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Contents
- 1 "Arbitrator" user group
- 2 WikiPolls
- 3 Definition of a stub and automatic removal of stub templates
- 4 Proposal for Linking of Wikipedia to wiktionary for easy understanding
- 5 Workshopping: Proposed "Page mover" permission
- 6 Automated list of authors
- 7 Wikipedia:WikiGhost
- 8 WP:NOTUSA
- 9 IEG proposal: A graphical and interactive etymology dictionary based on Wiktionary
- 10 Wrap infoboxes in complementary divs for accessibility
- 11 A username blacklist?
- 12 Conversion to past tense
- 13 Proposal for the creation of a comparison tool
- 14 3rd party wikis links
- 15 Staleness or predictable outcomes of "Wikipedia:Move review"
- 16 Too many cooks
"Arbitrator" user group
So, the Wikipedia:Non-administrator Arbitrators RfC over a month ago did in its closure feature a rough consensus in creating an "Arbitrator" usergroup for arbitrators, but the closer indicated that it would need some development and further discussion. So, now it may be time to discuss how to implement that - assuming that the close still stands. Noting also this revision regarding one possible setup and whether it would be acceptable to the WMF given that it involves sensitive permissions.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:50, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
- If I recall correctly, this would not be a foundation problem - provided that any access granted follows the same requirements (community approvals, identification, etc) that is already in place. Creating a new
usergroup
is fairly easy. We would need to decide what permissions are actually required for the group, see example list of all available permissions here. Users can belong to multiple groups, and their permissions merge. So for example, the new group could be granted the ability to view deleted and oversighted (deletedtext
andviewsuppressed
permissions) without the ability to also delete or oversight the pages. — xaosflux Talk 19:30, 30 December 2015 (UTC)- This would require the user to ALSO be an oversighter, administrator, etc to gain the additional permissions. This may open the discussion to limit or expand the permissions someone gets just for being on the committee. — xaosflux Talk 19:32, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
- Also, by default new groups would only be able to have membership changed by stewards - and if bundling portions of oversight or checkuser the foundation would likely still require this. If they will have equal to or LESS permissions than administrators, then we could also request that our 'crats be able to update the group. — xaosflux Talk 19:35, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
- Among the concepts proposed in the RfC was to give this group solely the "view" privileges (that is by my assessment,
abusefilter-hidden-log
,abusefilter-log
,abusefilter-log-detail
,abusefilter-view
,abusefilter-view-private
,browsearchive
,checkuser-log
,deletedhistory
,deletedtext
,spamblacklistlog
,suppressionlog
andtitleblacklistlog
), althougheditprotected
may also be useful if arbitrators have to work within protected pages. And yes, such a group if it includes the "sensitive" permissions (heresuppressionlog
andcheckuser-log
and some abusefilter permissions) it would need to be added/removed by stewards only; if not requested by the WMF, the folks in Phabricator will likely ask for it since non-steward granting of such permissions has created issues in the past.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:34, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
- Among the concepts proposed in the RfC was to give this group solely the "view" privileges (that is by my assessment,
I pruned duplicated items that are already in "users", etc - so this could be a request such as:
- Create a new group:
Arbitrators
- Include permissions:
abusefilter-hidden-log
abusefilter-view-private
browsearchive
checkuser-log
deletedhistory
deletedtext
spamblacklistlog
suppressionlog
titleblacklistlog
viewdeletedfile
viewsuppressed
— xaosflux Talk 22:08, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
Now, a prime question is - is this moot? Since ArbCom is the deciders of who gets CheckUser and Oversight - if they are going to just assign themselves the permissions then there is no need to include that stuff in here. — xaosflux Talk 22:10, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
- If memory serves, some arbitrators have stated that they won't use this full "requestable" permission set, so a more narrow set may be useful. Plus, I am not sure if the OS and CU rights entail all the permissions mentioned before, which may matter in case of a non-admin being elected to ARBCOM.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 22:27, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
-
- Purely from the perspective of programming and security, it makes sense to have a group for arbitrators. Membership in this group begins when their term starts, and ends when they leave. If an arbitrator gets CU or OS, they may keep it beyond the end of their term, or remove it early. In theory an arbitrator might not have sysop access, or might resign sysop after being elected. We should disentangle the roles so that each hat works independently of the others. Jehochman Talk 22:44, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
- Please identify the problem before offering a solution. Why would an arb need all these permissions? Arbitration always takes plenty of time so why can't other arbs provide information that an individual may not be able to access? In an emergency any sensible arb should quickly act on the advice of respected users with the permissions, with a review to follow. Do arbs frequently need to study deleted pages and such like? Johnuniq (talk) 00:56, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
- Do they really need another 'feather' ? I think the voting was done without any user there having any knowledge on how this would be done. Sometimes certain rights are removed when not used such as OS/CU so how would you go about doing that? for example a sitting arbie, AGK lost his CU/OS rights for inactivity but he is still an arbitrator, so would the stewards remove his "bundled" arbitrator right when he isn't active? It would be silly to bundle multiple rights into one cannister especially for a group which will never have more than 15 members at any given point....I think only large groups, or groups that can allow for more users should have their own special usergroup (the only exception is the founder rights ofcourse)..This might need another discussion..--Stemoc 01:48, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
- AGK did not lose his CU/OS access by inactivity, as you can see here. Also, as said here sitting arbitrators are not subject to the (local) inactivity policy. As for deleted pages, yes, I do remember a number of cases where deleted evidence did play a role.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:50, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
- @Johnuniq If we ever elect an arb who is not currently an admin then yes they would need access to deleted and indeed oversighted edits. If they had to rely on other arbs to check deleted revisions and decide which were appropriate to show them as evidence then we would have two classes of Arbs. I would prefer that only those who had been elected as admins were deleting, restoring, blocking and unblocking. But all arbs need to be able to see the same evidence. ϢereSpielChequers 10:29, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
- Do they really need another 'feather' ? I think the voting was done without any user there having any knowledge on how this would be done. Sometimes certain rights are removed when not used such as OS/CU so how would you go about doing that? for example a sitting arbie, AGK lost his CU/OS rights for inactivity but he is still an arbitrator, so would the stewards remove his "bundled" arbitrator right when he isn't active? It would be silly to bundle multiple rights into one cannister especially for a group which will never have more than 15 members at any given point....I think only large groups, or groups that can allow for more users should have their own special usergroup (the only exception is the founder rights ofcourse)..This might need another discussion..--Stemoc 01:48, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
- In reply to User:Jo-Jo Eumerus's comment of 18:50, 30 December 2015 (UTC) at the top of this section: Unless the Arbitration Committee or at least a significant minority of that committee ask for such a feature, I think we are putting the cart before the horse. In any case, if and when a majority of the committee ask for it, as long as it only affects members of the committee and it doesn't give them rights they don't already have, it should be done as "routine maintenance" without further community input. The only reasons I can think of for the community to discuss this is if a significant minority of the committee would like this or if it would be an actual "upgrade" in permissions beyond what the community has already given them. I don't see evidence of either one of these conditions being met right now. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 18:34, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
- Pretty sure we need a community consensus before any user right will be created. I remember that the developers in Bugzilla/Phabricator require a community consensus for such things, an ArbCom request is not enough.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:59, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
- From a logical point of view, I agree with the concept of creating a usergroup specifically for ArbCom members, namely:
- Permissions necessary for an arbitrator to do the job can be issued directly to the group as opposed to needing to add a given Arb to perhaps two or three groups (sysop, oversight, checkuser - as required). By the same token, at the expiration of their term, it's only one group to take that arb out of instead of having stewards/crats lookup what group(s) the former Arb had and removing the others
- Through use of
$wpAddGroups
,$wgRemoveGroups
and$wgGroupsRemoveFromSelf
Arbs can add/remove specific groups to other editors (class examples: CU/OS)
- Just my two cents (keep the change)
- Dax Bane 01:33, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
- Arbitrators cannot add or remove people from usergroups. When arbcom appoints someone as e.g. a checkuser, they make a request for a steward to add the user concerned to the checkuser usergroup. Likewise when permissions are removed for inactivity, a request is made to the stewards for the permissions to be removed. This will not change if the arb usergroup is created. Thryduulf (talk) 13:17, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Didn't we already determine that Oversight Access allows for access to view deleted content, and that an ArbCom election was considered RfA-identical enough to meet the Foundation requirement for Oversight access? Therefore the Admin bit is not necessary to view deleted content, if the Arb were given Oversight access? (Note this was never tested practically, but as per before, I would be willing to drop my admin bit for a few hours to try it out, if we wanted to know what one could and could not do for sure.) The CheckUser log access is of little value as it provides little information, also keeping in mind that not all Arbitrators are CheckUsers (by choice). If we had a non-admin Arbitrator, they could be provided Oversight Access, and have all of the tools necessary without creating a new usergroup (plus the ability to revision (un)delete and revision (un)suppress, but not to delete an actual page). I think this is a solution looking for a problem. The idea of creating a new usergroup, for a hypothetical non-admin arbitrator that may or may not get elected in the future, when really all we have to do as give them a single permission, that they are already entitled to. --kelapstick(bainuu) 02:35, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
- Oversighters have all the required permissions to view deleted revisions without the admin flag (though oddly enough not the ability to delete pages, which would be required for some suppressions), and according to the global policy could be appointed by arbcom without being local admins. In terms of a need for the group, maybe? Some projects use one for arbitrators, others don't. If the group had CU or suppression log viewing abilities then it would need to be granted from meta by stewards, but if it just had the ability to view deleted revisions and the like then it could be granted locally by bureaucrats.
- I'm not convinced of the need for such a group myself. You can just give arbitrators an admin flag for their tenure, if need be. Ajraddatz (Talk) 02:45, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
- Arbcom elections and RFA look at very different things. I would be surprised if the community elected an arb who couldn't be trusted with the block button, but it is entirely possible that we could elect an Arb who we wouldn't trust with the delete button. ϢereSpielChequers 19:35, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Comment: We at Russian Wikipedia have had the arbitrator flag since June 2013, and AFAIK we've never had any problems with that. It includes 4 rights, namely browsearchive
, deletedhistory
, abusefilter-log-detail
& deletedtext
. P.S. I know the situation here is quite different, I'm just telling you about our experience. -Синкретик (talk) 19:00, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
WikiPolls
As a sister site, WikiPolls feels as though it could be a good idea, but, first, I would like to explain what it is and see whether there are issues to be repaired:
- WikiPolls in my idea is a sister site which anyone can edit and wherein users can post their own topics such as "What World War subject is your most favorite? [Button]—World War I...[Button]—World War II...[Button]—the hypothetical World War III" for users to answer by selecting choices and then clicking on the "Vote" button. Of course, it would be hard to find topics by just searching for their topic names and entry names, so tagging them with words such as "World War" would help making searching much faster, and, to avoid giving in false polls or altering users' initial votes, users would have to vote in order to see results. Also, we would obviously not want to have polls such as "Which Wikipedia user is worse?" and even "Which of the following is the worst terrorist?", for that might otherwise make likers feel upset from seeing negative results after voting, and we especially do not want controversial entries such as "For whom do you want to win after the 2016 elections?", for that can skew general people's votes into getting apparently bad leaders.
This is only an idea, and I am only looking for suggestions. Gamingforfun365 (talk) 02:29, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
-
- why would I want to go there?
- btw, this is the wrong place. If I remember correctly you should put this on meta--Dixtosa (talk) 04:49, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
- I was suspicious that it might have been that place where it belongs, but it was hard for me to tell (EDIT: Additionally, it was made harder because I have accidentally visited MediaWiki on the bottom-right corner of the page layout instead.), and the rules did not say that I must not do that,
but, regardless of what I have said, I shall relocate this topic.Gamingforfun365 (talk) 09:19, 13 March 2016 (UTC)- Even though the official rules for submitting sister project ideas do not exist here, which is very misleading, what do you think of polls? Now, just forget the WikiPolls project for now.
Gamingforfun365 (talk) 09:44, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
- Even though the official rules for submitting sister project ideas do not exist here, which is very misleading, what do you think of polls? Now, just forget the WikiPolls project for now.
- I was suspicious that it might have been that place where it belongs, but it was hard for me to tell (EDIT: Additionally, it was made harder because I have accidentally visited MediaWiki on the bottom-right corner of the page layout instead.), and the rules did not say that I must not do that,
- Sister sites are required to have an educational or informational purpose. This doesn't seem like a good fit on those grounds. It might be popular at some other site, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:05, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
- Such as Wikia, and where is the requirement? Other than that, I am sorry that I had given a lousy idea like that and therefore shown my medium amount of ignorance.
Gamingforfun365 (talk) 05:05, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
- Such as Wikia, and where is the requirement? Other than that, I am sorry that I had given a lousy idea like that and therefore shown my medium amount of ignorance.
- The proposal would belong at meta:Proposals for new projects. See mw:Category:Poll extensions for existing MediaWiki extensions but it doesn't sound like a project for the Wikimedia Foundation. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:53, 14 March 2016 (UTC)
Are all wiki sites required to be educational in the conventional way that the encyclopaedia is? Presumably not or there wouldn't be ideas for alternatives and have just seen a mention of a wiki poll idea. This may simply be a relatively conventional market research of some sort that people could choose to be involved with instead of the invasive ones that often appear on computer screens as advertisement in some excuse that the owner didn't pay for the software. I am hoping for something I can use as I choose to help evolve and never pay for software as it was invented very many years ago and we are all part of the process. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markostri (talk • contribs) 20:49, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
- All WMF-sponsored wikis are required to be "educational" due to the foundation:Mission statement. The m:sister project committee only accepts projects that are compatible with the movement's general principles (freely licenced, spreading free knowledge, BLP rules), vision and mission statement. They don't have to be "educational in the conventional way", but they do have to be "educational". m:Proposals for new projects lists several wikifarms that are happy to host non-educational projects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:46, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
- (EDIT: On the other hand, the only "education" which I would receive from the site would be people's opinions upon subjects about...anything. I also was thinking about providing a little information about subjects to make recognition of the subjects better and a little "educational", but, other than that,) I apologize for bringing up this topic. I wish that I had known about the statement. I feel somewhat embarrassed.
Gamingforfun365 (talk) 17:02, 20 April 2016 (UTC)- Response, please.
Gamingforfun365 (talk) 21:15, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
- Response, please.
- (EDIT: On the other hand, the only "education" which I would receive from the site would be people's opinions upon subjects about...anything. I also was thinking about providing a little information about subjects to make recognition of the subjects better and a little "educational", but, other than that,) I apologize for bringing up this topic. I wish that I had known about the statement. I feel somewhat embarrassed.
Definition of a stub and automatic removal of stub templates
At the moment there isn't really a set definition of a stub. WP:STUB has a very vague description of one, and also states that different editors follow different standards. I think we should create a a definitive number of characters that make an article no longer a stub. Probably somewhere between 500-1500 characters. Once this is decided, a bot could be used to remove stub templates when they no longer fit the requirements to be a stub, so that stub tags could be consistent and accurate among articles. Thoughts? — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 02:54, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
- 500-1,500 characters (a.k.a. bytes) make about four or five paragraphs and also about five or six references. A better number might be 3,000 or over.
Gamingforfun365 (talk) 05:21, 27 March 2016 (UTC)- @Gff365: Ah, you're right. Perhaps 2000-2500 bytes would be a more appropriate measure? — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 07:36, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
- I am looking at articles such as PlayStation World, and it is currently 3,531 bytes long, yet it in my opinion still constitutes a stub article. I would like to change my mind into saying that around 5,000 bytes might work better.
Gamingforfun365 (talk) 19:11, 27 March 2016 (UTC)- That is not a stub, it has multiple paragraphs, an image, references. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
- The reason that page has that many characters is proabably because of all the templates. But I agree with Graeme Bartlett: that's not a stub. — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 22:55, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
-
- Exactly! That would make the robot want to change the quality level from "Stub" to "Start", and that is my point!
Gamingforfun365 (talk) 21:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
- Exactly! That would make the robot want to change the quality level from "Stub" to "Start", and that is my point!
- I think a very short article with multiple sources can be a start-class article (or even C), while a somewhat longer article filled solely with unsourced plot info can be a stub, especially if it doesn't make use of sections. I don't think it's a good idea to base the idea of "stub" entirely around character-count, as I'd much rather see people trying to write good prose than useless trivia in order to get to start-class. I don't think a hard limit is a good idea. ~Mable (chat) 17:17, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
-
- The reason that page has that many characters is proabably because of all the templates. But I agree with Graeme Bartlett: that's not a stub. — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 22:55, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
- That is not a stub, it has multiple paragraphs, an image, references. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
- I am looking at articles such as PlayStation World, and it is currently 3,531 bytes long, yet it in my opinion still constitutes a stub article. I would like to change my mind into saying that around 5,000 bytes might work better.
- @Gff365: Ah, you're right. Perhaps 2000-2500 bytes would be a more appropriate measure? — Omni Flames (talk contribs) 07:36, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
- Comment I've posted a note about this discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Stub_sorting#Discussion_at_Idea_Lab, where the stub experts can be found. PamD 20:48, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
- WP:STUB#How big is too big? says "there is no set size at which an article stops being a stub" and includes a link to the Croughton-London rule, which is a useful way of putting a perspective on it. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:26, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
- Agree with the above. Stubness is not about characters. It is about meaningfull content in proportion to what there is to know about a topic. Short articles about obscure yet important historical persons may give all available information, while adding the contents of the phone book to a further empty article on a major city would not elevate such an article above stub level. (NB I realise this is not the best example as phone books are listed among what Wikipedia is not, but I hope the idea gets across) Arnoutf (talk) 14:13, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
- The term 'stub' has become a justification to junk up the bottom of many articles with those ugly stub templates. Any criteria that expands the range of articles to receive those templates is not an improvement to Wikipedia. Likewise, an article shouldn't need more than one stub template; the categorization can go within the template itself. Praemonitus (talk) 20:16, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, it would be nice to be able to combine all of those stub templates into a single template, just as all of those Wikiproject templates can be combined into one. Probably doable, too: just copy the code from the WikiProjectBannerShell template into a StubBannerShell template, maybe tweak the parent stub template a little, & that part's done. Only step left to do would be to find all of those stub articles with more than one stub template & add it to them. Not more than a few million to check & edit, simple to do. -- llywrch (talk) 18:59, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
- WP:AWB has a byte-length definition of not-a-stub, and I believe that's the only (semi-)automatic method for removing stub tags at the moment. The number chosen is rather generous, to err on the side of caution. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Stubsensor exists, although very inactive. Brightgalrs (/braɪtˈɡæl.ərˌɛs/)[1] 16:33, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
Proposal for Linking of Wikipedia to wiktionary for easy understanding
NimXaif6290 17:37, 15 April 2016 (UTC) M/S wikipedia! It is suggested that you may link wictionary with wikipedia in such a way that pointing towards a general word shows its meaning from wiktionary. This can be applied to the words that are not links. This will make it easy for the readers to learn and to understand wikipedia. I often feel it very difficult to study on wikipedia because I have to search for the meanings as well... Thanks NimXaif6290 17:37, 15 April 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nimrainayat6290 (talk • contribs)
- Hi User:Nimrainayat6290. Some articles do have links to Wiktionary, e.g. Oi (interjection) has {{wiktionary|oi}} at the top, which links to wikt:oi. In the search box at Wikipedia, you can type in wikt:keyword to search for any word (in that case, it takes you to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/keyword). For general use, you can search Wiktionary in several ways, see wikt:Help:Searching. Handy tools are search plugins, which are available for Firefox and Chrome. Fences&Windows 21:51, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
- The Simple (English) Wikipedia exists to meet the needs of those who might struggle with the English Wikipedia's level of English. There may also be some extensions for your browser that do what you want regarding linking words to dictionaries. It is not the English Wikipedia's goal to help readers learn English so this proposal would get shot down hard. On the other hand, articles should be accessible so if you feel the current reading level of an article is more demanding than it ought to be, try to improve it. Cheers, Jason Quinn (talk) 12:53, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Workshopping: Proposed "Page mover" permission
Hey, I'd like some help workshopping a proposed new permission called "Page mover". Please see Wikipedia:Page mover and leave your comments at Wikipedia talk:Page mover (or just go ahead and edit your suggestions in). –xenotalk 23:35, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the help, I've moved to the RFC stage: Wikipedia talk:Page mover#RFC - Proposed: "Page mover" permission to be created. –xenotalk 00:26, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
Automated list of authors
The article history is a pretty clunky way to do attribution, because there is a lot more noise (edits that don't add text or text additions that were removed later) than signal. It would be better if there was an automated list of authors in a collapsed box at the bottom of the article. The list would be ordered by the number of bytes of text added to the current version of article. It would be easy for mirrors of Wikipedia to take care of attribution as all they have to do is mirror the list, which would say something about GFDL and Wikipedia. Of course you would still need the history to determine which author added which piece of text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.79.99.105 (talk) 09:55, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
- There are quite a few external tools that provide such information; registered users have access to a Gadget that displays some of them in a handy menu (Page > Analysis): see User:MusikAnimal/MoreMenu. I don’t see much advantage in including a list on the article page: even if collapsed by default it would often add a great deal to the page‘s size & loading time, and I imagine the associated database queries would be something of a burden on the servers if they had to keep the list continuously current rather than generating it only on demand. I’m also dubious about the significance of bytes-added as a metric of authorship: if I restore a large section blanked by a vandal, or spam the article with an autobiography that gets promptly reverted, does my ‘addition’ of so many kilobytes make me a major contributor?—Odysseus1479 23:43, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiGhost
This is an idea to seek out and find a new WikiFauna Creature to identify users. I presently have no idea how a WikiGhost would behave, but it might be a good addition. Wyatt Hughes (talk) 23:12, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
- You should probably start by finding a list of behaviors, and then give it a name. I think this strategy makes more sense than starting with a name. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:51, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
- There are probably too many such faunas (see e.g. Wikipedia_talk:WikiFauna#Inclusion_criteria_for_WikiFauna) and if you "have no idea" about this proposed one I suggest exorcising this idea. Fences&Windows 21:41, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
WP:NOTUSA
I'm a bit uncomfortable reading WP:NOTUSA and feel that English-speakers who are not from the USA have a legitimate case to make that the use of US has several problems, not least that there are several other countries which use the words "United States" in their title, that US could be misread to mean "us" and that there seems to be an inbuilt assumption that those of us outside of the USA always know how this abbreviation is being used. I'm not suggesting that all pages should be changed (given that from the context it is fairly obvious in many what is being discussed) but given there are bots which go around changing USA to US, it seems to me that WP:NOTUSA is too prescriptive. For example if one was making a list of countries where something applied, wouldn't it be correct to say "During his career, Henry had academic positions in France, Germany and several universities in the USA"? I'm not quite sure what change I'm suggesting, hence the post here.. JMWt (talk) 15:58, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
- Using upper case letters for abbreviations is a common convention in English. Praemonitus (talk) 16:36, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
- You've misunderstood. This is not about upper or lower cases. JMWt (talk) 20:51, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
- I agree with JMWt. I'd also find it odd to be foreced to use "US", and to be told "Do not use U.S.A. or USA". Is it possible that this style guide was written by someone residing in the U.S. but that for people elsewhere in the world, it makes less sense? EvMsmile (talk) 01:03, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
- Agree with JMWt. Somewhere (I can't find it now) there is or was a recent discussion that suggested putting footnotes in Wikipedia policies and guidelines to refer back to the consensus or reasoning that produced each policy or guideline. WP:NOTUSA is a typical candidate. It says simply "Do not use U.S.A. or USA" (with some exceptions). Why not? Can someone (a) explain here, and (b) add an explanatory footnote to WP:NOTUSA? For a Brit like me, the usage "USA" is normal – why is it apparently anathema to Americans? — Stanning (talk) 16:02, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
- You can search the manual's talk page here. Brianga (talk) 16:44, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
- @Brianga: No you can't, it's a redlink. @Stanning: Maybe because in a historical context, it might mean Union of South Africa? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:36, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
- @Redrose64:Did you try clicking? It's indeed red, but the link seems to work. Brianga (talk) 20:45, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: I've never heard or seen USA used to mean Union of South Africa. It seems nobody else on Wikipedia has that confusion, since USA isn't a disambiguation page but a redirect to United States. — Stanning (talk) 11:57, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: In current and historical contexts, United States can also refer to numerous states, so I don't see that as a valid reason for avoiding USA. I've also found the insistence on using US contrary to WP:ENGVAR. Valenciano (talk) 11:01, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Brianga: No you can't, it's a redlink. @Stanning: Maybe because in a historical context, it might mean Union of South Africa? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:36, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
- You can search the manual's talk page here. Brianga (talk) 16:44, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
- You've misunderstood. This is not about upper or lower cases. JMWt (talk) 20:51, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
- At the very least Not:USA needs amending per ENGVAR to use USA in articles not written in American English. If USA really is deprecated in American English then I guess we have to live with the anomaly, but the articles where it is most likely to be an issue are I suspect the ones not in American English. ϢereSpielChequers 08:36, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- Agree. I propose this text: "Do not use U.S.A. or USA in articles tagged with {{Use American English}}, except ..." — Stanning (talk) 12:02, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that's good enough. Some WikiProjects have agreed to use American English as standard on their pages, but I still don't see that this is a reason to change USA to US. OK, yes, I accept that there are some pages where it might be appropriate, such as Supreme Court of the United States and other specific pages relevant to readers in a particular geography. But if we're talking about non-geographic pages, pages about concepts or people or ideas which are not uniquely from that country, I can't see that there is any justification for changing USA to US. JMWt (talk) 12:53, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- @JMWt: I agree with you, but let's go for what's practical. It seems that there are Americans for whom it's desperately important that their country must be referred to as "the US" rather than "the USA", so much that they've inserted WP:NOTUSA into the MOS and have bots patrolling Wikipedia to enforce it. We're not going to change their minds, so let's leave pages in their dialect with the nomenclature that they insist on. If WikiProjects have agreed to use American English as standard, we'll have to live with that. — Stanning (talk) 17:56, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- WikiProjects have no business deciding what form of English to use on "their" pages, because WikiProjects don't WP:OWN any articles. Any group of editors, or any individual editor, can recommend something, but a WP:WikiProject advice page is as non-binding as a userpage essay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:50, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
- Agree. I propose this text: "Do not use U.S.A. or USA in articles tagged with {{Use American English}}, except ..." — Stanning (talk) 12:02, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- "During his career, Henry had academic positions in France, Germany and several universities in the United States". Don't use any abbreviation. Problem solved! It even says so here: "When the United States is mentioned with one or more other countries in the same sentence, U.S. or US may be too informal, especially at the first mention or as a noun instead of an adjective (France and the United States, not France and the U.S.). "- Aalox (Say Hello • My Work) 17:40, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
- Historically, MOS:NOTUSA said that "USA" is ambiguous because it could refer to other groups in the United States, such as the US Army. After discussion, that got taken out. There's also this older discussion. Apparently, "USA" is supposed to sound jingoistic and old-fashioned according to some editors. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:11, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Point of order: This discussion is fine if the goal is to develop a proposal to take to WT:MOS. But MOS:NOTUSA should not be modified without a consensus on that page, regardless of what happens here. If everyone present already understands that, please accept my apologies. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:39, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
IEG proposal: A graphical and interactive etymology dictionary based on Wiktionary
I have written a grant proposal to develop an interactive visualization tool for etymological relationships (click here to see the proposal). If you are interested in etymology and you think you would be interested in an interactive graphical etymology dictionary please endorse my grant proposal ( of the grant page). I need your feedback/comments there or on the talk page. To see a working demo of the visual etymology dictionary click here (the demo works best on a desktop).
The aim of the application is to visualize - in one graph - the etymology of all words deriving from the same ancestor. Users can expand/collapse the tree to visualize what they are interested in. The textual part attached to the graph can be easily translated in any language and the app would become a multilingual resource. My idea is to use Dbnary's extraction-framework and develop a (possibly) smart pre-processing strategy to translate Wiktionary textual etymologies into a graph database of etymological relationships.
I would very much appreciate any kind of feedback from you on the grant page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Epantaleo (talk • contribs) 00:45, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Wrap infoboxes in complementary divs for accessibility
I'd like to propose the following general change to all infoboxes, i.e., directly to Module:Infobox. With the infobox wrapped in a div with an accessibility role and label, screen readers can navigate to and from the infobox as a region or landmark. Screen readers will announce the infobox with a meaningful label, such as "infobox complementary information", rather than a cryptic announcement like "table with N rows and 3 columns".
For example, something along the lines of:
- From
<table class="infobox"> ... </table>
- To
<div role="complementary" aria-label="infobox"> <table class="infobox"> ... </table> </div>
— most conservative change, visual output preserved, or<div class="infobox" role="complementary" aria-label="infobox"> <table> ... </table> </div>
— better semantics, encourages moving non-tabular data out of the table, but needs margins, padding, etc. fixed in CSS
The first version would be fairly easy and safe to implement. The second version wouldn't be too hard, but would require a whole lot of testing to make sure infoboxes don't get broken. Do either of these ideas look good? Matt Fitzpatrick (talk) 00:51, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- My biggest concern (that needs testing) would be if this will in any way at all interfere with mobile views. — xaosflux Talk 02:11, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- The first option, just wrapping with a div, appears to work in CologneBlue, Modern, Monobook, Vector, and Minerva. I doubt there's any surprises. The second option, wrapping with a div and refactoring CSS so the div is
.infobox
instead of the table, would need additional work in the mobile CSS. The mobile CSS uses a heavily qualifiedtable.infobox
selector, which would have to change to.infobox
, in addition to the margin and padding changes for the desktop CSS. Matt Fitzpatrick (talk) 03:03, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- The first option, just wrapping with a div, appears to work in CologneBlue, Modern, Monobook, Vector, and Minerva. I doubt there's any surprises. The second option, wrapping with a div and refactoring CSS so the div is
A username blacklist?
Has anyone ever proposed a blacklist on usernames? This month, I've spent a bit of time countering vandalism, eventually frequently ending up on the Special:Log/newusers page. We can observe that most users registering don't actually make edits. However, we sometimes (maybe often) get offensive usernames or those that are misleading (i.e. have "admin" or "bot" in their names). Those that counter new user vandalism will be the ones that can best vouch for this.
If we had some sort of English-language username blacklist, we could potentially alleviate Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention from very offensive stuff, such as those that appear at MediaWiki:Titleblacklist.
Any thoughts, suggestions, or archived discussions we should note? — Andy W. (talk · contrib) 05:09, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- This would be an obvious problem with probably any username blacklist. I'm not sure if there is a good way to avoid that while still making the filter somewhat useful -- Even then prospective username trolls would just circumvent them with a near-infinite combination of look-alike characters. JWNoctistalk 05:18, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
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- Andy W., doesn't it already check MediaWiki:Titleblacklist? I'm just reading Wikipedia:Account creator#Account creators' abilities and from what I take from that it already does. Or do you mean we should have a separate blacklist? DiscantX 05:31, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
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- @DiscantX: wow, thanks for pointing that out... goes to show still how little I know about policy/stuff that's set up already. I suppose it is checking the title blacklist... I'm now thinking it makes sense to have a separate stricter blacklist of usernames that will obviously be blocked for being a current username violation. There must be a way to get stuff like this to be disallowed. If implemented, this would entail changing the account creator userright to override that.
- I suppose the difficulty of making such a blacklist is that we want to avoid false positives, such as (potentially) my own username, if you know what I mean (haha). Pinging some folks that seem active at village pump (good faith)... @Redrose64, Iridescent, Xaosflux, and Xeno: any thoughts? — Andy W. (talk · contrib) 05:47, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- MediaWiki:Titleblacklist does not apply to user name because of SUL. However, meta:Title blacklist does control user names and has a list of English usernames that are disallowed.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 05:52, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- Hence, a proposed change would have implications cross-wiki, then. I see. Since this is the idea lab, something else off the top of my head: could we auto-block these users on the English WP on a separate list?
- I collected some examples (looking at some of the latest entries in the block log, and going back to the latest in March 31): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 — Andy W. (talk · contrib) 06:01, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- The filter does seem ineffective... if, as Jo-Jo Eumerus says, meta:Title blacklist is what is checked, and
*FU[C(K]+K+ <newaccountonly|antispoof>
is one of the regex lines, how did 2 and 3 get through? (My regex foo is very weak, I'll admit). - Another option I can think of is having something a bit more dynamic. My understanding is that User:ClueBot NG uses machine learning to catch vandalism, and is pretty darn good at catching random gibberish such as 1, as well as obvious swears, so maybe a bot could be written for such a cause? Or User:ClueBot NG could add another task to its list and use its current knowledge to flag usernames? DiscantX 08:50, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- As has already been pointed out above, since usernames became global it would be virtually impossible to create any kind of autoblock mechanism which wouldn't hit good-faith users; as an off-the-top-of-my-head example, there are at least three towns called "Shit", and a crude "naughty word" filter would autoblock the Shit equivalent of User:Newyorkbrad. The best one could hope for is a "this username is potentially problematic" bot which flags accounts as potentially problematic, which is what we already do. Since usernames are effectively invisible until they start editing—nobody not involved in Wikipedia is aware of the existence of Special:ListUsers—I can't see why we would want to take the spectacularly bad-faith action of pre-emptively blocking Joachim Cuntz on en-wiki should he decide to edit de-wiki with his surname as a username, and the SUL automatically create an en-wiki logon for him. ‑ Iridescent 09:31, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
- The filter does seem ineffective... if, as Jo-Jo Eumerus says, meta:Title blacklist is what is checked, and
- MediaWiki:Titleblacklist does not apply to user name because of SUL. However, meta:Title blacklist does control user names and has a list of English usernames that are disallowed.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 05:52, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
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To get a rough idea of just how many false positives would be caught by an automated filter, just look at Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention/Bot, where I would say at between 50%-90% of "offensive usernames" at any given time are false positives (as I write this, Papacita1 "contains the offensive term Paki with a c substituted for a k", Adcockp "contains the string cock" and Vicfuxntxs "contains the string fux" are all listed there). Unless and until they start editing, potentially offensive usernames are the least of our problems, given that they're invisible to readers unless and until they actually make an edit. ‑ Iridescent 15:07, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
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- I certainly think we need to consider the Scunthorpe problem before we start to have the software disallow usernames like that. Even our bot reporting system has many false positives; it would be wrong to make a system with that many false positives actually disallow user names. And it comes with a whitelist feature (e.g we disallow the string "rape", but allow the strings "grape" and "drape"). עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:47, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
Conversion to past tense
Articles in Wikipedia are supposed to be timeless: WP:RECENT. However, this suggestion is not about the content of an article, or the long-term notabilty on the article, or the historical perspective. Rather, it is about the verb tenses and other temporal wording used in an article.
We have many articles about events that occurred after the start of Wikipedia in 2001. Often, the initial article was written as the event was unfolding or shortly thereafter, with sections written in the present tense. We also get sentences or sections added about projections into the future, written in future tense. We also get additions about new research added to older articles that are written in present tense and sometimes with projections from the date of the edit into its future. As time goes by, these sentences become incorrect as the future becomes the present and then the past. Sentences also use relative time terms, notably the word "recent". The resulting articles end up seeming unencyclopedic.
When I find such sentences, I try to fix them, but I think we need something a bit more focused than a single editor operating sporadically and independently. As time goes by, the percentage of such articles will increase, because the amount of prior research and potential articles about the past is fixed, while the number of articles about new events is not.
Questions:
- Is this being addressed in any existing project?
- Should we add this as a goal to an existing project or create a new project?
Proposal: We should establish a project to review each article for verb tense, on a schedule: one month, one year, and five years after it is created. We should also automatically scan for "relative time" words (i.e., recent, now) and verb constructs. These two scans can be automated and might find the bulk of the offending edits for manual correction by interested editors.
An additional automated scan might identify new edits to older articles, but would require manual review. When a new edit adds a recent reference to an "old" article, it often uses the present tense. It may be possible to simply create a list of such edits for manual review. It may be possible to automatically check these edits for present and future tense.
-Arch dude (talk) 03:46, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
- {{As of}}, {{update after}}, etc. are relevant here. A way to automatically apply one or more of those templates would presumably be valuable. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 04:34, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
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- A question I've wondered is: How soon should we start writing in past tense? When, if ever, is it acceptable to write in past tense if the subject is still ongoing? As in, if something is current, but we know that for readers in a couple of months it will be in the past, should we write in the past tense or present? I'm sometimes inclined to write everything in the past tense, simply because eventually it will have happened in the past, but that might be a bit too (the opposite of?) WP:CRYSTALBALL (in this case, the past hasn't happened yet, if that makes sense.) DiscantX 10:58, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
- If you know something is going to change from "present" to "past" at some particular date, you could use {{show by date}} to have it automatically change. Anomie⚔ 19:51, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
- A question I've wondered is: How soon should we start writing in past tense? When, if ever, is it acceptable to write in past tense if the subject is still ongoing? As in, if something is current, but we know that for readers in a couple of months it will be in the past, should we write in the past tense or present? I'm sometimes inclined to write everything in the past tense, simply because eventually it will have happened in the past, but that might be a bit too (the opposite of?) WP:CRYSTALBALL (in this case, the past hasn't happened yet, if that makes sense.) DiscantX 10:58, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
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- Hello, the Manual of Style has this policy, which is pretty thorough. --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:32, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
- I know the policy. My problem is that is is ignored in many, many articles. I am asking if we have (or should have) a systematic project to repair these articles. I agree that Purely automated repair is not likely to work well, so I was hoping we could use an automated detector and subsequent manual correction. The existing templates work only when a editor used them. Most problematic articles do not use the templates. -Arch dude (talk) 15:39, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
- Hello, the Manual of Style has this policy, which is pretty thorough. --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:32, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
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- In my submission, automated tense change should be used only when the event concerned is certain to occur, which is pretty much confined to astronomical events. Does it make sense to use {{show by date}} to change "Mr Smith will take office on 1 January 2017" automatically to "Mr Smith took office on 1 January 2017"? No, that's not certain to happen – between now and 1 January Mr Smith may die, or be taken ill, or be otherwise prevented from taking office. But you can validly use {{show by date}} to change "there will be a transit of Mercury on 9 May 2016" to "there was a transit of Mercury on 9 May 2016". — Stanning (talk) 08:15, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
- On the other hand, Mr Smith dying, taking ill enough to prevent taking office, etc is probably noteworthy enough that the article will have to be edited anyway. Or looking at it the other way, it's not impossible that aliens could swoop out of hyperspace and blow up the planet Mercury, preventing the transit. ;) Anomie⚔ 21:03, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
- While it's not impossible that there are aliens out there who will destroy Murcury, it's so unlikely to happen that you can say, with near certainty, that it won't. On the other hand, that a person doesn't take office on the date he's expected to does, is not so unlikely - to take a recent example, Roni Alsheikh took office 2 weeks late due to breaking his leg. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:17, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- On the other hand, Mr Smith dying, taking ill enough to prevent taking office, etc is probably noteworthy enough that the article will have to be edited anyway. Or looking at it the other way, it's not impossible that aliens could swoop out of hyperspace and blow up the planet Mercury, preventing the transit. ;) Anomie⚔ 21:03, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
- In my submission, automated tense change should be used only when the event concerned is certain to occur, which is pretty much confined to astronomical events. Does it make sense to use {{show by date}} to change "Mr Smith will take office on 1 January 2017" automatically to "Mr Smith took office on 1 January 2017"? No, that's not certain to happen – between now and 1 January Mr Smith may die, or be taken ill, or be otherwise prevented from taking office. But you can validly use {{show by date}} to change "there will be a transit of Mercury on 9 May 2016" to "there was a transit of Mercury on 9 May 2016". — Stanning (talk) 08:15, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
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Proposal for the creation of a comparison tool
I have proposal I'd like to float for the idea lab: the creation of a compassion tool for the expressed purpose of allowing editors (more than likely admins) to look at the content of a deleted article and an article on the subject currently under development in a sandbox, draft space, or other area on Wikipedia. I know that we have the basic tech to do that since the copyright bot uses such a tool to look at what we have on site and what is written elsewhere, and I for one and tired of trying to read through deleted versions of an article and someone else's new version to decided if they are different enough to recommend moving forward or close enough to each other to warrant a return to the drawing board. Would that be a good idea? TomStar81 (Talk) 08:44, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Viewing deleted content to me implies such a tool could be problematic if it can be used by everybody - some content that was deleted is not meant to be publicly visible. That will need fine tuning I think.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:47, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
- Well that's why its called an idea: right now this is very much in its infancy, so all I am interested in at the moment is if there is enough of an interest in this to warrant moving forward with it. Deleted content necessitates an ADMIN clearance to work with as is, so I think such a tool would be self selective, but the ability to compare pages on site would be a great benefit regardless of whether the material still exists or has already been deleted, don't you think? TomStar81 (Talk) 08:59, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
- I think it would be useful. I know that one Commons upload tool does make a comparison and I've in the past tagged several pages for G4 deletion because copyvio tools indicated similarities with archived versions of previously deleted pages.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:13, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
- When I make such checks for G4 deletion, I always copy the deleted source, open the edit page for the existing page, paste the deleted source there, and use the "Show changes" button. This even comes with a slight advantage - I keep the existing headers, and can make small adjustments to the deleted version and check again. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:12, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
- But the fact that you have to copy the material and paste it to check it proves that the absence of such a tool is effecting our ability to work. A dedicated tool to check the material would therefore be appreciated, right? TomStar81 (Talk) 04:55, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
- It would be less flexable. If the author adds an infobox, and then makes subtle changes to each paragraph, then any diff tool would make the articles look totaly different. I would simply not erase the infobox in my test, making them look a lot more similar. (Yes, I did actually see this once). עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:31, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
- But the fact that you have to copy the material and paste it to check it proves that the absence of such a tool is effecting our ability to work. A dedicated tool to check the material would therefore be appreciated, right? TomStar81 (Talk) 04:55, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
- When I make such checks for G4 deletion, I always copy the deleted source, open the edit page for the existing page, paste the deleted source there, and use the "Show changes" button. This even comes with a slight advantage - I keep the existing headers, and can make small adjustments to the deleted version and check again. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:12, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
- I think it would be useful. I know that one Commons upload tool does make a comparison and I've in the past tagged several pages for G4 deletion because copyvio tools indicated similarities with archived versions of previously deleted pages.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:13, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
- Well that's why its called an idea: right now this is very much in its infancy, so all I am interested in at the moment is if there is enough of an interest in this to warrant moving forward with it. Deleted content necessitates an ADMIN clearance to work with as is, so I think such a tool would be self selective, but the ability to compare pages on site would be a great benefit regardless of whether the material still exists or has already been deleted, don't you think? TomStar81 (Talk) 08:59, 5 May 2016 (UTC)
- I'd be ecstatic if Special:Undelete would even let us compare arbitrary revisions within a single deleted page, like viewing the history of a normal page does. The current interface only supports diffs between adjacent versions, and so far as I'm aware there's no way to force it into doing otherwise by writing the URL manually. From there, it'd just be a SMOP to allow a diff from a particular deleted revision to a non-deleted version of some other page. (I can't imagine the interface ever being anything but horrid, though.) —Cryptic 01:41, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
3rd party wikis links
Wouldn't it be better if Wikipedia had a 'See also on' section on the sidebar with links to the same subject on other wikis (including the sister-projects under Wikimedia)? I was thinking (for example) of wikia.com, ProofWiki and OSDev wiki - they all offer in-depth information or technical knowledge on specific topics. Also, I think that a link on the sidebar for authors to their Wikisource Author: pages would be more accessible than the same link at the bottom of the page. This would allow Wikipedia to remain a general-purpose encyclopedia, while still offering links for more in-depth technical knowledge. I think it will also help with WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_manual.2C_guidebook.2C_textbook.2C_or_scientific_journal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mostanes (talk • contribs) 07:45, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Staleness or predictable outcomes of "Wikipedia:Move review"
I don't know where to discuss Wikipedia:Move review. The process, created four years ago, have become more predictable. Id est most reviews have been closed as "endorsed". Its talk page is nearly abandoned. If proposing a discontinuation of the process is out of option, what else can I do to improve the process? --George Ho (talk) 22:28, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Too many cooks
Quite unconsciously I'm sure, experienced editors tend to oppose change, and here's my take on why they do. First, they were around when things were worse; by comparison, the status quo looks pretty good, and why mess with a (relatively) good thing. Things could get worse again. Second, they have invested a lot in learning how to work within the current very complex system, they are adapted to the way things are, and (scientifically proven fact) change of any kind is stressful on or off Wikipedia. They've paid their dues, and they quite reasonably feel they've earned some stability.
There is a full grab-bag of reasonable-sounding arguments to oppose pretty much anything one wants to oppose; the greater one's mastery of that arguments toolkit, the more effective they are in Wikipedia debates. This, combined with the requirement for clear consensus for any disputed change, is why very little progress ever occurs at Wikipedia, and status quo reigns. It just doesn't take that much to kill a clear consensus, folks. There is simply too much that is not clearly defined in p&g, per WP:CREEP, so most of the time all that's required is 40% of the participants making Oppose arguments that sound somewhat reasonable.
I often wonder how Wikipedia got as far as it has; we have a ton of pretty good infrastructure and policy. It couldn't have been by exhaustive (and exhausting) discussion of every minute detail, by anyone who cared to participate, as we do now. There must have been a lot more bold action going on, with a lot less resistance to it, by people who had enough competence to do things reasonably well (this last part is key). There are too many cooks in the kitchen—anyone on the planet with Internet access and some English language skills can be a cook—and the broth is suffering. There remains ample room for improvement on en-wiki, but institutional inertia is stifling progress.
The solution? I don't know, but I do know that some change is sorely needed. Perhaps multiple sub-kitchens, each with an area of responsibility, with project-wide authority within that area. The community would agree to abide by their decisions; the community could lobby them for change, but their decisions would be binding. Committees, if you will, with membership of no more than perhaps 15 active editors. A candidate member would have to demonstrate competence in that area—a simpler and, I would hope, less contentious version of RfA. A bad member could be voted off the island by a simple majority of the others (if 51% feel they need to go, they are at least problematic, and the project would be better served by someone else).
Example: A documentation committee that would have free rein to develop, implement, and maintain site-wide formatting conventions for p&g, help, and template doc pages, with no authority to change the meaning therein. Example 2: An MOS committee that would have authority over all MOS guidance. I for one would readily abide by any style-related decisions of a panel of 10 or 15 editors qualified (with at least some credentials) in the area of style. Epic battles like comma-before-Jr? Gone forever. Thank you Lord.
Bureaucracy? Yes. Necessary bureaucracy? I think so. Power in the hands of too few? Given the alternative, not in my opinion.
Obviously there would be details to be worked out. I don't presume to have all the answers, but there should be workable solutions to any concerns. No doubt some areas would need to remain outside of committees. I'm basically just testing the water and seeking some constructive discussion, which are two of the purposes of this page. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:22, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- A committee approach tends to enforce the status quo, not break with it. The current approach seems adequate for now. Praemonitus (talk) 19:24, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
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- The idea is that the committee approach (1) vastly reduces the number of editors (potentially) involved in decisions within its purview, and (2) substantially increases the competence of the editors involved in those decisions. Where status quo bears improvement, a committee has a far better chance of improving it. Where it is good, whether already or by their action, maintaining it is a good thing.
I honestly don't know how you can say things are remotely adequate now, given the degree of inertia and the extreme inefficiency of the current system. Just take comma-before-Jr as an example. How many editor-hours have been spent on that battle over the past few years, and it still isn't over? That is time that was stolen from far more important things than a little comma before Jr., such as, say, learning Wikipedia policies or maintaining neutrality in BLPs about political candidates. How much negativity and ill will has been introduced to the environment by all that acrimonious debate? Can anyone reasonably claim that the same end, or an equally good end, could not have been achieved by 10 or 15 editors qualified in style matters? I don't see how.
Our doc will never be standardized without such a committee approach; any WP:BOLD attempt to do that would be seen as disruptive, and then we would be forced to debate each and every little detail to the nth degree, by any schmuck who shows up, regardless of their qualifications to participate in such decisions. Sorry but we are not all experts at everything, and expertise is what the project needs. We might finish that work some time around 2050, with any luck. And anyone who claims that this isn't that important demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge about that area. We have known since, say, the 1960s that this consistency is essential to effective documentation. It's intuitive that the lack of it has contributed to turning off many potentially good editors. These same principles are not unique to our documentation; they apply all over the project. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:33, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- The idea is that the committee approach (1) vastly reduces the number of editors (potentially) involved in decisions within its purview, and (2) substantially increases the competence of the editors involved in those decisions. Where status quo bears improvement, a committee has a far better chance of improving it. Where it is good, whether already or by their action, maintaining it is a good thing.
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- I would love to comment on your proposals, but I just don't have time. I'm a committee man: and have missed my children growing up because I was always out at a committee meeting. I am creating fewer articles because I am spending too much time commenting here and elsewhere. Committees are self selecting, and efficient and time consuming and divorce the 'hero' from the reality of creating the 'encyclopedia', and ultimately lead to isolation. It is far harder to publish a raw idea- as there is a pressure to dot the i s and cross the t s (is that MOS compliant? what the hell, but life threatening to the committee hero.). The committee hero becomes the target- and faces only one future- deselection and oblivion. And is the work ultimately better- the committee man in me says yes, but I am now talking to an empty room. --ClemRutter (talk) 09:40, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
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- Eliminating discussion over style issues is not going to increase productivity one iota. Those who participate in said debates are individuals who enjoy that type of discourse, and if that is taken away then they will find something else to discuss. If your goal is to employ a set of experts to build a style guide, then hire experts. Don't try to claim that a self-selected committee of volunteers is necessarily going to do a better job. All that will do is create more rancor. Praemonitus (talk) 18:50, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
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- If your goal is to employ a set of experts to build a style guide, then hire experts. - That would work too, if the community would accept it and WMF would pay for it. Same goes for the doc. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:01, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- If you did this (and I'm talking about your main proposal too), Wikipedia would just become a normal encyclopedia, except that it would be written by unpaid volunteers. The essence of Wikipedia, which must be the reason it has succeeded over all other more professional encyclopedias, is that it results from free collaboration between interested editors where everyone is equal before content. If you impose governing committees that must be obeyed, Wikipedia would become identical in structure an unpaid job rather than a free collaboration. Volunteers would chafe at this and most would leave. A2soup (talk) 05:26, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- If your goal is to employ a set of experts to build a style guide, then hire experts. - That would work too, if the community would accept it and WMF would pay for it. Same goes for the doc. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:01, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
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