlvrDreams 20:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Linking to off-wiki harassment is proposed at the suggestion of the arbitration committee. Please have a look. ←Ben^B4 06:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Not to be cynucal, but it apears to have been written by a sock puppet, Privatemusings (talk · contribs), and the discussion thus far appears to be dominated by people who oppose having an off-wiki harassment policy. I hope that everyone who's participated will be open to other viewpoints. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 06:17, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm having trouble understanding how the discussion can be dominated by people who oppose having an off-wiki harassment policy, when they all seem to be supporting the proposal. It does not appear that Privatemusings is an abusive sockpuppet, and it seems he faithfully distilled Newyorkbrad's suggestions. ←Ben^B4 12:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Hasn't BADSITE already been rejected? Atropos 07:21, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I think we need to require usernames for people to edit. 99% of the vandalism I see come from anon users.

Because its so easy to edit wikipedia (just click an article and click "edit") these vandalizers don't need to put much effort messing up pages.

The idea of a "everyone can edit" is ideal, but it doesn't work when we have vandals.

A required username will force vandals to make a username and takes a longer time for them to damage wikipedia. Requiring usernames will also curb vandals since they don't want to go in the trouble of making one. Good friend100 02:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

This is suggested quite regularly, and will never happen because it's a Foundation principle that anyone can edit. Quite apart from all the reasons people can trot out as to why anon editing is a good thing. SamBC(talk) 02:09, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think Wikipedia's hurting itself, and if its suggested regularly, then Wikipedia has some problems addressing their own issues. Its reasonable to say that 99% of vandalism comes from anon users. Good friend100 02:21, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

See WP:PEREN#Prohibit_anonymous_users_from_editing, the section most convinving to you would likely be:

While about 97% of vandalism comes from anonymous users, about 76% or 82% of anonymous edits are intended to improve the encyclopedia. (Prohibiting IP edits would not eliminate 97% of all vandalism, because if they have to, those inclined to vandalism are likely to take the 10 seconds to register.)

--Ybbor^Talk 02:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to add that the concept of "You can edit this page right now" is one the most innovative things about Wikipedia, and what makes it so unique and interesting. It's what got me interested in the first place, and I suspect that's the case with many people. An online community is nothing new -- but when people see that Wikipedia is trusting anyone at all to edit without even requiring registration, that's an especially intriguing concept that gets people interested in learning more. I'd go out on a limb and say that most editors here made their first edits as anonymous users.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 23:43, 09/26/2007

And by the way, you're hurting my feelings. 68.101.123.219 01:32, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, the Foundation said so, and we're run by the foundation, and, well, you know what happens next. ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 21:51, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

So we have a few different placeholder images that appear in articles that don't yet have portraits. (Of course a few people think that we shouldn't have them in articles at all. Maybe they don't want the general public to contribute their images? Or they're ashamed of the fact that it's a wiki? But that's beside the point...)

I've thought that the current images were an eyesore for quite a while, looking as if it were thrown together without much thought, and there've been a bunch of complaints on related talk pages, so I tried to make a better version that others could continue improving on. But it's apparently not liked, either, and was instantly reverted.  :-)

I changed:

• The fonts - The mixed fonts look as if it was a mistake to me; meant to be in a font that the SVG renderer couldn't handle and it fell back on serif. The serif looks really out of place in an infobox of all sans. See discussion on the talk page: Wikipedia_talk:Fromowner#Very_ugly_and_distracting
• The wording - "Do you own one? If so please click here" just sounds bad. I used "Click here to upload one", but I'm sure you can think of something better. See the discussion on the talk page: Wikipedia_talk:Fromowner#Wording. Also got rid of the big space between the lines, which also looked like a rendering mistake to me.
• The colors - I first looked around Google Image Search for placeholder images to base the new versions on, and most have a visible box around them instead of being transparent or white on white. I liked the look of the light gray/blue box the best, on a white background with a dark silhouette. (Apparently the blue background - which I got from here - is the most-loathed aspect of my design. I'm completely fine with a light gray background instead.) Here are some other variations to compare to: [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
• The building image - Original was kind of crude-looking, so I made something completely different with a skyline.

Compare the originals:

• 
  Male portrait
• 
  Female portrait
• 
  Neutral portrait
• 
  Building photo

With mine:

• 
  Male portrait
• 
  Female portrait
• 
  Neutral portrait
• 
  Building photo

Please provide opinions and alternative ideas. Keep in mind that they are used a few different ways; infoboxes, thumbnail frames, bare images, etc. — Omegatron 08:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support generally as these are improved images that will look nicer on article pages, although to the extent that they're by necessity generic and full of text they remain somewhat ugly. (I see the point. I just feel it's the equivalent of having text in an article that says "...where he died in 1862. Have more information? Click here to edit the article.") Given that I would like at least two more improvements. The "neutral" head should be framed the same way, with the scalp near the top (or the NASA plaque people should have more headspace, but that leaves less room for text). The building image should be simpler and something that can similarly contain the text "No free image". Also, make sure there's enough torso space for the lower text; the woman and neutral silhouettes don't have enough. And not to add to your workload, but why isn't there an even more generic one for topics that aren't people or buildings? --Dhartung | Talk 08:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

There isImage:Replace this image.svg I just don't like it because I would rather things were specialized and the responsibility for sorting out the resulting images given over to wikiprojects.Genisock2 14:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Joe Blow
Born	2007-08-26 Wikimedia Commons
Occupation	Placeholder
Known for	Blue background

Jay Gray
Another attempt
Born	2007-08-27 Wikimedia Commons
Occupation	Placeholder
Known for	Gray background, lighter silhouette, bold top text, -"one", no gaps at shoulders, head centered a bit

• Comment: I do overall like the idea. The thing I hated most about the current ones was the wording, and the lack of a comma in the female and neutral ones. I also really don't like the use of "one" stylistically. You also touch on an unresolved issue: how far do we go in directly soliciting help from the general public? If we don't do it in text (as Dhartung points out), then why are we ok with doing it in images? Let's seriously work on the wording here.

I think you've improved a bit on the colours, but it was actually better with different fonts. The key message is "We don't have an image, that's why we're displaying this stupid graphic" - the appeal for help is secondary. So keeping "No free image" big and bold would be good (though without the serif/sans difference). The text smeared haphazardly across the skyline looks bad. Only other comment is I'm not sure I really see the need for male/female versions. Isn't neutral sufficient? Stevage 14:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

If you look at how the images are used in articles there generaly are framed either by thumbs or by info boxes.Genisock2 14:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

• A welcome improvement. I agree that the use of "one" is not stylistically ideal; does anyone have ideas? --Iamunknown 15:33, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

• "Click here to upload" seems reasonable. -Chunky Rice 16:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

• I am among those who would prefer they be removed completely, not because I'm "ashamed that it's a wiki" but because when I visit an article it's 99% of the time to learn something about the subject, and to have this irrelevant template draw my eyes away from the text is really distracting. I think your new images would actually be a step backward from the current images, because the blue/dark gray, while "prettier", is higher-contrast with the white background and therefore even more eye-catching. I like what you've done with the fonts and the skyline, though, and would approve a switch to a version of the images with the same color scheme as before but with those improvements. Redquark 23:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The original colour setup was chosen with the ability to tune out the images in mind.Geni 04:12, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The building image should be simpler and something that can similarly contain the text "No free image".

Agreed. Need to find a building to trace that's more generic and rectangular and close up.

The thing I hated most about the current ones was the wording, and the lack of a comma in the female and neutral ones.

Yes.

I also really don't like the use of "one" stylistically.

I agree that the use of "one" is not stylistically ideal

Agreed, too. I couldn't think of anything else clear and short enough.

how far do we go in directly soliciting help from the general public? If we don't do it in text

We don't?  :-)

So keeping "No free image" big and bold would be good (though without the serif/sans difference).

Oh. Yeah I'm perfectly fine with the bold on top if that's what people want. The sans/serif mix is what bothers me. I think it should all be sans, and maybe a better-looking sans font, but I don't know which to pick.

and would approve a switch to a version of the images with the same color scheme as before but with those improvements.

Hmm.. I like the darker silhouette on a colored background. Maybe a lighter gray for the background and a slightly lighter silhouette? (Also the shoulders need to extend outside of the image to get a crisp edge.) — Omegatron 00:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• Support. These are a vast improvement - let's implement them immediately unless someone has a serious aesthetic problem with it. wikipediatrix 13:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

  Apparently so, since they were reverted the instant I implemented them... — Omegatron 02:22, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

  It was aparently reverted because he though it was just a random bold change, try linking to this discussion next time and it will probably be fine. I'd also like to plug Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Images to improve if people want to discuss further enhancements to the images. --Sherool (talk) 07:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Zee problem is that the new ones are way way to bold. Much harder to mentaly screen out.Geni 07:09, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I prefer the colouring of the originals and the design of the new ones. As Geni says the new ones are too striking when it should be more of a background thing. violet/riga (t) 08:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

The blue or the gray or both? — Omegatron 23:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

• The new wording loses the mention of owenership which is meant to reduce the number of copyvios uploaded.Geni 18:40, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

  I think that's an improvement, too. "Fromowner" needs to be moved to something more descriptive, and not be limited purely to images that the uploader actually took. The page should describe how to upload their own pictures, but also point them in the direction of finding images on Flickr, etc. — Omegatron 23:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

  you would appear to be wanting Wikipedia:Upload. Overloading fromowner is a really really bad idea. By the time people are searching flickr for images for wikipedia I think they can cope with our normal upload system.Geni 23:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

  So we should just link directly to the upload page? — Omegatron 03:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

  If they are not complete newbies yes. Fromowner is built on the basis that the people useing it are. So far the evidence suggests that this assumption is correct.Geni 02:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

• Personally, they look great and read well, a big improvement, and I like the blue version. I don't know the issues well enough to firmly support though, so I'll obstain from any comment other than how they look. One slight objection that carries over from the old version. The male and female silhouettes are good quality but they seem to assume middle class, adult, western, etc., in terms of hair and clothing styles, body shape, etc. And the gender-neutral one looks like an extraterrestrial. I'm pretty sure it's possible to abstract them a little more without making them look bad, even a gender neutral one with some hair.Wikidemo 03:51, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

See Template:Infobox Album/No cover for a similar setup. — Omegatron 15:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm aware that people have been looking at that. I'm not going to get involved with something that encourages people to upload unfree pics.Genisock2 10:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The new ones are better. I think we still need work on this though. Some members of WikiProject Cricket are less than pleased with me for putting those images on the cricket articles ... less hideous ones would be a REALLY GOOD IDEA - David Gerard 15:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, an improvement. Most importantly for me, the wording is a lot better. The idea that you can "own" photographs, or the entire paradigm of intellectual "property", is a point of view that not everyone agrees with. — Matt Crypto 19:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

However it is one the law agrees with which as far as the fromowner system is concerned is what matters.Geni 22:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

You don't have to use the language of property and ownership -- you can ask whether someone "holds the copyright" to an image, for example. — Matt Crypto

Holds the copyright is too long and increases the number of people who won't understand what you are talking about. The systems uses original authorship combiened with phyisical ownership to try and get around that problem.Geni 12:47, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, when a person actually clicks through on the image, they are taken to a page with lots of stuff about copyright and licences. If they don't understand what it means to "hold the copyright", then they're really not going to get very far regardless. To talk about "owning" a photograph is not merely clumsy English, but it's also giving credence to a particular point of view: namely that you can own information just like you can own a physical object. Not everyone thinks that way. The suggested new images are an improvement for this reason. — Matt Crypto 21:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. — Omegatron 23:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

In this case it is asking about physical or at least digial ownership. The followup page and upload page then concentrait on did you take it yourself.Geni 16:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment: You either need a totally generic one, or a great many specialized images. ImageRemovalBot is using Image:Replace this image.svg for infoboxes about aircraft, cameras, caves, athletic fields, lakes, mountains, cell phones, and so on. --Carnildo 23:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Depends if you can get the relivant wikiprojects to agree to look after the resulting image stream.Geni 01:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I asked for help on Wikipedia:Graphic_Lab/Images_to_improve#Placeholder_images, but no one seems to have noticed. If no one comments in a few days, we should just go with the blue or gray ones, and they can continue to be improved from there (like using a different building as the background). — Omegatron 23:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support with modification. I'd like to see the request be small, italic, and bracketed. I came here from WP talk: Avoid self-references; my issue with the proposals is that they mix content and Wikipedia "meta-content" without enough clarity. Most of the meta-content in Wikipedia is italic, including disambiguations, citation needed, and stub notices. (The only meta-content not in italics are framed things like NPOV.) How about either (1) change "Click here to upload one" to smaller text in the top right that says [upload a picture] or (2) get rid of the silhouette and go with a frame that looks more like the NPOV, perhaps with the text "No free image exists. You can help Wikipedia by providing one."? —Ben FrantzDale 01:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Consider these two versions, which make an effort to be clear about what is meta-content:

1. 
2. 

I think these are less like "...where he died in 1862. Have more information? Click here to edit the article." and more like "...where he died in 1862.^{[day of death needed]}" —Ben FrantzDale 11:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Support the second one. Avala 23:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

A lot of people misunderstand WP:SELF. It prohibits things like "this Wikipedia is about..." in the article itself. It doesn't prohibit "this article needs work" in a maintenance template. Recruiting help from outsiders is what the site is all about. This is just a maintenance template. — Omegatron 03:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Well I disagree. This image is completly over the top. As usual Wikipedia is thinking that all readers are stupid and thick, and need spoon-feeding. Well they are not, if they want to upload a photo, they will work out how to do so. I worked it out myself, reading the guidlines and so on, and I didn't some intrusive image that ruins the page to tell me how. There is a big difference between a small, subtle stub notice that categories the article as a stub, and a large intrusive image that encourages people to upload non-free images. Articles requiring an image can have a template added on the talk page and this categorises it. This is all that is needed. I believe this is a violation of WP:SELF but more importantly it is unnecessary spoon-feeding that encourages random images to be uploaded. Why ruin a page?--UpDown 07:15, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Most people can figure out how to upload an image, but using this sustem they will at least get instructions to only upload images they hold the copyright to and release it under a free license. In my experience there is just no way to spoon feed that enough, copyright and licensing is completely alien to a huge number of users... Granted there are a lot of people who still manage to ignore all the instructions and upload random promo photos regardles, but I feel this is the best system we have come up with so far to make it clear that we want images and we want them to be free licensed. --Sherool (talk) 08:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Surely there are instructions on the normal guideline page on how to upload photos? I know I read them. I do believe that encouraging images like this does encourage incorrect images to be uploaded. And also, it looks very bad on the page, an unnecessary intrusive 'image'. If people have a image they want to upload, they will do so. They will work it out. This encourages to upload random photos, and ruins the page in the meantime!!!--UpDown 09:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

yes but they are complicated and hard to find. Fromowner puts the uploader on rails and brinks the information they need to them.Geni 14:53, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree as well, that's why I think a typographical distinction is necessary. Also, this is only appropriate for pages for which an image really is reasonable to expect, otherwise we are doomed to have thousands of biographies that will never be finished rather than realizing that they just won't ever get a picture. I prefer the gray version because, as mentioned by others, it is easier to ignore. —Ben FrantzDale 11:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Can I just ask, a request was made at the Graphic Lab for improvement of these images, but it wasn't particularly specific on what should be done. We're more than happy to help, but it'd help if there was a summary of the general consensus on what should be done to these images. If I may, my own opinion is that a set of standardized and consistent placeholder images is a very good idea, and that the best model for such images would be those under "Addressing some concerns" on the request page. I'd also suggest that keep the discussion in one place as no-one as really talking to us at Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Images to improve. --Dave the Rave (DTR)talk 17:21, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I came late to this discussion and don't know where to comment to have an effect. I'll assume for the moment that this is the best place. I agree with those above who have said the current versions are the graphical equivalent of "...where he died in 1862. Have more information? Click here to edit the article." I would like to build concenscious around one of the images I posted above (or something similar) that tries to be the graphical equivalent of "...where he died in 1862.^{[day of death needed]}". I got one "support" but want more than that before being bold on such widely-referenced images. —Ben FrantzDale 15:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I see little point in following the citation needed style in a request for images. in addition I'm unhappy with loseing the intial wording focusing on ownership.Genisock2 04:08, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I was shying away from "ownership" since I think most people think in terms of copyright. For example, I own an Ansel Adams print, but I don't own the copyright to it. With the wording subject to change, my primary point is that I don't like the fact that the current version does not visually separate the request for help from the content. I just realized that there is an "article message box template", which is the style I think is most appropriate, although probably in image form.

There is no appropriate free image available. If you own copyright to an appropriate image, please consider contributing.

What about that (in an appropriate aspect ratio)? —Ben FrantzDale 11:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Once of the problems with any such setup is that you lose the simplified instructions for putting the final image in the article (Aditionaly if that box has to exist please point it at Wikipedia:Fromownergeneral). In addition is meant to flow with the article somewhat since it is likely to be there for some time.Genisock2 17:21, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm less particular about the instructions; feel free to reword the above suggestion. I'm primarily concerned with the fact that the present images read to me like "...where he died in 1862. Have more information? Click here to edit the article." —Ben FrantzDale 21:21, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

there is no way to reword it to get around that problem.Genisock2 13:14, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I had a go at making an image like Image:Nocover-upload.png in the style of Image:No male portrait.svg for a 'there is no CD picture' thing. I'd like to know what people think, and if anybody still cares about these placeholder images.

Here's what it would look like in an article.

If you don't mind, can you direct all feedback to Wikipedia:Graphic_Lab/Images_to_improve#Placeholder_suggestion_for_CD. Changing the wording is probably the most important thing that needs doing. --Dave the Rave (DTR)talk 16:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

"Village pump (proposals)/Archive AQ"
Song
B-side	"Foo, Bar... and Baz"

Would it be possible to have a Wikipedia newsletter delivered to users talk pages (perhaps with a bot or something)?--Avant Guard 17:17, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Like the Sign Post? Lara❤Love 17:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

We have Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Tools/Spamlist... Melsaran (talk) 18:41, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I think it would be great if we could pick a contributor, then pick a diff of theirs, click on a button called "newer", and go their newer diff, then click on "newer" again, and go to the next newer diff, the same way we do with diffs on the same article or talk page. Would this be too hard to implement? Are there reasons not to do it? A.Z. 02:00, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

One possibility: There may or may not be a way to do this directly through the WP standard web interface. You can, however, get substantially similar functionality through the WP API. Here's a random blog link.

It's possible to query against the contributions for a specific user, and further filter the results according to any arbitrary criteria you prefer. In order to save server load, there is a limit to the number of responses you can get at any one time, but that should not present much difficulty.

Going this route, the question about "hard to implement" boils down to how much sense the WP api makes to you personally, and whether (or to what extent) you are willing to write scripts to get the exact results you want. It won't hurt if you have perl (or anything similar) installed and working properly on your machine. This is just one possibility. There may be other ways that other folks may mention. dr.ef.tymac 09:36, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Although this seems like a very stupid question, Should Wikipedia be using BCE and CE instead of BC and AD for Epochs and Eras? BurnMuffin ^{Word, bro.} 17:45, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) contains the current policy on this. Like the question of whether Wikipedia should use British or American English, the BC/AD vs. BCE/CE question has been the subject of a number of discussions and even more pointless edit wars. The issue was ultimately settled the same way that the BE/AE issue was—use whichever format was chosen by the article's first substantive contributor; don't change formats without a very good reason; and don't sweat the small stuff. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

This was also the focus of an AbCom case do to an edit war where the outcome was that no one should switch from one to the other since both were already acceptable. --Farix (Talk) 12:33, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

This follows from the merger thread three up: Wikipedia:General review. Radical streamlining. Marskell 09:52, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I dunno if this is the right place to come but i think wikipedia needs an article on the causes of anti-semitism, because people know that jew-hatred exists and is one of the most prominent persecutionsin the world, but people don't seem to know anything about why jews are so hated, and what provoked the holocaust. Any thought? --Andrew Hadland 2007 22:46, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

You can request an article at Wikipedia:Requested articles, or start it yourself. Keep in mind WP:OR and WP:NPOV, especially for a subject like this -- and be prepared for a lot of controversy and vandalism. Also take a look at the existing articles Antisemitism and Persecution of Jews, as they may already serve this purpose, although less specifically (I haven't looked through them thoroughly).

Equazcion • argue/improves • 22:56, 09/30/2007

We have a large series of articles on antisemetism. I didn't do a thorough search, but the closest example I found was antisemetic canard, which is about lies used to justify antisemetism. I'm sure the information you look for can be found somewhere in this group of articles. Gosh, Equazcion, how many edit conflicts do I have to have with you? Atropos 23:20, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the edit conflicts, I have a bad habit of saving my comments prematurely and then editing them. I'm working on that.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 23:30, 09/30/2007

The best page to centralize discussion regarding the creation of a new article is Wikipedia:Article improvement. Merely requesting that the article be created may not cause the article to be created (it may not be notable) and whoever requested it will never know the reason why it doesn't ever get created. Besides that, discussing new articles there may cause people to discover a better way for Wikipedia to solve a content problem (such as covering a topic) different from creating a new article. A.Z. 23:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention that requests on WP:RA might sit around for years before someone finds them. Mr.Z-man 03:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't History of antisemitism fit? -- lucasbfr ^talk (using User:Lucasbfr2) 09:54, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I am making this as a very tentative suggestion. On the "Discussion" pages of articles on radio and television programmes, one frequently finds comments where Wikipedia readers seem more keen to give their views onthe programme, than to discuss the article's accuracy, comprehensiveness and style or structure. To prevent this, should we have, each month, a survey where Wikipedia readers can voice their favourite and least favourite television/ radio programmes? We would not even need to use Wiki software to analyse the data. ACEOREVIVED 19:20, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, God, no. When you encounter people discussing their views of programs on Talk pages, delete them, that's not what Talk pages are for. Let's not encourage personal opinion discussions. Wikipedia is not a forum. Corvus cornix 21:50, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Adding a checksum feature would make it easier to see which revisions are the same version (to identify reverts, etc) —Random832 16:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of which, why isn't there a user preference to hide reverted edits on the history page? — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 19:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Up at the top of *this* page it says to make software suggestions to Bugzilla. Well I tried and tried but I cannot figure Bugzilla out to save my life. It seems to only be looking for Bugs that one has already encountered. I finally found something resembling a “suggestion box” but when I tried to send it it would say,

"To file this bug, you must first choose a component. If necessary, just guess."

Now as a non-programming type person, I have no idea what a “component” is, which makes it hard to guess. I guessed "Suggestion" but that didn't work, neither did leaving it blank. Or "Help". Then I tried “1.11” - I didn't know what that meant either but I saw it on the page so maybe it meant something...and words weren’t working so I thought maybe it was a numbers thing. To no avail.

This is really bad design. Wiki should not assume that people who contribute and have ideas, questions, and suggestions are programmers. I am pretty pissed that I wasted so much time trying to get the stupid thing to work. I even read all the FAQ stuff, which didn’t help either.

Bad design! Saudade7 13:29, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. I never use Bugzilla because it is user-unfriendly. Adrian M. H. 13:36, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Adrian M. H. for the moral support. Saudade7 14:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

You were looking in the wrong place. "1.11" is the version list. The "Component" list is in the upper right hand corner, and it specifies what part of the software your bug affects - blocking people, editing, etc. If in doubt, I guess you can always choose "General/Unknown". --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 13:56, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I see it now, but I think my point is/was that I wasn't *looking* for a component list in the first place because I didn't even know what that meant! I didn't know what a "version list" was for either! And even now it doesn't make sense that "assign to" requires a "component". What might have made things easier is if that particular box had a drop-down menu with a list of the "components" to choose from (as the box directly above "assign to" has a drop down menu), rather than have something that relates to the problem located in the upper right-hand quadrant of the screen where at least my eye doesn't naturally travel. -- then I could have "guessed" but even my guess probably would have been wrong because the terminology used is programmer-specific.

The point too is that non-programming types don't "assign components", they "ask questions" and "make suggestions". The design as it is, strikes me as a bit exclusive and elitist. It is as if I just assumed that everyone knew the difference between Erwin Panofsky's and Hubert Damisch's approaches to art history. Oh, and Damisch is only on the French wiki! so Good luck with that! See? that would be unkind. God forbid someone on the "Simple English" wiki try to make a suggestion on the Bugzilla site. Sorry, it apparently has me upset. Saudade7 14:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Bugzilla is a program we use. Not one that is part of the wiki or one that we can easily change. Rmhermen 14:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, can't we have the fields ALREADY SET to a usable value? Then the bugzilla people can come in and recategorize them if/when necessary. ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 03:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:INSPECTOR (currently at User:PHDrillSergeant/house). This is an essay that I wrote today, based of a recent discussion of mine and a stroke of writer's fingers. I am wondering what you think of this, and ways that I can make this better. I doubt this will ever pass into guideline status, but as an essay I think it's great to go alongside WP:STUB. ~ PHDrillSergeant...§ 03:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me. The story help illustrate the problem you're addressing. Od Mishehu 11:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Redirected it to Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built. Any better ideas for a title? ~ PHDrillSergeant...§ 03:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

How about Wikipedia:Pro-life, since we're arguing against aborting fetal articles :) Or would that be too distasteful...

Equazcion • argue/improves • 04:57, 10/3/2007

Funny, but yes, distasteful. But funny. ~ PHDrillSergeant...§ 20:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

A modest proposal. I post here as neutral ground; on GA talkpages people are naturally sympathetic to GA, while on FA people are often hostile. First, PR is perenially backlogged—plenty of noms, insufficient feedback. Second, there are systemic problems with GA that are brought up fairly regularly. The Wikipedia:Good article review notes rather melodramatically "This is not a Peer Review Process;". I hope that's not a shibboleth of the people involved in the process. I won't get into mechanics yet—there are various ways it might happen. I'd just like to see a show of hands if the idea might be further considered and then a workshop page can be started. Advantages:

• Reduces overhead. While a quick and easy process has long been touted as GA's advantage, Wikipedia:Good article nominations is quite possibly the most cluttered page I've seen in the Wikipedia namespace.
• It merges cohorts and revives PR. Everybody in one place with more eyes on any given review. The central pass/fail structure of GA would remain, while it would take the PR title. (Editors could request a regular PR without a pass/fail.) The review could still be short.
• It finally brings GA into the FA fold. PR is the stream meant to feed FAC. Cosmetic renames of GA pages (candidates --> nominations and review --> reassessment) can't disguise the fact that GA remains a parallel process.
• By moving the reviews off of article talk it avoids buddy-buddy passes. An example was provide here. I don't think this is endemic to GA but surely it must happen sometimes.

As I say, the mechanics can wait. General feedback welcome. Marskell 13:28, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

My initial reaction is negative, to be honest. When you say that the PR name will supplant the GA name, are you proposing that the GA rating will be dropped? If so, will an equivalent ranking be introduced? I am thinking about what happens to articles that are good, but are not going to reach FA standard at any point in the foreseeable future because of the limitations of the subject matter and/or available sources or material. For that reason, I have a vested interest in seeing GA remain as an article rank. How it is awarded is obviously less important from that point of view, so if the system was "improved" in some way, that would be OK. I used quote marks because I do not believe that it needs to be fixed. PR may be quiet (I don't participate in it, but I would if I had the time to spare) but I thought that it was a path on the route to FA, whereas GA may (sometimes must) be an endpoint in article development. I'm sure someone will say that "all articles can be FAs", which I have read before, but that is not necessarily the case in practice. I think that the two systems may be too different to merge. Adrian M. H. 13:44, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

There would still be an equivalent rank. My preference would be "Passed peer review"; alternatively, "Good article" could be retained. Marskell 13:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

In general, I like it; it could help address the backlog at peer review and some of the GA problems at the same time. However, currently peer review serves more than FA/GA needs, so I have two questions. How would a merged process handle

1. an article that has passed GA but wants an additional peer review to help prepare for FAC,
2. an article that isn't nearly ready for GA, but wants a peer review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:04, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

1. The nominator could leave it up as long as useful commentary was arriving; it could pass but still be on the page.
2. Two sections—it wouldn't be unmanageable.

On manageability, I did a quick WordPerfect check: GAC (excluding all the extraneous warnings and messages) and GAR have apx. 1150 words each; FAC and FAR have apx. 750 each (and are much easier on the eyes, IMO). Looking it over, there seems a delirious amount of overhead involved in GA—the exact opposite of what that process is supposed to be about. Marskell 14:19, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The extra words are needed precisely because thr process is lightweight: a single editor can list an article, and a single editor can delist an article. Therefore there need to be more detailed instructions. Some of the instructions could probably be rewritten and phrased more concisely, but that is irrelevant to this discussion. Geometry guy 14:56, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I would be against such an idea. Peer review must surely remain a completely optional and collaborative process, with no stick or carrot involved. It doesn't matter much that the peer review page is backlogged because most of us know that the way to get peer reviews is to ask someone we know, who we think will make useful suggestions; Wikipedia will always lack reviewers in whatever forum. It is rarely that one receives a peer review there out of the blue, though I think it is worth posting requests there, in case Wikipedia appears the work of cliques of friends.

I don't think GAC is equivalent to peer review, because it is institutionally jugemental, like FAC. GA is not a clear process, and we all have different views of it. For me, it is for articles with a smaller range, ones that are perhaps less comprehensive in sourcing. This last point doesn't mean that the sourcing is necessarily inferior: with some topics one learns very little more by turning to more and more sources. qp10qp 14:44, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair points. So two discreet questions then.

1. Is there anyway to rejig PR to make it work? A list of users willing to help with particular topics and then sub-PR pages? "Most of us know that the way to get peer reviews is to ask someone we know." Agreed—I skip PR and GA both and simply notify people who edit in the topic area when I go to FAC. Perhaps lists of "these are the people to ask" would serve far better.
2. Is there anyway to streamline GA, eliminate the parallelism, and eliminate the inconsistency? I'm sorry, but you can't tell me WP:GAC is a sensible page that speaks to a simple process. I find it confusing as hell (if nothing else, the layout needs a serious overhaul). WP:GAR is 153 kb. Insofar as that indicates people stopping by, good. But why does this apparently streamlined process need to waste so much on its delisting process? I think GA has clearly wandered toward into process over content territory. Marskell 15:18, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Why would we want to merge two processes that are constantly backlogged? That's just going to be a bigger backlog in one place. And then to say that articles could just remain listed on the page if there is a want for further review? No. GA has enough going on, we don't need to complicate the process. And who cares how we compare to FA? It's clear that FA, as a project, views GA as a mentally-handicapped step-brother. You can look through any discussion regarding GA that has FA participation and it's just a bandwagon of hate, disrespect and ignorant calls for project deletion. We're two separate projects, and should remain as such. Just as GA and PR are two separate processes, and should remain as such. Lara❤Love 15:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
• As far as Marskell's last comment, how is WP:GAN confusing? There are 11 main categories with various subcategories. You find the category that your article falls under and list it. Then reviewers, who have interest or knowledge in certain categories go to those to find articles to review. We have tags to let it be known when an article is already under review so no one else goes to review it. We have tags that let it be known when it is on hold and when there is a request for a second opinion. Past that, as far as your last comment, perhaps such judgments should be reserved for those who actually have some knowledge of what's going on in the project, because your comment is completely dated considering all the current changes being implemented. Lara❤Love 15:28, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The page begins with four template notices prior to the content. You then have 1100 words to digest, hard to read with the different width parameters, and including six separate number lists with a total of 27 bullet points. Capped by two large and ugly warning tags. (And why does it need to bluelink every process page after the first mention?) After reading there's just so many instructions that I still don't know what's what. ("Please note, however, that most of the requirements of the Good Article criteria are formal, not substantive"?). I think it's process creep at its worst—and this on a project that claims just the opposite.

And none of this "hate, disrespect and ignorant calls for project deletion." Marskell 16:01, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments on the GAN page. I doubt it is process creep; I suspect that the instructions have not been reviewed for some time — indeed, some are out-of-date. The GAR guidelines have been looked at recently, and are hopefully a bit clearer as a result. I'm having a look at GAN in the light of your suggestions now. Geometry guy 18:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, just to be sure I'm understanding this correctly... You note that there are backlogs at PR and GAN, and that GAN has far too many instructions on the page to the point it's cluttered and confusing. Am I right so far? Your proposal to remedy this is to combine the two backlogged processes into GAN—which would add further instructions and created a double backlog—and encourage it to stay backlogged as nominators could "leave it up as long as useful commentary was arriving; it could pass but still be on the page." Am I missing something? I am blonde, so perhaps I'm completely off, in which case, I apologize. But if I'm not wrong with that assessment, consider this a strong oppose. GAN is not a peer review process. Nor should it be.

Also, as has been stated by FA participants more times than I care to recall, "GA is not and should not be a stepping stone to FA." Do I agree with that statement? No. But that's the feeling that has been expressed by FA on multiple occasions. So it's obvious that FA does not want to be connected in any way to GA, so why would we merge into a process that "is the stream meant to feed FA"? And, last thing, I forgot to respond to earlier. That ArbCom diff from Bishonen is hyperbolized, so it really is unnecessary that it be pasted as an example of GA failing (which I've seen twice today). Lara❤Love 16:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

"The backlogs would be combined." Ah, but as I say, the cohorts of reviewers would also be combined. Assume on that basis that the overall backlog will neither increase nor decrease. But it will decrease, for one reason: where there is no loss of process, one page is always better than two. People who were only seeing one of the two will be seeing all of it. Reviewers who don't normally mingle at GA may be more tempted to. "GAN is not a peer review process. Nor should it be." Why this article of faith? We're here for one reason: to improve content. Tagging for the sake it is a waste bandwith. qp10qp's point—that we need a PR without a carrot and stick involved—is a strong one. So perhaps reform can be approached differently.

"GA is not and should not be a stepping stone to FA." I have not argued that. I've taken two articles that were GA to FA this year and have a third posted at this moment. That they were GA was incidental to me—I would have worked on them regardless. I have argued that GA should be married to FA somehow. To do that would require surgery—all of what's redundant between the processes would need to be stripped out of GA and it would need to refocus to fill holes in the larger FA process. Identifying short articles and revitalizing PR seem two obvious areas where that might happen. Marskell 17:00, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I always thought the way to "fix" Peer Review would be to add a note formally encouraging submitters to also be reviewers. People submitting articles for Peer Review could encourage reviews for their article by reviewing another article already there, something like - "Here is my detailed review of your article. If you liked my suggestions, can you similarly review my article here?". Since there is no carrot of "passed peer review" there won't be any incentive to "pass" the other article, just to get detailed comments and opinions. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 17:04, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Every PR I've ever seen has been conducted by someone I've seen participating in GA. That's not to say there aren't reviewers that do only PR, but I seriously doubt there would be any that wouldn't know about GA. This proposal makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. I'm fine with putting a length limit on GA and sticking to shorter articles, but that seems unfair to longer articles that can't meet FA standards. But whatever. But GA and PR are not alike. PR points out all of the little nitpicks that aren't required in GA but are for FA. Many GA reviewers, including myself, will go ahead and point those things out as an aside, or just correct them ourselves (use of dashes, for example) but there are too many articles nominated at GAN for us to keep up with at our current level of participation, so there's no way that adding in PR, which sits idle for the most part, is going to improve anything for GA. Lara❤Love 17:22, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The cohorts are the same, you mean? Then the point still holds: same overall backlog. (Of course, they can't be exactly the same.) How do you intend your 'can't' in "...but that seems unfair to longer articles that can't meet FA standards." Fundamentally 'can't' or just aren't there yet? Show me, say, five articles on the current GA list that can't be FA. In short checks previously, I've never seen any. Marskell 17:47, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Im a normal editor. I mostly write articles. I once wrote up an article that I wished to bring up to standards of excellence. I looked at FA and GA both. I felt that FA was a difficult process with a lot of nitpicking forcing me to look up and learn absolutely endless points of wikigrammar. In GA I found, that I could get guidance, encouragement from one person in the process and that they had reasonable standards which seemed achievable to me. It wasn't as easy as I thought but I made it and that article later became GA. Just one article but one of which Im exceedingly proud of.

Later, I wanted to review articles. Again I looked at the three places I could do so, Peer Review, GA and FA. I felt I should do Peer Review only if I had at least some qualification on the topic for me to be a peer - this severely limited the scope of articles I felt I could tackle. When I looked at FA, I found that one had to know all those nitpicking details which require the highest standards to be attained. Now thats far too much hard work! I found GA criteria easy to understand and implement. As I did it I found that I could help bring about tangible changes beneficial to the article in the most important place - content. Hence I did six reviews there and it gave me tremenduous satisfaction. I am not saying that FA is a bad thing or that the reviews there are meaningless. All I am saying there is an optimal set of 'good' standards which gives a great sense of satisfaction to most people, all of whom may not be interested in reaching the rarefied heights of FA. The GA process can also form a kind of mentoring or peer review process while the article improves between reviwer and editors undertaking the changes; whereas the FA process seems to me like an inquisition. Peer review seemed like a place where nobody hangs out much any more. Hence I am of the opinion that I want both to remain - GA and FA. GA to me is like the middle class in my country, the common man. FA seems to me the upper class. Both are required to co-exist. Like the common man may aspire to reach higher status in society I may aspire for some of my articles to reach FA also, so thats how I would like to think of both of them. These are my opinions and I dont speak for anybody else. Hence Strong oppose to merge with Peer Review. Revamp Reer Review and make it relevant. AshLin 19:55, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much for this comment. GA still has a lot of work to do before it can shake off its history, overcome misconceptions, and earn the respect of the community, but this post shows how far it has come on the path to what it could be. It isn't there yet, but the experience you express comes very close to what I think GA should be about. Geometry guy 21:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we just get rid of PR? People just ask people they know to look over articles for them because everyone knows that PR has basically degraded to automated reviews anyway. I get asked all the time to do copy-edits for FA. So why don't we just get rid of PR altogether? That's pretty much all I've got left for this discussion. I don't have time for scouring through articles for this, especially considering I don't get it at all. Just so we're all clear, it a strong oppose from me. Lara❤Love 19:29, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I think internal restructuring of PR seems best as a start, thinking over these comments. Marskell 19:54, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I think these "automated reviews" might be part of PR's problem. I have never found them actual useful, and I don't think the scripts are at the point where they can actually be useful to improving the article. It just lists a bunch of "issues" with the article, mainly grammar and wikifying-related, and tends to scare people seeking useful information on improving it that might not be familiar with all the copyediting and stuff. Dr. Cash 00:56, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The automated reviews also waste time in pointing out frequent mistakes that aren't necessarily present in the article being reviewed. I put Maroon 5 through PR before going for GA and found it to be a complete waste of time. I spent a good hour looking through the article based on the PR automated suggestions only to find I didn't have many of those problems. So that was the first and the last PR request by me. Lara❤Love 14:12, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

• Support but more the angle of GA assuming PR, not the other way around. I personally believe the sentiment "GAN is not a peer review process. Nor should it be."" is a faulty premise for many of the reasons that Marskell noted-namely that we are here to improve content in the Encyclopedia. I think a lot of the structure that GA has could serve the PR process well and in the end produce better reviews and better articles. I admit a change in culture will be needed to counteract sentiments like "GA should not be PR" and it is those sentiments that caused me to take me a step back from GA and to even stop sending wine project articles there because I felt the quality of the "reviewing" process has degraded to a system of Pass/Fail with little checkmarks and plus signs. For me, the benefit of GA is the dialog between the reviewers and the editors with the common goal of improving the article. One of my most fulfilling moments on Wikipedia was my interaction with the Indonesia article as a GA Reviewer and seeing the response of some incredibly motivated editors who eventually took this article all the way to FA. I'd like to see GA return more to the cause of improving the article and working with the article's custodians rather then view that part of the process as "hand holding" or "babysitting". Wikipedia is a team process and we are all in this for the same goal. I think Marskell idea has some merit and could benefit the project. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 20:00, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Isn't the real problem with peer review the fact that people clog it with unfinished/terrible articles. It is of my personal observance that a lot of the people who want articles peer reviewed have barely worked on or will not work on the article in question, do not really follow defined guidelines and/or poorly source articles providing limited information. My suggestion would be to enforce the "articles that have already undergone extensive work" caution, by systematically removing poor articles, ofcourse the problem with this approach is WP:BITE and avoiding mis-use. Ideas? 74.13.97.237 21:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Good points (both anon and Agne). Re anon, we do need to be careful not to have all of our content reviews about our best articles. Indeed, the best argument against my proposal is that it doesn't pay enough attention to those sort of middle-of-the-road articles that aren't really prepped for GA or FA. Reading all, I think a fullscale merger won't work. We should work through the projects and PR as it stands to encourage topic specific reviews on PR. And then move away from this massive, little watched page. And then, maybe, GA becomes unneeded as projects and individual pass/fail groups on sub-PR pages gain legitimacy—declaring, basically, "this is passable for the subject area." Possible... Marskell 21:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

A word of caution about Project-specific reviewing-One of the strongest benefits of the GA process is the ability to get an outside, third party view of the article. Sometimes a project becomes so involved with an article that it becomes too close to objectively review the strengths and weaknesses in the article. The structure of GA can serve that angle very well and I don't think project-specific reviewing can replace that. The current PR structure also gives that benefit but the problem it is has is a lack of reviewers. One question that you may want to look at is how does GA & FA attract and retain reviewers while PR goes largely forgotten. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 21:40, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Any articles that are not sufficiently up to scratch for a peer review can be directed to RFF. Adrian M. H. 22:04, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I think one of the main reasons why GA & FA are so successful, and PR is not, in terms of numbers of reviewers, is that GA & FA are both connected to specific criteria and reviewers effectively "grade" an article based on that criteria. PR seems to be just a review, and reviewers aren't grading an article based on specific criteria; instead, they're just offering tips on how to improve the article based on very loose manual of style guidelines. GA & FA ask reviewers to effectively assign a grade (GA status or FA status), based on this criteria. If PR was more closely associated to the rating scale (stub, start, B, A), perhaps it would be more successful and attract reviewers. The difficulty here is that every single wikiproject is going to want to come up with their own criteria, which could be confusing to someone that reviews an article at the main PR page without being familiar with the specific wikiproject criteria. Dr. Cash 00:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Excellent points. From a reviewer retention point of view, with GA & FA you have the structure plus a sense of "power" in awarding a designated ranking. PR does seem a bit aimless in that regard and not a very "sexy" project to get align with. The question then is, how do we jazz it up and make it more interesting and intriguing for a reviewer to get involved with? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 01:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, no. In my opinion the best thing about peer review is that the pressure is off and that no one has a sense of power. One doesn't want a rating scale when one brings an article there to see how it is coming along; it may not be the finished product yet, and one may simply be looking for fresh eyes.qp10qp 01:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

What about "categories" of article status that one could submit and have their review done under the appropriate light? Such as Category A: Starting pointing, Category B: Pre-GA, Category C: Pre-FA etc. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 07:41, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps if PR had the addition of specific project guidelines for reviewers to user while conducting the review. For example, scientific articles have their own guide, as well as pro wrestling. Without setting standard criteria for PR, it could be topic specific in the cases of those articles that fall under a particular project. Lara❤Love 05:57, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment May not be that relevant, but can I just say that I very much enjoy Peer Review, and see its value as quite different to FA/GA. In a peer review you can just go through all the things that occur to you that would improve an article, without worrying whether you've nailed all the problems. At FA/GA I feel I must go through all criteria, before I can give a pass/fail decision. This is why I very rarely vote at FA, and very rarely pass at GA. :) A lot of GA, and even FA, reviews don't make the kind of systematic assessment that perhaps they should. 4u1e 00:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment There are a lot of assessment and evaluation pages and methods around; GA, FA and PR, of course, but also the League of Copyeditors, and the A and B ratings from the WikiProjects, and the Stub and Start ratings. The current system is not producing top-quality encyclopedia articles as fast as we would like it to, and it can't scale well. There are other problems: for example, a commonly cited one is that it is not easy to find competent reviewers to assess the content of some of the more esoteric articles. These are not problems with any of the methods or pages; they're general problems.

I think it might be productive to establish a workshop page and request participation from all of the above groups, without any assertion that any of them are either the problem or the answer. Perhaps that workshop could address things in this order:

• What are the goals and requirements of assessment methods? Produce quality articles, train editors, provide kudos to dedicated contributors, connect experts to articles needing content review, . . . ?
• What shortcomings are there with the current methods? Failure to scale, lack of reliable content review, shortage of reviewers, too many levels of assessment (Stub/Start/B/GA/A/FA), not enough levels of assessment, . . . ?
• What things get done well by which groups? What volume do they achieve?
• What's the best resource within WP for each of the problems? E.g. can the military history WikiProject assert that it will certify content on military articles? Could a MOS-expert group evaluate solely on MOS-compliance? Could we advertise within WP? Could we provide additional kudos?

At that point there might be enough consensus on some of these issues to be able to go back to the list of existing resources and make concrete suggestions about how to make them all work better. Getting a group together that draws on the good and bad experience of each of these content-quality mechanisms might lead to some synthesis that would have incremental suggested improvements. Working on defining goals before solutions seems to me to have the best chance of succeeding. Mike Christie (talk) 01:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

That's brilliant. But can it be done? Can we get all these projects to work together? A similar idea has been proposed in GA, but it was specific to GA. The inclusion of experts from various projects in the review process of technical articles. To do this project wide would be extremely beneficial, but what are the true chances for consensus on this? Lara❤Love 05:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Mike has a REALLY neat idea there. There has long been some level of animosity between the various methods of assessment, and it would be nice to see some real colaboration to achieve a unified method of article assessment. This seems like the kind of project that could really improve things; I would whole-heartedly support this idea... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like the right approach - surely working together on the problem is the spirit of Wikipedia? If I can add another topic that might be worth discussing in such a group: What does each group expect from the others? It strikes me that some of the friction between groups is down to a mismatch in expectations. 4u1e 09:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

That seems very true. GA and the Math project, for example, have hit rough waters more than once. While things aren't peaches and cream at this point, I think (although I may be wrong) that this may be something they would be interested in. It includes their participation to evaluate the work that they are educated in. It's beneficial for everyone. In fact, in that groups don't get along for such reasons is a very good reason for them to be involved in this. Their participation fills the hole in the review process, which a is lack of expert knowledge, and one of the main problem academic/technical articles have when going through GA and FA. Lara❤Love 12:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

As part of the purpose of this thread was to generate traction for a workshop I have started one: Wikipedia:Content review/workshop. I actually moved the Wikipedia:General review page started earlier. Marskell 12:54, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I will add: I have no desire to repeat the ATT disaster. This needs to work slowly and not on an all-or-nothing basis. Marskell 13:30, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Then this is not the way to proceed. I also think Mike's idea is great, and agree it needs to proceed slowly. So why set up the workshop page now, while the recent arguments are so fresh, then start to lay out an agenda already? Under "Specific criticisms", the questions raised are loaded, and the statements are not neutral. Compare these with the questions Mike asks above, which are open ended, and present multiple points of view.

Please, can we wait a week or so, and let Mike set up something along the lines he suggested after the dust has settled here. If we are not patient at the outset, the process will be doomed before it even starts. Geometry guy 18:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It's Mike's concept. I think he should set up a page for the beginning efforts to get this going. Discussions should be picked up there and this idea built into a project. Lara❤Love 17:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Erm, I think I'm at the right place to make a proposal. I was thinking that although wikipedia may not be censored, I believe we should have a template that warns users that "this article may contain content that some users may find inappropriate for younger readers." Or something along those lines —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hadseys (talk • contribs) 19:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

A better place to ask might be Wikipedia:Requested templates. Andrwsc 19:53, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Which states "Please do not request or create disclaimer templates, such as "this page contains offensive content". Wikipedia is not censored." so it probably won't be accepted. Adrian M. H. 20:02, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, as we're not censored, that's not going to happen. Disclaimers like that have generally been seen as a form of censorship. Do entries in Brittanica have disclaimers like that? SamBC(talk) 21:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Not that Britannica is our standard... OES23 21:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

It's an example. Encyclopedias don't generally carry warnings about the content of articles. SamBC(talk) 22:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

O RLY?.--Ybbor^Talk 22:12, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a disclaimer for the whole of wikipedia. No disclaimers per article, or rather no disclaimers of the ilk of censorship. SamBC(talk) 22:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Well then, what about this?68.101.123.219 16:41, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Those are, again, disclaimers that apply to entire resources and not to single articles.... TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:54, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think that if you look up "penis", "sex", "murder", "rape" etc. you know that it's not going to be pretty. Most articles which could be viewed as offensive, are obviously offensive just from glancing at the title. Cheers! --Puchiko 00:31, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I know that wikipedia is not censored, but I also know that some images out there may be disturbing to some viewers; I have previously had trouble with this myself. I can instruct my broswer to disable images, but not everyone can do that. I have worked out a compromise: perhaps we should institute a system in which potentially disturbing images (most likley human anatomy, usually injuries etc) should be hidden and replaced with a link saying "this image may be disturbing to some viewers" or something similar, with the option to display the image placed underneath this warning. I think this would be very useful for more squeamish viewers; admittedly it probably be annoying to put this in for all existing distrubing images, but I think worth considering.211.30.132.2 11:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this one a perennial proposal? If someone's looking at an article about a disease or injury, it shouldn't be surprising to see a relevant image. SamBC(talk) 11:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The other problem is how we would flag an image as being disturbing. Disturbing does not mean the same thing for all people (Think of pictures portraying Muhammad for some Muslims, or a spoiler). -- lucasbfr ^talk (using User:Lucasbfr2) 13:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

That would require we totally abandon no disclaimers in articles as it would be considered a disclaimer, which are generally not allowed in articles. And SamBC has a good point, if you go to the article penis or gangrene, why should you expect the pictures to be totally non-objectionable? Mr.Z-man 23:50, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't really think that would qualify as a disclaimer if it were implemented the right way. It would be a feature meant to help people, not a legal disqualifier to protect Wikipedia. It could also be an opt-in feature, via an option in Preferences. There is still the problem of the subjectivity of objectionable material though.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 23:55, 09/26/2007

This is a proposal that only ends as a true slippery slope. In the United States there are people who are offended by almost anything except Hummels and the music of The Carpenters. I think that the above responses are correct, if you don't want to see an image of eyeball surgery, don't click on that link. Visual information *is* information and sometimes it is not pretty. But it is more important to have information available than to censor it because some people have lived sheltored lives, (if a person grew up in a bloody war zone I doubt a picture of breast enhancement surgery would be shocking or offensive to them) or because they believe in some kind of god that says they shouldn't look at certain things. And I guess I am a person who is, frankly, tired of having to always click here and there to get access to certain material just because the default settings on everything cater to the most squeamish and easily offended sectors of society. I'm not even talking about pornography, but just basic art historical images and such. And as far as kids go, they are the parent's responsibility in this matter, not mine. If people actually had intelligent engaging discussions with their children about why people do and say and believe the things they do, the children could handle seeing, hearing and knowing pretty much anything. "Childhood" in the West was only *invented* in the early 19th century. There are children fighting guerilla wars right now as I type this. It isn't right, but neither is the world, and I am sick of having my access to things curtailed or restricted or even just slowed down because someone, somewhere might be offended by seeing a picture or hearing a noise (word). Sorry if that was a rant. I'm a historian of visual culture and I actually do consider this kind of thing a form of censorship in the guise of etiquette and politesse. Take care, Saudade7 12:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I expect you can find people offended by Hummels and the Carpenters too, if you look hard enough. *Dan T.* 12:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

True, but I bet they aren't censoring types. Saudade7 13:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

If my only choices are Hummels and the Carpenters, I too would break out the blue pen! Some things just aren't meant to be... Donal Fellows 22:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

(off-topic) I never really had that sort of *talk* with my parents; I just read everything I could find and then reasoned it myself. ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 03:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Definitely not by default. Perhaps we could allow users to set this under preferences, but I do agree with the points made earlier, that people can be offended by just about anything, and that looking up a term is agreeing to exposure to these images. And having to click a link to view an image is annoying, often I just glance at the image to get a general idea. As for children, that is pretty obvious. Either you trust your kid to not look up such images. Or you don't. Well then, supervise his or her computer activity. If you can't do that, don't get the kid Internet access. Oh, and by the way, seeing a picture, won't immediately transform a kid into a violent perverse monster. Cheers!--Puchiko 00:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This is not quite on the subject of the talk, BUT important. I sometimes work from a very slow connection and the loading of immages gums it up compleatly. I would like a possibility to set a flag "no unrequested images.Seniorsag 15:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

You might be interested in the Opera web browser, then. If you put it in "show downloaded images only" mode, then by default it won't download images, but instead show placeholders. You can right-click on any image you want to see, and select "reload image" to show it. --Carnildo 02:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe there is also a Firefox add-on to get the same behavior. Anomie 03:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Since we have Wikipedia, WikiQuote, WikiNews, etc., why not run a parallel site called Wiki Trivia, and you can finally take all those intersting little factoids and Simpsons quotes that are littering otherwise encyclopedic articles, and find a home for them? 139.48.81.98 17:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

See Meta:WikiTrivia. ;)

Equazcion • argue/improves • 17:26, 10/4/2007

I wanted to suggest making a summary chart with the presidential candidates and their positions on different issues for the US presidential elections. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.208.53 (talk) 15:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Such an effort would belong in the article on the 2008 US presidential elections... however, it would be very much at risk of contain original research, particularly improper synthesis. SamBC(talk) 16:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Complex issues are not summarized a two-words-or-less position. For example, Senator X who votes against a pork-laden border fence bill could have "Illegal immigration       Approves" in the chart.—Twigboy 18:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

A specific example of my point exactly... SamBC(talk) 21:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Because of the potential problems with bias, original reserach, and improper synthesis illustrated very clearly above, such a chart is beyond the scope of Wikipedia. However, our article on the United States presidential election, 2008 does contain a list of all of the candidates along with links to their campaign sites. You should be able to find out each candidate's position that way. Cheers, TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Dear Folks, > How about adding a web link to your opening article pages that would link the > encyclopedia web page with the corresponding Wiki travel page? I like reading > your articles but it is awkward to then go to the travel web site page. Thanks > and keep up the good job! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Flfruitcake (talk • contribs) 14:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

We do have such a link on some articles. See {{Wikitravel}}, and Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Wikitravel for a list of the pages which include it. Wikitravel is not affiliated to the Wikimedia Foundation, and we have no policy on whether it should be linked to that I'm aware of. If you want to add links to a few of your favourite geographical articles, I doubt anyone will object. If you want to add Wikitravel links to lots of articles, it might be best to get a bit more feedback on the idea first.-gadfium 22:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I have a dynamic IP that regularly cycles through a series of IP addresses owned by my ISP, a lot of which have been exposed to wikipedia. As a result I'm regularly getting messages directed at prior users as early as 2004/2005. In one case I got banned because an admin assumed bad faith due to templates left for another editor (I removed an unsourced trivia section, and then found out the talk page for the IP I was using had received the full set of warnings the month before). As a result, there are several problems I can see with retaining messages on an IP talk page:

• IP's are dynamic, the messages will often get directed at the wrong user
• Very rarely will someone leave a message of significant value on a IP talk page (eg discussion on how to improve an article), these tend to be restricted to the article's talk page or that of an identified user
• The messages can paint an editor in the wrong light, causing disruption to their editing
• The messages can scare off users from not only editing wikipedia (and eventually creating an account) but also possibly from reading the encyclopedia at all

Hence I propose that the user/talk pages of anonymous IP addresses get deleted after a period of inactivity on behalf of that IP address (say 1 week or 1 month). That way we avoid sending messages to the wrong person and prevent a clutter of temporary pages that we don't need.

(sorry if there is a technical reason why this cannot be done. I'm under the assumption that the dates from special:contributions can be easily extracted, if this is not possible then maybe the time since the last edit on the IP's talk page should be the determining factor. I'm envisioning a semiautomated bot which can only access IP talk pages, with an admin checking that each one is valid)

124.184.171.224 13:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

A better solution for you and wikipedia both would be to just register for an account and do away with anonymous editing altogether. Most IP/Anonymous users are vandals anyway, offering very little productive edits to the encyclopedia,... Dr. Cash 00:45, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you have evidence for that claim? People who've actually studied the matter have found that only about 25% of all IP edits are vandalism. --Carnildo 01:13, 1 October 2007

(UTC)

25% is a very big number, but we should be careful to avoid disparaging the other 75%. The "drop in" IP edits are often very helpful, especially for copy edits to articles they came to WP wanting to read. They repair a lot of vandalism as well, though some of those sorts of repairs are by IP editors removing their own horseplay.Professor marginalia 15:19, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I could support such a bot clearing of IP talk pages only for cleaning up the old "Welcome to WP but go play in the sandbox" and other minor warnings only. I would not support cleaning up templates or messages which are intended as a "head's up" to inform other editors, especially those working the vandalism patrol or identified sock, etc. 1 week or 1 month are both too short, however.Professor marginalia 15:19, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

In reference to a thread at ANI, [12], where a vandal recreated an old account that had been renamed. Don't want to create too much, well, bureaucracy for the bureaucrats, still want to leave the option open for new users to take the username. So how about when accounts are renamed, the old account name is automatically recreated by the bureaucrat potentially with some sort of template notice saying that to acquire the account name requires usurpation or something? Is it possible to balance this out with the standard redirects to the new userpages? Basically, let's add an extra step to obtain a username that has been in use. ~Eliz81^(C) 17:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Some users theoretically might not want or care about recreating their old name, so adding a "Would you like a bureaucrat to recreate your old name?" question to the WP:CHU process might be good. The biggest problem I'm seeing with bureaucrats recreating the old username is figuring out what the password of the account would be and who would have control of the account - the bureaucrat or the user. Also, while unnecessary, it might be nice for Extension:Renameuser to have an option to automatically recreate the old username when renaming. --- RockMFR 21:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't the lists of MMOGs ("List of MMOGs" and "List of free MMOGs") have another section on the page for each game? "contact info required?" This would tell whether or not you must give out contact information (phone number and/or email, and/or mailing address) in order to create/run a file/account on these games. Zantaggerung 01:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds fine, feel free to be bold and do it yourself, if you want help implementing this plan i would suggest going to the articles talk page because the village pump is more for stuff with wikipedia wide effects. -Icewedge 01:26, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I've felt that we need a more organized system of managing articles for some time, but I'm getting tired of seeing an important article get trashed by a vandal, have the vandalism go by improperly fixed by a novice, and the article as a result deteriorate over time, with nobody being aware that anything has happened. We need a more organized system of article watching and regular review, though we just don't have the manpower to do it. Beginning with watchlists would be a start though. We need to be able to look at an article and know if it is being watched. If one watches an article for a while or spends some time going through the history section, one can probably figure out who seems to keep an eye on it. But this isn't good enough - an experienced editor should be able to obtain this information immediately and with certainty. If I find an article is being messed around with and nobody is repairing the damage, I want to know if there is somebody watching it or not. If not, somebody needs to; an appropriate Wikiproject could be contacted for example. If there is, they need to get their act together and do a better job of keeping it in good condition. If they can't do it alone, more watchers need to be recruited. We have the 'maintained' tag, but that has always tended to suggest the 'maintainer' is a scholar in that field. Ideally, we would have an expert on each subject watching that article, but anybody would be better than nothing.

Let me give an example from my experiences today. I visit the article animal, one of the most important in biology. I see it is somehow smaller than before. Something has happened. I go to the page history, replete with thousands of edits, and try to find what happened. Eventually I reach something almost two weeks ago that seems to be the problem: a vandal deleted sections, and a relatively new editor tried to fix it but missed some of the deletions [13]. If somebody was watching this article they would never not notice something that major. Yet it still happened, and nobody seems to be any wiser. The reality is that someone probably is watching this article and has let it slip by. But I have no way to be sure someone is watching it. And if there is, I can't exactly complain to them can I?

We need to put in place a system where people can see who is watching an article. If people don't wish others to know that information, perhaps they could opt out via preferences (though it is no more of a privacy issue than being able to look through their contributions really). Alternatively, people could add their name to the talk page or somewhere else as a 'watcher', or via some indirect means, e.g. adding a template that links to articles they watch on their user page and being able to find these (e.g. via 'what links here') from the page itself. Another option is letting people select articles from their watchlist that they publicly proclaim to be watching and thereby take responsibility for their maintenance and care. They could appear in bold on the list, for example.

One problem is that vandals can find unwatched articles, but most vandals are unlikely to even know about the watchlist system, let alone how to access that information, and I believe the benefits would outweigh the costs anyway. If it was a concern, don't let anons or even newly registered users see the information. Another is that users may no longer be active but still have things on their watchlist, or they may not go through their watchlist carefully. A way of excluding those who are currently inactive would help with the first issue. On the other hand, if they had to explicitly opt in as a watcher, there would be few people doing so at first, and they may feel reluctant to take on that responsibility. There will also be those that whine about 'ownership', even if the job of the so called 'owner' is nothing more than cleaning up graffiti. But we need to be more responsible for our encyclopedia. Someone coming here should have someone they can complain to if an article is not being looked after. There should be someone there who will get the vandalism that slips through recent changes. It's a very big task to embark on but we need to start working towards it. We need to work out how to put this in place and then get people involved. Hopefully in future we will be able to say that every article on Wikipedia has someone out there looking after it, and those that receive a lot of traffic will have a dozen such people - perhaps even someone watching 24/7, or near to it. We could even start a WikiProject - perhaps "Wikipedia:WikiProject Quality control", to implement and coordinate such an effort. Is anybody with me on this, or do we just want to hope that a disorganized system will catch all the problems by itself? Richard001 02:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

IMO, the above is a mixed bag of proposals. Wikipedia:WikiProject Quality control is not a bad idea (too bad the shortcut WP:QC is already taken); it would overlap to some extent with Wikipedia:RC patrol, Wikipedia:New pages patrol, Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit, and such. A "these users watch this article for vandalism" template like {{maintained}} might not hurt, although it could as easily be a part of the banner for the above mentioned WikiProject as a generic banner. I think public watchlists are not such a good idea, although if anyone really wants one they can always just create Special:Mypage/Watchlist and use Special:Recentchangeslinked to watch the pages on it. I think the chances of vandals looking for unwatched articles is greatly underestimated. Anomie 03:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah that's why the unwatched articles special page is restricted to admins. Not a good idea. The template thing maybe.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 03:25, 09/23/2007

You are already aware of the problems with keeping a list or count of the users watching each article. A substantial proportion of the really active users are admins and have access to the list of unwatched articles, but that list only includes the first 1000 such articles and currently doesn't get as far as articles beginning with the letter 'a'. Providing a complete list of unwatched articles, or a mechanism which allows an admin to see a count of watchers for any page, would be more helpful, but I think this latter cannot be done efficiently with the current database structure.

I think a public watchlist is a better idea. I maintain one for vandalism-prone New Zealand-related articles. If Wikipedia:WikiProject Biology doesn't do so, perhaps you could start one.-gadfium 04:07, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Placing a template "This uses watches this page for vandalism" would be too trivial a thing for most purposes to place on a talk page, and it would require a lot of work for a person to manage them. If unwatched pages were a problem for vandals, we could solve the problem easily by only letting trusted users see the information, however we have no way of knowing telling apart trustworthy users from those who are not in an automated fashion. Even so, blocking users who have not been around X days and/or made X edits would almost certainly filter out any mischief. The administrators tool sounds useless, though it points out there are far too many articles not being watched, based on your description. People shouldn't have to become admins just to see such information though.

Having a public watchlist that is systematically gone through by people may be a functionally similar alternative or compliment. I'll think more on that possibility. Richard001 05:58, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't want the world to easily know what articles I am watching. I know it is paranoid, but as someone who is a citizen of the United States, I feel over-surveilled already. I don't actually do anything wrong, mind you, but in my country it no longer matters if you do something wrong or not. Interest in a subject is enough to get you on certain watchlists. I don't mind if the information is all encrypted and just shows numbers/statistics, but I don't want it to be like when the government records who you travel with, what books you check out of the library, who you call on the phone. Globally, there are also academics being arrested now in Germany because they were "intelligent enough" to have written certain things. I just have my reservations about "lists". Thanks, Saudade7 18:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, it isn't really an issue, Saudade. People can opt out, or, probably better still, opt in. My point was it's not all that different from look at your contribs. People seldom watch articles they've never edited. I can browse every edit you've ever made here quite easily, seeing both what you've edited and what you've written with ease using popups. I could stalk you if I wanted to, and you wouldn't even know I was doing it. It wouldn't be that big a difference. But the problem is, at the moment, I have no reasonable way of finding out if anybody is bothering to watch an article. With animal, I ended up posting a message on the talk page asking if anybody watches it. I got no reply, though someone else volunteered to start watching it. I'm still no wiser as to whether anyone was watching it in the first place; all I know is that if there were any they don't want to reply. I don't see any way in which we can hope to have decent quality here if there is no system in place to see that articles have at least one person keeping an eye on them. A public watchlist would only work if it included all articles in a given category or categories, and if it was systematically checked by everyone. I think this option is a much better idea, but nobody seems to be interested in it. Richard001 03:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

But there is a difference. I don't watch anything I edit and vice versa. I use my watchlist only to bookmark articles I've stumbled across but think I might not remember later. There are at least 100 articles that I am "watching". That said, I am a private person. I think of my edits as my publications but my watchlist as a personal journal. I know full well that people can see what I edit and thus I do so with that knowledge in mind. I spent some time before putting things on my watchlist trying to see what was on other people's watchlists, when I found that I couldn't I started adding stuff to my own. It isn't really that I have things that are perverse or dangerous that I am hiding. And as a cultural historian I am able to look at all the perverse and dangerous stuff I want without consequence. (I'm not some closeted politician from Idaho, e.g.) I just don't think people need to know everything I am slightly curious about or interested in. I don't like the way the world is turning into a system where people, with more power and access to information than I, can find out every single thing about me and yet I am kept in the dark about what corporations and my government etc. actually know about me, and especially what *they* are up to otherwise. I know it sounds paranoid, but I prefer to err on the side of caution. This world, especially the U.S. is going to hell and I just want to keep some things to myself. Saudade7 13:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's another case [14]: A driveby anon fiddling with a low profile chemistry article that I just happened to be watching. With an organized system of watching we could cover all the low profile pages systematically, avoiding this sort of crap. Richard001 00:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a Graphviz extension to MediaWiki. Why don't you use it on Wikipedia? http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GraphViz It would be awesome, and very useful for quickly making and collaborating on diagrams and graphs for articles. -- Frap 02:12, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

There's an important discussion going on at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. a.z. 01:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

After some of the discussion on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia:Requests for adminship, I've decided to try my hand at creating another desysopping proposal. Please read it over (a read of the RFC might help too) and discuss it on the talk page. Mr.Z-man 01:14, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I propose an easy checkbox to turn off signature bots, and a template that makes it easier to sign for someone who forgot to sign.--Filll 22:25, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

So, um, you want it to be easier to be lazy then. Sorry, but I find myself using {{Unsigned2}} far too often, and it gets a bit annoying. If you want to opt out of Sinebot, you can, but that is really for making edits that do not require signatures. Adrian M. H. 22:33, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I just stumbled upon Wikipedia:POV check. Seems like a semi-forgotten essay, but it has some templates and other pages (ex. Wikipedia:NPOV dispute) associated with it. How about we transform it into a noticeboard, where cases could be discussed on a one-by-one basis, as Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard and other noticeboards work so well?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  23:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

That seems like a good idea, but we should probably follow convention and create a Noticeboard sub-page of WP:NPOV. Adrian M. H. 16:40, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I think we have enough noticeboards already. NPOV disputes can be addressed by our dispute resolution process. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a pretty minor suggestion in the grand scheme of things, but I was wondering: On category pages, there are plus signs (+) next to each category so you can expand the tree to see a category's sub-categories. Those plus signs also appear next to categories that don't have any sub-categories, and if you click that plus sign, you just get a message that says "no subcategories". This is kind of annoying to me. Could we possibly eliminate the plus sign next to categories that don't have any sub-categories, so that we can see at glance which categories are expandable and which aren't, without having to click on each one?

As far as I can see, this would be a major technical change and would not be feasible. Either the category page would have to check every single sub-category when the page loads (right now, it only gets this data from the server when the button is clicked), or there would need to be a change in the database schema. --- RockMFR 03:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I can see the problem. It might be possible to keep an index or an extra field in the database table that says whether or not a category has any sub-categories... but like you said that's probably a major change. It was just a thought.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 04:54, 10/3/2007

Also, there is no category tree. It's not that organized. Many categories have several parents. (SEWilco 17:12, 6 October 2007 (UTC))

I know it's not very realistic, but Google for example will take this challenge on at some point, and you're supposed to be their match. So, what I am suggesting is taking the translator ten steps ahead - making it able to translate any sentence from any language to any language. It'll take AI experts and linguists, and a few trillion contributions from surfers who know 2 languages well(it would be trillions of trillions if not for deduction and induction software created by the AI and lingu experts), but what you'll get will be an almost perfect translator, allowing for example the immediate translation of any wiki article to all existing languages. --199.203.54.236 15:48, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

That would be excellent, yes. However, since it is currently impossible to perfectly translate texts (including all idioms, synonyms, etc) with an automated program, this solution is indeed not very realistic and couldn't be implemented in the near future. Melsaran (talk) 15:54, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The current translators do a pretty bad job and they just have two languages to worry about. I think your suggestion is jumping the gun. The technology needs to evolve some more first.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 15:57, 10/1/2007

It sounds like an interesting project and one that might work well with a wiki and some advanced extension software, but how does this relate to Wikipedia? (Not to mention, of course, that we match Google only by sheer force of number of contributors - financially, we are the molehill to their mountain, and that isn't about to change since we run on donations and will not accept advertisements.) Nihiltres^(t.l) 21:14, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Where has it ever been decreed that Wikipedia is a match for Google, or intends to be one? This is an encyclopedia, not a search engine, with a few volunteer developers, not a large paid staff. Corvus cornix 16:05, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

It would be darn near impossible, the software would have to detect not only the word, but also how the word is used. No individual word could be translated out of context for it to be perfect. In a document of 25000 words, the first sentence would have to be analyzed with respect to every other sentence, every other word, every other group of sentences, every other phrase, etc. to make sure that the original intent of the words comes across perfectly clear. Then every sentence, word, etc. would need the same done to it. Then you run into the problems: words/phrases that have no direct translation, words that even given the context can have multiple translations, things that given the context don't make any sense, how to make software that can determine context with near perfect accuracy, spelling and grammar errors in the original document, etc. Then you have to put it all together. After it is translated, it has to be logical, grammatically correct, in correct writing style, and completely coherent as if it was written by a native or extremely proficient speaker. You'd not only have to teach a computer every language: grammar rules, style, every possible word, etc. (If Microsoft Word's spelling/grammar checker is any indication, we're far from that.) But you would also have to teach it to compare the languages which is where most translation software fails miserably. You'd need immense amounts of processing power and data storage, which would cost a lot of money, the Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization; how much are you willing to donate? Mr.Z-man 03:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Mmm... Maybe you can collaborate with the government or the UN for funding. Otherwise, watch while google have their way with it. By the way, I heard about a wikia search engine in planning, but maybe it's all just talking, and they're really not up to it. --199.203.54.236 16:55, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the illustration for this article is unnecessary and probably break some law of United States. What does mean the community? This can be located in a encyclopaedia like ours? ServusDei 21:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Its probably about as tasteful an illustration of the concept as you can get and I see no reason to remove it. The image isn't crude, provides a valid and exact illustration of the article's topic, and Wikipedia isn't censored Collectonian 21:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

And the description in article isn't enough for understanding, what is a anal-oral contact? this image isn't crude?? What is crude then? ServusDei 06:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Crude is what your emotions founded in prejudices react to strongly enough to have as a opinion. Setting aside our natal and religious prejudices is part of our job here. So, our task is to make dispassionate evaluations of whether an illustration depicts the topic, or not. This one comes "close"—the tounge is not in contact though, so some could argue not close enough. Disengage the emotion, and go with the flow. Making judgments such as "crude", "obscene", is not part of the job. // FrankB 17:06, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Job is making of money. Wikipedia isn't job, it's a hobby, not more. OK, if the people here want to change wikipedia into a porno-site, I have nothing against, It's your choice. And I will stay with my "religious prejudices" ServusDei 19:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, judging "obscene" is part of the job. Any image used on Wikipedia needs to be non-obscene according to the Miller test. As a rule of thumb, any image used in an encyclopedic context is not obscene. --Carnildo 19:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the image. It's almost certainly illegal per 18USC2257. Quite apart from any issues of censorship, I don't think the Wikimedia foundation wants us to be committing felonies here. If there's an admin around, that image should be deleted and we should probably contact Paul Godwin to get a reading on how to deal with sexually explicit imagery around here. Wikidemo 20:47, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Since wikipedia is non-commercial it doesn't fall under 2257. Downstream users might have a problem. Besides, you can't see a face on the image so I don't think there is a reason to delete it or remove it from the article. Garion96 (talk) 21:36, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Contacting Paul Godwin might prove difficult btw. :) Garion96 (talk) 21:37, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

2257 has no exception for non-commercial, encyclopedic, or educational use. Nor is there an exception for cases where you cannot see the face of the "performer." If you see anything to the contrary here or in the new proposed regulations please share. Wikidemo 23:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Note, I've proposed a ban on sexually explicit imagery here because of this issue. Wikidemo 00:00, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

See [15]. I couldn't quickly find the text of the actual law. The link you added linked to civil penalties for controlled substances. Garion96 (talk) 00:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

It does not seem to apply for non-commercial and educational. See [16]. To quote "(d) Sell, distribute, redistribute, and re-release refer to commercial distribution of a book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, digitally- or computer-manipulated image, digital image, picture, or other matter that contains a visual depiction of an actual human being engaged in actual sexually explicit conduct, but does not refer to noncommercial or educational distribution of such matter, including transfers conducted by bona fide lending libraries, museums, schools, or educational organizations." Garion96 (talk) 00:54, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The law is poorly worded. The non-commercial / educational exception you quote is to "sell, distribute, re-distribute, and re-release." The law does not provide that exception for what Wikipedia does, "inserts on a computer site or service a digital image of, or otherwise manages the sexually explicit content of a computer site or service." That's why we need to look at the regulations. The regulations I linked to (which are from the Wikipedia article) got deleted, presumably in favor of the newly proposed regulations. That's why the reader is automatically defaulting up to the next regulation in the list. I'll see if I can find the regs.

Okay, found the regulations, here. The commercial requirement applies to brick and mortar distribution; all websites are covered, whether commercial or not. Wikidemo 01:57, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

In that case, you need to contact the Wikimedia Foundation's lawyer. Nobody here is qualified to deal with it. --Carnildo 02:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I just said the same thing in the other thread. -Chunky Rice 02:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What article exactly? I don't see it. See also [17] for more info. Besides, we shouldn't do anything anyway until the foundation legal counsel confirms that explicit images should go. I still don't see a legal reason to do so. Garion96 (talk) 02:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

§ 75.1(c)(2): a "secondary producer" is anyone..."who inserts on a computer site or service a digital image of, or otherwise manages the sexually explicit content of a computer site or service that contains a visual depiction of an actual human being engaged in actual sexually explicit conduct." § 75.2(a) says any producer "shall, for each performer portrayed in such visual depiction, create and maintain records containing the following:" [draconian record-keeping and record availability requirements we cannot follow]. I'm not about to launch a deletion campaign on Wikipedia without a green light from the Foundation; however, on a case-by-case basis, it's fair to say that when you think it's a felony to have the image it's best to delete the image and wait for further instructions, not leave it up until you confirm it's a felony. It's the same as if you found an actual instance of child porn on the site. But I will ask. Does anyone have Godwin's email to ask him? I must have it around here somewhere. Wikidemo 02:15, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. You shouldn't be doing anything that's based on your determination of illegality. Even if you are an attorney, that determination should not be made by you. Otherwise, what's to stop anyone from removing random content, saying that they think it's illegal? -Chunky Rice 02:25, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Also still disagree, I don't work with American law but this does not seem clear enough. Let Mike Godwin handle this. Garion96 (talk) 02:36, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing to stop anyone from doing anything on Wikipedia, that's how this thing works. But people do remove things unilaterally for all kinds of images. But I agree, we need to figure out a policy on this and be consistent. I will be asking MG. Let's see what he says. Just don't be surprised whichever way his answer comes back. Wikidemo 18:36, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

That because Wikidemo decided it was illegal and arbitrarily deleted it despite the ongoing discussion about it. You can see the image under discussion in the last revision Collectonian 02:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely I should be avoiding illegality on the site, and there's nothing arbitrary about that. Copyvio gets deleted on sight and this is a much more serious issue than copyvio. If I thought there were any real risk I would revert again (see below), but I don't think the FBI will be breaking down the Foundation's doors on this image anytime soon, so I'm fine with waiting for Mike to take a look. For a little more reasoning on this feel free to take a look at the very polite discussion between me and User:Chairboy on my talk page. Wikidemo 03:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

• Note: I've reverted Wikidemo's change for now, the legal situation remains to be defined and redacting it from the encyclopedia for legal reasons is premature. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a ridiculous discussion. The intercourse article doesn't have a close-up photo of penetration, or any photo of humans having sex, for that matter; and it never would. Even if you want to make the argument that the photo doesn't depict actual contact between the partners, the intercourse article doesn't even contain a close-up photo of a penis approaching a vagina, and similarly, never would, because such a thing is pornographic and totally inappropriate for an encyclopedia. The same goes for fellatio, cunnilingus, oral sex, and countless other articles describing sex acts. They all contain drawings and textual descriptions of the act, which are enough. A close-up explicit photographic depiction is completely unnecessary and adds nothing to one's understanding of the subject. I challenge anyone to find an encyclopedia that does contain such material.

I challenge you to find an encyclopedia that contains an article on Jigglypuff. No? Well, that argument didn't go very far, did it? I'll agree that a line drawing would be preferable to the photo, and if you have one, feel free to swap it in. -Chunky Rice 03:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

We have articles about topics that other encyclopedias don't, but content itself still needs to be encyclopedic. Just because other encyclopedias don't contain articles on the more trivial subjects doesn't say anything about the way we limit content. We have rules about notability that tell us which topics we can have articles about, which allow for many topics other encyclopedias wouldn't include; but we have separate rules governing content, which state that such content must be encyclopedic, that unless I've misunderstood something means content that would normally appear in an encyclopedia. This image would never be in an encyclopedia article, no matter what the topic.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 03:17, 10/13/2007

There's nothing unecyclopedic about a visual illustration of any article that we have here. (Un)encyclopedic is such a useless vague term, anyway. -Chunky Rice 03:27, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia first and foremost, so it's not a useless term; nor a vague one, as the only thing required to distinguish non-encyclopedic from encyclopedic content is to ask whether or not the content would ever appear in an encyclopedia. There answer here is no. Similar to the way a close-up photo of a penis approaching a vagina would be deemed unnecessary (and even unacceptable) for the intercourse article, the same should apply here, and if you think that's an undue comparison then I'd like to hear why.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 03:37, 10/13/2007

Please cite specific Wikipedia policy or guideline instead of the extremely vague "non-encyclopedic." -Chunky Rice 03:39, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Please answer my question first, as even without the word "encyclopedic", my larger point still stands.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 03:43, 10/13/2007

Your point, as far as I can tell, is that this content would not appear in a standard encyclopedia. Which is completely irrelevant, since Wikipedia is not other encyclopedias. It is its own encyclopedia, with its own policies and guidelines, which we follow. So if you aren't going to cite any, then you really have no leg to stand on. -Chunky Rice 03:47, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Forget about encyclopedic vs. unencyclopedic. "Similar to the way a close-up photo of a penis approaching a vagina would be deemed unnecessary (and even unacceptable) for the intercourse article, the same should apply here, and if you think that's an undue comparison then I'd like to hear why."

Equazcion • argue/improves • 03:48, 10/13/2007

You're right about that, since the appropriate image for sexual intercourse would be actual intercourse, not the moment immediately prior. A line drawing is preferable (I see we have one), but if one was unavailable, a photo would be appropriate. -Chunky Rice 03:54, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

←Why would a drawing be preferable?

It's less titillating and more illustrative. -Chunky Rice 03:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Why should we be concerned over titillating?

Equazcion • argue/improves • 04:04, 10/13/2007

Because our primary purpose is to inform. If you have a point, make it. Or if you have policy to discuss, cite it. Otherwise, I'm done with these rhetorical games. -Chunky Rice 04:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec)We aren't censored for you or for anyone else. There are subjects on here that you may find distastefu;l, but as long as ythey are presented in a neutrally worded and factually accurate manner then they should remain. The same goes for an image that illustrates a concept, we do not remove images because they offend your sensibilities - you don't like them, stay away from sexually orientated pages. Viridae^Talk 04:11, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't personally have any problem with the photo, and if I did want to stay away from such photos, I could go look at any other article on sexual acts, because they don't have them.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 04:19, 10/13/2007

So anyone has actually sent Mike Godwin an email yet? Could be there a chance that our former attorney, Brad Patrick, dealt with this issue before? User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 04:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I was under the impression that Mike had been emailed. I would do it myself if I knew his email address.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 04:19, 10/13/2007

I think Wikidemo contacted him. His contact information is at User:Mikegodwin if you need it. -Chunky Rice 04:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Probably. Check this google result: pornography 2257 site:en.wikipedia.org. Anchoress 04:23, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

(←) Well, considering the topic, another related issue has been brought up at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Requiring reliable sources in media. It's regarding the video of an ejaculating penis in the Ejaculation article. Lara❤Love 04:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

And the same response was given; talk to Mike (Gowdin). User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

As an outsider, the following comment. Some people argued that the image was "unencyclopedic" and "you would never see this image in an encyclopedia". That is simply not true (at least not outside the US). If a publisher was to release an "encyclopedia on sexacts" then there might be a reasonable chance that such an image would be included. Hell, there are countless Kama Sutra publications that contain photo's of all the sexual positions. To say that the photo is unencylopedic in the context of the article is simply rubbish. At most we are violating a US law. No more, no less. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:03, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

As a man, wich tongue presents on this foto, I want to explain something.
We just wanted to illustrate article, nothing more. We don't have a plan to change Wikipedia to a pornographic resource. The low of the USA and Florida is unknown for us, so in many cases we guided by rules of Wikipedia and our intuition. On Commons we founded some fotos, that can be classified as pornographic in Russia. So, we decided, that foto of anilingus has no differences from (for example) this or this, and maded foto for article. If our foto break some law of United States, it must be deleted from Wikipedia. But can somebody to make me know, there we can find text of the low, which prohibits foto of the anilingus in Wikipedia and allow foto of masturbation (or video of ejaculation)? (sorry for my English)--FearChild 17:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the background and for the contributions to Wikipedia. If the US law applies to this image it requires that you keep your own ID (that could be a Russian passport, but I doubt anyone from the US is going to go to Russia to check). The problem is that the law would also require the Wikimedia Foundation in Florida to keep a copy of your ID, which obviously is not going to happen. The law specifically mentions both oral-anal sex (real and simulated), and masturbation (real and simulated), so definitely those two images. The ejaculation video isn't as clear to me - it depends on whether a court would decide it falls under the category of "lascivious display of the genitals."

My personal opinion is that the image is encyclopedic and belongs in Wikipedia, except that the US law might prevent it. We don't censor and we don't require reliable sources to prove that an image shows what it says it shows - we just look at the image and decide. At some time in the future we might want to flag explicit images as "not safe for work" so that people can filter them out and Wikipedia doesn't get put on companies' block list. The law has some problems, but if it forbids these images without ID we'll just have to remove them. It creates a chilling effect on adult imagery and nudity, but nobody ever said the US law always makes sense. Wikidemo 18:36, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This is more of an aside, and I could be wrong about this, but to address the over-18 issue: the anal-oral contact photo, and especially the photo of the "woman" masturbating (this) look to me as though the subjects might not be over 18.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 18:30, 10/13/2007

I see. So, the question. If I will upload the scans of some documents, which prove, that me and Yanachka over 18, how somebody can relate it with tongue and anus on foto? Or this is not a problem of Wikipedia? On this foto there is no any faces. How can I prove, that scan of ID is mine? How can I prove that this foto is real maded by me and Yanachka? Is it real?--FearChild 19:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

No, please don't upload your ID! (and I'd be careful about saying my real name if I'm uploading explicit imagery). The law distinguishes between "primary producers" (who actually take the pictures and make the videos), and "secondary producers" who merely distribute or republish them. The law requires parties to appoint a "custodian of records" who is responsible for the recordkeeping. For primary producers that person must examine the ID personally, and verify the accuracy of the information. If you take a picture of yourself that's fine - you've looked at your own ID. For secondary producers, the custodian is allowed to rely in good faith on the primary producer's statement that they examined the ID and that the data is correct. But they still have to keep a copy. Hypothetically, that means Wikipedia would trust you, and if you lied or made a mistake that's your problem, not Wikipedia's. But let's wait to see what Mike Godwin, Wikipedia's lawyer, says, before we spend too much time thinking about all the possibilities.Wikidemo 19:29, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

So the issues are:

1. Do we want some form of photographic illustration to some of our sexuality related articles (i.e. is it encyclopedic) ?
2. Are we subject to that specific law, and which kinds of pictures ARE acceptable under that law ?
3. Source of said materials and how to make sure everyone involved is over 18 and known to the foundation
4. Is the viewer over 18.

What I think

1. We have a lot of drawn representations. Educationally speaking, I would prefer to have a good photo in there once in a while (my biology book had more "graphic" content than Wikipedia has today). That does not mean just any photo depicting intercourse, but a carefully selected "as tasteful as possible"-photo. Example: the article Human severely lacks a photo that shows a man and a woman side by side in my opinion.

Legally I see that having any nudity pictures in Wikipedia would be extremely difficult if we follow US law to the letter. However if someone volunteers, I'm sure Mike Godwin could set it up if desired as long as we are talking about just a few pictures by just a few people. In the end, I think that is something we should strive towards, though I doubt that with the current load on the Foundation it will happen any time soon.

1. No idea.
2. Well if you speak about amateurs and volunteers then this is always going to be problematic to some degree I fear. We cannot send a Foundation employee somewhere to oversight the process I guess. We will have to rely on contracts and copies of identification papers. However after that, a contract is a contract, I'm sure Mike has binders full of them, I do not see the problem with "keeping records". The problem is creating records.
3. Making a "are you 18" button has been done before and should be no problem. The problem is mostly that it conflicts with: "Wikipedia is not censored".

If only America wasn't so Anal about nudity. Pun intended :D Unfortunately all we can really do here is wait for the Foundation, as stated before :( They are the legal entity that is affected here. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:40, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I have a problem with the image because it needs color correction! Arg! It's not natural. Jeeny ^(talk) 00:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking we could convert the vandal warnings to the ambox style. I think it might make the warnings easy to see and know the level of the warning. Thanks! jonathan (talk — contribs) 21:21, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You should probably contact the User Warnings WikiProject about this. However, as a (somewhat inactive) member, I am wary about this idea. The appearance of ambox is meant to make it stand out from the article. However, user warnings are part of talk pages, not just a header to them. Some time ago, there was concern that mere paragraphs (see Template:Test now) were insufficient for distinguishing warnings. So, icons were introduced (this was somewhat controversial back then). In my opinion, we don't need to take ambox to user talk pages, since the icons are sufficient. Gracenotes^T § 23:00, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The Special:Random feature is an good one, but with 2+ million articles on Wikipedia, it becomes "too random". I would like a "take me to a random article" feature, that is narrower. So that I can find a random article in a topic of interest for me. So, that for example, I can easily find a random article on computers and science, and someone else can find a random article on animals, plants and nature, and someone else can find random articles on body, biology, medicine, etc. -- Frap 17:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

This has been suggested before, and it is a good idea, but I do not know whether it would be practicable. It might be possible to add an option to filter by category, and add the ability to filter out certain types of page (such as disambiguation). I would like to see that happen, but that is a question for someone with more knowledge of the software. Adrian M. H. 18:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Also it would nice to be able to limit the results to non-stub articles. Kaldari 23:59, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I asked once before if Wikipedia could provide links to the revisions of articles that passed the nom to become featured, and the response I got was that Wikipedia provides links to the revisions of the articles the day that they are featured on the main page. But all this provides a link to the initial paragraph [18]. I think that it's very important that Wikipedia provide links to the entire featured revisions of articles, not just the first paragraphs, because the quality of an article can deteriorate over time and articles can eventually lose their featured status. If this link is provided, a person will always have access to featured quality material, and being able to compare the current revision of the article to the earlier featured revision can aid in maintaining the article's quality and seeing if it still deserves it's featured status.--Avant Guard 16:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I concur with you. This system exists on the French Wikipédia. I always believed it was on the English one. I think this is good proposition you just did. Martial BACQUET 16:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

If you to the article's talk page, you should see an "article milestones" box with a link to the featured version. If I recall correctly, a bot handles this. east.718 at 21:43, 10/9/2007

The sentence in the text about Prophet Muhammad, the sentence which regards to Quran says that there is no big difference between the Quran early in the history and the one publishing nowadays. It's wrong. It must be "there isn't any difference". Because Muslims believe Quran is the word of God, the word which can not be changed. If it can be changed then there would be no difference between Torah, Bible and Quran. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.114.107.227 (talk) 21:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Please read WP:SOFIXIT. --Kubanczyk 08:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Would it be possible for users to protect their own userpages from editing by other users except admins?--Avant Guard 16:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Anything is possible, software wise. It's rather unlikely that you're going to get software developers interested in this, if you post a bug/feature request, unless community consensus is shown. And I doubt that will happen - users have been known to abuse user pages, and it's helpful that regular editors can (initially, at least) deal with the problem.

Also, if a particular user page has been the subject of repeated vandalism, it's likely that an admin would give it semi-protection, or (I suppose) permanent protection if the user never wanted to modify it again (seems unlikely).

In short, to the extent there is a problem now, it's far, far easier to handle it on a case-by-case basis than to tork the software so radically. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 11:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Following my previous suggestion here, I really think that a collapsable template for references and footnotes would be a good idea. Skimming over the article for Golden plates, and we can see that more than half of the article is references and footnotes. It makes the article look longer than it really is, and can be a pain in the butt when it comes to scrolling. Maybe we could device a way to put the refs and notes into a template and make use of the "hide/show" function. Or like I previously suggested, putting refs and notes in a separate page, and that page will be accessable alongside the top between "article" and "discussion". Oidia (talk) 12:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The footnote system is bad enough (it takes two clicks just to check who is being cited). If the footnotes were hidden or on a different page, they would be even less useful than currently. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Looking at Golden plates, it's actually slightly less than half. I don't see any problems with the article that would be fixed by this proposal and that outweigh the problems that would be introduced by the proposal. Anomie 22:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Aggree on collapsable {{reflist}} template (as opposed to a separate page), on the condition it would be automatically fully shown if a reader clicks a reference ^[1] link. Is it technically possible? --Kubanczyk 08:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I accessed this entry on 8 October 2007 at 0026 ET (US). According to the quick information under his picture, it says he was a US President from 1945 until 2002. Just letting you know that the dates do not coincide with those stated in the article itself. Thank you for your time and sorry for the inconvenience.

Jamie Indiana —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.51.104.178 (talk) 04:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism from a university IP address; fixed by Golbez approximately 2 minutes after the posting here.

NOTICE: this is wrong place to post vandalism reports. If you don't want to fix vandalism yourself, please post at the help desk. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 11:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Right now, there seems to be no place to find summaries of all the Wikipedia namespace pages, policies, and processes. What do you think about a Technical Directory, summarizing all things back-end? Here is a sample entry for quickpoll:

Quickpoll: Quickpolls were a process used in early 2004. They were designed as a way to quickly make desicions related to user conduct, but were seen as unsuitable to the project, and were eventually displaced by RfCs and arbitration. A proposal in 2005 to bring them back was quickly rejected.

I know this isn't perfect, but the TD will be editable like everything else. It would be a great source to learn about things like BJAODN. So, once again, what do you think? ¿SFGiДnts! ^{¿Complain! ¿Analyze! ¿Review!} 03:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

My initial reaction is that you have just had a very good idea indeed. The closest approximation that I know of is John Broughton's directory, but that is a general A-Z of almost everything. Adrian M. H. 22:35, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Some of the entries in the index I've been working on do have a bit of explanation, but they are simply links. Perhaps someone would like to fork the index (fine by me) and start expanding the entries? Maybe pick a letter of the alphabet and do all the entries in that section, as a demo? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 12:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Recently I began noticing various boxes and icons appearing on the "this needs attention" templates. But the icons and boxes stand out even more than the text. Before, you could skip them easily. Now they demand attention. It makes the whole encyclopedia look like a draft version with scribbles all over it, whereas to all but the pedantic wikipedian, it is a complete product, if still evolving. They get in the way of reading the text. The "this needs attention" box should be almost unnoticable. They are essentially footnotes. Categories and other systems make sure that they won't get completely missed. It's a rare page which hasn't been vandalised by one or more of these bossy templates. Where was the decision for big glossy templates with icons made and how can I precipitate its reversal? Quirkie 20:40, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The changes to the templates were the result of a standardization movement. I can't point you to the pages involved, but the current design came about as the result of a great deal of discussion. Corvus cornix 21:52, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Post your complaint at Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes. I agree with you, by the way, and there are many others who do too. People tend to forget that this encyclopedia doesn't just exist as an excersize in editing.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 22:57, 10/1/2007

AFAIK, most of the templates already had the icons (unless people have been going to the "next step" and making icons, I stopped visiting WT:AMB a while ago). The nice thing about the new design is that you can easily hide the icons if you don't like them. Anomie 02:34, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

That is nice but it's not something the casual reader will know about or care enough to go looking for. If it were a prominently-displayed feature then maybe I'd see it as a solution, but this is monobook.css customization. No one but steady, technically-inclined editors are gonna do that. Also the poster wasn't only complaining about icons but the general prominence of the boxes.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 02:55, 10/2/2007

I really like the new template formats. They are much more dignified and professional looking than the old ones. The first one you see may be a little more eye-catching than before, but once you get used to them, their standardization and regularity makes them a lot less conspicuous than the older versions. If we wanted to downgrade them we could play around with the size and placement - thaqt would be a proposal for somewhere. Wikidemo 23:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that if an article has serious problems, we don't want that to blend into the background. Mr.Z-man 03:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

One of the benefits of the various maintenance templates, is that they encourage readers to become editors. Hence it could/can/has been argued that higher-visibility for these templates is a good thing. --Quiddity 03:47, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Is that a fact, or just a supposition? It could probably be measured - check correlation between articles with boxes and number of edits. I suspect tho, that making the encyclopedia more readable is more likely to encourage the reader to participate than emphasizing that a very large number of articles could benefit from editing. Quirkie 18:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

• I have to agree with Corvis Corvix on this, the problem is especially problematic when multiple clean up tags flood the articlce. worst yet is a lot of these notices are never followed up on (I'd guess eight out of ten clean up templates don't have thier rationale listed on the talk page) I think a soloution could be easily solved by placing a clean up warning on a template similar to those used for templates for deletion saying the page has issue and to see the talk page for more details then listing the obtrusive clean up tags on the talk page. Obviously certain templates should remain in the article space. (Copyright problems, and AFD notices should stay the way they are) So yeah that's my soloution. Deathawk 07:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I hope I'm putting this proposal in the right place, but I would like to propose that wikimeta's search results have a spell check thing on it. Similar to Google's "Did you mean _?" It would greatly help in looking for articles without having to look up the name in a dictionary. And please don't yell at me if I am putting this proposal in the wrong spot. Thanks-- Penubag  04:16, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

This is in the right place, except that new sections go at the bottom of pages. However, this is an idea which has been suggested often before. We could do it, but it would require much more server resources, and as a donation-funded project, we just don't have the cash. See also WP:PEREN#Search_should_detect_spelling_errors.-gadfium 06:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, Ok, I understand. Thanks-- Penubag  15:44, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

How do submit something or someone you feel should be in Wikipedia?

I am interested in submitting a person I know for a fact is searched for a lot on video sites and search engines. How can we see his name on Wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.111.145.38 (talk) 01:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

You can request articles at Wikipedia:Requested articles. If you are feeling bold, you can create the article yourself, as long as you understand how wikipedia works (WP:BIO and Wikipedia:Your first article are good reads). -Andrew c ^[talk] 01:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Is there any consensus for a page — say, Special:Recentlinks — to be created to list all additions of external links in a similiar style to Special:Recentchanges? — Thomas H. Larsen 06:22, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

So on this page you would list all external links which had recently been added to articles? — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 14:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. I am referring to a page which could list the diffs to all external link additions, primarily for the purpose of fighting (link)spam. Cheers. — Thomas H. Larsen 05:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Make all headlines titled "References" have small text, so you don't have to manually add <div class="references-small"> to all articles all the time. -- Frap 23:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

You could just use {{reflist}}. Lara❤Love 23:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

And we generally should not be doing that unless there is a lot of refs compared to the amount of text. Mr.Z-man 23:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Adding a checksum feature would make it easier to see which revisions are the same version (to identify reverts, etc) —Random832 16:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of which, why isn't there a user preference to hide reverted edits on the history page? — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 19:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

With the growth of Wikipedia has come the inevitable growth of a de facto court of litigation that has a structure that many describe as unnecessarily convoluted. In particular, Wikipedia:Dispute resolution lists the steps roughly as

1. talk it out
2. get a third opinion
3. file a Request for comment (RfC)
4. Request mediation
5. Go to arbitration

However, in parallel to this are issues involving problematic editors with user conduct issues. Though not outlined as clearly, the court of appeals process unofficially looks something like this:

1. talk it out
2. file a complaint at AN/I or CSN
3. file a user conduct RfC
4. Go to arbitration

My beef is with step number 3. Does anybody ever really take user conduct RfCs seriously? No. They are simply a way of gathering a bunch of people together to argue over which person/persons is/are "good" or "bad". Invariably the User conduct RfC ends up looking something like this:

• User:ABC writes in the lead: User:XYZ is bad, bad, awful, and no good. Look at this list of 100 links that proves it.

• Corroborating ABC people 1 through 10 sign in agreement.

• User:XYZ writes in rebuttal: User:ABC is bad, bad, awful and is hounding me, hurting my feelings, and I'm just trying to make Wikipedia better. All those links prove nothing and here are 100 links proving it and how bad Corroborating ABC people 1 through 10 are.

• Sympathetic XYZ people 1 through 5 sign in agreement.

• Uninvolved neutral paragon of neutrality User:000 writes: Aw shucks, both groups sound like they are being naughty. Everybody needs a slap on the wrist and should go back to writing an encyclopedia. Yes, some people have done some bad things, but haven't we all? WP:AGF, WP:CIV, WP:NPA, WP:CON, WP:NPOV, etc., etc. Love, peace, and cherry blossoms.

• Other candidates for adminship 1 through 5 sign in agreement.

• Sundry of other responses by various people in one of these three camps write pretty much the same thing with the usual suspects endorsing.

What's the point? I mean really. We all knew that this was what the User:RfC was going to look like anyway and when the inevitable arbitration does happen, the arbitrators don't have the time to sift through all the B.S. to cull out the few decent pieces of evidence contained in that tripe.

So I say, why do we have these things? They are a ridiculous procedure and a waste of time.

GRRRR!

ScienceApologist 18:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC) Ali'i expanded some acronyms for clarity 19:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Signing in agreement. No, wait! :-) More seriously - so, what do you suggest? See, RfC has one good thing about it: it gives a sense of proportion. It lets XYZ know that there are actually 10 people who feel that way about him. XYZ probably knew there were 3, but probably didn't know there were 10. It lets ABC know that there are 5 people supporting XYZ. ABC may not have known that. XYZ may have thought there were more. Either or both may have thought that, given 15 people, a clear majority would agree they were right. It's a specific forum for a large number of people to air their gripes or suggestions, without messing up an article talk page for issues that are really about editors. It doesn't often work completely, but sometimes it does help a bit. What's your better suggestion? And don't forget the love, peace and cherry blossoms. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 18:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  Let them air their gripes and frustrations at one of the other three venues I listed. AN/I, CSN seem like good options. The problem is that too often a user-rfc is listed as a bloody requirement for getting action taken to deal with a problematic user. After you waste weeks or months with the thing and nothing has happened except more grief, only then is it okay for escalation of the matter to occur. That's wasting a lot of people's patience and goodwill and generally driving good editors away. My suggestion is simply trash the entire thing as my point is that it doesn't work at all. It never resolves anything. Show me a place where XYZ has ever said, "OMIGOD! 10 people are upset with me! I better change!" due to a user conduct RfC. Show me enough examples and maybe I'll change my mind. But I've been through lots of these things and to the best of my knowledge this NEVER has happened. Sometimes it actually makes things worse. ScienceApologist 18:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Epbr123 seems to have worked. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Where's your evidence that it worked? In particular, this comment seems to indicate otherwise. ScienceApologist 19:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It worked in the sense that it hasn't needed to be taken farther since, which is really all we can ask for. I hope you weren't looking for someone to throw themselves on their knees, rend their garments and pour ashes on their heads. User_talk:AnonEMouse#RFC is a nicer comment. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm dubious. When someone declares that the user-conduct RfC about them has "no consensus", what is to say that they won't keep behaving badly? I don't believe that there is anything wrong in principle with having a neutral place to air ones grievances without resolution, but to REQUIRE it of all disputes is a bit outrageous, don't you think? ScienceApologist 21:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Put it this way. User conduct requests can work, but only if there's actually some desire by the person being "commented on" to find out about their behavior. Hostile RFCs, filed by users hostile to a given user, are rarely useful unless the other user is willing to say "I will take this into account". Otherwise, they break down pretty much along ScienceApologist's lines. I don't even bother commenting on most of them, since they're so uniformly pointless. However, occasionally you can see a legitimate desire for some kind of resolution. --Haemo 19:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  Keeping a version of User RfCs of that sort would be a fair compromise (though there is Wikipedia:Editor review which basically does exactly what you say). User RfCs are almost always on the whole hostile. ScienceApologist 19:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• User conduct RfCs don't really have much value in terms of actually correcting user behaviour, but they DO serve a useful purpose in terms of putting issues in perspective and gathering consensus. Often User A will file an RfC against user B, expecting to drown B in a sea of shame and scorn, only to be told en masse that either B was right after all or that B was wrong but the issue is trivial. An RfC isn't going to turn a mustache-twirling wiki-villain into a sudden good guy, but it does sometimes help us sort out the mountains from the molehills. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 21:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  I guess what you're saying is then that the benefit of user-rfcs is to keep the overly WikiLitigious from bogging down the community. I guess I just always find myself in the goddamn mountains. Still, I think we should be able to find a better way than having what amounts to essentially a process which is meaningful only when it fails! ScienceApologist 22:30, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  It only "fails" if you see its goal as being resolution of the dispute. Despite what the page says, I think at this point the goal is more to get community input than really solve anything. -Amarkov moo! 22:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

  Then it should not be considered part of dispute resolution, should it? I guess then I can tell all those people complaining that I haven't done a User-RfC to shove it! ScienceApologist 23:16, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• But politely so we don't have to file an RfC. Cheers! --Kevin Murray 23:30, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• The only real problem that I have with RfC is that it tends to bog down in 2 ways. First of all, by requiring that truly problematic and disruptive editors go through the process, it keeps them around, being disruptive longer. Secondly, the preponderance of petty problems means that the real troublesome problems get trivialized or get missed. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 00:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

• Goodness me I actually did laugh out loud at this, well done SA. I fully agree user conduct RfC is a complete waste of time, and only serves to keep disruptive editors around longer. The best that can usually be expected from really malevolent editors subjected to RfC, is that they lie low for a while, or find more subtle ways of making everyone else's lives just a little more miserable. The main argument in favour of keeping it here seems to be community input, but let's face it, there are plenty of other existing venues for that, like AN/I, CSN, or mediation. Let's ditch ( or at least deprecate ) this silly waste of effort, and skip straight to the keel-haul... er... I mean... "community sanctions"... ahem...  – ornis⚙ 08:35, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• Agreed, the RfC process almost never generates any meaningful result. It's little more than a hoop that must be jumped through in order to proceed with other steps in the dispute resolution process. If the subject of the RfC is reasonable, discussion on their talk page or other venue suffices; if the subject is unreasonable, RfC accomplishes nothing (except to bring out other unreasonable people who support their co-conspirator). Raymond Arritt 17:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
• I seem to vaguely recall a discussion along these lines after User:Kelly Martin went through like 3 in a row. (I'm not singling the user out, it's just the last time I recall this even semi-seriously being discussed.) - Personally, The RfC process only barely works for article concerns. (I honestly think straw polls work much better as a way to start discussion in those cases.) RfC seems to me to work best for policy/guideline/convention discussions (though if there is interest, they can get to be loooong : ) - So yes, I agree with the intial thought, RfC for user review should go the way of the dodo. - jc37 19:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I recently put Avis M. Dry in the category of "Deaths in January 2007", and any one who goes to her entry will see that there is a reference for the date of her death, "The Psychologist" for September 2007. However, on the talk-page of her death, I was told that an external link should be found for people who have passsed away. Can I suggest, however, that printed material is accepted as equally valuable citation material as the Internet? I have fears that if we merely allow other web resources to be seen as acceptable resources, many people will start to plagiarise other websites for Wikipedia articles. ACEOREVIVED 19:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I looked and don't see anything in the talk page saying anything like that? Printed resources are just as acceptable as web ones (maybe more so) as per WP:SOURCES. I would, however, suggest you take a peek at WP:CITE to see how to format the citations and references in the article to be more wikified :-). You might also want to add in her cause of death was, family info, etc and what her degrees were in. Collectonian 19:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Deaths_in_January_2007#Citation_for_Avis_M._Dry is what ACEO is talking about. I weighed in there. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest the creation of the pseudo-namespace S: or WS: to hold shortcuts that redirect to pages in the Special: namespace, such as S:WATCH redirecting to Special:Watchlist. I'd actually be a little surprised if this hadn't been suggested before, so if there's a project in the works on this topic already or a technical reason why this can't be done, please let me know. Also, if there's a better place to move forward with this concept, I'd be happy to take this topic somewhere a little more permanent than the Pump. --Dachannien^Talk_Contrib 21:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Laat time I checked, redirects to Special: didn't work, because it's not a true namespace, and the pages in it don't really exist. --Carnildo 01:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Just tested: they still don't work (see User:Carnildo/sandbox2, which isn't a redirect to Special:Random). Further, the "S" prefix is used for interwiki links to Wikisource. --Carnildo 01:59, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunate. Ah, well, thanks much for the response! --Dachannien^Talk_Contrib 02:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The software has the ability for redirects to Special: to work, but it's broken and so turned off on Wikimedia. (It just does a HTTP redirect, which means that redirects to special pages can be used for hard-to-revert-if-you-don't-know-what-you're-doing vandalism (the 'redirected from' message that's normally there is removed), and there are weird cases such as redirecting your userpage to Special:Mypage that cause HTTP redirect loops.) --ais523 17:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)