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A trend perhaps?
Perhaps it's a statistical fluctuation, but it's interesting that the quantity of humanities topics up for PR now seem to vastly outnumber the science, technology and engineering articles. Are editors starting to give up trying to slog difficult, technical articles through the FAC process? :-) Regards, RJH (talk) 22:04, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
- Donno. My tack is actually some of the harder math/phys/chemistry articles have been given too much a pass on formatting and prose. Basically we are so happy to get anything we let some stuff through. Also...really remember there are a LOT of other outlets for writing about science (or anything). Books, papers (popular and technical), blogs, websites, ec. Biology articles tend to be more compliant to prose and formatting requirements, but (I feel) are sometimes needlessly technical (especially for topics that are easy to describe in normal words...not particle physics). But they do seem to get churned through. Long term, if we are going to have high quality popular science articles, we need to do a better job at attracting and engaging people who are able to write them. Figure out how to get some retirees in here. This place has such a youth bias...and such a turnover of high school and college students.TCO (talk) 21:48, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
- Hmm, well that hasn't really been my experience. If anything, the reviewers spend too much effort on stylistic and minor format issues. The FAC process seems to spends an astonishing amount of effort in getting the references and images to look "just so". Thanks. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:57, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
Researcher user right
Hi everyone, I just wanted to let people know that I am in the midst of assigning the 'researcher' user right to a few people working with the Foundation. (More about the rights here and here.) This is a temporary assignment until September 1st. You can see the full list of project participants, as well as our research questions and results so far, on Meta at Research:Wikimedia Summer of Research 2011. Thanks, Steven Walling at work 19:24, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
- I created the following page to keep track of researcher permissions: meta:Research:Special_API_permissions/Log --DarTar (talk) 01:34, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
- That's great! I've added it to Wikipedia:User access levels. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:27, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Unencyclopedic essay in Indonesian
I've just PROD-ed a new article, KESERASIAN MUSYAWARAH ONLINE DAN TATAP MUKA (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), as being a non-English unencyclopedic sociology essay. Since it should – presumably uncontroversially – be deleted on numerous grounds, is there any quicker way to get this done? Best, ╟─TreasuryTag►directorate─╢ 15:16, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
- Why? Does it harm the encyclopedia by lingering for 7 days? Yoenit (talk) 15:19, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
- No more than I like to eat cocoapopz harms the encyclopedia by lingering for 7 days, but we have speedy-deletion criteria for that sort of thing, and I was asking whether or not a comparable system exists for this case. If you don't have an answer to the question, your commenting in 'response' isn't altogether helpful... ╟─TreasuryTag►constabulary─╢ 15:21, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
- No. Yoenit (talk) 15:31, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
- Perhaps I should have specified, "If you don't have a correct answer..." [1] ╟─TreasuryTag►voice vote─╢ 15:52, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
- Actually, it was the correct answer at the time. WP:CSD#A2 is for non-English articles that exist on other projects. This one didn't exist on another project until 3 minutes prior to its deletion here. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:25, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
- If I were to want to read it how do I find where it has gone? Is there an easy way? Just interested --ClemRutter (talk) 21:57, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
- Actually, it was the correct answer at the time. WP:CSD#A2 is for non-English articles that exist on other projects. This one didn't exist on another project until 3 minutes prior to its deletion here. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 16:25, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
- Perhaps I should have specified, "If you don't have a correct answer..." [1] ╟─TreasuryTag►voice vote─╢ 15:52, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
- No. Yoenit (talk) 15:31, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
- No more than I like to eat cocoapopz harms the encyclopedia by lingering for 7 days, but we have speedy-deletion criteria for that sort of thing, and I was asking whether or not a comparable system exists for this case. If you don't have an answer to the question, your commenting in 'response' isn't altogether helpful... ╟─TreasuryTag►constabulary─╢ 15:21, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
Creating a DRV entry
I created Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 June 16 by following the directions on the WP:DRV page, but it isn't being transcluded onto DRV. What did I do wrong? The Mark of the Beast (talk) 01:21, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Ah, well, it showed up finally. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 06:03, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
- Sometimes you have to purge the system's cache or purge your browser's cache. Killiondude (talk) 16:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
- I did that several times, nothing happened. :) The Mark of the Beast (talk) 19:59, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
More sporadic fundraising testing this week
(moved from Policy village pump)
Hi everyone-
WMF's Fundraiser Team will continue to test banners, landing pages and analytics systems this week. The banners will appear for about 30-60 mins per country, and this week we should be working with USA, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Belize and Barbados.
I will update this thread in case we add any new countries to the testing schedule.
Thank you,
Wikimedia Foundation Fundraiser Team Ppena (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
- Just to let you all know we'll be testing some banners on en.wikipedia today (Thursday) for about an hour. They will appear for anonymous users in the USA and most other countries (those without local fundraising chapters). Pcoombe (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia android portable
Hello, I looking for applications android and applications homebrew for my psp and my phone that are using Wikipedia based dictionary and Wikipedia offline and i looking for to see offline articles from Wikipedia like books. Do you can help me?
I know Wikipediadictionary from a korean one, bjkim but I can not to find it with google. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Futbol Flamenco Fiesta (talk • contribs) 13:07, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
This forum lacks a lot of features that other sites have
1. Where is the private message feature?
2. The ignore feature?
3. A way to block people we don't want from posting on our wall.
4. Have to type those colons when you reply to someone and then they can edit your posts (in talk).
TCO (talk) 21:40, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
- Agreed, but we'll likely never get these features. There are a substantial number of curmudgeonly contributors here who seem to have an irrational hatred of the social goodness that every modern forum software package has implemented for years. Everything that you're bringing up has already been developed and is freely available (in php, too!), yet those who do development work seem to agree with the people here who are against any improvements... it's frustrating, but I for one (and everyone else that feels the same, AFAIK) just let it go any more.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 21:45, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
- That's because it is not a forum but a page for discussing matters arising from the co-operative writing of Wikipedia. If you want a social forum I daresay there are a lot of them about. Therefore we do not have a wall or any of the other features you mention as they are not really applicable here. Britmax (talk) 21:49, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
- The email this user is a private message. A considerable majority of established accounts have an established email account. An "ignore" feature - who? where?. I'm also fairly certain that "selective blocking" is not yet technically possible, even if you want it to be. Is #4 like WP:LiquidThreads? It's attracted some criticism, along with positive points. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:50, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
OK, but how do I friend someone on this site?TCO (talk) 22:18, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
- You don't this is not a social networking site. GB fan (talk) 22:20, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
- It is certainly possible to make friends on this site. (I have anyway.) You can watch their pages and comment there; and they can do the same with you. It just isn't possible to declare to declare that friendship in any software manner, but what would be the point? What would you gain from that that you can't already do? LadyofShalott 00:49, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
See what I mean? :)
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:51, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- You kids get off my lawn! ;) LadyofShalott 00:59, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- lol
- Look, I'm with you guys (and gals) in the idea that this isn't a social networking site, but there's a good reason for the little features that social networking sites use to enable socialization. Wikipedia's culture could use a healthy dose of social medicine regardless. There's a "corporate culture" here (maybe institutional memory would be more accurate?), largely expressed by the "that doesn't help the encyclopedic content" expression, that is fairly anti-social. I really feel that the significant issues that we have with civility are largely a side effect of the lack of good socialization mechanisms. So, in a somewhat roundabout way, I'd make a case that improving out social toolbox would help build the encyclopedia by allowing us to work together much better than we currently do. We could easily have improved social tools without getting rid of Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not MySpace as well.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:11, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
I am going to put a thing on my page where people can declare they are my friends. It will become a trend. Just like how I figured out who my talk page stalkers were.TCO (talk) 01:05, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
I don't want us to connect to FB. But I do think PMs and better discussion threads make sense. I mean the colon typing BLOWS. We can improve the things internally. I mean my Nutrisystem experience...there were awesome boards there with all kinds of features. Totally walled garden. But very good community and helpful to weight loss. And fun. And they thought I was the strangest poster in the history of tha site. But I lost 70 pounds. I mean...WTF...four tildas? Who came up with that crap?TCO (talk) 01:51, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- There are some problems with emphasizing the social side. If you've got two editors who are wikifriends, and both of them happen to offer similar opinions in a content dispute, then we get accusations about WP:MEAT puppets, that one is mindlessly agreeing with the other, that they're WP:Tag teaming the dispute, etc. It's apparently easier for some peoplel to say, "Those horrible, unfair conspirators are tag-teaming me!" than to believe, "Huh, eight editors at the WP:External links/Noticeboard believe that my personal website is a bad choice for an external link in this article, and I'm the only person in favor of it. Maybe that means that it isn't appropriate." Having an official "friends" system would likely make this sort of distraction more common, because with the current system, you'd just have to know that they were friends, and with an official system, you could easily find out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:43, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Two counter arguments for you: the fact that it's not possible to see who people are "friends" with tends to lend credibility to the idea of "cabals"... paranoia works best in environments where there's incomplete information, after all. More importantly, to me at least, is that I believe that a more accessible social system on Wikipedia itself will help with the problems that you're describing rather than make them worse, partially for the reason that I started with above. We already try to get people to discuss issues with each other when a conflict arises, because we came to realize early on that the easiest way resolve disputes is to get people talking to each other. If people were willing and more easily able to talk to each other in general (about the encyclopedia, in some fashion, of course) then there will generally be fewer disputes that get started. There will be problems of course, but there are problems already (and I think that they're more serious, personally).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:08, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Two counter arguments for you: the fact that it's not possible to see who people are "friends" with tends to lend credibility to the idea of "cabals"... paranoia works best in environments where there's incomplete information, after all. More importantly, to me at least, is that I believe that a more accessible social system on Wikipedia itself will help with the problems that you're describing rather than make them worse, partially for the reason that I started with above. We already try to get people to discuss issues with each other when a conflict arises, because we came to realize early on that the easiest way resolve disputes is to get people talking to each other. If people were willing and more easily able to talk to each other in general (about the encyclopedia, in some fashion, of course) then there will generally be fewer disputes that get started. There will be problems of course, but there are problems already (and I think that they're more serious, personally).
- What do you mean by "colon typing"? The Mark of the Beast (talk) 18:23, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, but I don't see that as "blowing", and therefore didn't understand the apparent outrageous problem it causes. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 19:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- Neither do I. Would looking at the time and printing out our name in longhand whenever signing a post be easier? Or what? Britmax (talk) 19:32, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- He's not talking about using four tildes when he's referring to "colon typing" (although that's part of the problem). He's talking about having to manually format replies by typing the ':' character. MediaWiki is good for article content, but suffers significantly in discussions, in comparison to modern web based forum systems or even mailing lists. That you have to type four tildes at all (let alone "printing out our name in longhand"... what the hell kind of idea is that?!?) is somewhat ridiculous. All of this is well trodden territory, by the way. As a matter of fact, there was a whole Usability Project Wikimedia project devoted to these sorts of issues, although they didn't seem to get anything done...
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:44, 20 June 2011 (UTC)- I'm totally on board with the notion that 4 tildes deserves a WTF response. This is 2011 and we have computers. One's that could do the signing for us. Yes, someone would have to create the rules - sign talk pages, not article pages, don't sign if the user has opted out of signing. It's not that hard. We have bots with a thousand times more complicated rules. There is no excuse for not automating the signing. There are enough rules to remember without this completely artificial, completely unnecessary rule. In solidarity, I'm not signing.
- He's not talking about using four tildes when he's referring to "colon typing" (although that's part of the problem). He's talking about having to manually format replies by typing the ':' character. MediaWiki is good for article content, but suffers significantly in discussions, in comparison to modern web based forum systems or even mailing lists. That you have to type four tildes at all (let alone "printing out our name in longhand"... what the hell kind of idea is that?!?) is somewhat ridiculous. All of this is well trodden territory, by the way. As a matter of fact, there was a whole Usability Project Wikimedia project devoted to these sorts of issues, although they didn't seem to get anything done...
- Neither do I. Would looking at the time and printing out our name in longhand whenever signing a post be easier? Or what? Britmax (talk) 19:32, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, but I don't see that as "blowing", and therefore didn't understand the apparent outrageous problem it causes. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 19:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
God damn! Have any of you all every been on a normal forum? Like anything post about 1995?? Where you have an avatar, have a signature, have your own space for your post that others can't edit into, have ability to make paragraphs, don't have everything run together in edit mode? I mean SHEESH. I'm DUMB. I'm OLD. And I still wonder where you all are LIVING. TCO (talk) 01:23, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
- You seem to be operating under the misapprehension that 1-Wikipedia is a social network site and 2-there are paid programmers. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 01:28, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
I feel like we are being trolled. But if you want to contact someone privately, their user page has a link that lets you email them, if they have an enrolled email address. Not everybody chooses to enroll one. 69.111.195.157 (talk) 01:37, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
River Shannon
The debat is heating up about the wehereabout of the River Shannon. Most people and the paper Encyclopedia Britannica state that it is the longest river on the island Ireland. Others, mostly (but not exclusively) English, state that it is the longest river on the British Isles. Unfortunately that last term is politically sensitive. The debat is heating up, so some cool opinions are very welcome on the talkpage there. Night of the Big Wind (talk) 01:17, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Sadly, I think the simplest solution to this might be to shorten the Shannon... AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:23, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Well yes, and would you believe that some editors are trying to do precisely that. Van Speijk (talk) 10:56, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks for admitting that. Now we can start talking. ((smiley}} Night of the Big Wind (talk) 14:50, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Or the Irish should invade England and exploit it as a colony for the next 800 years, as they did with Ireland. Night of the Big Wind (talk) 14:50, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Not do I think it correct to say the debate is hearing up. There is a long standing consensus position that has the River Shannon as the longest river in Ireland and Loch Neagh as the largest lake in the British Isles. Rather like the Derry for the city, LondonDerry for the county compromises. All statements are sourced. As is the norm of NBI issues we have new accounts (or ones that have been silent for a year but then get activated on this issue) and a range of views being expressed on individual editors. Its a pity that once a compromise is reached we can't just let it be --Snowded TALK 18:47, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Well yes, and would you believe that some editors are trying to do precisely that. Van Speijk (talk) 10:56, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
From admin to vandal? Random thoughts why
I am a en:WP administrator. I am not using my account for reasons that may become clear. Long ago I stopped editing or admin-ing. I occasionally edit a line, a small mistake, just as any casual user might. Lately I found myself willing to vandalise, and actually doing it (mildly, I hope). Why? How and why going from caring admin to vandal-to-be?
I can not tell for sure, and certainly there are many factors, some may even be personal. But which are WP related factors?
For the first stage (admin to little IP edits) there were probably two main factors (other than less free time, which was a strong factor too). First, endless discussions, ending up in decisions which only some user abide to, while some don't.leading WP to be a court of law, with processes at ArbCom, or whatever the names and instances. Too complicated, we do need WP-lawyers, and that is silly. Second, I started to see bot wars with bots doing mass changes, creating a class of super-(arrogant)-users, the bot owners, able to (n)do in a zap something that takes months of human work (un)do. [note: _some_ bot owners were super-(arrogant)-users, definitely not all]
For the second stage (little IP edits to vandal-to-be). Clearly two factors. One still being bots: a perfectly OK edit gets reverted by a bot, note that the removed text was already incorporated in the added see also link. A human would spot that easy, but a bot reverted. (and then I did a few not so nice comments on the bot's page). Second, I tried to correct a link at 2010–11_Belgian_Second_Division#League_table, as it was pointing to Spain's play-off. Try to look at it: it is template hell! A casual user is more or less unable to understand it. I know about templates in general, still it was unclear what to edit. So I semi-vandalized it (and gor reverted by the same bot! How the hell did he estimated this to be a vandal? By the signarture? That's a too wild guesstimate...)
In conclusion. Is WP is a battleground for bots and coding geeks? Hordes(?) of bots are actively changing content, even cluelessly reverting humans. Common humans can't edit, because it is too complicated at first glance.
So is WP actually pushing away legitimate human editors, by making it too hard to start editing (template hell) and even encouraging vandals (by annoying humans)?
Is WP a wiki? "A wiki invites all users to edit any page [and] is not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor [...]" [in Wiki].
I'm sorry for the mild vandalism, it will not happen again. I hope you guys and gals still involved try to shift WP back into a human site. 2.82.175.120 (talk) 13:13, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Most of these things are common complaints, that are being worked upon, for example the article wizard. ClueBotNG is actually very accurate, and it now makes up a vast majority of bto reversions for vandalism – which is why those two edits were both by it. There was certainly a time where bot edits were more controversial than they are now. Whether such a thing would happen again, I don't know. I hope not. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:53, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks for the reply. I know the issues are being worked upon. Actually, they are being worked upon for many years, and that is the problem. The article wizard looks like a nice attempt, at first sight, I haven't seen it before. But the main effort should go for making it easy for the causal user to edit a bit today, and another bit tomorrow and eventually grow into the whole WP environment. Right now it may be too complicated even to make a small edit (as the template hell example points to) and then there is the risk of a malformed edit (even a perfectly OK edit as the one above) being reverted by a bot. That is utterly annoying as yuo can't even argue with a bot... Bots should help humans, I am a strong believer in 'intelligent computer aids', but bots should not replace us; so anything other than the plain obvious should be tagged but not auto-reverted or auto-edited in anyform. As far as I seen it (not much, I know) ClueBotNG would be a very good aid for humans, but is a very bad editor by itself.
- To Melodia's edit comment: «I have to wonder how an 'admin' would put a new discussion on top. Or was that also 'mild vandalism'?». No it was me forgetting about the practice. That's how long I haven't joined talk discussions... (me, that used to be bold enough to refactor a few talk pages to go by that standard) - 2.82.178.217 (talk) 14:39, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- I have linked to this thread from WP:AN. DuncanHill (talk) 14:28, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Don't be silly. I am raising a question on why do WP's procedures put decent human editors (I presume I am one) away. And you go paranoid... Wooooo a admin went to vandal. Full list of "vandalism" as far as I recall, so to cool you down:
- A comment - proper at a talk page but placed on article space (so semi-vandalism, at most)
- Unless you declare your account(s) we have no reason to believe that you are an admin. DuncanHill (talk) 15:11, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- You beleived enough to go and set a warning about it. [joking] Want to bet a block that I am an admin? [/joking] Anyway, it is irrelevant. The problem is: Is excess of bot edits pushing human editors away? Is excess of specialized templates pushing human editors away? And I add: Is excess of wiki-drama pushing human editors away? Nevermind me, I'm not that important, nor a threat. - 2.82.178.217 (talk) 15:18, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- You might just be a troll and not an admin at all. Is excess of admins not getting just how arrogant and selfish they are being pushing editors away? Is admins thinking they can get away with what does get other editors blocked and banned pushing editors away? it doesn't surprise me at all that an admin would vandalise, nor that they would be prepared to come here and boast about it. DuncanHill (talk) 15:36, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- You are probably right. Some admins also do push users away! But you missed my point and went poaranoid. I have not vandalised on any large scale, I attacked a bot's pride page, and made a comment out of place. The best of my actions? Certainly not, but not the acts of a arrogant admin (I'd say). (this is the former IP, using my account after 2 years absent) - Nabla (talk) 15:44, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- You might just be a troll and not an admin at all. Is excess of admins not getting just how arrogant and selfish they are being pushing editors away? Is admins thinking they can get away with what does get other editors blocked and banned pushing editors away? it doesn't surprise me at all that an admin would vandalise, nor that they would be prepared to come here and boast about it. DuncanHill (talk) 15:36, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
- Arbitration request submitted. NW (Talk) 01:17, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Let's start putting "External Links" section after "See also"
Let's start putting "External Links" section after "See also".
1. The content and links are often EXTREMELY high value, in terms of different views, lots of content, etc.
2. The "type of information" is very much the same as a See also in type.
3. It gets lost way down below the footnotes and the bibliography.
4. In a BOOK, you would not put this kind of information after the footnotes and bibliography. It would be a discussion prior to the bibliography.
Look at Richard nixon for example. Those are some great sites to go to. And we bury them WAY to far down. After 150 footnotes. Down there with the category link crap.
P.s. I understand that we want to pimp our own articles. And we already forbid inline hyperlinks. But putting the penalty box SO LOW down the page is poor service to the reader.
TCO (talk) 03:07, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- Am I correct in thinking the title to this thread is reversed? Killiondude (talk) 03:28, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- I first thought the same but then I thought it maybe meant that External links should be immediately after See also and before Notes/References and Further reading, so External links moves up two positions at WP:FOOTER. I like it better where it is now. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:40, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- (ec)Just to be clear the MOS section is at Wikipedia:External_links#External_links_section and I think the standard format is now
- See also
- References, and, as the last text in the article
- External links
- The proposal seems to be to switch References with External Links.
- I disagree with the proposal - if an external link is more important than a refence - it should probably already be included as an inline citation in the text, resulting in it ending up in the references section. Smallbones (talk) 03:46, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- I do think it is odd that "See also" and "External links", which are there for essentially the same purpose (linking to additional information not in the article), are not next to each other. Ucucha 12:34, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- In that it makes a clear distinction between content which is written by Wikipedia editors and external content over which we have no control. It's the line where the encyclopedia stops and the rest of the internet starts. Moving the "External links" section up – or combining it with the "See also" section – blurs the delineation between internal and external content. Putting external links in among the see alsos implicitly equates outside content (definitely uneditable, whether better or worse) with Wikipedia articles. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- I would suggest that the External links stay below the See also section but I am on the fence of whether it should remain at the bottom of the article or not. Also bear in mind that we also frequerntly have a further reading section which is essentially other information from books, magazines and the like and is much the same as see also and external links. I think we should probably leave it the way it is. Although some articles may have valuable and useful external links the vaste majority won't matter to the reader. Additionally to change it would be a massive undertaking for relatively little return on investment. --Kumioko (talk) 13:19, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- The current order is preferable in my mind for the reasons that TenOfAllTrades states. Having "Further reading" and "External links" after the References clearing marks our references as the end of "our" (as in Wikipedia) content and the beginning of "their" (as in the rest of the Internet and the publishing world) content. Many printed books put any "further reading" after any source citations or endnotes, and this just follows that convention. Imzadi 1979 → 17:40, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with Imzadi. I'd also add that, in most articles I've edited, the external links section is full of marginally relevant junk. References, on the other hand, are always directly related to the article. --Coemgenus (talk) 18:11, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- Agreed (that is, don't change it) for the reasons cogently stated above. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:19, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with Imzadi. I'd also add that, in most articles I've edited, the external links section is full of marginally relevant junk. References, on the other hand, are always directly related to the article. --Coemgenus (talk) 18:11, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- The current order is preferable in my mind for the reasons that TenOfAllTrades states. Having "Further reading" and "External links" after the References clearing marks our references as the end of "our" (as in Wikipedia) content and the beginning of "their" (as in the rest of the Internet and the publishing world) content. Many printed books put any "further reading" after any source citations or endnotes, and this just follows that convention. Imzadi 1979 → 17:40, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- I would suggest that the External links stay below the See also section but I am on the fence of whether it should remain at the bottom of the article or not. Also bear in mind that we also frequerntly have a further reading section which is essentially other information from books, magazines and the like and is much the same as see also and external links. I think we should probably leave it the way it is. Although some articles may have valuable and useful external links the vaste majority won't matter to the reader. Additionally to change it would be a massive undertaking for relatively little return on investment. --Kumioko (talk) 13:19, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- In that it makes a clear distinction between content which is written by Wikipedia editors and external content over which we have no control. It's the line where the encyclopedia stops and the rest of the internet starts. Moving the "External links" section up – or combining it with the "See also" section – blurs the delineation between internal and external content. Putting external links in among the see alsos implicitly equates outside content (definitely uneditable, whether better or worse) with Wikipedia articles. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- I do think it is odd that "See also" and "External links", which are there for essentially the same purpose (linking to additional information not in the article), are not next to each other. Ucucha 12:34, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- Strong oppose, no. Citations are most certainly more valuable than junk farms of external links, none of which are usually useful, and we put external content last for a reason-- to keep readers on Wiki. External links are generally junk. Please stop the silly proposals. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:51, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- If it is a junk link, it should not be in article regardless. BTW, if you look on the talk page of MOS (layout), this idea has been floated before and gotten a lot of considered approval.TCO (talk) 18:56, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- Not from me it hasn't. Malleus Fatuorum 18:59, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- The basic idea is that we go from internal content → external but directly needed content (references) → external content. That way we highlight our own content, and it has the happy side effect of reducing the potential for (highly visible, since they tend to be given considerable weight by the likes of Google, Bing, and Yahoo) individual Wikipedia pages from becoming link farms or advertising platforms (which, I think, is where the open hostility that you see from SandyGeorgia, Malleus Fatuorum, and others is coming from). There are some good reasons to support the change that you're asking about, but I think that in the end we're better off with things the way that they currently are.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:04, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- The basic idea is that we go from internal content → external but directly needed content (references) → external content. That way we highlight our own content, and it has the happy side effect of reducing the potential for (highly visible, since they tend to be given considerable weight by the likes of Google, Bing, and Yahoo) individual Wikipedia pages from becoming link farms or advertising platforms (which, I think, is where the open hostility that you see from SandyGeorgia, Malleus Fatuorum, and others is coming from). There are some good reasons to support the change that you're asking about, but I think that in the end we're better off with things the way that they currently are.
- Not from me it hasn't. Malleus Fatuorum 18:59, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- If it is a junk link, it should not be in article regardless. BTW, if you look on the talk page of MOS (layout), this idea has been floated before and gotten a lot of considered approval.TCO (talk) 18:56, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Well in principally I favour the notion that (extensive) footnotes/references should come last as imho this is better for general reader for various reasons. However WP has taken a different route in the past and reversing that is an extremely cumbersome effort (convincing the various involved editors and potentially redoing the order of the bulk of articles). So even if a different is might be the right thing, the task of changing it, is like Don Quixote charging the wind mill, i.e. it will be a waste of time and only lead to personal frustration. Some of the opposing views above might indicate that already--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:11, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose I'm with Sandy. I'm also not convinced that the idea's past reception at WT:LAYOUT should be described with anything so favorable as "considered approval". I'm convinced that TCO hasn't read Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Changes_to_standard_appendices, or discussed it with the spam folks, who have historically advocated for keeping spambait sections at the end of the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:02, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- PEREN isn't required reading or anything, you know. There's no call for you folks to be jerks to TCO (or anyone else) just for making a suggestion.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:29, 20 June 2011 (UTC)- There's no call for you to be a jerk either. Malleus Fatuorum 20:31, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- PEREN isn't required reading or anything, you know. There's no call for you folks to be jerks to TCO (or anyone else) just for making a suggestion.
- Oppose Primarily for the excellent reasons listed by TenOfAllTrades although I would not characterize it a "silly proposal". It is easy to understand that some external links provide more value to some readers than footnotes. --SPhilbrickT 20:06, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- Strongest possible oppose per User:TenOfAllTrades. – ukexpat (talk) 20:08, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Add my voice to those that are concerned about raising the visibility of External Links (and See also) sections. Yes, they have their place. On more than one occasion, I found an interesting, well written article about a subject that did not meet wikipedia's WP:RS threshold, and happily added it to the external links section. However, for every time I've added one such link, I've removed 100 spam links. They are without a doubt a crap magnet section. The "See also" section isn't much better. I've seen this section misused to indirectly imply connections to topics, where if the connection were directly made in the body of the article would be reverted or tagged as an inappropriate. Dave (talk) 21:09, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- I haven't been having these problems in turtles or chemicals. Just saying. "Fighting crap" is much lower priority there than "making good shit". I'm teasing...but serious. It's true. Go Wiki!!!TCO (talk) 21:12, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- Watchlist Mountain Meadows massacre, First Transcontinental Railroad and U.S. Route 66 if you want to experience the joy of trying to keep an article from getting crapped up with spam links. =-) (US Route 66 is a lost cause, but I think the anti-vandal squad can take pride in how well maintained the other two articles are considering the challenges) Dave (talk) 23:46, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- While I don't support this proposal, this sort of reasoning that seems to be saying that we should be afraid of such proposals bothers me. Reverting attempts to vandalize articles or to add promotional content to the encyclopedia or specific articles is certainly important, and should of course continue. I think that it's a serious mistake to use those efforts to drive changes in how the encyclopedia as a whole operates, though. Just because some article or other happens to be a common target of spammers or vandals shouldn't be the reason that we make changes in how everyone edits. We shouldn't lower ourselves to the lowest common denominator level, you know?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:57, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
- While I don't support this proposal, this sort of reasoning that seems to be saying that we should be afraid of such proposals bothers me. Reverting attempts to vandalize articles or to add promotional content to the encyclopedia or specific articles is certainly important, and should of course continue. I think that it's a serious mistake to use those efforts to drive changes in how the encyclopedia as a whole operates, though. Just because some article or other happens to be a common target of spammers or vandals shouldn't be the reason that we make changes in how everyone edits. We shouldn't lower ourselves to the lowest common denominator level, you know?
- Watchlist Mountain Meadows massacre, First Transcontinental Railroad and U.S. Route 66 if you want to experience the joy of trying to keep an article from getting crapped up with spam links. =-) (US Route 66 is a lost cause, but I think the anti-vandal squad can take pride in how well maintained the other two articles are considering the challenges) Dave (talk) 23:46, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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- Oppose Citations are more important than corporatespam and socialnetworkspam, which in my experience make up a solid 80% of external links. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:20, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
- Super Strong Oppose Web page layout 101: Never put links to other websites in a prominent place. Never beg people to leave your site. External links should be lastest of the laststest last. Notes/references/similar should be the very first thing after body text, then See Also. – Ling.Nut 00:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
- Citing a 101 layout guide for the spam pages you want to protect WP doesn't really look like a convincing reason. We're not selling anything and have no need to keep people in the store for as long as possible. Why should we have any problem with linking to quality sources of (free) information? That's directly related to our goal to provide free access to information/knowledge.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:17, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
- Oppose It is important (as explained by TenOfAllTrades) to clearly separate the article from a gateway to external content. Also, there is already a significant pressure as people work out that anyone can edit + top search ranking = good place to spam, and that pressure will increase as Wikipedia becomes even more dominant as a useful and ad-free source. It is hard enough to keep external links and WP:REFSPAM out of the article currently, and this proposal would make the content/external distinction even harder to maintain. Johnuniq (talk) 02:57, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Peace, peeps
This is just wasting editor time. (Albiet effectively, at least.) Please go back to writing and reviewing.TCO (talk) 02:53, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
- A330 could use the help. I will be pissed if those young editors having exerted huge effort, do not get some meaningful reviews at the expense of sock drawers and mushrooms.TCO (talk) 03:03, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Asking for participants in an AfD discussion
For two weeks only one person has said anything in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mondlango (2nd nomination), and he is unfortunately an IP editor. If a few people would go there to review the evidence and vote that would be fantastic. Hermione is a dude (talk) 15:40, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
This biography page was clearly written by the same person as an autobiography to promote himself. He is not a welknown academic in his native Turkey and his biography page doesn't exist in Turkish Wikipedia for not meeting the required criteria. --Abuk SABUK (talk) 16:30, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
Problems with several articles
There are problems with several articles about television stations in the Little Rock, Arkansas market. I know y'all say to post things about articles on their respective articles talk pages, but I feel that these problems are related, and that no one might read my message on the talk pages of the articles. The largest problem is an article on KASN. Even though the article's name is still "KASN" the page claims that it is KQAR, calling itself "The Q". This is not true. I live in the Little Rock area, and I know that this station is still KASN, calling itself "CW Arkansas". The station's website, www.cwarkansas.com, confirms this. This change has been made by a person with the IP adress 4.227.114.158. Also, in the past, there have been problems with OTHER pages. For example KARK-TV's page began to report they had switched to high-definition news back in 2010. They just switched about a month ago, and they didn't even state their intent to switch until January 2011. KATV's page claimed for a while in 2010 that they called themselves "ABC 7". All my life it has been "KATV 7", and as y'all can tell I ain't a newborn. Please help to do something. I don't have internet access all the time, so I can't join Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.13.68.0 (talk) 22:11, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm attempting to get to grips with the reasoning behind the recent opposition to preventing anything other than the default colour scheme. However, that discussion got a little wrapped up in the feature of styling in general, rather than the colour scheme. What benefits does it pose? Mostly, the sorts of things I've seen been Template:Manchester United F.C. in that the colour scheme is merely aesthetic. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:33, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
- As I said over there, subtle and elegant colouring not only improves the basic (awful) design and layout of Wikipedia pages, but also provides clues as to the contents/subject matter of a given navbox. I will stipulate that many colour combinations are eyewatering and run afoul of WP:ACCESS, but many (e.g.) are as I said, simple and elegant. → ROUX ₪ 16:39, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
- Could you elaborate? (For the record, this is not a continuation of that debate, it is a fact-finding mission.) For example, you mention "layout". How does the choice of colour impact layout? Similarly, most navboxes exist in a collapsed state. Is your suggestion that the colour of the bar affects the way people judge what contents expanding it brings? Or something else? Posted chronologically after the comment of 16:45 below.) Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:47, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
- Agreed. Even if a colour scheme is used only for aesthetics, that alone is not a bad thing. as Roux notes, there are some eye-bleeding combinations out there (red on blue, for instance), so there might be value in creating an MOS update that insists that the text colour always be white (on dark) or black (on light), but allow for variations in background colour. Resolute 16:45, 22 June 2011 (UTC)