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Problem behaviors
Wikipedia is generally a wonderful place to write and connect. Problem solving techniques such as Rfc's and third-party really do work pretty well most of the time. But there are some things--some people--that do seem to fall through the cracks fairly dependably. I would like to see a 'Be nice-Be respectful' policy that when violated can be reported, and if nothing else, that Wikipedia would keep track of the number of violations the same person gets over and over, so I would like to see a policy for consequences for repeatedly biting, not only newcomers, but anyone that disagrees with them. People just get away with that here because it isn't about consensus on content. I have seen more than one editor driven completely off Wikipedia because of personal attacks, slanders, insults, and various kinds of bad behavior by the same person. Nothing ever happens about it. I think that's wrong. Something should happen. It violates Wikipedia's stated policy and that policy should be better enforced. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:56, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
- We do have Wikipedia: Etiquette but I am not sure what happens to Wikipedians who violate the policies listed here. Vorbee (talk) 17:00, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Nothing. Nothing happens to them. They move on claiming they do it all for the good of Wikipedia. That's the problem. Instant reverts, threats, insults based on ideology, point of view, differences of opinion, not based on consensus--things where one person is not clearly "right"--but the one person is asserting their "position" by domineering and intimidating. Nothing happens. They get you to leave. That's all that happens--at least that is all I have seen so far. I have been on Wikipedia about a year and a half, I have observed this one editor have just over a dozen of these types of conflicts, and people repeatedly contact Admin. about him and nothing happens. He seems bullet-proof. And that's just wrong. What are the chances more than a dozen people are in the wrong instead of him? Wikipedia needs to do a better job at this. What are the options? I would take any improvement at all. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:54, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Behaving like a dick can, and does occasionally get people blocked (you've probably already seen Wikipedia:Civility#Dealing with incivility). If the problematic behaviour has been gross, and you have recent examples of it that you're willing to present succinctly, and with diffs, then you can start a thread at WP:ANI. – Uanfala (talk) 23:11, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- I suppose I can start keeping a record since Wikipedia doesn't, but I am afraid of retribution if nothing comes of it. This person is vindictive. I was looking for a more proactive approach from Wikipedia.Jenhawk777 (talk) 16:00, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- this is an example right now. Not sure what idea can come out of this thread though; I would like to see civility enforced more, however we do already have a policy (two, WP:NPA and WP:CIVILITY) which are in the range of "Be nice-Be respectful' policy". I think it is not as much as there being a lack of policy but people unwilling to enforce for whatever reason. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:07, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
- Behaving like a dick can, and does occasionally get people blocked (you've probably already seen Wikipedia:Civility#Dealing with incivility). If the problematic behaviour has been gross, and you have recent examples of it that you're willing to present succinctly, and with diffs, then you can start a thread at WP:ANI. – Uanfala (talk) 23:11, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Nothing. Nothing happens to them. They move on claiming they do it all for the good of Wikipedia. That's the problem. Instant reverts, threats, insults based on ideology, point of view, differences of opinion, not based on consensus--things where one person is not clearly "right"--but the one person is asserting their "position" by domineering and intimidating. Nothing happens. They get you to leave. That's all that happens--at least that is all I have seen so far. I have been on Wikipedia about a year and a half, I have observed this one editor have just over a dozen of these types of conflicts, and people repeatedly contact Admin. about him and nothing happens. He seems bullet-proof. And that's just wrong. What are the chances more than a dozen people are in the wrong instead of him? Wikipedia needs to do a better job at this. What are the options? I would take any improvement at all. Jenhawk777 (talk) 22:54, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you for acknowledging the issue is real. Yes, we have perfectly good policy, but what good is policy without enforcement? I completely agree that is the problem. Disputes over content are solvable. Wikipedia cares about its content and has made good provision for multiple pathways toward resolution. Not so with personal abuses and attacks. Wikipedia does not keep a record of how often any individual gets called for a mediation dispute or watch for other signs of problem behavior and as far as I know, there is no special path for reporting that particular kind of problem--and certainly no enforcement of the policies we have. I simply want that person to stop. I personally have no ability to enforce the minimum behavior requirements of the larger group--that we all agree to--onto the group's few misanthropes. I can't see how this can be improved without some kind of policy change. Jenhawk777 (talk) 05:39, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, the issue is very real. Extreme perpetrators can be reported at WP:ANI and its related noticeboards, where administrators will decide what to do about it. But usually, rudeness is tolerated and you have to be grossly insulting or disruptive to be sanctioned. The reporting process is also quite bureaucratic and needs good understanding of it to be effective: where else would someone reporting abuse be told, "You haven't reported it properly, so we will ignore you"? I believe that this sad state of affairs is one of the biggest reasons why our community struggles to keep high-quality editors. You and I are not the only ones to have brought it up in one forum or another before now, but as long as the majority of the more vocal editors (especially administrators) are prepared to tolerate it, nothing will be done.
- @Jenhawk777: However, from what you say it sounds like you have an abuser who may be overstepping the mark. If you drop me a private email with their username (let us know here if you need help with that), I will take a look and see if anything can be done — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 14:38, 3 May 2018 (UTC) [updated 14:49, 3 May 2018 (UTC)]
- DID overstep--not happening right now; we are no longer working on the same article. I am so grateful for the offer, but it just isn't enough to protect myself in one instance. Everyone should be protected. I have watched this person run several people off of Wikipedia. If it hadn't been for one of the good ones stepping in and saying, 'come work with me over here in a corner for awhile', I wouldn't have known Wikipedia could actually be rewarding and fun. I have tried to do that for some of the others, but they are so discouraged from the experience--and the fact it seems to them that no one cares--that they just leave. I know there are people here who care. The responses here are evidence. But Admin needs to do a better job at this. It is a problem for Wikipedia even if they don't recognize it. When people go away in this manner, they say bad things about Wikipedia. And frankly, there isn't an endless supply of people who want to write for free who are willing to put in the time to develop enough experience to actually be any good at it. Even factoring in inevitable losses, this should still be seen as an issue. Thank you again for the kind offer, but what I really need is a suggestion for a workable policy change. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:42, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Policy is not at issue. The problem is enforcement, it is too hard to get things done. For reasons I cannot understand, the further up people are in the hierarchy, the less they seem to want to recognise that. This is about winning hearts and minds, not policy. And sadly, I am no good at that. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:17, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- Well, apparently, I am even worse--I can't even get agreement here among people who actually agree with me. :-) Whatever the problem is, those with some actual influence need to act. Jenhawk777 (talk) 07:29, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- Agree to a point. But I don't think enforcement will work, for exactly the reasons you say. See comments below. Andrewa (talk) 21:26, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- Policy is not at issue. The problem is enforcement, it is too hard to get things done. For reasons I cannot understand, the further up people are in the hierarchy, the less they seem to want to recognise that. This is about winning hearts and minds, not policy. And sadly, I am no good at that. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:17, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
- DID overstep--not happening right now; we are no longer working on the same article. I am so grateful for the offer, but it just isn't enough to protect myself in one instance. Everyone should be protected. I have watched this person run several people off of Wikipedia. If it hadn't been for one of the good ones stepping in and saying, 'come work with me over here in a corner for awhile', I wouldn't have known Wikipedia could actually be rewarding and fun. I have tried to do that for some of the others, but they are so discouraged from the experience--and the fact it seems to them that no one cares--that they just leave. I know there are people here who care. The responses here are evidence. But Admin needs to do a better job at this. It is a problem for Wikipedia even if they don't recognize it. When people go away in this manner, they say bad things about Wikipedia. And frankly, there isn't an endless supply of people who want to write for free who are willing to put in the time to develop enough experience to actually be any good at it. Even factoring in inevitable losses, this should still be seen as an issue. Thank you again for the kind offer, but what I really need is a suggestion for a workable policy change. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:42, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Following the threads of this section I came across the Wikipedia:Kindness Campaign to which I've now signed up and which I recommend. Perhaps just promoting this WikiProject is what is needed.
I certainly think there's a problem. We cannot expect to attract and keep new editors, and particularly the sort of editors on which Wikipedia depends, in the current environment.
And I think something specifically focused on restoring no personal attacks to general acceptance might be the key here. See User:Andrewa/gentle editor for some of my ideas on that, and comments on its talk page or (far better) here (or even both) of course very welcome!
There has been no consensus to abandon (or even modify) NPA, but it seems to have happened anyway. I guess the other possibility is an RfC to modify or abandon the policy, and regard these behaviors as acceptable, but I myself believe that would be the beginning of the end for Wikipedia. I could be wrong. Andrewa (talk) 05:51, 9 May 2018 (UTC) Andrewa (talk) 21:26, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
- Okay, so if enforcement isn't the answer--what is? I am a member of Wikipedia:Kindness Campaign and practice that--even with the person who kept attacking me--they criticized me for my "excessive civility" too! I don't think joining up is high on their list. You know, I need to add here that most of the people on Wikipedia are great--helpful, patient, kind--but when there is one whose behavior is so egregious, for so long, it can color everything. I'm trying not to let that happen. That's why I'm here. We have a lot of different kinds of people here with lots of different views and need to treat everyone with respect even if they have the audacity not to think like we do! Perhaps this is a personality thing that can't be fixed. IDK. I admit I'm feeling a little discouraged about all this. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:33, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think we need to demonstrate (and perhaps first build) consensus among Wikipedians in general and admins in particular and perhaps even within ARBCOM that NPA is important. Enforcement might follow in some cases, but demonstrating that consensus might be enough without enforcement being necessary, and without demonstrating that consensus enforcement will not help, IMO, and won't happen anyway. Interested in other ideas, and ideas as to how to best do this. I've linked above to my own best attempts so far.
- The only other possibility I can think of is an appeal to the founder. I'm almost concerned enough to give that a go.
- Hang in there. If enough people give up on NPA, IMO it's the end of Wikipedia. Hard to imagine? Where did Kodak go?
- If it did happen, the world would not end, and thanks to copyleft neither would most of our work so far. Citizendium (which ruthlessly enforces NPA) or another fork (well, currently it's not strictly a fork, but might become one again) would take over. But far better to fix Wikipedia IMO. Andrewa (talk) 22:54, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- Okay, so if enforcement isn't the answer--what is? I am a member of Wikipedia:Kindness Campaign and practice that--even with the person who kept attacking me--they criticized me for my "excessive civility" too! I don't think joining up is high on their list. You know, I need to add here that most of the people on Wikipedia are great--helpful, patient, kind--but when there is one whose behavior is so egregious, for so long, it can color everything. I'm trying not to let that happen. That's why I'm here. We have a lot of different kinds of people here with lots of different views and need to treat everyone with respect even if they have the audacity not to think like we do! Perhaps this is a personality thing that can't be fixed. IDK. I admit I'm feeling a little discouraged about all this. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:33, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- We've been trying to build said consensus pretty much continuously for the 5 years I've been around, with no success. We are self-governed, and those participating in the self-governance are a self-selected few who are not representative of the whole. The way we decide things is not likely to change in the foreseeable future.
Over the years I have watched the ongoing debate and given the problem much thought, and I've come to believe that (1) it is intractable in the current environment, and (2) the only hope is through gradual attrition and evolution. As stated, the policy is already in place, and it is routinely ignored with various rationales for ignoring it. Any new initiative to stop ignoring it would fail for the same reasons as the many others that have come before; nothing has changed sufficiently to make the difference. More at the essay WP:DISRESPECT.The only other possibility I can think of is an appeal to the founder.
Good luck. The founder no doubt has his opinions, but they don't carry any more weight than those of any other editor. Those opposing stricter enforcement of behavior policy are not going to withdraw their opposition because of a statement by him.
I promise you that this thread is a dead end and a waste of time. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:26, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- I guess we sometimes need to dismiss what's not possible, but the purpose of this page is to incubate and encourage new ideas rather than assess them.
- Agree that Those opposing stricter enforcement of behavior policy are not going to withdraw their opposition because of a statement by him. I'm one of them, so I should know! I'm hoping we can find a more effective way.
- In fact one of the key problems I see is the common assumption (which I think you may be making too) that the only way to encourage adherence to NPA is by stricter enforcement. My hope for this thread is that we can brainstorm some other ways.
- The other key mistake is to assume that violations of NPA are also violations of civility. In fact NPA is far, far broader then that. That's probably where I think ARBCOM and WP/ANI (on which I lurk from time to time) have gone wrong... once we give up on NPA and fall back to mere civility, we tend to fall back from encouragement to enforcement too. Andrewa (talk) 02:02, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
- Mandruss--ouch. I hope you're wrong--but I'm afraid you're right. This could be a waste of time, but as I see it, we can't know till we've spent it. I have to try. I love Wikipedia--but using a colorful but descriptive metaphor--I think it keeps stepping on its own foreskin.
- I went and read WP:DISRESPECT since I had never seen it before. Forgive my straightforwardness at this point, but in my POV, that is not a good or helpful article. It's not hard to identify disrespect--anyone on the receiving end of it can do so. I was recently reading an article on the neuroscience of making friends; basically, treating people with respect boils down to being as cooperative as possible and as pleasant as possible: correct others as you would like to receive correction. That's pretty much it. It's not difficult to understand, and there is no value that I can see in trying to make it more complicated than it is. If someone feels disrespected that should be addressed; period. It should be that simple.
- Perhaps I simply haven't been around long enough and I don't understand how complicated this problem can become. Even if we used the same steps for personal attacks that we have for content disputes--what would be the end goal? To force an apology? No, that would not only never work--it would be disrespectful! But if there is no recognition of violation of existing policy, and there is no clear consequence--something like the three revert rule--three attacks in a row and you're blocked--then in my view this is not a real policy--this is just hypocrisy. We either stand up for what we claim to believe in or we don't. If we don't, let's take down the policy and admit it's a free for all here. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:11, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
Perhaps I simply haven't been around long enough and I don't understand how complicated this problem can become.
Perhaps. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:10, 10 May 2018 (UTC)- Well, I've been around for a while, and I think you're hitting some nails squarely on the head. But yes, it's complicated. We're not going to make Wikipedia perfect here, but we can make progress IMO.
- WP:DISRESPECT is an essay not an article, and it's not obvious to me how much of it is the opinion of the person citing it but they're one of three contributors and mentioned by the creator. I don't find it helpful either, but one trap to avoid is assuming that if you treat others the way you want to be treated, they'll be happy. They may not want to be treated that way just because you do! See this off-wiki essay of mine. So that essay is well worth reading if only to understand the other mindset.
- And that's the problem with having something like the 3RR for personal attacks. What's good vigorous discussion for one person can be offensive to another. That's one reason that NPA is so sweeping. Any idiot can understand it, and most of them do. (;->
- You might also find User:Andrewa/Rules, rules, rules helpful. It's another essay, quite recent, trying to point out how radical and interrelated some of our rules are. Or wp:creed is another of mine, older but a favourite.
- Hang in there! Andrewa (talk) 06:27, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
- I wrote the essay two years ago and it has been on my user page since then. Recently others decided it should be in WP space. No, it's not my opinion, it's my understanding of the prevailing consensus position, with which I disagree. It ends with "Do you buy it?" Just thought I should clarify that, since it's not clear to me that it's clear to you. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:34, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
- It's still there on your user page I see, and that explains its history. It would have been helpful IMO if a talk page entry had been created when the essay was copy-and-pasted from your user page. As it is, it's arguably a copyvio... the enigmatic reference to your user page in the edit summary doesn't satisfy the copyleft requirements. I'll fix it.
- It still doesn't seem any help to us in incubating ideas on this page. But let us move on. Andrewa (talk) 11:22, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
- I wrote the essay two years ago and it has been on my user page since then. Recently others decided it should be in WP space. No, it's not my opinion, it's my understanding of the prevailing consensus position, with which I disagree. It ends with "Do you buy it?" Just thought I should clarify that, since it's not clear to me that it's clear to you. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:34, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
- Mandruss, thank you for explaining--and for not taking offense! I apologize if my statement did offend in any way. I agree with you that treating others the way I want to be treated doesn't always make people happy. My assertion is that they should be treated the way they want to be treated--as long as it is within reason. But let's be real. Some people are just bad-tempered. That's just the way it is. Some people won't apologize or admit to an error if their lives depended on it. So what to do about the uncooperative? Is there anything we can do?
- Andrewa, vigorous discussion is not the issue. Just today I saw a discussion where one User was attempting to ask the editor I had the problem with to be patient with newcomers, that teaching is a better response than ridicule, that it's easy to forget what it was like when you were new, that threatening and belittling someone with 190 edits for what they don't know yet is counterproductive, that what appears a point of view in a newcomer is often just an interest (Amen!) and more in that vein--it was wonderful--absolutely respectful and kind. His response was "I'm not talking about this" and he deleted the discussion.
- This kind of thing happens with him about every four to six weeks--someone has a problem with him, calls for some kind of arbitration with him--it's a pattern. It's easy to see why: his first response to anything he doesn't like is a mass revert without explanation or discussion. If you ask why, you get insulted. If you had a brain you would know you're a crap writer. If you try to adapt it to what you think the problem is and put it back, you get threatened. You can ask for compromise till you're blue in the face. Mostly you'll get ignored. There is no discussion--vigorous or otherwise. I can't tell you how many times I tried to discuss. I ended up with an Rfc where every single vote was in my favor--and it made him so angry he put his point of view in long, long "notes" to counter that. Consensus was against him--he didn't care. He's been doing this for years apparently and is basically bulletproof because of longevity. And because Wikipedia makes no effort to keep track of how many conflicts an editor is involved in or how frequently the same editors are involved in them. That's what I have seen. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:24, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
- The NYRM2016 fiasco had some similar issues. Several of those determined to prevent the move made repeated personal attacks on me and others. (And succeeded somehow in getting a no consensus decision despite the policy and facts both being clear and undisputed. The only change when NYRM2017 succeeded a year later was that we'd had an RfC that clarified that NYS wasn't the primary topic, which surely was clear before the RfC, but the 2016 closers firmly refused to confirm or deny this. I doubt the full story will ever be told. But what concerns us here is just the behaviour.) I reported these personal attacks twice at ANI, with diffs. The first time several non-admins agreed it was clearly a personal attack, but there was no evidence any admin even looked at it, and it was auto-archived through lack of further discussion. The second time, nobody even commented.
- If that's not busted I don't know what is.
- The "idea" we're supposed to be discussing is to have a policy prohibiting personal attacks. There seems to be no question that we already do have one! Andrewa (talk) 03:16, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
- I don't see this discussion as limited to policy only, it has also included discussion of some kind of follow through and/or increased enforcement of the policy we already have. Though I do have to say that any policy without any enforcement is a policy in name only-- in my opinion.
- Oh man! Been there! You have all my empathy! Any suggestions for monitoring/enforcement/policy changes/fire-bombing--anything? Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:03, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Identifying people who post multiple AfD requests that get refused
I subscribe to AfD nominations for women, but I am sure that AfDs for all the 99 other genders see similar problems. Sometimes, a clearly notable person is flagged for AfD. Other times, a person flagged for AfD when one Google search would show notability. An editor who files multiple refused AfDs is wasting the time of other editors to defend.
Can we create a bot to check AfDs? Has the proposer filed other AfD's in his/her previous 500 edits? Were those AfDs accepted or rejected?
Then, if somebody files multiple rejected AfDs in 500 edits, the bot would notify somebody (I am not sure who should get the message though.) That person can check if there is a pattern of disruptive editing such as WP:NOTHERE.
What do others think? HouseOfChange (talk) 01:38, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- You might be interested in AfD Stats. It allows you to check users's AfD record, but it doesn't contain the automatic functions you describe. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:09, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you, that looks very relevant to my concerns. HouseOfChange (talk) 03:54, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
The word "notable" in list leads
Various lists, especially those of people, use the term "notable" in the lead, such as Deaths in 2018 or List of people from Texas. Wording like this is necessary to tell the reader that these aren't terribly incomplete lists of all deaths this year or every Texans who has ever lived etc. but rather are a select group. However — although we don't have the cross-namespace link — the term "notable" here really means Wikipedia:Notability, rather than an objective assessment of notability (which is impossible as notability is inherently subjective).
Perhaps it would be better to change "notable people
" to "persons who are the subject of articles on the English Wikipedia
" (or similar) rather than implying Wikipedia is able to objectively determine who is notable and who is not. --LukeSurl t c 16:21, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- We generally try to hide the backstage elements of building the encyclopedia from the readership. Also consider that if something is WP-notable, then it is automatically English-language notable, but not vice versa. As long as it is clear that a list of notable persons (or whatever) is a partial list, I don't think we need to change this. --Masem (t) 16:36, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- I largely agree with that, but I'll just add that I think the more common usage is in new(ish) articles that refer to their (usually BLP) subjects as notable because they know notability needs to be met. Something to watch for, anyway. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:53, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- We should have a hatnote to standardize the wording, once we have reached agreement on it, because the ambiguities pointed out by both LukeSurl and Masem are rather pervasive. So far we have {{expand list}} and {{dynamic list}}, neither of which address this situation. But on the more fundamental question of list inclusion criteria, I think we should apply this entries-that-have-articles standard only if the default so-long-as-it's-sourced has produced a badly bloated list. One of the things that set lists apart from categories is that they allow redlinked (notable but no article yet), and even unlinked (non-notable), entries. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:27, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- I largely agree with that, but I'll just add that I think the more common usage is in new(ish) articles that refer to their (usually BLP) subjects as notable because they know notability needs to be met. Something to watch for, anyway. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:53, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- Agree with User: Finnusertop. Changing "notable people" to "persons who are the subject of articles on the English Wikipedia" would not work, as there might be names in red links, which means that they would not have an article in the English Wikipedia. If some one starts an article on such people and it is considered they are not notable, this can be discussed at Wikipedia: Articles for deletion. The list of deaths in certain months in certain years does have a regulation about how long people in red wikilinks can survive on such lists, but I am not sure how long it is now. Vorbee (talk) 19:44, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- The question isn't about disputing whether listed entities meet Wikipedia:Notability or not, but rather the fact that notability is a fundamentally subjective quality (even different Wikipedias have different criteria). We who inhabit the back corridors of Wikipedia get so used to Wikipedia:Notability and its well-defined edges that we forget that it's a tool for building the encyclopedia, we haven't chanced upon The One True Test for objectively determining what is and is not notable. Statements in article space are required (by a pillar of Wikipedia no less) to have NPOV - but a statement to the effect of These are the notable Texans (for example) is a POV. It's the Wikipedia community's collective consensus, but it's still a POV. We should find a way of phrasing this that avoids this pitfall.
- My originally proposed statement wouldn't work in an list to which redlinks could be added, but the core issue remains. --LukeSurl t c 21:20, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- Mentioning Wikipedia directly in the list would be against Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid. We might link "notable" to Notability in the English Wikipedia which is an article and not a project page. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:05, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
- Since 2008, List of anime conventions, the list has had this explanatory footnote: "A convention is presumed noteworthy if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the convention and satisfies the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article."[1] Originally, this footnote was played the phrase "list of noteworthy anime conventions", but was moved to be part of the introduction section of the list. Maybe it should returned back an explanatory footnote using {{efn}}. Given the importance for the reader to understand the use of "noteworthy" in the inclusion criteria, I believe that this is one situation where MOS:SELFREF can be ignored. —Farix (t | c) 01:37, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
- We tried to address this on List of people by Erdős number with the sentence, "This list is intended to include only those authors with an Erdős number of three or less who are notable in their own right and have existing articles." Consensus is to exclude redlinks, but some get added every month or so. Ntsimp (talk) 18:31, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
watchlist change size feature problem - abuse is easy
Any thought welcome!
Currently watch page shows the resulting *change* is page size, rather than the amount of content being changed.
This is used by abusers. By smartly doing edits with 0 byte page change difference.
A vandal will remove some lines and add other less useful lines. But make sure that the total size of the page is unchanged. Thus avoiding detection by users having the page watched. They will assume it is an iota added or so.
My suggestion is to have bytes changed instead. Which will remove this issue and give information similar to now.
Alternatively, an optional procedure can scan the edit and: IF bytes changed >> than size change by factor X then present the extra number in the watchlist (i.e. instead of "(+12)" you will see "(+12/1000)" when 1000 bytes changed with 12 bytes size change) — Preceding unsigned comment added by YechezkelZilber (talk • contribs) 06:23, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
- There are many multi-byte characters so it should probably be characters changed if anything. But it's difficult to count. It depends how a diff is interpreted. Our diff software tries to compare lines with lines. If newlines are added or removed then the software may count it as whole paragraphs being removed and inserted. See e.g. [2]. I don't think an automatically counted character change would be better than the change in page size. It would be better in some cases but worse in others, and it would often be confusing. Maybe both numbers could be given but that would also confuse many users. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:38, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
- Agree about the peculiarities of the diff program.
- I meant characters, and said bytes.
- A procedure can be programmed that will infer situations where lots has changed with a small size change. This can be done without stepping into the diff morass (using total character counts is one easy shortcut).
- I agree that size should be kept. My suggestion was to add characters edited only when there seems to be a discrepancy. As a countermeasure against abuse. Jazi Zilber (talk) 11:30, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
- I think it's a great idea, I can't see how it would be any more confusing than the current display and I'm guessing it's a very easy change to code and test. But at the same time I wouldn't make it all that high a priority. We'll always have these people, and my guess is that they each have a certain amount of time to waste and will waste it on us regardless of how hard or easy we make it. And this would probably not reduce the amount of time it takes to fix it, it would just get us on to the case more quickly.
- But it would make repairing the damage a lot quicker in some cases, giving a better reader experience, and that's our bottom line. Andrewa (talk) 20:25, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
Gaelic Games Team Templates
When using an iPhone and viewing a players profile, for example Joe Canning Galway Hurler, templates which show up on laptops or tablets don't show up on IPhones. Is there a way to correct this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 51.171.176.168 (talk) 18:49, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
Bot idea
I had an idea for a bot: It uses the {{EP}} series of templates to add "Could always edit" and "Can edit now" messages when the {{Edit protected}} template and its variants are used correspondingly. qwerty6811 :-) Chat Ping me 16:24, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
- You might want to try bot requests as well. I think its a fine idea, maybe a task that could be attached to an existing bot. But the botops know more about that than me. cinco de L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 17:00, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
a Chancellor for Wikipedia
Wouldn't it be a fun community activity to elect a chancellor to Wikipedia to rule over and help guide some article ideas and projects. also if the community is having troubles with vandalism we can give the Chancellor "emergency powers" to make sure the future of Wikipedia is safe. the requirements for you to be a candidate for this position would be as follows you are an admin and have gotten 10 nominations then on the front page of Wikipedia all members will be able to cast their ballot for a month. this is just and idea please be sure to tell me what you think. well it would certainlyy be intersting — Preceding unsigned comment added by Government Man (talk • contribs) 14:06, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- No, that would not be fun at all. Anomie⚔ 19:56, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- Remember what happened when the Galactic Senate gave the Chancellor emergency powers. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:46, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
- There are enough Wikipedians here wanting to take up arms because of the existence of the admin corp, this would be a massive fight. cinco de L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 22:02, 17 May 2018 (UTC)