Misplaced Pages

:Village pump (proposals): Difference between revisions - Misplaced Pages

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editContent deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 15:55, 26 December 2006 view sourceNatl1 (talk | contribs)Rollbackers6,185 edits →Downloadable open source Misplaced Pages software for your computer← Previous edit Latest revision as of 04:57, 12 January 2025 view source Iskandar323 (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers47,598 edits →Good Article visibility: ReplyTags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit Advanced mobile edit Reply 
Line 1: Line 1:
{{redirect|WP:PROPOSE|proposing article deletion|Misplaced Pages:Proposed deletion|and|Misplaced Pages:Deletion requests}}<noinclude>{{short description|Discussion page for new proposals}}{{Village pump page header|Proposals|alpha=yes|
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
<noinclude>{{Villagepumppages|Proposals|The '''proposals''' section of the village pump is used to discuss new ideas and proposals that are not policy related (see ] for that). The '''proposals''' section of the ] is used to offer specific changes for discussion. ''Before submitting'':
* Check to see whether your proposal is already described at ''']'''. You may also wish to search the ].

* This page is for '''concrete, actionable''' proposals. Consider developing earlier-stage proposals at ].
Recurring policy proposals are discussed at ]. If you have a proposal for something that sounds overwhelmingly obvious and are amazed that Misplaced Pages doesn't have it, please check there first before posting it, as someone else might have found it obvious, too.
* Proposed '''policy''' changes belong at ].

* Proposed '''speedy deletion criteria''' belong at ].
'''Before posting your proposal:'''
* Proposed '''WikiProjects''' or '''task forces''' may be submitted at ].
* If the proposal is a '''change to the software''', file a bug at instead. Your proposal is unlikely to be noticed by a developer unless it is placed there.
* Proposed '''new wikis''' belong at ].
* If the proposal is a '''change in policy''', be sure to also post the proposal to, say, ], and ''ask people to discuss it '''there'''''.
* Proposed '''new articles''' belong at ].
* If the proposal is for a '''new wiki-style project''' outside of Misplaced Pages, please go to ] and follow the guidelines there. '''Please do ''not'' post it here.''' These are different from ].
* Discussions or proposals which warrant the '''attention or involvement of the Wikimedia Foundation''' belong at ].
<!-- Villagepumppages intro end -->|]}}
* '''Software''' changes which have consensus should be filed at ].
Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for nine days.<!--
Villagepumppages intro end
-->|WP:VPR|WP:VP/PR|WP:VPPRO|WP:PROPS}}__NEWSECTIONLINK__
{{centralized discussion|compact=yes}}
__TOC__ __TOC__
{{anchor|below_toc}}
{| class="messagebox" style="background: AntiqueWhite;"
]
|-
]
|This talk page is '''automatically archived''' by Werdnabot. Any sections older than '''7''' days are automatically archived to ''']'''. Sections without timestamps are not archived.
]
|-
]
|}<!-- BEGIN WERDNABOT ARCHIVAL CODE --><!-- This page is automatically archived by Werdnabot-->{{User:Werdnabot/Archiver/Linkhere}} <!--This is an empty template, but transcluding it counts as a link, meaning Werdnabot is directed to this page - DO NOT SUBST IT --><!--Werdnabot-Archive Age-7 DoUnreplied-Yes Target-Misplaced Pages:Village pump (proposals)/Archive--><!--END WERDNABOT ARCHIVAL CODE-->
{{User:MiszaBot/config
These discussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.
| algo = old(9d)
<br clear="all" />
| archive = Misplaced Pages:Village pump (proposals)/Archive %(counter)d

| counter = 216
]
| maxarchivesize = 300K
]
| archiveheader = {{Misplaced Pages:Village pump/Archive header}}
]
| minthreadstoarchive = 1
]
| minthreadsleft = 5
]
}}</noinclude>
]</noinclude>
{{clear}}
]

== Layered Pages ==

''']''': Might an option be made available for a user to create/access a scaled down, elementary lay version of an article that is highly technical? This would eliminate the jargon and other technicalities that may be present in the parent article.

:You mean like the ] attempts to do? --] <small>]</small> 11:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
:I agree. I would like to see a '''Non-technical summary''' info box included near the top of each article. Ideally it could be turned off in My Preferences. This would help me understand what the article was talking about and give me some mental framework to hang the rest of the article on. The Simple English Misplaced Pages does not have many articles on technical or complex subjects, which is where this is most needed. — ] <small>(]|])</small> 15:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

co-incidentally, i was just on my way here to suggest something similar.

basically, theres a problem with our target audience, i.e., given that our target audience is 'everyone', it's hard to get the depth and wordage of an article right, so that it's not too complicated for those who aren't allready knowledgable in the area, but still useful to those who are. eg, if i look up an article on genetics, then i dont want it too simple -- i want some complicated meat and bones, rather than an article that just puts simply what i allready know. on the other hands, i want articles that discuss maths to treat me like the mathematical retard that i am, and lay it out simple.

obviously, catering for me would piss other people off :-D. not catering for me pisses me, and similar people, off. so, you see the problem?

why not, at least for sci/tech articles, for decent articles (B-list or above, say), fork the article into simple, normal, advanced, and expert versions? example definitions could be:

'''simple''' presumes no background knowledge. aims to get the basic concept across, tho not neccesarily any details on how/why the concept is/works/etc

'''normal''' presumes basic/no background knowledge. aims to get the basic concept across, with some understanding of how/why the thing is/works/etc

'''advanced''' presumes some background knowledge. aims to get the concept fully accross, along with more detailed how and why

'''expert''' presumes deep background knowledge, and a reader that wants to fully and deeply comprehend the subject, and who is willing to wade through a complicated article to do so.


examples for, say, a tRNA article:

'''simple''': understandable without any background knowledge: for those who are simply interested in knowing what tRNA is and what it does, not neccesarily understanding exactly how it works nor wading through complicated bio-molecular/genetic jibberish

'''normal''' understandable by someone without any above-basic background knowledge in biology/genetics, but possibly a bit confusing (i.e., they could, with effort, understand what tRNA is, and, broadly speaking, how it works, from the article). probably useful to A-level students as a primer, but less useful to BSCs.

'''advanced''' let the scientific jibberish fly! useful to people with biological training. with a background in molecular biology, someone could come away from the article understanding what tRNA is and how it works, tho not neccesarily with an exam-passing understanding

'''expert''' for people who allready know the subject really well, and who want more esoteric info on tRNA, such as bond-lengths, etc. incomprehensable to normal people, but makes wp useful on the subject of tRNA to people who would have to work with tRNA in a professional setting.

i knocked up an example. note that i did it really quickly, and, as articles, they're shit. they just aim to demonstrait what i'm talking about.

the ] article, slightly stripped down, then forked into simple, normal, advanced and expert versions. ] (edit the demo articles if you want, i'm not going to mind just because they're on my user space).

what'cher recon? theres some gaps (between, say, advanced and expert, imo), and the system could be extended: maybe article/concise (brief as possible), article/verbiose (long winded, covering every aspect, with the kind of stuff which is usually clipped from articles to keep them of a sane size), article/data (lists of different tRNA molecules, average bond-lengths, links to genetic sequences, melting point, average molecular weights, etc), etc. etc. etc... --] 19:01, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

ELApro: I would assume that the old "Keep it '''simple'''" adage might apply. If there is a simplified version of the article in the ''Simplified English Misplaced Pages'' then there should be an auto-link function in the software to have the link created. This, by the way, might be similarly applied to WikiQuotes, or whatever other Wiki application exists for an article. Why not have an option to create a simplified lay person's page, if one does not exist and the current single option appears to be too complex for some lay reader. After a lay version is created, a lay version link from a normal Wiki page would be available for anyone considering the current main page too complex, and desiring a simplified introduction. Those satisfied with the original page can leave it as is, and those believing the original page is too complex, will either have an option to view a simplified presentation, or will have an option to create a simplified version. Let the users decide which original pages may or may not be suited to the typical lay person, by copying information from the lay page (if it exists) into the original page, and keeping the lay page simple. If an article is acceptably presented to all viewers, leave it as is. No changes necessary. Otherwise, an alternative option, only one, is available, linked from the original article. Any levels beyond two could be done by extracting information and customizing on one's own home computer, to suit one's individual taste.

:Simple English is different; it refers to language.
:However, I don't see much point. This all can be done, and is done, using multiple pages and navboxes. After all, diving deep requires more pages anyway. Well, it's just simpler as it is. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 15:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

ELApro: After an initial review of the ''Simple English Misplaced Pages'', I would disagree. It seems to be precisely what was requested. The only thing that remains to be done is to link all existing articles, hopefully in a manner similar to that described above by ]. This could be done either manually or automatically, but hopefully something could be done to ease or simplify the process. Thank you Jonathan for your valuable information and for seconding this proposal!

:The current way to link to simple English versions of articles is to put <nowiki>]</nowiki> at the bottom of the article, and the simple English version would be linked in the sidebar on the left with all the other language versions of that article. ] ] 18:50, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

== Redirect on Contribution pages, "redirect=no"? ==

::uhh....i think people just don't really have an opinion on it. I, for one, have almost never encountered the situation you've outlined. On the offchance i do click on a contribution that's a redirect, i just click the history or diff links instead to see what changes the person made. I suppose a better place to ask would be the technical section... --] 02:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Yeah, this is definitely a good idea. ] is right - move this to a technical section and it'll get noticed and maybe even implemented. Good luck. ] 18:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
::I like the idea (found it annoying myself before), but yeah this may have been better on the technical pump. -- '']']'' 19:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

== Suggestion: New Yearbook about PC and Video Games ==

Hi,

I tried to find a place to submit this, but ended up here.
It's about a new post: http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/2006-10-21#the_Book_of_Games_Volume_1_.28The_Ultimate_Guide_to_PC_.26_Video_Games.29

How long does it take before a new article is verified?
I am the publisher of the book, and would like to contribute if I could. Is it possible to get in contact with someone that will work on the article? We could send a press copy of the book to the person.

-Bendik Stang

== Expire (delete) unread articles ==

: '''' --] | ] 21:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that articles which go unread for an extended period of time be automatically removed. After all, the goal of an encyclopedia is to transmit knowledge. So an article which is not being read is not a useful part of an encyclopedia.

It seems to me that the first thing to do is to obtain statistics on how often articles are being read, and get some idea of what consititutes an unread (or rarely read) atricle. Even without that, I would suggest the following standard for removing articles:

* An article which goes unread or unedited for 90 days should be automatically removed.
* Accesses by ] and the "random article" function should not be considered reads for the purpose of this standard.
* A user which selects pages at a rate of more than 100 reads per hours for 10 accesses or more should not have their accesses for that period counted as reads. The same should also apply to edits. (This is suggested as a way to thwart editors who would access pages to "refresh" their expiration timers.)
* A page which is deleted under this standard should
** be replaced by a template stating when and why the deletion occurred,
** have its article and discussion histories removed to prevent a trivial revival of the article, and
** be protected against being restarted for at least 90 days.
* Secondary issues:
** When the random article function is used, should the use of a link in the article cause it to be considered read?
** The editing of a article accessed through the random article function probably should reset the expiration timer.

I suspect that this may result in the removal of a substantial number of articles, but if no one comes to Misplaced Pages looking for information on a given topic, is it at all fair to consider that subject notable? --] | ] 05:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

::Here's a few questions: is the usage rate for all articles generally constant or are some articles read on a cyclical basis? Are articles related to Arbor Day and Halloween accessed more frequently as these dates approach? Could there also be articles related to these two topics, which are perhaps of a minor or marginal nature, and which might see no use at all except during some segment of the calendar year? A great many U.S. colleges and universities are operating on a reduced schedule during June, July, and August, and might not the fact that a majority of their students are away on vacation affect the usage of Wiki articles?

::Just generally I'm uneasy with the idea of deleting information (because the minute I trash something I'll have need of it) and I think this proposal has the potential to strike at the core of what Misplaced Pages is, or is not. If the Wiki is to set a standard as a knowledgebase I would think that ''completeness'' must be part of the perception, if not the reality, of what the Wiki is. And if the Wiki is not perceived as complete, in some sense, then I suspect it becomes less likely to be used as the first source referred to when a person first 'looks up' a particular subject. I also wonder just who the Misplaced Pages is intended to serve. Is it to be a useful reference for everyone, no matter how arcane or obscure ones interest may be, or is this to be an encyclopedia for the casual masses, who, for example, are intrigued by ''The DaVinci Codes'' and turn to the web just to read a little more and see what's out there?

::In other words, do we entertain the hope that Misplaced Pages might be perceived as a standard tool for serious research of some kind, at some point, if not now, or are we content for Misplaced Pages to serve as a kind of enormous fan infobase for devotees of a great diversity of topics? Both forms of Wiki would serve a valuable purpose, but they are not the same animal.

::Also, I feel it should be pointed out that anyone who wrote an article, only to find it deleted ninety-one days later, might well become disenchanted with Misplaced Pages, and thus disinclined to ever write to another article, or another, or another, because the fruits of their labor did not, in effect, ''sell'' to the reading public (or their search engines). You might also discourage other people from ever writing anything, out of the concern that their efforts would not be sufficiently popular to generate sustained interest, as the seasons turn. ] 17:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

::: With regards to cyclical reading: I find it hard to believe that ] would go completely unread for the rest of the year. The goal is to have a bar low enough so that an article that is of any legitimate interest will easily stay in Misplaced Pages. Perhaps the time on this should be 1 year instead of 90 days. (I actually suspect that much of Misplaced Pages is accessed daily, but a reasonably long expiration time is needed to protect marginal articles against the effects of randomness. For example, and article that gets accessed twice a week on average could easily have a month where it it not accessed at all. Hence the 90-day period.)

::: The concerns about Misplaced Pages as an enormous infobase and the concern over editors being disenchanted in their work vanishes are related. Once again I ask of what use an article is if it is never accessed or if anyone other than the creator cares that it is there. Such articles contribute to the article count, but do not contribute to the mission of the encyclopedia. It seems me that if an editor is not producing usable content that their becoming disenchanted is not a bad thing. In fact, we are constantly deleting undesirable/non-notable content. IMO, this is a wonderful test for non-notability.

::: As for "completeness": "] an indiscrimiate collector of information". It is not intended to be "complete". This leads to another consideration: If an article is not being accessed, it is not being checked for accuracy either. Remember the incident of that fake biography which created such a scandal within Misplaced Pages a year or so ago. That article went unnoticed for months. Under this scheme, it would have vanished of its own accord in a reasonable period of time.

::: Finally, do note that I have called for there to be a usage study first, so that the viability of this proposal can be determined. The "random article" function currently returns mostly stubs on parks and people that provide little usable information. It would be nice to see that buttom return more in the way of solid content more of the time. --] | ] 19:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
:This just increases systemic bias against important but less popular subjects. The Superman article would never be deleted by this, but articles about certain species or chemical compounds might. I just think this is a terrible idea.--] (<big>]]</big>) 21:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
:: Why in God's good name would you expect ] to be deleted under this proposal? It is an actively edited article and a regular target of vandals! Look at ! This article would need to have the Earth demolished by a kyptonite meteorite to go unread for any significant period of time. --] | ] 21:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
:::He said it WOULDN'T be deleted. Read his comment again. --] <small>]</small> 22:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

:Please no. The fact that no one on an electronic encyclopedia reads something for x period of time means very little. There's no cost to keeping it, and a detriment to someoen who eventually wants to use it. ] 21:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
:: If it's not being read, it's not being edited. If it's not being edited, the content is not being validated and/or improved. First versions on this medium are generally lousy, but if several editors are involved an article will improve quite fast. Also, given the current popularity of Misplaced Pages I would think that any useful article is highly unlikely to go unread for any significant period of time. --] | ] 21:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

:This proposal violates my general principle that bots must never be given more power than humans. The community would never allow such a blind massacre on AfD. An admin who repeatedly deleted articles without even glancing at their titles, content, histories, talk pages, logs, or linked pages would be reverted and desysopped. No amount of usage studies will change that.
:The software ''could'' help us out by generating lists of unread articles, which thoughtful humans would comb through in search of non-notability and vandalism. But the software cannot take any action that we wouldn't. ] 22:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
:: If an article is completely unread for an extended period of time, on what grounds would you consider it to be notable? --] | ] 22:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
:::Any of them. The existence of multiple, nontrivial, published reviews is a standard measure; there are others. Note that notability pertains to an article's subject, not the article itself. An article's readership can suffer from factors that have nothing to do with its subject, such as a poorly chosen title, insufficient incoming links, or improper categorization.
:::Moreover, notability is a criterion for deletion only because it tends to single out topics which are impossible to cover encyclopedically: they are so little-known that we cannot meet our content policies of verification and neutrality for an article. Your proposed process cannot identify these non-notable articles; it doesn't even care when the content standards have already been met! ] 01:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

This idea is patently absurd. There are many notable encyclopedic subjects which people only rarely would need to know about or research. For example, who's going to look up minor Senators of Alabama from the 30's? However, that is no excuse to go about deleting them when the information they contain is useful and necessary to our ''encyclopedic'' nature. ]s, in case you haven't heard, are supposed to be all-encompassing. Why should we delete pages simply because they are not of popular interest? This would additionally give us an even stronger bias towards the temporal and current vs. the timeless and historical. '''Rejected.''' --] <small>]</small> 22:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this for real? This proposal is so absurd that it costs me a major effort to believe it was done in good faith. -- ] 22:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

:Hum. "I suggest that which go unread for an extended period of time be automatically . After all, the goal of is to transmit knowledge. So which is not being read is not a useful part of ." We were reshelving a bay at work today; I'm fairly sure some of those books hadn't been touched in four, five years. But they're still useful books, in potentia, they just need their reader to come along. I think the analogy is illuminating... ] | ] | 22:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
::Perfect parallel. I remember checking out a copy of ] from my library which hadn't been read since 1954. --] <small>]</small> 22:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
:I hope you tore it up, it was clearly not-notable. ] 22:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
:This is a phenomenally terrible idea. -- ] 01:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
::The proposer of the topic should consider WELL ESTABLISHED policies: 1) ]. There is no compelling reason to remove a well-referenced article merely to "make space". Misplaced Pages has infinite space. There are reasons for deleting articles, but simply to remove them because they aren't being used is silly. Consider the average University Library. They have millions of volumes, and only a few thousand are ever on loan. Some LARGE majority of the books in a University Library may go YEARS between check-outs. Yet, the university maintains space for them, not for the fact that they ''HAVE'' been used, but that they ''MIGHT'' be used. Past performance is never an indication of future performance. 2) Notability is established OUTSIDE of wikipedia, and is NEVER revoked. Once external, independant, third-party sources exist to verify notability, THEY NEVER STOP EXISTING. Thus, once notable, always notable. The fact that an article goes unread doesn't eliminate the existance of the sources used to write the article. Thus, there is no compelling reason to delete merely for lack of utility. 3) Misplaced Pages is a place to collect knowledge. To delete VERIFIABLE knowledge for any reason runs counter to Misplaced Pages's purpose. I would agree that this MAY be one of the worst proposals I have seen here. What purpose would it serve to delete a verifable and notable article? --]] 02:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

:Saying an article hasnt been edited/read for 90 days (excluding bots) so lets delete, I wonder how many FA would fall into that category. Even ignoring that Misplaced Pages is as much about the collection of knowledge as anything else, while we may write an article on something today because nobody reads or edits that page for 90 days doesnt invalidate the information. There enough stub, poorly formed or unsourced articles that survive AfD, how could it be contemplated to let a bot just delete an FA/GA because nobody as has read or edited it for 90 days. ] 03:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

What I am seeing are a lot of knee-jerk reactions, as if articles should be here because they are here. ] an indiscriminate collector of information. I really think that this is an idea that needs to be researched. How often are articles accessed? Are there articles which go largely unread? If so, what kind of content do those articles typically have? From there other questions will follow: Are these relatively unaccessed articles worth keeping? What do these articles say about the Misplaced Pages notability standads? Noone seems to have an answer to those questions. The concern about FA articles is valid, but I strongly doubt that topics which noone cares about become FA's. At the least Misplaced Pages should come to know how it is being used.

(BTW - I agree that blindly implementing this suggestion is a truly bad idea. You just plain don't do something like this unless you have a very good idea of what it is going to do.) --] | ] 03:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

:Any article can become an FA provided someone put the effort into researching and writing. then you proposal should be to find out how and what is being accessed, without the suggestion of deleting stuff. ] 03:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

:: The two kind of go hand-in-hand. I am making a certain assumption that unviewed material is almost certainly non-FA material. That assumption needs to be validated. It could be that stubs can be removed on this basis, but more fleshed out articles are better manually reviewed if not just plain kept. --] | ] 05:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, wrong implementation. Instead of deleting them, have a Special:Unviewed page (or probably some better name) that would allow these articles to be identified. Then it gives people one more avenue to find articles that need to be reviewed. But certainly no automatic deletion. —]&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 04:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
: That is an intriguing idea, and others have suggested above that a manual process would be more desirable. I can be flexible with this, as my concern is to remove the "clutter" from Misplaced Pages. Yet in the end I want something to come out of this that is a benefit to Misplaced Pages. I get a sense that there are a number of articles present that could be deleted but just are not worth the bother to find and flag. A system of this type may be able to cull things more efficiently. --] | ] 05:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
*Doug - we have ]. (]) 09:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
::The problem is here is that 'clutter' is a thinly veiled term for 'things I'm not interested in'. Why would you think that unread articles are 'clutter' that need to be removed? They are gems waiting to be discovered! ] 17:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

::: "Ancientpages" is not at all the same thing. I spot checked them and saw a collection of disambiguation pages and a few short (but well done) articles on small towns. I suspect that most (if not all) of these are accessed regularly.
::: I accept the insinuation about the meaning of "cluter". However, the issue is one of identifying what noone is interested in as opposed to what I am not interested in. 99% of this encyclopedia I will never use. At the same time, the relativity pages (which I edit) will never be read by 99% of the users of Misplaced Pages. I realize that this proves nothing.
::: Can anyone answer this question: I there are tracking a article usage currently? IMO, it would be interesting to track the last 10 non-bot/random reads to each article (by when and not who), as well as to maintain counters for the current and previous of each of day, week, month, year. (I don't know how much tracking data can be efficiently attached to an article. I am certain that doing so will make the database bigger, and that could be an issue. Perhaps a tracking database is what is needed.) --] | ] 17:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is mirrored all over the place. This means it is impossible to know whether an article has been read or not; you can only find out if it has been read on a particular service (eg Wikimedia). A statistical survey might yeild interesting information (it would be especially interesting to know how well the read frequency correlates with the edit frequency), but I don't think editorial decisions like this should be made on such a crude basis.
] 19:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

: At least I am getting support for studying the usage patterns. I would not let the existance of mirrors bother you. The first question is how the mirrors are refreshed: If they only go to Misplaced Pages for content when it is requested (for example a mirror may seek the current article if it has been more than a day since it last retrieved it), then for the less-used articles the statistics will remain accurate and valuable. Even if mirror-related effects are not visible, Google tensd to send searchers straight to Misplaced Pages, so once again Misplaced Pages statistics should be usable and indicative of generally unread articles. As for whether this means is "crude": Until it has been studies, noone can say for sure how good or bad it is. We really should have the data instead of each of us "shooting fromt he hip". --] | ] 20:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

::a) Almost all mirrors are running from static dumps of varying age; very few are directly spidering Misplaced Pages or regularly updating. We have little to no knowledge of most of them, much less ability to get data.
::b) We just don't have article-read statistics. We can't generate them, not with the setup as is. Logging pageviews, the fundamental requirement for good statistics, has been estimated at about 7 terabytes of storage space ''per month'' across Wikimedia sites - your ninety days threshold would mean having to store and regularly study 20TB of logs. Even stripping that down to nothing more than a timestamp and a page-visited note would still be unwieldily large. The best we can do is very very limited sampling, hopelessly muddied by caching and proxies and so on, looking at about one pageview in a thousand - and whilst that is decent for letting us know what the most useful pages are, it's hopeless for anything in the long tail, the articles that a proposal like this is interested in.
::In short, the impracticality of collecting the data makes any proposal based on interpreting that data a non-starter. ] | ] | 20:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

::: This does not impress me in the least. The issue is how to get it done, not why it cannot be done. Logging all pageviews for 90 days worth is indeed a non-starter, but that is not how you would do the needed tracking! This kind of study relies on aggregate startistics. Suggestion: Create a daily tracking table/database. During the day, each read results in the invokation of a read against the tracking table entry for that article. If the entry exists, then increment it's counter. If it does not exist, then create it with a value of 1. At the end of the day do a file rename to switch the tracking to a new, empty database. The previous day's table is then saved under a name which includes the date. Batch processes can now be used to create aggregate tables for weeks, months, etc. Given a million articles and names which average 25 characters long, the result is a database which is 30-50 Mb big. Ninety days worth is then < 5 Gb worth. That isn't small but it fits easily on most modern hard drives and is far from the 20 Tb that you claim is needed each month. So a properly designed process is very much within the realm of technical feasability. --] | ] 21:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

::::Wikimedia simply does not have the resources to do a database write at a rate that is anywhere near 1 per read request. It takes a large number of caches and database mirrors just to keep up with the read requests. In addition, many of the dedicated caches are intentionally very dumb, and would not be able to update a read counter without a major architechural change. I am afraid any kind of tracking that needs to respond to every read request is a technical non-starter. (FYI, the read rate for Misplaced Pages is in the ballpark of 5000 pages per second distributed across >200 servers.) ] 21:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

::::: I beg to differ. Let's first take the external mirrors off of the table, so that only direct request to Misplaced Pages iteself are considered (which is still a real boatload). It seems to me that you identify boxes that can handle this task, and those that handle reads. Any box that can do both maintains a local read counter along the lines noted. Otherwise, the requests get passed onto a box that can handle the counting task. Note that each box does its own counting in this case to spread the load around. At the end of the day, they all send their data to another box which collects and combines the individual databases from the various boxes to obtain the statistical "dailies" for Misplaced Pages. I believe that this will introduce a minor (not necessarily trivial) load on the system. It will also need some thoughtful design and implementation to create. So the issues are ones of whether Misplaced Pages is interested in putting enough of its volunteer resources together to prototype this, and if it does so what level of system impact would be acceptable if this is to go into production.
::::: I strongly suspect that you all will learn a lot of interesting things about Misplaced Pages if this is implemented. Whether my initial suggestion will be implemented because of it is problematical though. --] | ] 04:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

:We should also remember that we are not just writing for the current crop of readers - we are writing about verifiable material for generations to come. We have litterally no idea what they will be interested in, just as past historians did not anticipate what we would be interested in. That is why verifiability, not whether it is interesting to current readers, must be the gold standard. ] 23:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I just love the note at the top that says this was temporarily placed at perennial proposals. I'm a deletionist at heart but this is just a very very bad idea. And I won't even mention the useless technical complications that implementing this would entail. Quality articles are quality articles, regardless of whether or not they're read often. We already have plenty of resources allowing us to identify useless content: orphaned articles, linkless articles, short pages, neglected articles etc. Any attempt to make the deletion process automatic will undoubtedly lead to loss of valuable content. I have a hard time believeing this is a good faith proposal. ] 06:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

: I was shown the random article function by my daughter (it's on the left hand side of the screen in the skin I'm using), and she was joking about the kinds of articles that it shows. Try it. It is mostly stubs on trivial places and people. If find it hard to believe that most of that stuff is viewed at all regularly. Often it does little more that documents the existance of the topic. You worry about losing "valuable content", but how is content valuable if it is never used!? I think the silliness of that knee-jerk reaction to this proposal is shown in people worrying that ] and ] could vanish because of it. Most (if not all) of the articles removed under this proposal will be on topics that you cannot name!
: Once again, I call for article usage to be studied and unread articles to be identified in order to determine if this idea or some variation on the theme can work. Noone can name for me an unread, quality article because noone knows what articles are unread! ] shows the oldest (longest since last edited) articles, but most of those have good reason for being stable, and most likely are regularly read.
: It is silly that I keep hearing the theme of "this will remove valuable content". Once again: ] an indiscriminate collector of information. I for one find it hard to believe that unaccessed articles will be found to be valuable. Remember the incident on the fake biography accusing someone of being involved in the ]! That article went unnoticed for months! Why? Becuase noone read it, except accidentally! Unaccessed articles are not being checked for accuracy, nor do they have content being added to them as additional people with additional knowledge become involved with them. Those that may be worth keeping will be on highly esoteric subjects, and even then there may be an issue of whether they should be in this wiki!
: At the least, it would be nice if the data was gathered so that I could be shown that this is a silly proposal, or alternatively that I could show you that it (or a manual version of it) will work a lot better than you may think. --] | ] 15:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

::I do hope you are joking. ] 21:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
::: It's not a joke. Even if the idea is bad, I believe that the suggestion itself is good because of the questions it raises. After all, if there are unread articles, then why should that be the case? Are these quality articles that will reward the very occasional reader who should be looking for them? Or are they hidden pieces of BS that are waiting to "bite" an unwary user of the "random article" function? It seems to me that it would be very interesting to find out what is unread and determine why that is, and I do suspect that a lot of those articles would end up being removed upon further consideration. --] | ] 22:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
::::For the second time, no one said ] would be deleted. The person who commented about the Superman article was saying that Superman ''wouldn't'' be deleted but that far more scientifically valuable articles like those on elemental isotopes or rare species might be. --] <small>]</small> 23:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that the idea of deleting (manually or automatically) long-unread articles is absurd, being able to view a list of pages that have not been viewed in a long time would be very useful, as ] suggested. ] orders pages based on creation date, so ] (wantonpages?) would sort them based on their last access date. This tool could be used to make sure esoteric pages are of acceptable quality. It would also be a way of finding hidden gems! -] 21:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
: Thank you for being open-minded about the possibilities here. --] | ] 22:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
:: Sorry if anyone already wrote it, but - if some page is listed in proposed Unviewedpages list and I someone will have to solve the quality of the page, he will have to visit the page - and if he does it, the page is immediatelly visited and removed from the list... So if the editor thinks for whatever reason it is a valueable page (or if the reader does not think about any reason, just browsing the Misplaced Pages not caring about editting or removing unread articles), it is safe for years again. So be careful about the list. ] 23:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
:'']'' is relevant to this discussion (I see that Shimgray mentioned this concept above). I oppose deleting unread articles in the same way I oppose burning dusty books (as was mentioned earlier). The statistics gleaned from the analysis would be interesting and valuable - they would help to focusing certain clean-up efforts and in surveillance for certain types of vandalism. --User:Ceyockey (<small>'']''</small>) 00:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Dear God, the deletionists are at it again! No, this is an appalling proposal. Just because information is obscure and rarely accessed does not make it useless. I was the first person to check a 1940s book out of the university library where I work. Does that make it useless? No, of course it doesn't. For a start, I was interested enough in it to take it out! Let's just bin this proposal now and move on. -- ] 17:48, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

*My initial reaction is to be against this proposal, it just seems negligent. The only way I could see it working is if '''1)''' The no-read deadline is extended to 6 months, if not a whole year. and '''2)''' If the pages weren't actually deleted, but instead, archived somewhere with the possibility of recreation. -- '''] <sup>]&nbsp;•&nbsp;]&nbsp;]</sup>''' 18:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
:I agree, bin the proposal of anything relating to deletion of old articles. Very bad idea for all the reasons listed above and it merits no further discussion. However, we should thank ] for the entirely distinct discussion about having a way to see a list of articles that nobody has looked at in a long time that grew out of this failed proposal. As ] says, it would be a way of finding vandalism, encouraging clean-up, and additionally we could find useful neglected content that should be better linked and integrated into frequently viewed articles to make it more accessible. Who can create ]? -] 16:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
*You might find ] helpful. ]] 20:56, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Its not always apparent to people but have you ever considered that an unread article maybe simply undiscovered instead of ignored, Its like that time when Atari made an illegal tetris cartridge for Nintendo's NES system, and most of the cartridges were kept in a warehouse. At that time you could see adds offering $300 for one cartridge! They simply didnt know it was there and therefore did not pay the warehouse any attention. Its basically like that, if you dont know it is there you wont visit, you could probably shave off a good amount of content from wikipedia, simply because people dont know its there! I personally think that there shouldnt be a deletion of unread content.
-Charlie34

:As far as I know, Misplaced Pages isn't a free web hosting. The purpose of WP is very different, and so I don't see how low access rate alone justifies deletion of content. Remember, HDD space cost is negligible compared to the work of creating content. Should libraries burn books not requested for a year? If not, why should we?
:Actually, deleting users who haven't edited for 90 days would make as much sense.
:However, I have always supported the idea of at least rough monitoring of usage, at least to precision of how many digits the number would have. This would help on AfD and before AfD to separate subjects with no interest and not worth salvaging from ones which are worth rewriting. Really help, there've been a lot of cases when an article on a seemingly obscure "crufty" subject was rewritten and turned into a good one, clearly proving notability of the subject. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 14:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

== ] ==

I cannot see this proposal anywhere; if I have missed it, please don't shout at me.

It seems quite clear to me that many serious new editors, who really want to help our project, do not come across the adopt-a-user setup, nor are they directed to it. I have adopted two users and, since doing so, I have been approached by three newbies with questions which, happily, I could answer. But they were unaware that they could have asked to be adopted. They had all received a {{tl|welcome}} template. I propose that the welcome templates be enlarged to include a link to ]. They then have the option of going there or not, but they will at least know about it.--] 19:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

:It sounds like a good suggestion, and I would eventually support it, but ] is very new. It might be best to allow for a breaking-in-period for the program before linking to it from welcome templates. ] <font color ="green">]</font > 19:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

:Sounds good to me. Not sure about the breaking-in-period. Do we really need it? &mdash;]] 19:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

:Without naming names, ''some'' other well-intentioned programs have later encountered difficulties and met with a certain amount of criticism. I do think that a longer period for community evaluation and response to ] would be in order before creating an "offical" link. In part because the link would strongly imply an official endorsement, in part because it just seems prudent to make sure the program works the way it was intended. ] <font color ="green">]</font > 20:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

:Are you talking about ]? I thought it started out well at first, but then things started to get complicated. --] (<big>]]</big>) 16:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC) <small>&mdash;''the preceding comment is a joke.''</small>

In support of Anthony.bradbury I would like the Adopt-a-user program to be linked from {{tl|welcome}}, but I do understand the concerns of Doc Tropics. I would like to ask what sort of time period / number we talking about, and where could we get such community evaluation done?

On the other hand the project has been running for a few months now - and we have currently over 65 adoptees - and so far (as far as I am aware) no complaints. Even if it was added to the welcome template, we could always removed it very quickly if there were problems encountered. Beyond a certain point I suppose it is an old circular argument - if we don't have any "official" support we can't advertise the service properly to increase our numbers, but we need to increase numbers before we are allowed "official" support. "Official" support is particularly important for this project because it would help us attract the newest of users (who are otherwise hard to reach).

On a similar and maybe less controversial note, it would be great if we could have a link inserted under Where to ask Questions at ] - please see ] to discuss. Thanks ] 15:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

:For the sake of clarification, I strongly support the program myself and I'd like to get involved; it seems a very worthwhile project. My only concern was about moving too quickly in adding it to the "welcome mat". I would support the link being added once we are sure that the program works as intended, and so far, it seems to. ] <font color ="green">]</font > 15:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
::Yes, I like this as well. For now, let's try to spread this by text-of-mouth.--] (<big>]]</big>) 16:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As I mention ], I do not think that this program is so useful (while the idea is cute). The best way for a user to get involved would be contribute to articles, and the interaction which follows from there. Joining a wikiproject is also a good idea.

Besides, I believe that the {{tl|welcome}} template already has a bit too many links. If this project is found really useful, I'd suggest replacing one of the existing links than adding to it. ] (]) 16:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

:Could people also comment on maybe adding it to the ] as well/instead please - many thanks ] 16:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

:Per this thread ]. Comment here or there. --] 19:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

:Another suggestion: Maybe we could make another template (e.g. {{tl|welcome-a}}) with the welcome message and the link for users who want to link to ] to use until the link gets added to {{tl|welcome}}. That said, I'm in favor of adding it. If any problems come up, it can be removed later. I think this would have been helpful for me when I was new; I, like a lot of people with knowledge in kind of obscure areas, edited quietly and didn't have too many interactions for a long time. ] | <small>]</small> 21:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

:I strongly support this addition to the routine welcome template. Requiring a break-in period for the adoption program is superfluous. It is a very simple program and its basic concept has been proven for millennium. -- ] 08:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

:Until, which will be hopefully soon, Adopt-a-User is added to either or both of Help:Contents of the Welcome template, people that support its insertion can use an alternative template - ] - which has only a minor modification to include Adopt-a-User. Cheers ] 19:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
*Support this idea. I was unaware of it until I followed your link just now!!! - <span style="color:#ccf;background:#ccf;border-style: single">]</span> 10:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

:Just so people known, we have increased are number of users involved (combined adoptees and adopters) from 100 to 150 in under 10 days. As the project in continuing to gain support I would like to know at what sort of level of use people think it should get linked from Welcome and Help pages, or whether it should never be? Cheers ] 12:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC) P.S. I know that numbers are not everything, but they are one of the measures that, I should think, will be needed to be used to assess the programs importance ] 13:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

:'''Support''' per nominator. --] 10:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

== Topical ArbCom? ==

I just read the interesting essay by ], who left the project in August 2006.<br>
Given that we seem to have a lot of eager ArbCom candidates, certainly more than the ones needed for the main ArbCom, and many with stellar records (none perfect but no human is), would it make sense to have lower level 'topical ArbComs' as ] suggests?<br>
Imagine having, say, 6 such topical ArbComs, one for each of the current topics in ]. They would focus on main article space disputes, and on cases where behavior is mostly ] (or maybe we could add a dedicated ] topical ArbCom) and the issues are more related to the core WP content policies, such as ], ], ], ], etc. They would have the same power to decide on remedies as the main ArbCom. All their decisions would be appealable to the main ArbCom, who would be able to summarily dismiss the appeal (hopefully in most cases) or accept it.<br>
Of course each topical ArbCom would also be able to select its cases, suggesting continued efforts in other mediation venues where applicable.<br>
The motivation is to clear backlog and deal with disputes much earlier than we do today, per ]'s suggestions.
Any thoughts? Has this been suggested/rejected before? ] 13:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
:In other words, a group of subsidiary courts? Well, that does sound like the next logical step in expanding the dispute resolution process. We may not actually be large enough to require them quite yet, though.
:Would these subsidiary courts be permitted to desysop? I'm assuming any such decision would probably be appealed, but making it explicitly allowed/forbidden from the start would be helpful. --] <small>]</small> 19:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
::I suggest the topical ArbCom should be able to issue admin remedies (including desysopping), but desysopping would always require approval by the top ArbCom. I would propose that for such approvals a quick process would be instituted, similar to today's 'case closing' vote. If the lower ArbCom recommendation is voted down, then it will enter a discussion phase by the top ArbCom, followed by a possibly modified remedy. ] 01:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
:::Can't say I've given it much thought but I like the idea. We could have slightly smaller ArbCom committees which would probably also make them more efficient. Crum375 is right: a lot of very competent, respected election candidates will fail because there are so few spots on the ArbCom. Also, this could mean a somewhat smaller workload for individual ArbCom members, making it more likely that god candidates will apply. ] 02:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
:::I'm not sure this would work well. It is one thing to say that with an expanded ArbCom (see comments on Jimbo's page and on the ArbCom voting talk page), not all cases need to be heard by the full committee; ''de facto'', that's the practice now. But the community has been extremely hesitant about giving the Arbitration Committee, or any small number of users, authority over content issues. ] 02:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
::::I fully agree that content issues in general should be settled by consensus, and failing that with the help of voluntary non-binding dispute resolution mechanisms before reaching binding arbitration. The problem that ] alludes to (as I understand it) is that very often issues spend too much time in various non-binding mediation processes and by the time they escalate to ArbCom, way too much time and energy have been spent, with a lot of acrimony and frustration along the way, leading to loss of productivity and burnout. The concept here is to introduce binding resolutions at a lower level, while still encouraging the non-binding methods, in the hope of achieving better efficiency and reducing debilitating prolonged conflicts. The issue really is: assuming that as we grow we'll have more need for arbitrators, do we want a single tier or a dual tier arbitration system? Intuitively the dual tier sounds like it could do a better job, assuming the division of labor rules between the tiers are properly defined. ] 02:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

::::Can anyone here suggest a way to get more input on this from the community? ] 02:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

:I think a single pool that draws random panels for individual disputes would make the most sense for dealing with the growth of Misplaced Pages, plus some procedure to allow escalation to an ] decision for close or contentious issues. Since ArbComm doesn't rule on content, I don't think topical specialization would be that productive. ] 14:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
::I can see some scalability problems with the single tier ArbCom, in the long run:
::#It will be harder to keep track of situations with repeat offenders, as 'memory' will be diluted as we grow and spread out the load laterally
::#Some cases are simple and some are hard (hard typically involve admin-level conflicts and wheel-wars). The single tier will need to deal with all problems randomly, whereas the dual tier can automatically escalate the hard problems to the top tier while easily dealing with the simpler ones at the lower tier
::#Although content dispute per se should not be 'arbitrated', many conflicts arise in relation to content. Having the more specialized lower tier ArbCom would improve understanding of the underlying content issues and make the resolution quicker and more efficient
::#Having the dual tiers will allow a more natural division of labor, as opposed to near-random case selection by a large ArbCom pool
::] 14:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
:As long as the role of ArbCom is primarily related to user conduct rather than managing the content of the encyclopedia, a topical breakdown doesn't seem very natural. ] ] 03:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
::Maybe so, but ArbCom does need to expand to handle a bigger caseload, and a dual tier structure makes sense, as opposed to random subgroups in a single flat structure. Using generic topics as in the RefDesk as a dividing scheme for the lower tier would be an easy and natural division, and would allow the lower tier group quicker understanding of content related issues, hence more efficient handling. ] 00:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
:::The one concern I have with topical arbcom divisions would be that it increases the likelihood that an arbitrator might have a conflict of interest (either through editing the pages in question or personal viewpoint). Also that certain subcoms (philosophy, religion, politics, and BLP) would get much higher numbers of cases than others. However, I can't think of a better division system. Perhaps if arbitrators were shifted between branches in rotation? --] <small>]</small> 00:33, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
::::I tend to agree with your point about ], in principle. I can see requiring topical ArbCom candidates to disclose any special affiliation related to the topic. Your idea about rotation is good, except we would lose the advantage of greater efficiency due to topic specialization. Maybe some combination is needed? Maybe shorter term limits? (with possible resumption of role on a given topical ArbCom after say 1 yr hiatus.) ] 01:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
::::: Personally, I think that topical ArbComs are a very good idea, especially if they are staffed with people who are experienced in the area. I see ] as being something of a red herring here. We don't want to exclude scientists from the science ArbCom for instance. I see conflicts as being such things as ruling in a conflict where the arbitrator has already taken sides. I can't speak for other areas, but science is one where the subject matter is fractured as-is. We could easily do committees for physics, chemistry, biology, etc. Even there, there are subdisciplines where if one may have a conflict in one area, they would be available for others. It also will be very helpful to have recused arbitrators involved in cases on an advisory basis.
::::: I see this as a way of giving the interested editors more say in dealing with conflicts and perhaps easier access to arrbitration when needed. As-is, the current arbitration process is so complex and involved that I for one perfer to avoid it. --] | ] 17:52, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

:This would be very different from what ArbCom is now. It specifically doesn't deal with content issues, and specifically excludes them even if the conflict started about content.
:I find just "lower arbcom" (whatever named) more fitting the purpose. As ArbCom can work on several cases with different members, so can the lower tier. It's true that people often bring petty disagreements to ArbCom, and that should be avoided. However, that could encourage escalation instead of mediation. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 15:01, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

== Require anonymous users to confirm edits ==

Here is an idea for reducing vandalism: Require anonymous users to provide a valid e-mail address, which will be used to verify that the anon is serious about the edit and to permit identification of vandals. Here is the process:
* Anon does an edit.
* Once they hit "save page", they get a screen asking them to provide a valid e-mail address to which a confirmation message will be sent. It is noted that they will have only 30 minutes to respond (which I assume is more than enough time in most cases to reveive the e-mail and respond).
* If an e-mail address is provided, a confirmation e-mail is sent out, with instructions to either reply to it or click on a coded, confirming URL link to confirm the edit.
** If no e-mail is provided, the edit is discarded.
* If there is an edit conflict after the confirmation is done, another e-emil will be sent out with a link to a conflict resolution screen. If this link is used, the final edit will be saved as it is associated with an existing confirmation.

Note that at the end of this process we will have a valid e-mail for the user, and some hope of identification if the edit is vandalism. I strongly doubt that any vandal will be eager to type in "me@myschool.edu", but if they do so and it is vandalism we can then contact "myschool" and advise them of the issue. We can also block e-mail addresses that are for vandals in that case.

Note that I am not calling for e-mail addresses to be placed in the edit history or in any place which is generally accessible. The e-mail addresses should be in a seperate place acessible only to sysops if not a much more restricted set of users. However, it should be a part of our policy that Misplaced Pages can use that information at its discression to track down and/or contact vandals, and that should be noted on the e-mail address query screen and in the confirmation e-mail itself. --] | ] 17:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
:The whole point of a wiki is that it's quick and easy. Doesn't this proposal take away from that? ~ ''''']'''''<sup>(]|])</sup>
:All this does is serve to annoy the anons. It won't stop the vandals since they obviously either a)have too much time on their hands and can spare the 30 seconds to confirm their email, and/or b)have an agenda to push and won't mind the inconvenience. Legit users who don't want to join wikipedia but are just trying to be helpful once are less likely to make the effort. And no, it won't inspire people to create accounts. You can't annoy someone into joining - most would choose to simply not bother. ] 19:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

:: As I see it, someone doing a quick and legit edit will have little issue with doing the confirmation. Type in your e-mail (which many current browsers will auto-complete for you), and after the e-mail arrives hit the Reply and Send buttons on your e-mail tool, and the edit is in. I don't see that as a huge bother. This will only get annoying once you start making mutliple edits a day, and if you are committed to doing regular editing here, then you should have an account (and most likely will get one).

:: The goal is to set up a "low bar" to anonymous edits, but one that will stop casual vandals cold. I admit that it won't stop POV pushing and won't stop vandal accounts or other people who care to be creative about hiding their identity. However, a school kid blanking a page as a joke will be looking at creating a trail that potentially can be followed. That is the target here. --] | ] 18:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
::: Right, so it won't do much to solve the problems, but cause an inconvenience for many potential members. Thanks to the massive number of people who watch recent changes, have pages on their watchlists, and the AntiVandalBot, page blankings and other drive-by idiocy generally gets reverted in seconds. Your proposal runs counter to established policies of assume good faith and don't bite the newbies. Not to mention the core principle of being an open encyclopedia. You have to realize that even though a lot of vandals are anonymous editors, the vast majority of anonymous edits are helpful. Fact of the matter is that "casual vandals" are the least of our problems. ] 18:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
:::: Not true. In my experience the vast majority of anonymous edits, particularly when done without an edit summary, are deliberate vandalism. Moreover, it does not get reverted in seconds; it can remain for hours, days or even weeks. I used to care, but I'm beginning not to. After all: if Jimmy Wales doesn't care that Misplaced Pages has become an idiot's playground, why should I? Personally I don't think anonymous editing should be allowed at all, so anything that causes it to be inconvenient sounds good to me. --] 19:08, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

::::: A lot of energy goes onto doing these reverts that could be devoted to improving the encyclopedia. In fact, I am one editor who has limited time and who has found the vandal reverts make it hard to track what is really going on it the page. Items that could be of interest often get buried by a vandalism-and-revert. Also, as one comes to be watching a larger number of articles, more and more of them are found to have an edit summary of "rvv" or "rv to prev ver ...". So this noise in the watchlists interferes with the ability to track real issues regard that portion of the encyclopedia that you have chosen to contribute to.
::::: I honestly think that Misplaced Pages has shown that while wikis can be effective tools for creating a community-wide compendium of information, they also can be too wide open and free wheeling. The issue now is to figure out how to achieve the right balance of openness and restraint. Mine is just one suggestion of improvig that balance. --] | ] 04:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think editing by non-registered users should be allowed at all - the negatives far outweigh the positives. So giving anon IPs a hoop to jump through should be the least requirement. ] 04:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

:Let me also add that while people watching at recent changes do a great and thankless job it's not true that vandalism gets simply "canceled" by reverts: the damage on the edit history is permanent and something we shouldn't underestimate. We already have an overwhelming number of ''Historia se repetit'' edits just because there's no good way to document rationales for previous choices; and way too many editors who don't use edit summaries. I don't think we should add reverts to that. (Personally, I'm one who thinks Misplaced Pages should switch to an SCM system, or it will never be able to get a release out, for instance. But that's perhaps a broader topic.) &mdash;]] 21:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
*This should probably be on ]. (]) 13:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

:This sort of raising the barrier to entry to weed out the malicious generally backfires. I wish I could find the article, but there was a study done showing that, after the Boy Scouts of America started requiring that all volunteers submit to criminal background checks, the rate of molestation went up: potential child molesters were more willing to go to the effort of becoming volunteers than ordinary people were. --] 22:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


:'''Object''' Seriously if you want to stop anon-vandals, give them the template welcome anon-vandal. Very good template if you ask me. It was marked for deletion, but I think the decision was to keep the template.--] 10:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Ha ha ha! Oh wait... you were serious? Lets face it, if anonymous people have to go through this huge waste of time perhaps to only correct a spelling mistake, why edit wikipedia at all? Even if there is completely wrong information, most anonymous users dont want to spend their precious Sunday afternoon going through that process. And I honestly dont think this will stop vandals at all because those people that vandalize in the first place have way too uch time o their hands.
-Charlie34

Really, this won't help against vandals. Only against people who have noticed "Wow! Edit button!" and decided to test it, but they aren't a problem. About the side effect, on many sites I often had a useful comment in mind, but didn't make it because of all the confirmation stuff. Not only it can backfire with spam, I just don't want to confirm all of that, after all, it's the site, not me, who needs it. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 15:28, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

== Logo Variations ==

I would like to propose for Misplaced Pages to use logo variations created by members of the community to mark '''national and international ], ], notable anniversaries, and observance days'''. Besides for the ], it is important to commemorate special days to show Misplaced Pages's support for bringing out more awareness of these issues and events. The logos would be chosen from contestants in a consensus of graphic artist users on a project page of its own. This project would be similar to google's |sketch contest]]. I would like us perhaps to be ready for our first wikilogo by ], ] and ]! ] 05:43, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*'''comment''' the Misplaced Pages logo is copyrighted so you would probably have to get permission from the foundation to do this. ]<sup>] ]</sup> 06:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*'''Question''' What would be the criteria for dates to be recognized in this way? -- ] 06:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
:This is an issue that needs to be discussed, I think each religion's two or three main holiday's should be considered as well as important awareness days such as ], ], breast cancer day and any others that we come to a consensus on. ] 07:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*I think a better idea would be to make it possible to change the logo via some CSS code, so people could install it in their own monobook.css/js file if they want it. I've tried it before, but unfortunately the URL for the logo is stored in the <a> linking to the main page, rather than monobook.css itself, which means it would require some tricky JS to make it work. |This would allow users to have their own criteria for dates. --] (] logged out) 06:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
**That seems like an excellent idea, if it can be made to work... can it? -- ] 07:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*::<code>#p-logo a { background-image: url(http://mylogo.com/logo.png) !important; }</code> ] (]) 07:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*:::Exactly, I agree with 172.205.196.44 - for that matter, my .js has actually disabled showing the wikilogo, so I wouldn't see it anyways. But, not being selfish, I like the idea :) '''] <sup>]&nbsp;·&nbsp;]&nbsp;]</sup>''' 07:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*I am for the idea in principle (I am envisaging something like the google logo changes). '''However''', I would not want to see anything national-specific (especially US-specific) or politically-motivated, religiously-motivated etc. What I would not want to see is for example a "4th of july" logo or a "jesus crusified today" logo, these are politically- and religiously- charged. Perhaps "Figure X born today" or "Chemical Y discovered today" etc. I think if we do this it should be a variation that represents the kind of things wikipedia does and stands for, rather than a slavish mimicry of eg the google logo. Cheers - <span style="color:#ccf;background:#ccf;border-style: single">]</span> 10:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
**Some great points from a great user. I think there can be "some" politicly and religiously charged versions though, like Christmas. ] 10:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*'''Comment''': To keep our headings clear, it's probably good if we switch to numbers from asterisk indents. ] 10:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
#'''Comment''': That Google does it is kind of the "Diddy did it" thing: more or less irrelevant. I'm in favor of the proposal, although there would need to be a few clear understandings. The globe of letters is the copyright, just as the lettering of "Google" is, and so the graphic alterations would need to be backgrounds, colors, and things ''around'' the logo. Also, ''please'' make it two words, "Wiki logo," rather than one, as one sounds like "Wiki Λογος." As for the substance and the problems, please forgive the extra indents:
#::The project would be properly located at Commons, not .en. This would make the variations available to all projects, so that the .se pedia can put up a 4th of July logo, if they wish.
#::National holidays (ones where all government offices close) are non-controversial, but seccession day, failed rebellions, etc. can get tense. Nationally recognized religious holidays (Christmas, Easter, Good Friday), and especially those that are core, would be non-controversial, but regionally or sectarian or denominational ones would be tough.
#::If there were to be an include/exclude argument, the best one would be, "Is this nationally recognized in ''an Anglophone nation'' for .en, a ''Francophone nation'' for .fr, etc." A non-English speaker going to .en may be interested in the funny customs of the Anglophone world, just as native English speakers tend to be interested in the "strange" holidays celebrated by the Swedes, for example. The dominant nature of English shouldn't enter into it, really.
#::The proposal carries with it a rather non-wiki element, in that it requires an approval community. The best suggestion I could offer would be that this be done via a Project. There should be a Holiday Logo Project, and it should need to vote and gain consensus on these acceptable variations (and it should be plural).
#::Picking which, if any, to actually put on the main page requires a top level admin who enjoys wide, wide trust. The only candidate I can think of right now would be Raul, who is already the FA director, but I'm not sure he'd want to do it.
#:Anyway, that's what occurs to me. I really hope it helps. ] 10:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*I love logos ^^, BUT! First off; what kind of awareness days? And some Rememberance days might be offencive to others, off the top of my head say the Armenian holocaust, the Turks deny it happened and refuse to adit comitting it, but I betcya the Armenians have a day to REMEMBER it. Also, some people don't like The dream factory (to get this joke click the wiki link fore Rememberance days you wrote on me talk page =P). Note: I am very buisy these days for the next two months I've got covers, collections, some more covers magazine and newspaper comics blah blah blah... so I probably won't do it, but here is some advice if it helps. In my opinion, why not, as not a lot of wikiusers go to the front page and read it all if there's an awareness thing on it, but I don't think we should go too much in to it, maybe just slap a small awareness ribbon on the logo and make a more noticible article on the front, or maybe even send an automated awareness message to ALL USERS. The wikilogos are very estetic so we must be carefull in editing them if we are permitted tom we don't want them to loock cheep now do we ^_^? I'd keep it modest. Also problems: Some awareness symbols, ribbons, or collors may stand for more things, so the observer may not get it. And: What if it gets out of hand? Before you know it we'll be having a santa cap on the logos hah. In conclusion: Only if these days are important and regard everyone, not just say Christians or something. Like AIDS day, Memorial day, Give out free candy day, Global warming awareness day, ect. Exactly how, I do not know but don't make it too flashy or just too much. If you're gonna go for it, think simple and clever, it always works ;) --] 11:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

#I '''support''' this proposal. It is a qay to remind us "Never Again" ] <small>]</small> 14:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

*It sounds like a fun idea on the surface, but doesn't really gain Misplaced Pages anything other than administrative trouble. It might have some value if, like the cartoonish altered Google logo, it brought people to the front page to see what cute logo-mod Wikipedians had come up with for the day, or if Misplaced Pages had an unfriendly image problem that desperately needed to be rectified. (And "image problem" brings up other difficult issues regarding tone and style of any illustration, btw.)<br>
:I absolutely do not support a religious logo-mod of any sort, and that most definitely includes Christmas ornaments, Channukkah dreidels, Valentine's hearts, Easter eggs, etc. ''ad nauseum''. <br>
:I agree with PocklingtonDan that only "a variation that represents the kind of things Misplaced Pages does and stands for" might be more reasonable than religious or political ''']'''. However, I think the "On this day..." section does that and more. <br>
:Perhaps, alternatively, we could choose one event from "On this day..." to call out with a stand-alone logoish graphic (i.e., not a Misplaced Pages logo-mod). This logo-like graphic might be used something like a dot-whack, and might be valuable for calling attention to the "On this day..." section, as well as adding some graphic variability to the front page... but I'm not sure it's really a problem in search of a solution.<br>
:] 17:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't like the idea. With Google, they can detect what country you are in and provide you with an appropriate version of Google , where they can do cute and culturally appropriate things with the logo. I don't ever see there being a "U.S." version of Misplaced Pages, a British version, Canadian version, etc... There are very few holidays that are not specific to religions or certain countries. --] <small>(])</small> 17:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
::'''Comment''' whilst it is true that that Sweden's Christmas is snowier then Britain's, certain observance days are the same. Obviously D day is no good since some German's wont like it, but that desicion would be reached in the consensus. What are you saying? ] 03:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

:'''Strong Oppose''' - Misplaced Pages has a strict NPOV policy. Local holidays and events would not be global. As such, we can't do something like this. I understand that this is a bland, boring decision, but Misplaced Pages's ideals shouldn't be violated for periodic variations of the logo. ] 19:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

:'''Support''' - This sounds like a great idea. :) ] 20:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

:'''Strong Oppose''' - I agree with ], the whole idea violates NPOV policy. It's important to note that someone's holiday celebration is also a reminder to someone else's failure in history. Or recognizing someone religious event offends those opposed to that faith. It's sad to say this, and I wish any holiday could be recognized and respected but Misplaced Pages needs to keep the whole "political correct" neutrality. ] 22:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

:'''Strong Support'''- It could just be on internationally accepted holidays, i.e. Christmas, maybe Rememberance Day. Sooner or later you're going to upset someone about something - its absurd to not do something because someone somewhere may be offended by it. ] 23:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
::'''Comment''' - two things:
::#Christmas and Rememberance day are both biased. ] is Christian, and ] favors the victors of the World Wars. The article on Rememberance Day reflects that.
::#It ''is'' absurd, on Misplaced Pages, to do anything that may offend someone in a political, religious, or social way, ''even if'' ], because of the necessity for a neutral point of view. See ].
::I don't mean any offense whatsoever, but what you've said doesn't seem to hold up. ] 03:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
:::I apprecaite you don't mean any offense, but where do you get it that people will be "offended" if some laurels where to apear on the logo for christmas and link to the article. Finding out about each other's religion's cultures and values would be a great thing for many of us, instead of being "offended" so badly? Please read the thread, I dont beleive for a minute you've read anything above. The focal points have been discussed, except for this "offended" ]. ] 03:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
::::I've read the thread, and the main topic of discussion is whether such a project is feasible. On the "cool variation" level, I strongly support this idea. As with Google, it would attract some people to see the latest Misplaced Pages "doodle". On the other hand, I find holidays to be inherently POV, and on that level such a project is entirely unacceptable. Users can have user scripts to change the image for themselves, but the main page and layout need their blandness and NPOV - NPOV is one of the ]! ] 04:23, 15 December 2006 (UTC) (signed after, oops)
:::::can these problems be fixed technicly, an option to turn it off/show the normal logo?&nbsp;<span style="background-color: #000000">&nbsp;<font color="white">'''&rArr;'''</font> <font color="white">]</font>&nbsp;</span> 18:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
*'''Strong Support'''- Even if it does include something only celebrated by only one religion, ethnic group, etc., that shouldn't matter so long as we include the "equivalent" (if possible) holiday for any other religions, ethnic groups, etc. As well, if someone feels that their religion, ethnic group, etc. does not have a holiday recognized that they think should be, they can always suggest it. ]] 23:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*'''oppose''' ] list 21for balance, if we consider three Christian dates of Christmas, Easter, Good Friday that means that 63 religious day logo's. Then we add these UN listed special days(note some are weeks) from here http://www.un.org/events/observances.htm , theres another 60, thats 1 in 3 days. Then what happens when day A and day B occurs on the same day how would it be decided which would get the recognition. I think we leave day recognitions to the "On this Day" section that way every event gets equal and fair recognition. ] 06:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

*It's a good idea but there could be the problems with copyright and determining which events pass the notability test. We don't want to be following Google day for day though, though I do like the Google sketches. :) ] 22:33, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

*'''Strong Oppose:'''Per Gnangarra, Nihiltres, and Cyberia23. <small>]<sup>(])</sup></small> 11:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
*'''Oppose'''. Incidentally, to Geogre's comment that ''National holidays (ones where all government offices close) are non-controversial'' I'd counter that I can immediately think of one populous, economically powerful nation with a national holiday to celebrate the birthday of somebody who arguably should have been tried as a war criminal (see Dower, ''Embracing Defeat,'' passim). In principle I am vaguely interested in non-national, non-religious UN days; but really, there are so many of these, their names are so prolix, and some are so optimistic/silly/insulting -- "International '''Day''' for the Eradication of Poverty" (my emphasis), pfffft, somebody please alert me when the day becomes a decade -- that I lose interest fast. -- ] 12:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

*'''Oppose''' - violates NPOV. ] <sup>]</sup> 16:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

*'''Strong Oppose''' This very obviously violates our NPOV policy and would end up being a never-ending headache for those who implemented it. We couldn't do any religious holidays because it would be a way of endorsing that religion, and trying to rectify this by doing it for holidays of all religions wouldn't work; there are hundreds of religions with hundreds of holidays and we couldn't possibly deal with all and would therefore have to pick and choose, which would mean accepting some POVs and rejecting others. The same problem would emerge in dealing with commemoration dates and the like, certainly those that are national rather than international would have to be excluded. Also, this seems to me to be, in my own opinion, a rather silly diversion from actually, you know... writing an encyclopedia. --] 22:19, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

*'''Leave that to Uncyc''' - even neutrality aside, we need a more serious attitude. Considering neutrality, it's horrible, as even Christmas isn't a holiday to everyone; and outside the West the world is so full of conflicts that most national holidays will be found hostile by some people. Let's list them all on the main page as we do already, but leave the logo serious. For coming to see what's new today, again, we've got the daily renewed main page which is ''way'' more interesting than on most if not all other websites. People coming to WP to see something new will be - and are - more attracted by the actual page, pictures and content, rather than jokes with the logo. Really, it won't add anything to WP. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 15:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

== Radical Linking Proposal, making wiki more efficient ==

Im not sure if it is possible but it would be nice if all words that have an article or page would automatically be links to those pages, but appearing like normal words unless you have the cursor upon them (or click them). So the Articles would appear as today but all archived words would be "hidden" links. This would maybe take more bandwidth but it would surely make the pedia more effective and integrated. /] 08:53, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
:too many links would mean a big trawl. imagine reading an article, you'de never finish it out of curosity of what every word means. at the moment you can link anything to anything, once. An interesting idea. ] 09:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*Mouse-over is normally done with Java Script. That would be a developer issue, but I'm rather unenthusiastic about the idea. First, the manual of style (]) already discourages overlinking. Second, new readers may get lost in the link maze, but learning when to click and when to click later is part of the experience of Misplaced Pages. Anyway, I certainly understand the principle, and it's one reason the Manual of Style changed to discourage "overlinking." ] 11:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*And I'm not even mentioning the problems words with more than one meaning would cause... - ]|] 13:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
*WEll well, eventually it will happen, and when every word, every syllable is completely mapped and understood, we will move on, to new frontiers and new levels of understanding. /] 14:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
:*If you want to know what it would feel like to implement this (scary), see ]. Otherwise, it's almost OK. :) ] 03:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
::Cool, thats the way i like it! Just, I'd like one color for all text, hyperlinked or not. /] 23:44, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
*] ] ] ], ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ]. (]) 13:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
*Why? Because the text turns blue? I think its a great idea /] 22:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Is it possible to leave things looking the way they are, but have ''right'' clicks bring up the option of finding links to Wikitionary and other projects? -- ] 10:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

*I personally oppose the idea as well. Too many links is overkill, only those terms that actually relate to the topic at hand should be linked. All people and places mentioned should probably be linked to as well, but not everything. Also, how would you deal with phrases that have articles but also where each word of that phrase has a separate articles? --] 22:23, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

== Limiting the number of edits for new users ==

Is there a way to limit the number of user edit by implemeting an edit quota, this would for example limit the usefulness of sockpuppets and revert/edit wars that go on. The edit limits can be placed on let's say:

* new users by limiting the number of edits they can perform overall - after the users have been around for some time, this edit quota can be lifted for example this is lifted after let's say a week or a month
* special edit limits on selected articles where edit/revert wars are constant


Regards,

] 20:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

:'''Rejected''', goes contrary to the purpose of encouraging new users to edit. We aren't ] where they arbitrarily define privilege levels. There is no purpose to doing this, and would serve only to discourage new editors from being active. Socks are cheap and easily creatable, so they wouldn't be stopped by this at all. Just make another 3 or 4 or 10 or 50 if you hit your revert limit. If a specific page requires it, we have ]. --] <small>]</small> 20:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
:I can tell you right now that it is not going to happen. This site will not treat all new users and/or anons as potential vandals and sockpuppets just because a small percentage are. See ] for more. If a revert war is going on you can have it semi-protected, but this is not the way to do it. ] 20:40, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
::Plus, those users who do commit wrongs can be blocked. ]] 23:43, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

:Of course we have problem new users, but we have problem old users, too (no, not administrators). New users who insert massive numbers of links, who write in their company everywhere, and then do the scribbling stuff are problems, but they're not a new problem, and the scope of the problem isn't growing faster than our vandal hunting tools, so there is no need to curtail our general philosophy. For every two vandals and spammers affected by this, a legitimate and good contributor, and the bad guys will simply use two accounts to accomplish the edits they're now doing with one, so the effect will be strictly to increase suspicion and unfriendliness to good users. ] 02:20, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

:: Thank you for your replies ! ] 12:32, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

==Article length templates==
Before I'm overcome with boldness, let's try this here first (ok, I'll be bold with colons). Bottomline''':''' {{tl|long}}, {{tl|Verylong}}, and {{tl|intro length}} should be deleted. Let me explain''':''' these temporary templates are placed in articles that someone believes are overly long and requests that someone (ie. not me) transfers to a sub-article or summarizes the content. The flaw is that this is metadata''':''' a comment and request (directed at ''editors'' who are familiar with the subject) concerning the structure of the article. This metadata belongs on the talk page''':''' their raison d'être. Theoretically (as some templates say and most people ignore) the template-slapper should also leave an explanation on the talk page. Templates in the article should be addressed to the ''readers'' (ie. warnings of NPOV, unverified, current event, etc.). So this clever observation that the article is long should go on the talk page: not somewhere in the actual article. On the talk page the templates would be redundant with a section explaining how it is too verbose''':''' so delete the templates. Right? :] 05:34, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

:Sort of :-) The sad thing is… many editors don't look at the talk page. I think we would need a software feature along the lines of: "don't even think of hitting the edit button and I'll show a gigantic warning in front of you" :-) OK, you got the idea. There are many other types of "annotations", BTW, which we would be able to use in that case. &mdash;]] 09:07, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

:Agreed. The templates are important, as some articles are ridiculously long and can easily be broken into separate articles. However, as mentioned, they do belong on the talk page since they are a notice for editors, not readers. Perhaps someone running a bot or using some other kind of script can move them over. A notice should also be added to the template pages with instructions to add only to the talk page as many other templates already have. ] 13:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
:Agree that this is talk page material, not article. ] 18:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
:Me, I'd send the templates to hell without apology, as I do not want anyone templating "long." If an article is too long, then go to the talk page and argue the position. Templates are far too slap-and-run for my taste, and I don't want anyone telling me that a full article on '']'' is "too long" because it gets to X kb or Y kb. If they pass TfD, then they're talk page matters and absolutely positively under no circumstances for the article page itself. ] 22:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
*Sounds reasonable; I think you should drop the templates on ] and/or get a ] to move them to the talk page. (]) 13:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
**Ok, I stuck my neck out at ]. ·] 04:24, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

==Wikidea==
What about a Wikidea. It could be like an open source think tank or blog that people could submit their ideas and people could work on them.
:Proposals for new projects should be made at ]. For your particular proposal, I think there might be a project at ] covering this sort of thing. ] ] 20:51, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
::There is ] already. ]] 17:12, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

== Just an idea for dealing with problematic users ==

Here's a simple way I thought of for dealing with users proving to be a problem on Misplaced Pages. This process would apply to those whose "problems" prevent them from doing constructive edits, even though they have good intentions (i.e. are not vandal accounts or blatant trolls).
* First Offense: User gets a short block (12 hours at the longest) and a warning, which attempts to educate them on how what they're doing is not good. The reason for the block is to show them what can happen. If they apologize, that can be grounds for lifting the block early; use common sense.
* Second Offense: User must go through mentoring. If they refuse mentoring, then they will be blocked indefinitely until they agree. It is then up to the mentoring user to talk to them or block them when appropriate.
** Always make an effort to educate
** Block ] it is appropriate to do so.
** If it's clear they're just gaming the system so that through mentoring they are allowed to not be blocked, the mentor can block them indefinitely at their discretion.
* If a user is really showing improvement, they will no longer need to be under mentorship, although the mentoring admin may still want to keep an informal watch on them.
* If a user fails to make improvement in a long times (around six months), they are banned for a long time (either indefinitely or something like a year).
Comments? Suggested improvements? ]] 12:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

:Can you give an example of the kinds of problematic users this is meant to help? --] 12:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
:: I don't know (and would not wish to give) specific names, but really this is for the kind of person that want to be involved in the goodness but don't exactly have the rules and common practices down yet. ]] 15:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
:::I meant kinds of user, not specific users. Can you give a hypothetical example of the kind of mistakes the users you're think of make? --] 16:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
::::Based on my history of controversy, do you think I should be mentored? --] 12:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
:Do you have the mentors available for those (many) users who make a second offence? (]) 13:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
:: It would be volunteer work, really. I would get invovled as well. Luckily, it doesn't have to be one-on-one (though I'd imagine it'd be a headache to do much more). ]] 15:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
:::Ban them all, God will know his own!
:::Ok, seriously, the idea of mentoring is very nice and warm and fuzzy, but I don't think it would work. How does one tell the difference between a user who is a problem on purpose and those who are a problem because they don't know any better? ] 20:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
::If wikipedia had that much moderator ] vandals would not have been a problem. There is no need in fanciful rules to ban an especially annoying one; the big huge problem is that you CANNOT ban a person from editing Misplaced Pages. IPs and even those hard adresses as ], not to mention the account itself, are all easily interchangeable. A funny solvation was met by some ] which issued a 'whole country ban' on ] because there were some problematic users from there. Nevertheless, people from Turkey and even the people in question could still play it via a ]. South Korea, on the other hand, gave each citizen an unique Internet ID, eradicating both the anonymity and anarchy in internet. Wait untill it is so far in ] and come again with that suggestion.] 21:28, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
:::I doubt that there'll be enough users to act as mentors. The backlogs at AIV, etc. suggest we need more manpower to deal with anonymous vandals. --] 12:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, but there are such things as abuse of the mentoring system, the mentor might be 1. friends with the violator 2.enemies with the violator or 3.just plain abusing their newfound power to block a person there isnt much wikipedia can do to know about this but otherwise sounds good
-Charlie34
: Sounds like something that could be remedied with a conflict-of-interest disclosure requirement. Nothing fancy. If someone violates it, they get banned. I am merciless towards people who game the system. ]] 22:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

== Vandalism ==

I'll keep this short since most everything is explained elsewhere. Simply put, sometimes vandals are not fit to be reported to ], but there should be a place where they can be kept track of. You may read the problem in detail at ], and I would appreciate any and all feedback on my possible ], which is still in its early stages of being and is completely open to suggestions and constructive criticism. ]-] 23:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
:This isn't that hard to do on your own. Watch their talk page; then check their contribs list from time to time. If they vandalise repeatedly within a few days, warn them each time with the progressive warning tags, then report them to AIV. If they become good editors, or disappear for ever, leave them alone. I don't see where we need more than that. --]] 04:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
::Jayron32, by identifying chronic anonymous vandals, Dar-Ape's propose list aims to have many users doing what you suggested: watching their talk page, checking their contribs, and, if neccesary, warning them and reporting them to AIV. There are many anonymous vandals who stop after receiving a last warning, only to come back the next day (e.g. school IPs). If the IP address is static, they should be handed long blocks (of several months). --] 11:45, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
:::Exactly. Furthermore, even if IPs have a history of vandalism, they should generally not be listed at WP:AIV if they have only vandalized once within the past few hours, or have not vandalized after their last (which could also be their first) warning. Yet they could be reported on this page. Also, if someone has to sign off, contribs of the vandal he or she is watching can be combed and reverted the next day, but in the mean time, many people may have read the vandalized articles and gotten false or misleading information. This should be preventable, and will be with a "watchlist" like this. ]-] 03:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

== WikiBar ==
<s>
Apologies if this has already been suggested, but it occurred to me that a Wiki search/toolbar would be really handy for those who reference Misplaced Pages often.
] 02:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)</s>
Sorry, just discovered it, please disregard/remove the above.
] 02:20, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

== Some ideas for the good articles shown in other languages ==

:''Moved from ]''

I've just created a template ], it's works similar as the ]. However it needs the ] and ] to be updated to reflect this change. Is that a good idea to introduce this template? --] &#8660; ] 05:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

:There's seems not much feedback about this proposal, so I copied to here also. --] &#8660; ] 16:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

::I'm curious. What do these two templates do? What are they for? Maybe they need some words inside <nowiki><noinclude></nowiki> tags, as the ] has, to explain what they are and when to use them. --] 04:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

:::I think they're to add a little plus icon to one of the "in other languages" links if the corresponding other-language article is marked as good. ]] 05:35, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

::::yup, that's what this template would do. (See also ], this template would add a plus icon at a inter-language link that its status is good.) --] &#8660; ] 17:02, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

== Hide/Show box for footnotes ==

Might a box be made as to make the footnotes on a page less, well obnoxious if there are many. I have seen boxes where there is a link in the top right corner where it says "show" while the box is closed and "hide" while the box is open. This could be done in much the same way the table of contents are done. Now I don't know how to do it, so I bring it here. (Note: This idea was originally derrived by myself at ], having nearly 50 citations. However, I have seen a page with 137 citations, and this would make any and all Misplaced Pages pages look far more pleasing to the non-editing reader.) How plausible, if plausible at all, is this plan, and does anyone know how to make such a box in a non-intrusive way? Other Feedback? Thanks in advance, ]]]]</font><Font Color= "light blue"> </Font> 01:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
: Read with Firefox, and use {{]|2}} or <nowiki>{{reflist|colwidth=40em}}</nowiki> or something like that in the article. (for instance, ]'s references are pretty big (both in quantity and column width), but on wider displays, it'll automatically display two columns side-by-side) --] 02:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
::Since I use ], am I left out in the cold? --] 05:11, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

:The purpose of footnotes is not just for the editor. If we consider how information is presented to the reader then we have various levels of granularity. In principle the opening summary contains the whole story and may be adequate for some readers, although we must accept that most summary intros in Misplaced Pages do not achieve this objective. The next level of granularity is the article itself, and the next again is the footnotes. A further level of granularity is going to the references themselves to establish what they say. I appreciate that a lot of Misplaced Pages articles leave a lot to be desired in this structural format, by using clumsy formations to attribute references and sources in text as well as footnoting, but that doesn't mean that the footnotes and references are only aimed at editors.
:The challenge is to get well written articles, appreciating that some will require extensive referencing to demonstrate adequate coverage.
:] 20:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

::But still, a box which could be hidden would make it look nicer, all I wanted to know is if anyone can make such a template. ]]]]</font><Font Color= "light blue"> </Font> 21:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

== Templates for proposing category splits ==

Just now I needed to propose the splitting of ] into ] and ], and found the required cf* and cf*2 templates didn't exist. I ended up using a modified version of {{tl|cfr}} on ] and the generic {{tl|split}} (with the rarely-used discuss parameter to point to CSD instead of category talk) on the category page itself. But I bet this isn't the only time a category's been put up for splitting. Shouldn't there be templates to do it with? ]] 04:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
==Rating system/decision system==
In some cases, building consensus on Misplaced Pages does not work very well. It is slow. It often results in a bad answer/solution. It is prone to manipulation. And often, a number of average editors can make life miserable for some real expert in a field like physics or neuroscience, reverting their changes, getting into petty arguments with them, etc. When you read the academic literature about Misplaced Pages, this is one of the complaints. The library scientists also complain about problems with unqualified people cranking out nonsense in a strident contemptuous fashion and drowning out the more learned and qualified editors on Misplaced Pages. In interviews, Jimmy Wales often has mentioned the desire to attract more experts to write articles. I am wondering about possibly tilting the playing field a bit in favor of people who have demonstrated some recognized level of expertise in some area.

I propose that a system somewhat like that used by Yahoo! Answers be used. In Yahoo! Answers, a person can put a question forward and get quite a few answers to that question in a short period. They can either choose one of these as the "best", or put it up to a vote to the community which will then choose a "best" answer. The community can then vote after the fact in agreement that the best choice has been made, or can vote in disagreement. Points are accumulated along the way that then identify fairly rapidly those with recognized qualifications and reliability in a given field. Many times I wish I could have a question that arises on Misplaced Pages put to a vote. On a talk page, this rarely works. Some people have jury rigged votes on special pages, and that can work sometimes. If points were accumulated in a yahoo! answers fashion, and people could find a list of things to vote on easily, then the community could be surveyed easily on many issues that become sources of contention. This could even be used for noncontent-related dispute resolution. For example, I have had editors claiming to me that having citations was unencyclopedic. Of course, I could have tried to organize some sort of RfC or something to address this, but it is too cumbersome. If I could quickly put the matter to a vote, and get 35 votes to 2 to show he is wrong, and build up points in the meantime, then slowly people who are knowledgable and reasonable fonts of knowledge in certain areas will be identified, and people who are less reliable and less knowledgable will become known as well. This would also be an incentive to people to improve, to get a better score. Better scores need not come with extra priveleges; prestige is enough to drive people on Yahoo! Answers. I recently had a situation where an editor claimed he had taken the wording for his contribution (which was very lacking in several aspects) directly from the work of a famous person in the field (but did not attribute the writing to the famous person). I then expressed incredulity at this claim, given that the contribution was of such doubtful quality. I pointed out that this editor appeared to be:
#admitting to plagiarism
#appealing to the presumed authority of this famous person to justify what they had written
I was met with a storm of indignation and accusations and attacks. The current dispute resolution system is too cumbersome to deal with this sort of thing. Therefore, there is lots of bullying instead. However, if something easy was available, the problem probably would have been resolved quickly without even resorting to dispute resolution, because even the existence of a way to easily publicly shame someone would encourage them to stay in line. Points might be accrued in different areas to produce a multidimensional score. Anyway, it is at least something to consider.--] 07:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
:Voting is not how Misplaced Pages works nor should it be. Democratic voting is not a good way to decide these sort of issues. What makes you think that votes would not be rigged? Wikis are run by consensus. If you post something and it remains, that means that everyone who reads it has in a sense "voted" to let it remain or abstained. So everything at wikipedia has unanimous approval. When people disagree, they have to discuss. If they can't discuss they can try mediation. If they can't mediate then there is arbitration. Discussions take time, and people who are not suited to collaborative efforts do not stay very long or eventually end up blocked. A million and a half pages have been created this way.
:There is no excuse for plagarism, and you should remove anything that is found to be plagarism. If someone claims information to be from an authority, they should cite them. If they do not, remove it for being uncited material. If you get reverted, ask for other editors to join you in reverting uncited material and plagarism. -- ] 09:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

::I understand what you are saying. However, I am reluctant to get into a pitched battle with someone who has been here more than 4 years. They clearly know all the rules and all the tricks for circumventing the rules. They obviously have a wide range of alliances and friends they can draw on. And it is true that 1.5 million pages in English have been created that way, and many more pages have been created in other languages. However, there are problems in a system where everyone is the some weight. Sometimes the herd instinct is wrong. And some lousy pages result. In fact, I have seen my share of examples of bad design, and clumsy wording, and meaningless phrases. And editors who are prepared to defend these to the death, using sockpuppets and friends. Unless someone is prepared to go to a lot of trouble, you cannot dislodge them and the text they are defending. I am not the only one who has noted this. Misplaced Pages has some very strong points, but it has weaknesses as well. I suppose a rating system could be "gamed" and end up favoring some group that wanted to cheat.--] 12:41, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

:::I hope you don't have your heart set on changing Misplaced Pages in as fundamentatl a manner as you propose, because it isn't going to happen. With 1.5 million articles out there, surely all the articles you might want to edit can't already be defended by editors with sockpuppets (violation of rules) and friends ready to defend them? Perhaps you could look at ] or ] if you're not sure where such undefended articles might be found. ] | ] 17:40, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

No of course not. I just thought I would make the suggestion. I do not claim this is the solution the problems of Misplaced Pages. When one is brainstorming, one just throws ideas out for comment. Most of them are nonsense, but they might stimulate other ideas and who knows, sometimes something good comes out of it. I also suspect there are many "orphaned" articles out there. --] 21:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

:Could be - there's a project to look at such articles just starting up: ], and a special page (]) to display the 1000 articles with the least recent edits. ] | ] 02:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

If I understood your proposal correctly, it aims to give expert views more weight in discussions/votes, and to introduce a simpler method of determining consensus. I remember ], and others, criticising Misplaced Pages for being anti-elitist, and this proposal would help address such criticism, and make it harder for trolls to game the system. A hypothetical situation where this would be useful would be a discussion where a troll tries to get a common misconception reported as a fact in the article, and an expert tries to stop him. --] 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

'''Object''' This makes absolutely no sense at all. How can you know for sure that that person is an expert on the subject? Say an example: a neurologist decides to become a Wikiholic, and start posting stuff on Neuroscience. There is no way to confirm. Besides new editors i.e. in this case the neurologist, don't have friends in Misplaced Pages. Therefore their votes will be lower. And then they may leave.--] 10:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Whilst I'd agree that the current, consensus based, (effectively weighted democratic) system in Misplaced Pages is fundamentally flawed, I'm not convinced that this approach to dealing with that is adequate. You're essentially advocating a beauty contest based on a meta level rather than as it is now, on the content level. Until Misplaced Pages has some form of demonstrating expertise and utilising that in the validation of article content, we'll never get away from the rigging or pimping of votes whether on article page or in WP space. Notwithstanding that the tyrrany of ill-informed democracy does need dealing with.] 20:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)


:I agree, this is a major problem. Most adult people with a degree have good professional knowledge in some field. I'm quite thick-skinned and used to debating on forums and so on, but a person not used to Internet can dislike this. And it's much more frustrating to defend what you really know about, and what is the common knowledge for anyone who ever had interest in the field.
:However, the way to deal with it, in my opinion, is changing attitude. Really, if an expert decides to help the site by adding some good information or fixing mistakes, he doesn't expect the ingratitutious attitude typical here. WP is becoming somewhat of thing in itself, people judged by number of edits, and anyone with few edits considered a newbie, at best met with condescending attitude.
:We just need to change the attitude, as professional knowledge is essential to filter information, and can't be replaced by trusted newspapers. By changing the attitude I do mean some measures, not just "we should". However, I'm not sure which measures. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 14:29, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

== search bar change ==

Hi I'd like to request a change on the placement of the search bar. I often forget where it is because of the awkward and almost unnoticible location. I think that if you moved the bar to a more visible area on the page, it would induce more browsing on the site. Thank you, and I think Misplaced Pages is awesome. <small>—The preceding ] comment was added by ] (]) 09:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC).</small><!-- HagermanBot Auto-Unsigned -->
:Where would a better place be? ] ] 15:50, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
::Maybe the top of the sidebar, under the Misplaced Pages logo? Or maybe up where the Foundation fundraiser thingie is?~ ''''']'''''<sup>(]|])</sup> 16:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
:::You could switch skins: Cologne Blue has the search box below the logo and Classic has it at the top of the page. ] ] 16:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
::::The anon can't switch skins. ~ ''''']'''''<sup>(]|])</sup> 16:54, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
:::::Yup, customization is mentioned as a benefit of registering, at ]. ] | ] 17:31, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
::::::I'm guesing that our friend at IP 76.171.242.137 is a reader of Misplaced Pages; not so much an editor. Perhaps only a casual reader. Their contribution here is the only contribution from that IP address. Perhaps someday they will see that one typo they can't resist and fix it and become hooked; but for now they really aren't interested in editing and probably see no reason to register. Moreover, people are ''always'' talking about deleting unused accounts; it's somewhat of a perennial proposal. If 76.171.242.137 did register an account for the purpose of customizing his/her reading experience it would be yet another unused account for people to pick on and complain about. Moreover, ''76.171.242.137 has a valid point''. If 76.171.242.137 has trouble finding the search bar, then I guarantee that there are 10 other ''readers'' of Misplaced Pages; people who have wandered in here from a Google search or a link on some other webpage who perhaps have no idea what Misplaced Pages is who can't find the search bar. Paper encyclopedias are easy to find things in; everything is in alphabetical order, period. Misplaced Pages is one heck of a lot harder, ''especially'' if it's your first encounter with it and you don't see the search bar, don't understand that blue words are links, and can't figure out how the categories work. ~ ''''']'''''<sup>(]|])</sup> 17:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
:::::::what you're saying makes sense, and I'm in full agreement that concerns for readers, not editors, should be the top priority. However, the search bar seems like it's in an obvious posisition, and I'm not sure where to relocate it. ] 19:16, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
A more obvious place would be in the upper left corner, ''above'' the globe. I realize that the more graphically inclined may strongly object to that, but if the goal is to make the reader experience as trouble-free as possible, the page shouldn't be treated as an art project. ] | ] 02:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

'''Object''' I am used to it, and so will you.--] 10:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Have you noticed that when you type in wikipedia.org, there is a seachbrowser just underneath the logo? You have to try to miss that
-Charlie34

== Misplaced Pages Toolbar ==

Hi,
Beyond any doubt wikipedia is a lovely thing to have in our cyber world. I am a big fan of her. Though I dont have a very specific area of experties where i can be helpful to your project but i do have one suggestion.
Like some other services like google, answers, yahoo and msn etc. I would suggest that wikipedia may like to launch a comprehensive and free toolbar for desktop use.
I hope i may not have disappointed you with my suggestion.
Thanx <small>—The preceding ] comment was added by ] (] • ]){{#if:{{{2|}}}|&#32;{{{2}}}|}}.</small><!-- Template:Unsigned -->
:See ] :) —] 20:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

== Spoilers on http://www.wikicities.com/c:Lost ==

I went to http://www.wikicities.com/c:Lost, thinking it was some sort of new wikipedia-related technological thing. It turned to be a page about the television show "Lost". That wasn't my only discovery. I also discovered something about the show that I would have preferred to have seen on the show itself. In short, the page lacks any warning of spoilers.
I propose to make a page created solely to alert people of possible spoilers before actually veiwing the page http://www.wikicities.com/c:Lost.
Thank You <small>—The preceding ] comment was added by ] (] • ]){{#if:{{{2|}}}|&#32;{{{2}}}|}}.</small><!-- Template:Unsigned -->
:Hello there. Unfortunately, that Wiki is not part of Misplaced Pages itself (as far as I know), thus we can't "force" them to add spoiler warnings. If you clicked an external link from a Misplaced Pages article that took you there, and if you really consider this step necessary, leave a message in the talk page of the article from where you clicked the link, and explain why you think a spoiler warning should be added. Misplaced Pages is not censored, and that apparently includes spoilers. -- ] 03:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
:Wikicities is a service of Wikia, a for-profit company founded by Jimbo Wales, who also founded (or co-founded, depending on whom you listen to) Misplaced Pages. There is no formal association between the two entities other than sharing a founder and using the same (free, open-source) software. ] 04:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

== How about compensation for contributors...? ==

Direct compensation of writers by readers might be a good way to compensate Misplaced Pages contributors but another method that comes to mind is the idea of establishing a system of voting for the best contribution of the week, month or year wherein the contributor with the work with the highest number of votes would be named contributor of the week, month or year and granted an appropriate sum. I say this because most of the articles I have read seem to be of such exceptional quality that they are equally, if not more, deserving of reward and compensation as are revisions and improvements to Misplaced Pages Foundation facilities (hardware and software). And I would not stop there. I can think of just as equally deserving contributors who work or participate in the reference desks as well. ] 09:33, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

:Can't they just use ]?--] 10:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

::Do we have to introduce ] to Misplaced Pages? Egads! It is is prolific enough elsewhere in life. ] 11:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

:::No, thanks. We just like working as ]. &mdash; ] 11:23, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

::Wikipedians are free to go at any time. Slaves are not.

::I am all for a system of non-monetary rewards.

::] 01:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

::::Most Wikipedians, being volunteers working on a 💕, would reject monetary rewards for their contributions. According to ], ] left when ], a similar proposal, was implemented. If implemented, this proposal would drive away even more editors.
::::As a writer, I work on articles because I enjoy doing so. Recognition of my work - such as an article I've significantly contributed to achieving GA status - motivates me. Therefore, I '''support''' the idea of "contributor of the month" awards, but '''no money''' should be involved, please.
::::--] 11:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

::::The issue is that we could attract people who are only looking for money. That's said as I'm sure many good editors, who would like to contribute more, have to limit themselves in order to leave room for they paid job. It's exactly the same in many open source software projects: they advance in the developers spare time only, because they are unpaid. *If* a way existed to economically support people's work *without* all the bad effects that this could have I'd like the idea. Of course recognition is another matter, as others have pointed out. For other POVs, it would perhaps help to hear opinions from someone involved in Yahoo! Answers. &mdash;]] 11:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

::::I see a different problem. It lies in quantity. The quantity of monetary support Misplaced Pages could offer is pretty low; make it a prize or share it, it is way below the real cost of the work done. However, with money being introduced into this, everything would be viewed from a different angle, the angle of money.
::::Or, phrasing it simply: Now I contribute for my own sake, good of WP, etc, with monetary system I would contribute for $200/year. Negative effects are dual - first, contributors will feel underpaid, second, people will think "oh, it's their job".
::::And concentrating money into a single or a few rewards created the spirit of competition rather than collaboration at least, and coups, factions, conflicts... well, all these problems are far beyond possible benefits. Extra $200/year won't make me, as well as most editors, contribute more, but will make others edit less, relying on the paid ones. We have some problems of undervalued contributors, factionalism, competitions, but they are relatively harmless; adding money would make them all surface, solidify and expand. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 15:01, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
*There used to be a system for this but it fell flat almost immediately. ] 16:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

:For "best contribution of the week", see ]. ]|] 16:40, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay to summarize: From what I am hearing then it is the absence of monetary gain that is not only responsible for the quality but for the doing. Compensation is not in monetary gain but in the accomplishment. The idea of nominating and voting on the best contribution (and hence contributor) of the week, month or year is good but not the 3 to 14 day cruise through the Caribbean they would derive from the honor. No-strings-attached Direct PayPal donations by any user to any other user as thanks or to show appreciation or gratitude for a well written article or reference desk solution to a problem would be okay.

Thanks very much to everyone for expressing your head and heart felt opinion. ] 23:02, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

:Just thought I'd throw in some food/links for thought: ] and ], which was intended to be somewhat analagous to ], I believe. ]-] 23:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

::Having linked to the ] and read ] the thought occurred to me that if a newspaper editor for instance needed research on a particular topic this might be one way to get it without paying boo coo dollars to a hired gun for it. So there may already be means of compensation present which simply find no need to be well advertized. Call it the Misplaced Pages writer pool - sort of like the bar down the road where all the local writer types hang out? ] 00:53, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

:::The honor of contributing to this great encyclopedia is the only compenation that I need. I'm proud of it. --<font face="Kristen ITC">] ]</font><sup>]</sup> 01:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

:Check ]. -- ] 04:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

:2Adaptron: My opinion is that direct donations by someone to someone are fine. Having a WMF budget for prizes isn't, because it will make it look "''Mostly'' non-profit". Maybe something independent would work well. I mean, when people donate to Misplaced Pages, they donate for servers and their maintenance, all the things which keep the system running. Having a separate initiative with a fund for rewarding contributors would work fine. However, to add to, not to replace what we have now. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 06:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

::Whatever meets consensus is fine with me since that's how the Misplaced Pages got to where it is today and can get to where it's going in the future. Besides keeping hardware and software state-of-the-art, eliminating bottlenecks, adding servers, increasing speed, etc. is an ever increasing expense that demands every penny donors can provide. ] 08:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

This is similar as in free software: Wikimedia cannot itself pay contributors, but third parties are free to hire people to work on a specific article, similar to SUSE hiring programmers to work on the Linux kernel. Nobody can keep me, for example, from hiring three people to clean up vandalism and do categorization tasks. Or from promising $100 to my mate if he should get ] to FA status. Funding 'wikijobs' could be a new form of donation to the project, without direct involvement of Wikimedia. ] <small>]</small> 09:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

:And there's nothing to stop individuals from donating to Misplaced Pages indirectly by hiring someone to work on it for them. For example, lets say I'm a CEO and I earn 99 bazillian dollars a year, and I love the idea of improving articles on Misplaced Pages. I can't "afford" to work on articles myself because my time is so valuable to my company, but I can easily afford to hire 100 college kids during the summer to do nothing but sit around and improve articles on Misplaced Pages. They get $15 an hour, Misplaced Pages gets improved a lot more than it would if I did it myself. — ] <small>(]|])</small> 15:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

:'''Some stuff to think about'''
::*Where would the money come from?
::*How would we know where to send the money (users aren't required to say anything about their real identities or place of residence)
:::]] 20:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

There have been PR firms which were taking money to write Misplaced Pages articles for their clients, but this is frowned upon as a violation of ]. ]|] 03:30, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

== Spam blacklist type of warning feature ==

Misplaced Pages already has in place a spam blacklist which prevents page saves when certain URLs are detected on the page. I'd like to propose a similar type of system. It would not be a blanket refusal to save, but rather would pop up a warning (as we used to have with blank edit summaries before the autofill feature came along) when certain words are detected. The editor would still be able to save, but at least he would hav been alerted to this. It would be of great help to newbies especially. Words I'm targeting off the top of my head are things like "recent", "recently", "lately" etc. that should not be in a "permanent" encyclopedia article. I'm sure others could even think of different ways to take this, e.g. identifying certain adjectives as ] and ]. Thoughts? '''<font color="red">]</font><font color="green">]</font><font color="blue">]</font><font color="orange">]</font>''' 13:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
*Hm, interesting. A similar system could be used to block out vandalistic swearwords (except, of course, that we have articles on most of those words). But if it's just a pop-up, don't you think people will just ignore it? If it's not a pop-up but a refusal-to-save, don't you think this may annoy people and they will abandon their edit? ] 16:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
*I question that this would work. What about quotes? There are also some subjects that use swear words encyclopedically like ]. Also it can be quite discouraging to new users, similar to when your doing a long online registration and constant problems show up about the entered fields like "too short of a password / taken username", the point: its frustrating. ] 16:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
**Not a pop-up window exactly...it would just bring up the edit page again like does with blank edit summaries (just in case anyone reading this isn't aware, you can set it in your Preferences/Editing menu to "prompt me on blank edit summary"). The word list should obviously be cautiously applied, I'm thinking more in terms of encyclopedicness (encyclopedicity?) than profanity. Things like "recently" should NEVER be in a good encyclopedia article. For a profanity filter, perhaps an admin-settable flag can enable a whitelist allowing swear words on a per-article basis, without popping up the warning. '''<font color="red">]</font><font color="green">]</font><font color="blue">]</font><font color="orange">]</font>''' 07:57, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
***Again I'm questing if that would work. What if the user is not familiar with our guidelines on ] and ]. If the user is unable to save then I don't think he/she will understand why. Providing an optional (preferences) pop up in my opinion would be the best scenario. Pop up like "You used , which is considered unencyclopedic. Continue?". That ofcourse again being optional for registered users. But completely restricting saving of pages based on words is bound to create problems and wiki-break frustrations. ] 15:54, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Kind of a related idea: What about doing something like this for users that have been blocked in the last 90 days? Any time a recent vandal tried to add any word in a large list of common vandalism words, they'd have to go through an extra step before being able to save the page. On the "warning page" there would be an admonishment not to revandalize: "Based on keywords in your edit, it appears that you are attempting to ] this page. You may still proceed with your changes by clicking the Save Page button below, but be aware that your edit will be speedily reverted if any vandalism is confirmed." Then, a special note would be automatically appended to the edit summary highlighting the edit as possible vandalism. — ] <small>(]|])</small> 15:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

== Downloadable open source Misplaced Pages software for your computer ==

I have an idea of developing an open source application that you can download and install on your computer, much like Encarta from Microsoft. The catch is that this downloaded encyclopedia is faster to access then on the web and also this program can have built in update capabilities so that every user can stay up to date. This will not only get some of the traffic off Misplaced Pages's servers but also publicize Misplaced Pages and make it into a household name, much like Google. Imagine that parents download and install this for their kids so they will still be able to do their homework and stay off the web that is filled with pedophiles and bad things for children. Not only will this help Misplaced Pages but also many parents who do not want to waste money on Encarta. Therefore, seize this opportunity and begin working on this project because it is the future of Misplaced Pages. 20:36, 21 December 2006 {{unsigned|Mcstcisco}}

::Not only of the future but of the past... Although not mentioned in the ] article IE has a syncronization option which most other browsers probably have which offers download scheduling capability much the same as scheduling for any other task. Click on the "Favorites" dropdown, select "Add to favirites..." and click on the "Make available offline" checkbox. ] 10:08, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


::This sort of idea is very important for those of us who work in less-wealthy regions and do not have constant internet access. We must rely on expensive Encarta subscriptions or other resources for general reference. It would be extremely useful to take a "snapshot" of the most popular Misplaced Pages articles and distribute it at low cost on a DVD. --From a global health student, Dec. 2006. <small>—The preceding ] comment was added by ] (] • ]) 21:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC).</small><!-- HagermanBot Auto-Unsigned -->

:::There is Misplaced Pages DVD and a downloadable Misplaced Pages browser.--] 15:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

== Allowing edit summaries on "rollbacks" ==
The rollback button is great to undo bad edits, but it can piss off people having their work undone without an explanation. Rollback should only be used on obvious vandals that deserve no explanation, of course, but sometimes convenience trumps caution. - ] 21:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
:What I do is I install ] and set <code>popupRevertSummaryPrompt=true;</code> so it prompts me for an edit summary every time I do a revert, and I have a choice of either entering an edit summary or leaving the default summary for vandalism reverts. ] ] 22:10, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
::For several weeks, I've been thinking up a similar proposal.
::Under my proposal, there will be a small text box next to the rollback button. The rollbacking admin may enter a code into the text box (entering a code is optional). Based on the code entered, an appropriate edit summary will be generated, and an appropriate warning issued to the offender.
::For example, when rollbacking spam, if an admin enters "spam2" as a code, the edit summary will indicate that they are rollbacking spam, and a <nowiki>{{spam2}}</nowiki> warning would be issued to the spammer.
::I discussed my proposal with ], a developer, on IRC, and he suggested that a user script would be more appropriate for this purpose.
::--] 02:51, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

== "Edit Summary" capacity ==

I think the area for "Edit Summary" should have a larger capacity. I think it is unrealistic to expect people to say all they want to say about why they are making the changes they are making, especially as concerns the reverts of someone else's writing. The Talk page is a good thing, but it is too far away to allow for the immediate explanation that is called for. I think the "Edit Summary" should be further divided into a "brief" section and a slightly "extended" section. The "extended" section should still be very limited. But it should allow several times the length of writing that the present "Edit Summary" allows for. I think this would allow people to appear to be acting in a more humane way towards one another. Presently, it is very common for reverts to engender bad feelings. It is almost impossible to try to smooth over the almost inevitable bad feelings that tend to result from reverts. ] 02:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

* '''Oppose''' - I see this as adding an odd level of omplexity, and being unlikely to be used much. As for the reasoning: It is the fact of the revert that hurts and upsets poeple, not what is written in the edit summary. It is on the talk pages that the differences need to be ironed out. --] | ] 05:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
* '''Comment''' I do not think we need this complexity. However, I would like having the limit raised to 250 or 300. I usually write long edits when reverting, and could use an extra 50 characters :-) -- ] 05:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
*You're asking to change an arbitrary limit into another arbitrary limit. Since this requires a database change, it is probably Not Going To Happen. ] 12:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

*Yes, of course it is arbitrary. How could it not be arbitrary? My argument is there's a big gap from the edit summary to the talk page. The edit summary is a necessary part of making changes, but the talk page is seen as an option. I think there should be an "option" built right into the edit summary. Like, ''"click here for extended space for edit summary."'' That way, those who are so inclined, can try to smooth over hurt feelings that are so common. I think the extended area should be about 2 or 3 times the present edit summary area. ] 13:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

* '''Strong support''', together with making the summary '''mandatory'''. I can't say in words how much time I spent (''i.e.'' waste) looking at diffs of people who don't write edit summaries; that's just an irresponsible behavior. (Bogus edit summaries, in case someone begins adopting them as a "workaround", should be treated as vandalism.) &mdash;]] 12:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

*Yes, it should be mandatory. It should not be possible to proceed without inserting ''something'' in the edit summary box. I hadn't thought of that, but I wholeheartedly agree with that. I think these are the sort of things that are more likely to result in compatibility between participants. (And Misplaced Pages should more clearly post the importance of explaining ''what you have done and why you did it''.) ] 13:27, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
**I disagree. It should not be mandatory. Besides from simply editing own userspace, there are different kinds of articles. There are high-profile articles where conflicts are frequent, true. But there also is a lot - and a bigger lot - of noncontroversial articles worked upon by one or a few editors who trust each other, or at least know to use the talk page. They don't need edit summaries. Also, making them mandatory will not only take time, but deter newcomers, and most people will use primitive summaries like "edit", "sp", "style", "expand". I actually find myself at times unable to write anything more about editing an article where I'm the main contributor; not to mention wikiprojects, talk pages, et cetera. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 16:30, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
***Pretty much anything needs edit summaries. The "articles worked upon by one or a few editors who trust each other" issue is not even worth commenting; if you want a private wiki set up one. Summaries consisting only of the words you mention, and others, would not be accepted, similarly to ] in search engines. Users trying to "workaround" this measures would be just vandals and treated as such. Note that this is not ''being harsh'' but being ''responsible'', which is totally different. &mdash;]] 16:51, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
****I often run into the edit summary limit, but I think the current length is relatively ok. I would also ask the edit summaries be made mandatory, but for non-minor edits ... I think that the summary should be optional for minor edits. I wonder is there is a way to have a 'say more' button available that would create an link automatically to a new section on the talk page, the link appearing in the edit summary - I think that would be a helpful addition. --User:Ceyockey (<small>'']''</small>) 17:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
*****Lot of things could be done. One can sort of imagine ClearCase-like comments, for instance. But when it comes to modifying MediaWiki we have to cope with the most recalcitrant open source team that I've ever come upon. &mdash;]] 17:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
****"''Users trying to "workaround" this measures would be just vandals and treated as such.''" - Do you just realize what you are saying? And what we are here for? Misplaced Pages is not an experiment in enforcing discipline and ordnung on volunteers. It is not army. Not even volunteer corps. And not a police state. While some people try to make it more accessible to newcomers and attract them, others find nothing better than to invent regulations they want their lined up units to follow and punisments for failure to comply. Is "vandal" a new term for "regulations violator"? Do you consider the fact that this term has ], and a pretty specific one? Am I a vandal now, because I used edit summary "reply"? ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 14:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


*An automatic link to the Talk page, accessible from the Edit Summary area, would be an excellent idea. That creates a smooth continuum from Edit Summary area to Talk page. As I see it, there is too stark a break between the two areas. People ''either'' use the Talk page ''or'' they use the Edit Summary area, but far less frequently use ''both'' areas. ] 18:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

**Or perhaps a subpage of the talk page? In that case, it should also be decided if the page would be manually editable or not (the former being useful e.g. to fix typos, but dangerous). What I'd like most in this solution is that ] would fit like a glove to it :-) &mdash;]] 19:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

*Perhaps implementation of these things could proceed in stages. As a first step I would see simply increasing the capacity of the Edit Summary space. I would also like to see some wording in place encouraging editors to use the Edit Summary space. The wording should encourage people to explain what changes they have made, and why they have made them. I really think the Edit Summary area should be about 3 times it's present maximum capacity. I think the importance of this is that it would allow editors to explain to previous editors why they are massacring their work. The more important use for the Edit Summary box is an explanation of what changes were made. But it is normal human tendency to get wordy wherever they are given the opportunity. This would allow the Edit Summary area to also be used for a much trimmed down version of the Talk Page. I think, as a first step, this would be an experiment. The more ambitious changes would have to await evaluation of this step. ] 17:01, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

== Stalin Birthday ==

It is mentioned under your research that he was born on December 18th when all other research states he was born December 21st. What is the correct dob? yiannimelas(at)gmail(dot)com thanks, yianni

:Stalin — Date of Birth: 21 December 1879. According to http://encyclopedia.worldvillage.com/s/b/Stalin ] 10:36, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
::I believe ] explains it all. His official documents in the Imperial Russia were on 18 December 1878 but he himself installed 21 December 1879 as the official date. The reasons why he did it are unclear: desire to have a 50-year old celebration as a national holiday, questions of paternity, who knows? ] 10:51, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

== Dead-Link Cleanup Day ==
Is it possible to set aside a day or week where members of the community go through every article and check for deador spam links? A comment could be posted on the talk page after each page is done. Something has to be done to deal with all these dead links and i was wondering if anyone else thinks this is a good idea. ] 13:30, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
:It might be possible to set up a permenant ] to work on this, similar to ]. ] 14:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

== Fair use of promotional photographs ==

Hi all,

There is a vote ]. Some people believe the fair use policy currently disallows fair use of promotional photographs of living people if they occasionally make public appearances, others disagree with this. This proposal would clarify the issue.

] 22:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

== Move and edit ==

I frequently come across small stub articles at incorrectly-najmed pages and move them to more appropriate titles. Almost inevitably, the pages also need further work such as wikifying, categorising, or re-stubbing. Currently, the "successful move" page reads:

:<small>The page '''''oldname''''' ('''links''') has been moved to '''''newname'''''. </small>
:<small>Please '''check''' whether this move has created any '''double redirects''', and fix them as necessary. </small>

It would be a huuge help if that could be tweaked slightly to become:

:<small>The page '''''oldname''''' ('''links''') has been moved to '''''newname''''' ('''edit'''). </small>
:<small>Please '''check''' whether this move has created any '''double redirects''', and fix them as necessary. </small>

Any chance of adding that edit link? Pretty please? ]...''<small><font color="#008822">]</font></small>'' 23:00, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

:To add this link, an admin will need to change ] to <small>(see in edit form for code)</small>:

The page "<span id="specialDeleteTarget">{{MediaWiki direct link}}</span>" (]) <span id="specialDeleteLink"></span> has been moved to "]" (<span class="plainlinks"></span>).

'''Please ]''' whether this move has created any ], and fix them as necessary.

:] ] 23:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

== Not so random ''Random article'' / "Fuzzy search" ==

I think the '''' link is interesting but unwieldly. I think it would be more interesting if the ''random article'' link had an option so one could make it a bit less random-- i.e. make it so one can semi-randomly select:
* an article that was created in the last 30 days
* articles in a specific area (i.e. ], ], ], ])
* by article length (i.e. so one can look for random stub-like articles... or long unreferenced ones)
* ... so one can select articles with a combination of the above.
* <add a criterion>
* <add a criterion>

The above is related to "fuzzy searching"... by "]" I mean one that isn't so well defined in the search sense, i.e. inexact matching of search terms. It would be interesting if one could search articles by content, i.e. search articles for specific words (and get a list as output). Sometimes, I find it is not possible to remember the name of the article... but I remember the content. Google seems to be better at finding things then... than the Misplaced Pages's 'search' function. It would be interesting if Misplaced Pages had a search function (not unlike ])... that has the option of generating a ranking of articles instead of taking one to one specific article. ] <small>]|]</small> 23:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
:Yeah, I've always wanted a feature like this. Sometimes I'm lost for things to do on Misplaced Pages (too much choice). It would be great if I could get a random article within, eg., Category:Science and fix what needs to be fixed. --] ] 02:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

::I'd also like to have similar filters for "some tasks you can do": I sometimes have a look at it but almost never find topics I have enough knowledge about. '''Support'''. &mdash;]] 04:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

== Wiktionary integration? ==
Since the wiktionary project has really taken off, how about including a little blurb "wiktionary has a definition of this word" (with a link, of course!) or something like that for wikipedia articles that are also featured in the wiktionary? I'm not sure if this would be best done with a bot walking through the wiktionary and adding tags to wikipedia or if the databases could be synced...
Just an idea... ] 23:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
{{wiktionary|example}}
:You can use the template {{tl|wiktionary}} to do this where <nowiki>{{wiktionary|example}}</nowiki> gives the box shown on the right. ] ] 00:06, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
:Interesting that you should say that Wiktionary has 'really taken off'. There was a question recently about whether it was appropriate for Misplaced Pages to have an article on Wiktionary at all due to a lack of media coverage (see ]). --User:Ceyockey (<small>'']''</small>) 17:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

== Actual edit summary inclusion in "edit summary" ==

At the moment the only way the nature of an edit can be discovered is by clicking the 'diff' link, and using the edit summaries provided by the editors. However edit summaries provided are often of little or no use - anonymous vandalism with no edit summary being one example. What about the possibility of categorizing edits based on their nature, e.g. text removal, text change, text insertion, link insertion... the options could be as complicated or as simple as necessary. Display this information in brief form next to the edit summary, and it could be useful when browsing an article's history, recent changes or a watchlist. ]] 06:35, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

:Edit summaries are now automatically supplied in many cases, see ]. In addition, ] now includes a count of characters (bytes) added or deleted by each edit. There is an existing software change request to add this count to the watchlist display, please see ]. -- ] <small>(])</small> 16:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

:Yes, but automatic edit summaries don't (and can't) help in the "normal" cases. A typical abuse of them is editing a section and leaving the section name nicely enclosed in <code>/* */</code> as summary. A cheat, at best. &mdash;]] 17:05, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

::I thought people cheat in games, and we aren't in one. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 17:23, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

:::Not sure whether you got the irony. Did you? &mdash;]] 03:12, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

== A logical improvement drive ==

I was wondering if it was possible to list all the articles sorted by decreasing "what links here" number of links. That way, we'd have a pretty accurate measure of the importance of an article to the whole encyclopedia, both in content and community. We could work to make the most important articles GAs and FAs, without the constant debate about article importance that generally cripples COWs and improvement drives.--] 12:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
:See ], and please don't post the same question on multiple village pump pages. -- ] <small>(])</small> 16:14, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


== Revise ] ==
== Stop fair use ==
{{atop
| result = There is consensus against this proposal. ]<sub>]<sub>]</sub></sub> (]/]) 17:48, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
}}


Point 1 of Procedural removal for inactive administrators which currently reads "Has made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12-month period" should be replaced with "Has made no administrative actions for at least a 12-month period". The current wording of 1. means that an Admin who takes no admin actions keeps the tools provided they make at least a few edits every year, which really isn't the point. The whole purpose of adminship is to protect and advance the project. If an admin isn't using the tools then they don't need to have them. ] (]) 07:47, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
The end of Fair use has begun:
]
--] 17:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
:It is already ]. ]<sup>]</sup> 21:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)


===Endorsement/Opposition (Admin inactivity removal) ===
== "Line-item veto" ==
*'''Support''' as proposer. ] (]) 07:47, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' - this would create an unnecessary barrier to admins who, for real life reasons, have limited engagement for a bit. Asking the tools back at BN can feel like a faff. Plus, logged admin activity is a poor guide to actual admin activity. In some areas, maybe half of actions aren't logged? ] (]) 19:17, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose'''. First, not all admin actions are logged as such. One example which immediately comes to mind is declining an unblock request. In the logs, that's just a normal edit, but it's one only admins are permitted to make. That aside, if someone has remained at least somewhat engaged with the project, they're showing they're still interested in returning to more activity one day, even if real-life commitments prevent them from it right now. We all have things come up that take away our available time for Misplaced Pages from time to time, and that's just part of life. Say, for example, someone is currently engaged in a PhD program, which is a tremendously time-consuming activity, but they still make an edit here or there when they can snatch a spare moment. Do we really want to discourage that person from coming back around once they've completed it? ] <small><sup>]</sup></small> 21:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*:We could declare specific types of edits which count as admin actions despite being mere edits. It should be fairly simple to write a bot which checks if an admin has added or removed specific texts in any edit, or made any of specific modifications to pages. Checking for protected edits can be a little harder (we need to check for protection at the time of edit, not for the time of the check), but even this can be managed. Edits to pages which match specific regular expression patterns should be trivial to detect. ] ] 11:33, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' There's no indication that this is a problem needs fixing. ]] <small><sup>Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!</sup></small> 00:55, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
* '''Support''' Admins who don't use the tools should not have the tools. ] ] 03:55, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' While I have never accepted "not all admin actions are logged" as a realistic reason for no logged actions in an entre year, I just don't see what problematic group of admins this is in response to. Previous tweaks to the rules were in response to admins that seemed to be gaming the system, that were basically inactive and when they did use the tools they did it badly, etc. We don't need a rule that ins't pointed a provable, ongoing problem. ] ] 19:19, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' If an admin is still editing, it's not unreasonable to assume that they are still up to date with policies, community norms etc. I see no particular risk in allowing them to keep their tools. ] (]) 19:46, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''': It feels like some people are trying to accelerate admin attrition and I don't know why. This is a solution in search of a problem. ] (]) 07:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' Sure there is a problem, but the real problem I think is that it is puzzling why they are still admins. Perhaps we could get them all to make a periodic 'declaration of intent' or some such every five years that explains why they want to remain an admin. ] (]) 19:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' largely per scribolt. We want to take away mops from inactive accounts where there is a risk of them being compromised, or having got out of touch with community norms, this proposal rather targets the admins who are active members of the community. Also declining incorrect deletion tags and AIV reports doesn't require the use of the tools, doesn't get logged but is also an important thing for admins to do. '']]<span style="color:#CC5500">Chequers</span>'' 07:43, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose'''. What is the motivation for this frenzy to make more hoops for admins to jump through and use not jumping through hoops as an excuse to de-admin them? What problem does it solve? It seems counterproductive and de-inspiring when the bigger issue is that we don't have enough new admins. —] (]) 07:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' Some admin actions aren't logged, and I also don't see why this is necessary. Worst case scenario, we have ]. ] (]) 15:25, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' I quite agree with David Eppstein's sentiment. What's with the rush to add more hoops? Is there some problem with the admin corps that we're not adequately dealing with? Our issue is that we have too few admins, not that we have too many. ] <sup>]</sup>] 23:20, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose:''' I'm not seeing this as a real issue which needs to be fixed, or what problem is actually being solved. ] (]) 21:17, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' per all the good points from others showing that this is a solution in search of a problem. ] </span>]] 21:57, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' The current wording sufficiently removes tools from users who have ceased to edit the English Misplaced Pages. ] (]) 22:28, 3 January 2025 (UTC)


===Discussion (Admin inactivity removal)===
I find too often that I get a page in my watchlist that I'd rather not be there. And it becomes such a pain in the neck, especially when it's one of those '''Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion..../...../December.../14/....'''; I takes forever to single it out of the humongous list I have in there!
* Making administrative actions can be helpful to show that the admin is still up-to-date with community norms. We could argue that if someone is active but doesn't use the tools, it isn't a big issue whether they have them or not. Still, the tools can be requested back following an inactivity desysop, if the formerly inactive admin changes their mind and wants to make admin actions again. For now, I don't see any immediate issues with this proposal. ] (] · ]) 08:13, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
* Looking back at previous RFCs, in ] the reasoning was to reduce the attack surface for inactive account takeover, and in ] it was about admins who haven't been around enough to keep up with changing community norms. What's the justification for this besides "use it or lose it"? Further, we already have a mechanism (from the 2022 RFC) to account for admins who make a few edits every year. ]] 12:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
* I also note that not all admin actions are logged. Logging editing through full protection requires ]. Reviewing of deleted content isn't logged at all. Who will decide whether an admin's XFD "keep" closures are really ]s or not? Do adminbot actions count for the operator? There are probably more examples. Currently we ignore these edge cases since the edits will probably also be there, but now if we can desysop someone who made 100,000 edits in the year we may need to consider them. ]] 12:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*:I had completely forgotten that many admin actions weren't logged (and thus didn't "count" for activity levels), that's actually a good point (and stops the "community norms" arguments as healthy levels of community interaction can definitely be good evidence of that). And, since admins desysopped for inactivity can request the tools back, an admin needing the bit but not making any logged actions can just ask for it back. At this point, I'm not sure if there's a reason to go through the automated process of desysopping/asking for resysop at all, rather than just politely ask the admin if they still need the tools.{{pb}}I'm still very neutral on this by virtue of it being a pretty pointless and harmless process either way (as, again, there's nothing preventing an active admin desysopped for "inactivity" from requesting the tools back), but I might lean oppose just so we don't add a pointless process for the sake of it. ] (] · ]) 15:59, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
* To me this comes down to whether the community considers it problematic for an admin to have tools they aren't using. Since it's been noted that not all admin actions are logged, and an admin who isn't using their tools also isn't causing any problems, I'm not sure I see a need to actively remove the tools from an inactive admin; in a worst-case scenario, isn't this encouraging an admin to (potentially mis-)use the tools solely in the interest of keeping their bit? There also seems to be somewhat of a bad-faith assumption to the argument that an admin who isn't using their tools may also be falling behind on community norms. I'd certainly like to hope that if I was an admin who had been inactive that I would review P&G relevant to any admin action I intended to undertake before I executed. ] (]) 15:14, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
* As I have understood it, the original rationale for desysopping after no activity for a year was the perception that an inactive account was at higher danger of being hijacked. It had nothing to do with how often the tools were being used, and presumably, if the admin was still editing, even if not using the tools, the account was less likely to be hijacked. - ] 22:26, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*:And also, if the account of an active admin ''was'' hijacked, both the account owner and those they interact with regularly would be more likely to notice the hijacking. The sooner a hijacked account is identified as hijacked, the sooner it is blocked/locked which obviously minimises the damage that can be done. ] (]) 00:42, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
*I was not aware that not all admin actions are logged, obviously they should all be correctly logged as admin actions. If you're an Admin you should be doing Admin stuff, if not then you obviously don't need the tools. If an Admin is busy IRL then they can either give up the tools voluntarily or get desysopped for inactivity. The "Asking the tools back at BN can feel like a faff." isn't a valid argument, if an Admin has been desysopped for inactivity then getting the tools back '''should''' be "a faff". Regarding the comment that "There's no indication that this is a problem needs fixing." the problem is Admins who don't undertake admin activity, don't stay up to date with policies and norms, but don't voluntarily give up the tools. The ] change was about total edits over 5 years, not specifically admin actions and so didn't adequately address the issue. ] (]) 03:23, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
*:{{tpq|obviously they should all be correctly logged as admin actions}} - how ''would'' you log actions that are administrative actions due to context/requiring passive use of tools (viewing deleted content, etc.) rather than active use (deleting/undeleting, blocking, and so on)/declining requests where accepting them would require tool use? (e.g. closing various discussions that really shouldn't be NAC'd, reviewing deleted content, declining page restoration) Maybe there are good ways of doing that, but I haven't seen any proposed the various times this subject came up. Unless and until "soft" admin actions are actually logged somehow, "editor has admin tools and continues to engage with the project by editing" is the closest, if very imperfect, approximation to it we have, with criterion 2 sort-of functioning to catch cases of "but these specific folks edit so little over a prolonged time that it's unlikely they're up-to-date and actively engaging in soft admin actions". (I definitely do feel '''criterion 2''' could be significantly stricter, fwiw) ]] 05:30, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
*::Not being an Admin I have no idea how their actions are or aren't logged, but is it a big ask that Admins perform at least a few logged Admin actions in a year? The "imperfect, approximation" that "editor has admin tools and continues to engage with the project by editing" is completely inadequate to capture Admin inactivity. ] (]) 07:06, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::Why is it "completely inadequate"? ] (]) 10:32, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::I've been a "hawk" regarding admin activity standards for a very long time, but this proposal comes off as half-baked. The rules we have now are the result of careful consideration and incremental changes aimed at specific, ''provable'' issues with previous standards. While I am not a proponent of "not all actions are logged" as a blanket excuse for no logged actions in several years, it is feasible that an admin could be otherwise fully engaged with the community while not having any logged actions. We haven't been having trouble with admins who would be removed by this, so where's the problem? ] ] 19:15, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
{{abot}}


== Collaboration with PubPeer ==
What I suggest is to somehow make a button that'll remove a page from your watchlist right from the watchlist. All you would have to do is look to the left of the page that has been recently edited and click "remove" or something. It'd be very helpful to quickly remove one or two pages you don't want to look at any more.


Dear all, Over the past few months, I have been in contact with the team managing ] - a website that allows users to discuss and review scientific research after publication, i.e. post-publication peer review - to explore a potential collaboration with Misplaced Pages. After reviewing some data regarding citations (e.g., the , , , and Misplaced Pages), they agreed, in principle, to share data about papers with PubPeer comments that are also used as sources in Misplaced Pages.
Suggestions? ]&ensp;<sup>]</sup>&ensp; 16:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
From our calculations on a , we estimate that there are around 5,000 unique DOIs cited in Misplaced Pages that may have PubPeer comments.
:Well, you could uncheck the box that says "watch this page" when you edit a page you don't want on your watchlist. You can also set the box to be unchecked by default in your preferences, I believe. That would solve the problem before it starts. Cheers, ]<sup>]</sup> 16:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
This message is intended to brainstorm some possible ways to use this data in the project. Here are some of my initial ideas:
::There's a script at ] that does what you're suggesting. You can copy it into your ]. ] ] 19:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
# ''Create a bot'' that periodically (weekly? monthly?) fetches data about papers cited in Misplaced Pages with PubPeer comments and leaves a note on the Talk page of articles using these sources. The note could say something like, "There are PubPeer comments related to articles X, Y, Z used as sources in this article."
# ''Develop a gadget'' that replicates the functionality of the .
Let me know your thoughts on these ideas and how we could move forward. --] (]) 00:02, 29 December 2024 (UTC)


:How would this be valuable to Misplaced Pages? ] (]) 00:45, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
== Semi-automatic article quality ratings ==
::PubPeer is a post-publication peer review forum. Most of the discussions over there report issues with papers. Knowing that a paper that is used as a source has comments on PubPeer is very valuable, IMHO, as It would be useful for editors to evaluate the quality of the source and decide if it makes sense to keep using it. Paper retractions are also reported on PubPeer (see ), and the PubPeer extension marks retracted papers in red. Basically the idea is to replicate the functionality of the PubPeer extension for editors that don't have it. Furthermore, ] are registered in Wikidata. --] (]) 18:14, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
:::But we cite information from reliable sources. I don't see why we'd want a list of people saying they don't think a publication is good, we'd want those sources addressed, surely? '''] <sup>(] • ])</sup>''' 18:28, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I think the point is that an article with a lot of PubPeer commentary is quite likely not to be a reliable source. &ndash;&#8239;]&nbsp;<small>(])</small> 20:55, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
::::@], PubPeer is exactly a forum where issues with papers are raised, and the authors also have the opportunity to address the concerns. While a source such as a well-established scientific journal is generally reliable, we do not know anything about the quality of a specific paper. To me, knowing that there are comments on PubPeer about a paper is valuable because, in general, those comments are not just about "I like/dislike this paper;" instead, they usually raise good points about the paper that I think would provide valuable context to a Misplaced Pages editor who is trying to determine whether a given paper is a good source or not. PubPeer is regularly used by the community of "scientific sleuths" looking for manipulated or fabricated image and data as you can read in this press article: (there are many other examples) --] (]) 21:26, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
:This does seem like it could be very useful for users interested in the quality of research. I think a gadget highlighting DOIs would be most useful, but using a bot to tag affected pages with a template that adds them to a ] (like ]) would also be a great idea. ] </span>]] 22:35, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
:I think this is a great idea. A bot-maintained notification and maintenance category would be a great starting point. As for a gadget, there are already several tools aimed at highlighting potential reliability issues in citations (e.g. ], ]) so I think it would be better to try and get PubPeer functionality incorporated into them than start a new one. &ndash;&#8239;]&nbsp;<small>(])</small> 10:13, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
:Respectfully, I don't really think that collaborating with a website and using its number of user-generated comments to decide of the reliability of our sources is the best idea. While being informed of comments that have been made on the articles could be helpful, placing every article whose source have PubPeer comments in a maintenance category amounts to saying these sources are automatically a problem to be fixed, and that shouldn't be a call left to commenters of another website. ] (] · ]) 11:57, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
::Why not? I don't think there's any realistic prospect of doing it internally. &ndash;&#8239;]&nbsp;<small>(])</small> 12:32, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Putting an article in a maintenance category because a user-generated review website made comments on a source is clearly not the level of source assessment quality we're striving for. Plus, there's the risk of things like canvassing or paid reviews happening on that other website, as they don't have the same policies that we do, but impact the (perceived) article quality here by tagging these sources as problems to be fixed. ] (] · ]) 12:39, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I believe the proposal is to add the ''talk page'' to a category (because it's attached to a talk page message), and not to do any tagging, so this would be pretty much invisible to readers. It would just be a prompt for editors to assess the reliability of the source, not a replacement for source assessments. PubPeer is also not really a "review" website but a place where people (in practice mostly other scientists) can comment on potential errors and misconduct in scientific papers, so the risk of abuse, while present, seems very slight. Who would benefit from it? &ndash;&#8239;]&nbsp;<small>(])</small> 14:06, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::That does make sense, thanks. I thought there could be cases where competing research teams might try to use it to discredit their opponents' papers, especially if it leads to visible Misplaced Pages messages, but if it is only a category on the talk page that is invisible for the readers, that sounds like a quite sensible idea. ] (] · ]) 17:45, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Hi @], the idea is to have the information readily available in the talk page, and that would make our editors' life easier. In the end, it is just a matter of having some links in the talk page that an editor can check, if they want. Furthermore, I second the comment above from @], PubPeer is very much used to report serious flaws with studies: a study from 2021 analyzed around 40,000 posts about 25,000 publications and found that . Take a tour on PubPeer and see for yourself. --] (]) 15:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I often cite scientific studies when I'm writing Froggy of the Day. It sounds like it would be remotely possible to make a bot or tool that could flag sources that have > howevermany comments on Pub Peer.
:::::I often think about Misplaced Pages's mission to curate rather than create knowledge in terms of the sugar vs fat debate in nutrition. At the time Misplaced Pages was founded, the prevailing idea was that fat was more fattening in sugar with respect to human beings gaining or losing weight. In the years since, much of that was found to have been a promotional campaign by the sugar industry. It is not Misplaced Pages's place to contradict established scientific information even when individual Wikipedians know better but rather to wait until newer and better reliable sources are published. Such a tool could help us do that more quickly. ] (]) 22:38, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
:I think some sort of collaboration might be useful, but I don't want talk page notices clogging up my watchlist. Perhaps something that can complement existing userscripts that highlight source reliability would be good. ] (]/]) 00:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)


== Appearance setting to hide all inline notes from articles ==
How does one (especially an inexperienced reader) determine at a glance how reliable or thorough an article is, or how many well-written and poorly-written articles there are on a specific topic, or in what ways an article is lacking and in what ways it isn't? I propose a semi-automated system that would answer these questions. It's a method to rate articles on several criteria -- Reliability, Neutrality, Thoroughness, Subject Importance, Text Quality -- by combining automated scoring with editor votes.


While disabled by default, enabling it would hide all those , and even inline notes from all articles, which makes reading Misplaced Pages more clearer, especially when reading about controversial topics. Those citation notes can be a distraction for some, so that's why i am proposing such a feature like this. ] (]) 12:37, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
The automated scoring would look at things like cleanup/unsourced/stub/dispute tags, (ex-)good/featured status, page protection (and the reason for it), being up for or having survived a VfD, and WikiProject quality/importance ratings; it would also analyze the article content to detect things like stubbishness or lack of references. To reduce the motivation for vandalism, it wouldn't re-evaluate after an edit by a non-admin until that edit had sat unchallenged for half an hour.
:Adding <code><nowiki>sup { display: none !important; }</nowiki></code> to your ] should do the job! (see also ]) ] (] · ]) 12:49, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
::Yep. I'd oppose making it a default setting, though. I don't want to dictate to the IP how they should use Misplaced Pages or discount their experience, but those notes are vital for information literacy. If the IP is reading about controversial topics without them, they're risking exposing themselves to misinformation. <span style="border:3px outset;border-radius:8pt 0;padding:1px 5px;background:linear-gradient(6rad,#86c,#2b9)">]</span> <sup>]</sup> 17:18, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Agreed! If anything, it is far more vital to have those inline references/citations when reading controversial information. This is even more critical for tags like citation needed/OR/etc because without them the reader is likely to take the statement as generally accepted fact instead of with the grain of salt that should be applied when such a tag has been added. ]&thinsp;] 17:31, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
:This reminds me of proposals made long ago to move all maintenance templates to the talk pages so that readers wouldn't be exposed to how messy and unreliable article content actually is. ] 19:57, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
:I'd personally advise against enabling this, IP. Things tagged with may be just flat-out wrong. '']'' 🎄 ] — ] 🎄 19:57, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
::What about a third option to keep citation needed tags while hiding actual citations?
::*Show all inline notes
::*Show only inline maintenance notices
::*Hide all inline notes
::] (]) 21:58, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
:::To build on what Donald Albury is saying, I think the readers ''should'' be reminded of how messy Misplaced Pages is. I just added a citation this afternoon, not only because I want the article's regulars to find an additional source but also because I want the readers to see the tag and know that the content is not sufficiently sourced at this time. (I believe in general that people should be more vigilant about assessing the reliability of what they read, and not only here on the Wiki.) If anyone does donate their time and trouble to make a way for readers to opt out of seeing ref tags and maintenance tags, I would oppose making it the default. ] (]) 22:31, 3 January 2025 (UTC)


== Transclusion of peer reviews to article talk pages ==
The voting portion would have a variable weight that increased asymptotically from zero to 60~70% with the number of votes cast. New, anonymous or banned users' votes would be ignored, and admins might get multiple votes (no more than five), but experience metrics such as edit count would not determine voting strength. Votes would have to be renewed when they were, say, three months and fifty non-minor edits to the article old. One could vote on each criterion with a single click from the article page, or make a vote with a comment. The votes could even be a section of the talk page, with a template for each vote and a bot in place to stop people from changing each others' votes.


Hello,
The ratings would be displayed on the side bar as a bar chart with red-yellow-green colour codes, one bar for each criterion, with numerical ratings from 0 to 1000 (although they'd actually range from 1 to 999, both as a built-in disclaimer and to stress that there's always room for improvement). Anyone who clicked the ratings could see what positive and negative factors affected them, who had voted them up or down and how the final calculation was made -- in short, it would be an open-source set of scores.


First time posting here.
Will this work? I know it would be a bit complex, but I could produce a more detailed draft design, with all the factors, numbers and equations. ]] 18:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
:I am seeing two immediate problems with this. First, this could/would be hopelessly vandalized by patient users who wait out the auto-confirmed time limit. This could easily skew the results, rendering them essentially invalid.
::It's not just a matter of "waiting out," it's a matter of keeping the tag's addition un-reverted for that length of time. Keeping vandalism from reversion for half an hour would probably be difficult, and if not we can raise it to a few hours. ]] 20:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
:Second, in my opinion, administrators should not get multiple votes. Administrators are simply users with a couple extra buttons. I believe voting strength and weight should be equal for all users. I think that this could be good if the kinks are ironed out, but there is just too much potential for misuse at the current time. ]<sup>]</sup> 18:29, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
::I said "admins ''might'' get multiple votes." If the consensus is against multiple votes for admins, that's fine, but as I understand it an admin is someone whom the community consensus trusts more than they trust non-admins. ]] 20:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
:::While technically it is true that an average admin is more verified than an average user, we really don't want to create arbitrary levels - when people are given admin access, they are given a specific set of tools, not a level up; and extra votes aren't included, as of now. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 05:03, 25 December 2006 (UTC)


I would like to propose that ] be automatically transcluded to talk pages in the same way as GAN reviews. This would make them more visible to more editors and better preserve their contents in the article/talk history. They often take a considerable amount of time and effort to complete, and the little note near the top of the talk page is very easy to overlook.
:I can envision a variant of this approach that starts with a smaller scope. We already have a list of known spelling mistakes that can be used to count the number of spelling errors - this would be a hard, indisputable metric.
::Great idea; a spelling check would be one of the factors in the Text Quality score under my system. But it would have to be on a per-thousand-words basis. ]] 20:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
:As this starts to prove itself we could add in other tests that flag the articles as deficient in some other areas. Start with a rating of 0 and then deduct points for errors. Going positive only invites problems as stated by ]. --] 18:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
::So "positive" just means "free of serious deficiencies." (Instead of a scale of 1 to 999, maybe it would be –999 to –1; in an ideal world, perfect scores ''would'' be the baseline.) It's still the same idea. ]] 20:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
:::Yes, "positive" wherein 0 is the topmost score that denotes an article free from computationaly detectable mistakes. Allowing people to rate articles subjectively invites all the issues mentioned here by others and obliterates the baby steps we can take now to encourage minimal adherence to proper English usage. Opening the ratings issue to human intervention just opens huge Pandora's Box. It is easier for people to agree on usage errors than it is to identify positive qualities. Start small with the errors, let people get accustomed to it then build on it. In other terms, you will never have perfection, just the pursuit of it. --] 21:22, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
:The potential for problems is too large, such rating polls are ]. Besides, a rating system already exists ] and is far from complete and needs help.


This also might (but only might!) raise awareness of the project and lead to more editors making use of this volunteer resource.
::That's what automated evaluation tools, multiple scores and voting can provide. ]] 01:15, 25 December 2006 (UTC)


I posted this suggestion on the project talk page yesterday, but I have since realized it has less than 30 followers and gets an average of 0 views per day.
:Why implement another system of assessment, articles with problems already greatly outnumber the better ones. We should be concentrating on improving them rather than judging them. ] 18:49, 24 December 2006 (UTC)


Thanks for your consideration, ] (]) 23:07, 2 January 2025 (UTC)
::I have to agree with the above; there are just too many factors and potential problems involved. The proposal also sounds similar to the stable versions test currently being developed, where a "stable version" is identified and shown on the article page, depending on votes by users on its "completeness". Thanks! ] <small>(])</small> 21:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
:I don't see any downsides here. ] (]/]) 01:55, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
:'''Support'''; I agree with Voorts. Noting for transparency that ] of this discussion by {{noping|Patrick Welsh}}. <span class="nowrap">—]</span> <small>(])</small> 21:04, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
*This is a great idea, it's weird that it isn't done already. ] </span>]] 21:13, 6 January 2025 (UTC)


== Remove Armenia-Azerbaijan general community sanctions ==
How about this then: We'll implement the automated scoring and display first, see how well it works on its own, then talk about maybe adding the voting component later. ]] 01:15, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
{{archive top|result=Opening this discussion is itself a violation of GS/AA, as SimpleSubCubicGraph is not extended-confirmed. Initial response from community members with standing to discuss these topics has been unanimously opposed so I see no reason to leave this open. <sub>signed, </sub>] <sup>]</sup> 01:25, 4 January 2025 (UTC)}}
I believe Armenia and Azerbaijan sanction is now outdated and useless. I propose that the sanction on the two nations be removed permanently unless another diplomatic crisis happens between the two countries. My reasons are: A recent statement was made by Armenia offering condolences to Azerbaijan which has almost never happened, I believe that Armenia and Azerbaijan related pages blanket protection of Extended Confirmed should be lowered to Autoconfirmed protection, with the exception of the wars between the two sovereign nations. Additionally, relations are getting better between the two countries. For nearly 30 years, relations were rock bottom, diplomats were not found in Azerbaijan nor Armenia and tensions were at an all time high. However ever since the 2020 war the two nations have started to make amends. This first started with the peace deal ending the war between the two nations. Turkey whom is a staunch ally of Azerbaijan has started to resume direct flights from ], the capital of Armenia and ], the largest city in the Republic of Turkiye. In 2023, Armenia and Azerbaijan entered into extensive bilateral negotiations as well as a prisoner exchange between the two countries, and Armenia supported Azerbaijan for being the host of the UN climate change forum. Finally, last year the two countries solved many border issues and created a transport route between the two countries which is a symbol of peace. The two nations are much better off now than they were just 4 years ago and can be seen as having a cooperative/reconciling attitude. That is why I propose an amendment that will immediately downgrade all protections (from ] to ]) for all Armenia-Azerbaijan related pages. ] (]) 00:31, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
*{{block indent|em=1.6|1=<small>Notified: ]. ] (]/]) 00:53, 4 January 2025 (UTC)</small>}}<!-- Template:Notified -->
* '''Oppose'''. This statement does not provide an adequate or relevant reason for vacating ]'s ECR remedy. Community sanctions are related to the conduct of editors on Misplaced Pages, not the conduct of international affairs. Since page and editor sanctions are regularly issued pursuant to GS/AA and ], there is still a clear need for ECR. ] (]/]) 00:46, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
*:@] '''Response''' Well I believe that the editors that cause edit conflicts and wars are mostly Armenian, Azerbaijani, or Turkish. They feel patriotic of their country and their side and have vilified the other side in their head, but with calming geopolitical tensions I believe that these editors will no longer feel the need to edit war on wikipedia. Its the same reason why you do not see British people edit warring on the page for the United States of America over the loss in the Independence War. Geopolitical relations between Great Britain and the United States of America are good. ] (]) 00:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
*::But you do see Armenian/Azerbaijani people edit warring on pages about Armenia/Azerbaijan still. ]<sub>]<sub>]</sub></sub> (]/]) 00:56, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
*::To add further context, you're correct that we don't have any sanctions regarding the US War of Independence. However, we do have sanctions regarding other historical topics, including anti-Semitism in Poland around World War II (]) and The Troubles (]). As such, just because country leadership may communicate a lack of conflict doesn't mean editors on Misplaced Pages immediately edit within policy and treat each other with civility. ] (]) 01:24, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
* Per Voorts, GS/AA is enacted in response to the actions of editors. Real world diplomatic activity is not directly relevant. ] (]) 01:01, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
{{abot}}


== ITN Nominators ==
:Yes, definitely start with an automated system first, and get some feedback. For example, I suggest NOT evaluating after any edit by an anonymous user. Also, am I correct to assume that the rating will be posted on an article's talk page, not on the article itself? And will the rating template include a category? ] | ] 01:31, 25 December 2006 (UTC)


I believe we should add a small section which includes all of the nominators who have made it onto In The News. I think this would be just a polite way of saying thank you for your proposal. ] (]) 05:15, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
]
::I was actually thinking of the ratings being displayed on the sidebar, and handled completely separately from the wiki code. ]] 04:12, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


:I will just note that we do not do that for nominators for any other elements on the main page. We don't use bylines in Misplaced Pages. Anyone who cares enough about who did what for an article can examine the page history. ] 15:16, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
:About the system as a whole: Too complex, in my opinion. Maybe we would be fine with something very simple (like the system on Uncyc). Or the machine can provide its own automated estimate, to make it easier for someone's assessment, done as usually, manually. The problem with voting is that voting is too slow and inert, and wouldn't say much more than a simple glance. ]<sup> ]</sup> |]| 05:03, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
:Disagree, that would just incentivize many people to try to get their name on the Main Page for millions of readers to see, leading to more competition and less constructive contributions. ] (] · ]) 15:51, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
: A small section where? Obviously not on the main page, as the previous replies have been assuming. But if someone wanted to maintain some sort of list at ] and link it from ], 🤷. We have ] that is something similar for DYK. ]] 16:01, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
::That would be a much better idea indeed! ] (] · ]) 16:20, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
:::I agree! ] (]) 18:18, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
::::] I created a page if anyone wants to edit it. ] (]) 18:21, 4 January 2025 (UTC)


== The use of AI-generated content ==
::Yet you're proposing something like the system on Uncyclopedia, which is pure voting. I agree that at least for now, we should just do the automated system. And it wouldn't have to be terribly complicated either; see the algorithms I'm building at ]. ]] 04:12, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


As of late, the use of AI has caused controversy. As it currently stands, the only thing we have on AI generated content is ] which is more of an essay and not a policy/guideline.
==Admin list==
The ] is getting kind of tough to load (crazy right, who the heck would ever want to check and see if someone is an admin). Any ideas about perhaps chopping it up in some way so as to alternatively load an alpha TOC and go from there? --] ] 21:57, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
:My first thought would be a simple alphabetical split like A-K on one page, L-Z on the next, and semi-active and inactive on a third. Of course the place in the alphabet would have to be determined, but I think doing it alphabetically would be the most neutral and useful, while still retaining the usefulness of listing semi-active and inactive admins separately. ]-] 22:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)


This lack of AI-generated content guideline is baffling considering the increasing prominence of AI in our daily lives. We don't have any form of guideline for such.
:Strongly agree. Why does it take so long to load, there aren't that many lines? It's a lot faster to use the link to <span class="plainlinks"><font color="002bb8"></font></span> currently. Also, the inactive section at the end seems to have a problem - entries from #65 onward don't list the name properly, but just link to the word ] (I can't see anything wrong/different with the code there). —] 22:27, 25 December 2006 (UTC)


As such I wanted to bring up that there should be a guideline and recommend a few things:
::Short answer: the list is over the maximum ]. ] 02:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


1. As someone who uses a second language, I heavily rely on AI assistance, however, I do not believe all the content on Misplaced Pages should be AI-generated as such, I recommend the limitation of AI generated content which is as follows:
== new marketing idea ==
:a. While Misplaced Pages does not prohibit Wikieditors from using large language models to plan their contributions, the Wikieditor must personally check and take responsibility for every word and every fact.
:b. It cannot be used in talk pages or any form of communication. This is because AI-generated content with headlines are a mess already, and we don't need clutter on the talk pages. Plus existing guidelines require competence and communication is a social skill that is important anyways.
:c. If it is AI-generated or any form of it is, in the edit summaries, it must be disclosed. This should not be used against the editor in any form unless somehow it becomes an issue.
2. You are responsible for making sure the content generated by AI follows the guidelines and policies. You cannot make the old "oh but AI generated it, not me, so I'm not responsible." excuse. This clause is being added to avoid that excuse from causing headaches that could already be avoided in the beginning.


Many of the ideas that already exist at ] I can see also being part of the guideline. What are your thoughts on making an official policy on this. This means that the policy would rely on other policies and if the policies change, it must keep in mind about the AI policy.
TO whom this may concern,


As it currently stands, essays and information pages are not POLICIES & GUIDELINES so we desperately need one for the sanity of everyone here working on Misplaced Pages.
My name is Simon Farquhar, I am a 4th year Univerisity of Guelph student and recently while relaxing with my roommates over a nice cool refreshing drink I came up with what I believe to be two great new marketing slogans to be used by Wikimedia...they go as followed...


Pinging @] as I find he would be interested in adding some stuff regarding the creation of this policy.
"In a quiki...search for it on Wiki" -or-
"In a jiffy...search for it on Wiki"


Sincerely, <br> ] (]) 01:06, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
now, the first slogan can be altered as followed...
: By byte count, 71.38% of ] is currently taken up by discussions about AI. Why don't you join one of those discussions? ]] 02:20, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
::In this case, that wouldn’t be possible as what I’m requesting is a formal policy and guideline that actually explains what AI use is allowed and what isn’t.
::From what I understand, the other threads are asking for clarification on if AI is allowed in a certain circumstance NOT a guideline.
::<br>Cheers,<br> ] (]) 11:17, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:::{{tq|what I’m requesting is a formal policy and guideline}} That's two separate things and...where is the proposal? ] (]) 11:22, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Whoops! I thought that it was obvious that was what I meant when I said “I recommend a few things… as follows:”. That is my fault and I’m glad I was able to clarify!
::::<br>
::::Cheers,<br> ] (]) 11:31, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:::A guideline won't happen without those threads being solved. I would recommend not using AI for second-language writing, translate in small chunks if needed, and it's likely closer to what you want to say. ] (]) 11:30, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
::::I disagree. I can write in English easily when it’s what I’m expressing in terms of what I’m thinking that’s easy.<br><br>
::::However, whenever I write something with a lot of guidelines, I end up tensing up and my brain cannot create it completely from scratch without having random words in front of it. If random words are written already and all I need to do is revise it so it makes sense, that’s where I am able to be successful. I do this to avoid ] as that’s not what the Misplaced Pages project is for. That’s how I’m able to make constructive edits that contribute to Misplaced Pages as a whole. That’s also how I avoid the misuse of AI as it’s a godsend for me as someone who always tenses up when I’m writing something within guidelines and restrictions.<br><br> Of course I believe I need to clarify, I completely revise the text to the point none of the words from the AI is in the final version. <br><br>
::::Cheers,<br> ] (]) 11:41, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::That doesn't address my suggestion, which was using translation software that isn't designed to generate extra content. The idea that "none of the words from the AI is in the final version" is not believable, English is varied but generally there are some standard common words. ] (]) 11:44, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::Oh! I COMPLETELY misunderstood. I don’t translate it whatsoever. The only way I translate anything is through DeepL or Google Translate. If it’s worth anything my first language is sign language so you can’t really translate that language with the use of AI.<br><br>Cheers, <br> ] (]) 11:51, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::::Thank you, that's very helpful clarification. I'd like to know more, I'll take to the user talk. ] (]) 11:58, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:I'd broadly support a proposal like this. If I'm being (very) nitpicky, I'd say we shouldn't include {{tq|must contain no words that were initially created by the AI}}, as this implies literally every word needs to be re-written, which might not be feasible (nor would it significantly impact AI-generated detector tools in the case of simpler phrases). — ''']''' <sup>''(])''</sup> 11:46, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
::What would an alternative be? I’m more than open to a different way of applying it. ] (]) 11:51, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Whoops, I need to reclarify what I meant. I meant to say:
:::Do you have any suggestions on an alternative for that part of the policy? I’m open to any ideas. <br><br>Cheers,<br>] (]) 11:52, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:::"While Misplaced Pages does not prohibit Wikieditors from using large language models to plan their contributions, the Wikieditor must personally check and take responsibility for every word and every fact." How's that? If someone's little brother etc. gets into their account and violates policy, the person who holds the account is held responsible. Of course, that always involved the assumption that the user was lying about a little brother... ] (]) 13:11, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
::::That seems reasonable to me. I’ll edit it to include that. ] (]) 13:15, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Isn't that already the case? LLMs do not exempt anyone from the responsibility of their edits. ] (] · ]) 23:51, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:Can someone here move this to idea lab, it’s clear this needs more improvement and is not ready to be implemented as I previously thought. ] (]) 13:17, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:As I've ], I think any guidance should not refer to specific technology, which changes rapidly and has many uses. ] (]) 15:53, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
::I'm sympathetic to this argument but in reality we do this all the time. This isn't a perfect analogy (i.e., if you nitpick it, then I am probably already aware of what you are nitpicking) but ] and by extension ] are both extremely useful resources about any given media outlet, and also something that lags behind how reliable they are ''now'', as opposed to when someone brought them up.
::<small> (that is, if it wasn't just wrong from the outset; there are one or two cases where I literally know the guy employed as a fact-checker at publications people claimed were unreliable for not fact-checking)</small> ] (]) 18:36, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
:We have an information page regarding AI usage on Misplaced Pages, see ]. ] (]) 02:07, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
::The original poster was suggesting that there be a guideline on AI; since that's an info page, I don't think it fits the bill w/r/t what OP was looking for. <span class="nowrap">—] (] &#124; ])</span> 05:20, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Pythoncoder explained it well. Sorry. I didn’t see this message. My apologies. ] (]) 11:15, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
::::The community held an RfC back in October 2023 regarding the promotion of ] to policy status, but it failed to gain consensus: ]. (There was another similar RfC afterward, but unfortunately, I can't remember what it was called.) To quote the close: {{tq|The most common and strongest rationale against promotion ... was that existing P&Gs, particularly the policies against vandalism and policies like WP:V and WP:RS, already cover the issues raised in the proposals.}} {{pb}} I think the best approach now would be for editors to initiate community-wide RfCs focused on specific uses of AI on Misplaced Pages, such as what I did with ], and work on integrating the consensuses of those RfCs into the existing policy pages themselves (the RfC consensus of that discussion, for example, is currently reflected in WP:BLP, WP:NOR, WP:IMAGEPOL). I would also suggest adding the RfCs to ] to make it easier for readers and editors to find and read past AI-related discussions and their outcomes. ] (]) 12:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::I disagree with that statement in all honesty.
:::::I can be empathetic to the idea of having it into existing policies, but should we be really putting it into already existing policies and then making it more confusing for people looking for the AI aspect’s when it could be in just one page. I don’t know, as logistically, it doesn’t add up in my opinion. ] (]) 13:55, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::Sure, the issues raised are covered but its covered for normal human interaction not AI, AI is whole different ball game and it’s advancing to the point where it might even pass off as human eventually. ] (]) 13:57, 9 January 2025 (UTC)


== Emptying ] ==
"In a qwiki...search for it on Wiki"


Hello, I am bringing a proposal here as I have received conflicting advice at the ] (perhaps due to an incorrect usage of {{tlx|edit request}} by me?). I propose the category is either unmarked as a ], or the existing top-level user pages are sorted/removed (with possible exception of historical users?). ] (]) 20:28, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
and here i'm thinking wiki media should develop a search bar that can be put on to ones desktop known as the "Qwiki" search bar
:This comes up periodically when someone notices the container cat filling up with new users.
:Just follow the normal process of removing the users. Leave them a note to add themselves to some more appropriate subcat, if you wish. - <b>]</b> 20:43, 6 January 2025 (UTC)


:Perhaps important context is that the categorization of Wikipedians is a minefield that has led to a lot of spilled ink and anger. If you dig in the archives you can find the discussions. Spending a lot of times to make those categories look nice does not help us achieve our goal of writing an encyclopedia, and therefore it may be considered a waste of time by some. See also ]. {{tlx|edit request}} is for when you can't make the edit so someone else ''has'' to do it for you (e.g. if you need an admin to edit a page you can't edit because it has been protected). ] (]) 20:48, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Anyways that my new idea slash suggestion and Ishould mention that I do not seek any royalty (although perhaps a Quizno's sub might do)from this. If you would like to get a hold of me here is my contact information...you know...have your people get back to my people.
::Did we finish the encyclopaedia? If nit surely there's some reader-facing makework we could do? ] &#124; ] 20:51, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
:::How are we ''ever'' supposed to finish when new articles? You are part of the problem! I propose we get rid of all articles, except ], and then we replace the content with . ] (]) 20:57, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
== Sections ==


I noticed that some sections are written like: == xxxxx ==
Simon Farquhar
and some are written like ==xxxxx==. Some have gaps and some do not. Won't it be better if it was standardized? I prefer the one without gaps because it should save space.
sfarquha(at)uoguelph(dot)ca <small>—The preceding ] comment was added by ] (] • ]){{#if:{{{2|}}}|&#32;{{{2}}}|}}.</small><!-- Template:Unsigned -->
] (]) 06:47, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
:Pardon me, but I have to ask...did the cool refreshing drink contain alchohol? Cheers, ]<sup>]</sup> 04:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


:Such a proposal is infeasible, as we have over 6 million articles in a mix of both styles. Although a script would probably handle 90% of them there'd be heaps of edge cases among the remaining ones to consider. Also that's assuming that editors would actually agree on a single style; given ] I think that's unlikely. &nbsp;] <b style="font-size:0.6em;filter:grayscale(1)">] ]</b> 09:03, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
== Hungarian Names ==
::Yes, or shall we have an inconclusive discussion that lasts for months and involves hundreds of editors? ] (]) 09:14, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
:::What else is Misplaced Pages for?--] (] &#124; ]) 14:25, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
::That means only 700,000 articles would be left. New editors can fix the others as a beginner's task.
::] (]) 12:20, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
:::So Misplaced Pages adopts a novitiate/apprenticeship system? I like the idea of that, so long as it's not mandated at all but voluntary. I don't think this particular task would be of any help or use, though. It really doesn't matter.--] (] &#124; ]) 14:25, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
:Istruggletothinkofabiggerwasteoftime,thoughofcourseweshouldall].&ndash;&#8239;]&nbsp;<small>(])</small> 09:15, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
::Joe, where should I send the the 0.00000004 cents that it would cost for you to use spaces? ] (]) 09:21, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
:This would fall under ], because the spaces (or lack thereof) has no change in visual output. It's not worth our time to fix something that has no real effect on pages, flooding watchlists and annoying people in the process. Also, ironically, the heading for this thread is written ''with'' spaces. —] <span title="Canadian!" style="color:red">🍁</span> (] · ]) 12:52, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
::That is likely because as far as I've seen most of the software and scripts add spaces. ] (]) 13:59, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
:::It's potentially worth making a call on what's considered ultimate best practice, just so that the software and scripts can be aligned. But agreed that this is far too cosmetic to be worth changing, even within something like the ] set. <span style="border:3px outset;border-radius:8pt 0;padding:1px 5px;background:linear-gradient(6rad,#86c,#2b9)">]</span> <sup>]</sup> 23:03, 10 January 2025 (UTC)


== Good Article visibility ==
I'm not sure if this should be posted here or under miscellaneous, but please hear me out: in doing research on the PRC, I noticed that pages about Chinese personages have their ] first, according to ]: it's ] and ], not Zedong Mao and Xiaoping Deng. ] even has a little ] on it: "This is a Chinese name; the family name is X." This is all well and good. So why is this not followed for pages about Hungarians, who have the ]? It's downright awkward for a Hungarian to say "]" and "]" instead of "Kossuth Lajos" and "Petőfi Sándor." Nonetheless, this is how it is: Arany János's page (of course, at ]) even has a ] to the opposite effect of the Chinese: "The native form of this personal name is X. This article uses the Western name order."<br>
This, to me, seems unfair.<br>
] 04:01, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


I think it would be a good idea to workshop a better way to show off our Good, A-class and Featured articles (or even B-class too), and especially in the mobile version, where there is nothing. At present, GA icons appear on the web browser, but this is it. I think we could and should be doing more. Misplaced Pages is an expansive project where page quality varies considerably, but most casual readers who do not venture onto talk pages will likely not even be aware of the granular class-based grading system. The only visible and meaningful distinction for many readers, especially mobile users, will be those articles with maintenance and cleanup tags, and those without. So we prominently and visibly flag our worst content, but do little to distinguish between our best content and more middling content. This seems like a missed opportunity, and poor publicity for the project. Many readers come to the project and can go away with bad impressions about Misplaced Pages if they encounter bad or biased content, or if they read something bad about the project, but we are doing less than we could to flag the good. If a reader frequents 9 C-class articles and one Good Article, they may simply go away without even noticing the better content, and conclude that Misplaced Pages is low quality and rudimentary. By better highlighting our articles that have reached a certain standard, we would actually better raise awareness about A) the work that still needs to be done, and B) the end results of a collaborative editing process. It could even potentially encourage readers who become aware of this distinction to become editors themselves and work on pages that do not carry this distinction when they see them. In this age of AI-augmented misinformation and short-attention spans, better flagging our best content could yield benefits, with little downside. It could also reinject life and vitality into the Good Article process by giving the status more tangible front-end visibility and impact, rather than largely back-end functionality. Maybe this has been suggested before. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. But thoughts? ] (]) 15:09, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
== Moving the main page ==


:With the big caveat that I'm very new to the GA system in general and also do not know how much technical labor this would require, this seems like a straightforwardly helpful suggestion. The green + sign on mobile (and/or some additional element) would be a genuinely positive addition to the experience for users - I think a textual element might be better so the average reader understands what the + sign means, but as it stands you're absolutely right, quality is basically impossible to ascertain on mobile for non-experts, even for articles with GA status that would have a status icon on desktop. ] (]) 16:43, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
Please see ] for a proposal to move the main page to the Misplaced Pages: namespace. —<span style="font: small-caps 14px times; color: red;">] (])</span> 04:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
:While GA articles have been approved by at least one reviewer, there is no system of quality control for B class articles, and no system to prevent an editor from rating an article they favor as B class in order to promote or advertise it. A class articles are rare, as Military History is the only project I know of that uses that rating. ] 17:16, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
:I totally agree we should be doing more. There are userscript that change links to different colours based on quality (the one I have set up shows gold links as featured, green as GA, etc).
:If you aren't logged in and on mobile, you'd have no idea an article has had a review. '''] <sup>(] • ])</sup>''' 20:15, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
:A discussion was held on this about two years ago and there was consensus to do ''something''. See ] and ]. ] (]) 04:20, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
::@]: Is that feedback discussion alive, dead, or just lingering in half-life? It's not obviously archived, but has the whole page been mothballed? So basically, there's community consensus to do ''something'', but the implementation is now the sticking point. ] (]) 04:57, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 04:57, 12 January 2025

"WP:PROPOSE" redirects here. For proposing article deletion, see Misplaced Pages:Proposed deletion and Misplaced Pages:Deletion requests.Discussion page for new proposals
 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 
Shortcuts

The proposals section of the village pump is used to offer specific changes for discussion. Before submitting:

Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for nine days.

« Archives, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216
Centralized discussion For a listing of ongoing discussions, see the dashboard.

Revise Misplaced Pages:INACTIVITY

There is consensus against this proposal. JJPMaster (she/they) 17:48, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Point 1 of Procedural removal for inactive administrators which currently reads "Has made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12-month period" should be replaced with "Has made no administrative actions for at least a 12-month period". The current wording of 1. means that an Admin who takes no admin actions keeps the tools provided they make at least a few edits every year, which really isn't the point. The whole purpose of adminship is to protect and advance the project. If an admin isn't using the tools then they don't need to have them. Mztourist (talk) 07:47, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Endorsement/Opposition (Admin inactivity removal)

  • Support as proposer. Mztourist (talk) 07:47, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose - this would create an unnecessary barrier to admins who, for real life reasons, have limited engagement for a bit. Asking the tools back at BN can feel like a faff. Plus, logged admin activity is a poor guide to actual admin activity. In some areas, maybe half of actions aren't logged? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 19:17, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. First, not all admin actions are logged as such. One example which immediately comes to mind is declining an unblock request. In the logs, that's just a normal edit, but it's one only admins are permitted to make. That aside, if someone has remained at least somewhat engaged with the project, they're showing they're still interested in returning to more activity one day, even if real-life commitments prevent them from it right now. We all have things come up that take away our available time for Misplaced Pages from time to time, and that's just part of life. Say, for example, someone is currently engaged in a PhD program, which is a tremendously time-consuming activity, but they still make an edit here or there when they can snatch a spare moment. Do we really want to discourage that person from coming back around once they've completed it? Seraphimblade 21:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    We could declare specific types of edits which count as admin actions despite being mere edits. It should be fairly simple to write a bot which checks if an admin has added or removed specific texts in any edit, or made any of specific modifications to pages. Checking for protected edits can be a little harder (we need to check for protection at the time of edit, not for the time of the check), but even this can be managed. Edits to pages which match specific regular expression patterns should be trivial to detect. Animal lover |666| 11:33, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose There's no indication that this is a problem needs fixing. ⇒SWATJester 00:55, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Support Admins who don't use the tools should not have the tools. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:55, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose While I have never accepted "not all admin actions are logged" as a realistic reason for no logged actions in an entre year, I just don't see what problematic group of admins this is in response to. Previous tweaks to the rules were in response to admins that seemed to be gaming the system, that were basically inactive and when they did use the tools they did it badly, etc. We don't need a rule that ins't pointed a provable, ongoing problem. Just Step Sideways 19:19, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose If an admin is still editing, it's not unreasonable to assume that they are still up to date with policies, community norms etc. I see no particular risk in allowing them to keep their tools. Scribolt (talk) 19:46, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose: It feels like some people are trying to accelerate admin attrition and I don't know why. This is a solution in search of a problem. Gnomingstuff (talk) 07:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose Sure there is a problem, but the real problem I think is that it is puzzling why they are still admins. Perhaps we could get them all to make a periodic 'declaration of intent' or some such every five years that explains why they want to remain an admin. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose largely per scribolt. We want to take away mops from inactive accounts where there is a risk of them being compromised, or having got out of touch with community norms, this proposal rather targets the admins who are active members of the community. Also declining incorrect deletion tags and AIV reports doesn't require the use of the tools, doesn't get logged but is also an important thing for admins to do. ϢereSpielChequers 07:43, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. What is the motivation for this frenzy to make more hoops for admins to jump through and use not jumping through hoops as an excuse to de-admin them? What problem does it solve? It seems counterproductive and de-inspiring when the bigger issue is that we don't have enough new admins. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose Some admin actions aren't logged, and I also don't see why this is necessary. Worst case scenario, we have WP:RECALL. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:25, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose I quite agree with David Eppstein's sentiment. What's with the rush to add more hoops? Is there some problem with the admin corps that we're not adequately dealing with? Our issue is that we have too few admins, not that we have too many. CaptainEek ⚓ 23:20, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I'm not seeing this as a real issue which needs to be fixed, or what problem is actually being solved. Let'srun (talk) 21:17, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose per all the good points from others showing that this is a solution in search of a problem. Toadspike 21:57, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose The current wording sufficiently removes tools from users who have ceased to edit the English Misplaced Pages. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:28, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Discussion (Admin inactivity removal)

  • Making administrative actions can be helpful to show that the admin is still up-to-date with community norms. We could argue that if someone is active but doesn't use the tools, it isn't a big issue whether they have them or not. Still, the tools can be requested back following an inactivity desysop, if the formerly inactive admin changes their mind and wants to make admin actions again. For now, I don't see any immediate issues with this proposal. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 08:13, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Looking back at previous RFCs, in 2011 the reasoning was to reduce the attack surface for inactive account takeover, and in 2022 it was about admins who haven't been around enough to keep up with changing community norms. What's the justification for this besides "use it or lose it"? Further, we already have a mechanism (from the 2022 RFC) to account for admins who make a few edits every year. Anomie⚔ 12:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I also note that not all admin actions are logged. Logging editing through full protection requires abusing the Edit Filter extension. Reviewing of deleted content isn't logged at all. Who will decide whether an admin's XFD "keep" closures are really WP:NACs or not? Do adminbot actions count for the operator? There are probably more examples. Currently we ignore these edge cases since the edits will probably also be there, but now if we can desysop someone who made 100,000 edits in the year we may need to consider them. Anomie⚔ 12:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    I had completely forgotten that many admin actions weren't logged (and thus didn't "count" for activity levels), that's actually a good point (and stops the "community norms" arguments as healthy levels of community interaction can definitely be good evidence of that). And, since admins desysopped for inactivity can request the tools back, an admin needing the bit but not making any logged actions can just ask for it back. At this point, I'm not sure if there's a reason to go through the automated process of desysopping/asking for resysop at all, rather than just politely ask the admin if they still need the tools.I'm still very neutral on this by virtue of it being a pretty pointless and harmless process either way (as, again, there's nothing preventing an active admin desysopped for "inactivity" from requesting the tools back), but I might lean oppose just so we don't add a pointless process for the sake of it. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:59, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • To me this comes down to whether the community considers it problematic for an admin to have tools they aren't using. Since it's been noted that not all admin actions are logged, and an admin who isn't using their tools also isn't causing any problems, I'm not sure I see a need to actively remove the tools from an inactive admin; in a worst-case scenario, isn't this encouraging an admin to (potentially mis-)use the tools solely in the interest of keeping their bit? There also seems to be somewhat of a bad-faith assumption to the argument that an admin who isn't using their tools may also be falling behind on community norms. I'd certainly like to hope that if I was an admin who had been inactive that I would review P&G relevant to any admin action I intended to undertake before I executed. DonIago (talk) 15:14, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
  • As I have understood it, the original rationale for desysopping after no activity for a year was the perception that an inactive account was at higher danger of being hijacked. It had nothing to do with how often the tools were being used, and presumably, if the admin was still editing, even if not using the tools, the account was less likely to be hijacked. - Donald Albury 22:26, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    And also, if the account of an active admin was hijacked, both the account owner and those they interact with regularly would be more likely to notice the hijacking. The sooner a hijacked account is identified as hijacked, the sooner it is blocked/locked which obviously minimises the damage that can be done. Thryduulf (talk) 00:42, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I was not aware that not all admin actions are logged, obviously they should all be correctly logged as admin actions. If you're an Admin you should be doing Admin stuff, if not then you obviously don't need the tools. If an Admin is busy IRL then they can either give up the tools voluntarily or get desysopped for inactivity. The "Asking the tools back at BN can feel like a faff." isn't a valid argument, if an Admin has been desysopped for inactivity then getting the tools back should be "a faff". Regarding the comment that "There's no indication that this is a problem needs fixing." the problem is Admins who don't undertake admin activity, don't stay up to date with policies and norms, but don't voluntarily give up the tools. The 2022 change was about total edits over 5 years, not specifically admin actions and so didn't adequately address the issue. Mztourist (talk) 03:23, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
    obviously they should all be correctly logged as admin actions - how would you log actions that are administrative actions due to context/requiring passive use of tools (viewing deleted content, etc.) rather than active use (deleting/undeleting, blocking, and so on)/declining requests where accepting them would require tool use? (e.g. closing various discussions that really shouldn't be NAC'd, reviewing deleted content, declining page restoration) Maybe there are good ways of doing that, but I haven't seen any proposed the various times this subject came up. Unless and until "soft" admin actions are actually logged somehow, "editor has admin tools and continues to engage with the project by editing" is the closest, if very imperfect, approximation to it we have, with criterion 2 sort-of functioning to catch cases of "but these specific folks edit so little over a prolonged time that it's unlikely they're up-to-date and actively engaging in soft admin actions". (I definitely do feel criterion 2 could be significantly stricter, fwiw) AddWittyNameHere 05:30, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
    Not being an Admin I have no idea how their actions are or aren't logged, but is it a big ask that Admins perform at least a few logged Admin actions in a year? The "imperfect, approximation" that "editor has admin tools and continues to engage with the project by editing" is completely inadequate to capture Admin inactivity. Mztourist (talk) 07:06, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
    Why is it "completely inadequate"? Thryduulf (talk) 10:32, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
    I've been a "hawk" regarding admin activity standards for a very long time, but this proposal comes off as half-baked. The rules we have now are the result of careful consideration and incremental changes aimed at specific, provable issues with previous standards. While I am not a proponent of "not all actions are logged" as a blanket excuse for no logged actions in several years, it is feasible that an admin could be otherwise fully engaged with the community while not having any logged actions. We haven't been having trouble with admins who would be removed by this, so where's the problem? Just Step Sideways 19:15, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Collaboration with PubPeer

Dear all, Over the past few months, I have been in contact with the team managing PubPeer - a website that allows users to discuss and review scientific research after publication, i.e. post-publication peer review - to explore a potential collaboration with Misplaced Pages. After reviewing some data regarding citations (e.g., the DOIs cited in English (20%), Spanish, French, and Italian Misplaced Pages), they agreed, in principle, to share data about papers with PubPeer comments that are also used as sources in Misplaced Pages. From our calculations on a sample of 20% of the citations in enwiki, we estimate that there are around 5,000 unique DOIs cited in Misplaced Pages that may have PubPeer comments. This message is intended to brainstorm some possible ways to use this data in the project. Here are some of my initial ideas:

  1. Create a bot that periodically (weekly? monthly?) fetches data about papers cited in Misplaced Pages with PubPeer comments and leaves a note on the Talk page of articles using these sources. The note could say something like, "There are PubPeer comments related to articles X, Y, Z used as sources in this article."
  2. Develop a gadget that replicates the functionality of the PubPeer browser extensions.

Let me know your thoughts on these ideas and how we could move forward. --CristianCantoro (talk) 00:02, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

How would this be valuable to Misplaced Pages? Izno (talk) 00:45, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
PubPeer is a post-publication peer review forum. Most of the discussions over there report issues with papers. Knowing that a paper that is used as a source has comments on PubPeer is very valuable, IMHO, as It would be useful for editors to evaluate the quality of the source and decide if it makes sense to keep using it. Paper retractions are also reported on PubPeer (see an example), and the PubPeer extension marks retracted papers in red. Basically the idea is to replicate the functionality of the PubPeer extension for editors that don't have it. Furthermore, PubPeer IDs are registered in Wikidata. --CristianCantoro (talk) 18:14, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
But we cite information from reliable sources. I don't see why we'd want a list of people saying they don't think a publication is good, we'd want those sources addressed, surely? Lee Vilenski 18:28, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
I think the point is that an article with a lot of PubPeer commentary is quite likely not to be a reliable source. – Joe (talk) 20:55, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
@Lee Vilenski, PubPeer is exactly a forum where issues with papers are raised, and the authors also have the opportunity to address the concerns. While a source such as a well-established scientific journal is generally reliable, we do not know anything about the quality of a specific paper. To me, knowing that there are comments on PubPeer about a paper is valuable because, in general, those comments are not just about "I like/dislike this paper;" instead, they usually raise good points about the paper that I think would provide valuable context to a Misplaced Pages editor who is trying to determine whether a given paper is a good source or not. PubPeer is regularly used by the community of "scientific sleuths" looking for manipulated or fabricated image and data as you can read in this press article: "A once-ignored community of science sleuths now has the research community on its heels" (there are many other examples) --CristianCantoro (talk) 21:26, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
This does seem like it could be very useful for users interested in the quality of research. I think a gadget highlighting DOIs would be most useful, but using a bot to tag affected pages with a template that adds them to a maintenance category (like this one) would also be a great idea. Toadspike 22:35, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
I think this is a great idea. A bot-maintained notification and maintenance category would be a great starting point. As for a gadget, there are already several tools aimed at highlighting potential reliability issues in citations (e.g. User:SuperHamster/CiteUnseen, User:Headbomb/unreliable) so I think it would be better to try and get PubPeer functionality incorporated into them than start a new one. – Joe (talk) 10:13, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
Respectfully, I don't really think that collaborating with a website and using its number of user-generated comments to decide of the reliability of our sources is the best idea. While being informed of comments that have been made on the articles could be helpful, placing every article whose source have PubPeer comments in a maintenance category amounts to saying these sources are automatically a problem to be fixed, and that shouldn't be a call left to commenters of another website. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:57, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
Why not? I don't think there's any realistic prospect of doing it internally. – Joe (talk) 12:32, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
Putting an article in a maintenance category because a user-generated review website made comments on a source is clearly not the level of source assessment quality we're striving for. Plus, there's the risk of things like canvassing or paid reviews happening on that other website, as they don't have the same policies that we do, but impact the (perceived) article quality here by tagging these sources as problems to be fixed. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:39, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
I believe the proposal is to add the talk page to a category (because it's attached to a talk page message), and not to do any tagging, so this would be pretty much invisible to readers. It would just be a prompt for editors to assess the reliability of the source, not a replacement for source assessments. PubPeer is also not really a "review" website but a place where people (in practice mostly other scientists) can comment on potential errors and misconduct in scientific papers, so the risk of abuse, while present, seems very slight. Who would benefit from it? – Joe (talk) 14:06, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
That does make sense, thanks. I thought there could be cases where competing research teams might try to use it to discredit their opponents' papers, especially if it leads to visible Misplaced Pages messages, but if it is only a category on the talk page that is invisible for the readers, that sounds like a quite sensible idea. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:45, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
Hi @Chaotic Enby, the idea is to have the information readily available in the talk page, and that would make our editors' life easier. In the end, it is just a matter of having some links in the talk page that an editor can check, if they want. Furthermore, I second the comment above from @Joe, PubPeer is very much used to report serious flaws with studies: a study from 2021 analyzed around 40,000 posts about 25,000 publications and found that "more than two-thirds of comments are posted to report some type of misconduct, mainly about image manipulation.". Take a tour on PubPeer and see for yourself. --CristianCantoro (talk) 15:40, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
I often cite scientific studies when I'm writing Froggy of the Day. It sounds like it would be remotely possible to make a bot or tool that could flag sources that have > howevermany comments on Pub Peer.
I often think about Misplaced Pages's mission to curate rather than create knowledge in terms of the sugar vs fat debate in nutrition. At the time Misplaced Pages was founded, the prevailing idea was that fat was more fattening in sugar with respect to human beings gaining or losing weight. In the years since, much of that was found to have been a promotional campaign by the sugar industry. It is not Misplaced Pages's place to contradict established scientific information even when individual Wikipedians know better but rather to wait until newer and better reliable sources are published. Such a tool could help us do that more quickly. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:38, 3 January 2025 (UTC)
I think some sort of collaboration might be useful, but I don't want talk page notices clogging up my watchlist. Perhaps something that can complement existing userscripts that highlight source reliability would be good. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:39, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Appearance setting to hide all inline notes from articles

While disabled by default, enabling it would hide all those , and even inline notes from all articles, which makes reading Misplaced Pages more clearer, especially when reading about controversial topics. Those citation notes can be a distraction for some, so that's why i am proposing such a feature like this. 176.223.184.242 (talk) 12:37, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Adding sup { display: none !important; } to your user CSS should do the job! (see also WP:CSSHIDE) Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:49, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
Yep. I'd oppose making it a default setting, though. I don't want to dictate to the IP how they should use Misplaced Pages or discount their experience, but those notes are vital for information literacy. If the IP is reading about controversial topics without them, they're risking exposing themselves to misinformation. Sdkb  17:18, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
Agreed! If anything, it is far more vital to have those inline references/citations when reading controversial information. This is even more critical for tags like citation needed/OR/etc because without them the reader is likely to take the statement as generally accepted fact instead of with the grain of salt that should be applied when such a tag has been added. TiggerJay (talk) 17:31, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
This reminds me of proposals made long ago to move all maintenance templates to the talk pages so that readers wouldn't be exposed to how messy and unreliable article content actually is. Donald Albury 19:57, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
I'd personally advise against enabling this, IP. Things tagged with may be just flat-out wrong. Cremastra 🎄 u — c 🎄 19:57, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
What about a third option to keep citation needed tags while hiding actual citations?
  • Show all inline notes
  • Show only inline maintenance notices
  • Hide all inline notes
176.223.186.27 (talk) 21:58, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
To build on what Donald Albury is saying, I think the readers should be reminded of how messy Misplaced Pages is. I just added a citation this afternoon, not only because I want the article's regulars to find an additional source but also because I want the readers to see the tag and know that the content is not sufficiently sourced at this time. (I believe in general that people should be more vigilant about assessing the reliability of what they read, and not only here on the Wiki.) If anyone does donate their time and trouble to make a way for readers to opt out of seeing ref tags and maintenance tags, I would oppose making it the default. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:31, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Transclusion of peer reviews to article talk pages

Hello,

First time posting here.

I would like to propose that peer reviews be automatically transcluded to talk pages in the same way as GAN reviews. This would make them more visible to more editors and better preserve their contents in the article/talk history. They often take a considerable amount of time and effort to complete, and the little note near the top of the talk page is very easy to overlook.

This also might (but only might!) raise awareness of the project and lead to more editors making use of this volunteer resource.

I posted this suggestion on the project talk page yesterday, but I have since realized it has less than 30 followers and gets an average of 0 views per day.

Thanks for your consideration, Patrick (talk) 23:07, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any downsides here. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:55, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
Support; I agree with Voorts. Noting for transparency that I was neutrally notified of this discussion by Patrick Welsh. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 21:04, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Remove Armenia-Azerbaijan general community sanctions

Opening this discussion is itself a violation of GS/AA, as SimpleSubCubicGraph is not extended-confirmed. Initial response from community members with standing to discuss these topics has been unanimously opposed so I see no reason to leave this open. signed, Rosguill 01:25, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I believe Armenia and Azerbaijan sanction is now outdated and useless. I propose that the sanction on the two nations be removed permanently unless another diplomatic crisis happens between the two countries. My reasons are: A recent statement was made by Armenia offering condolences to Azerbaijan which has almost never happened, I believe that Armenia and Azerbaijan related pages blanket protection of Extended Confirmed should be lowered to Autoconfirmed protection, with the exception of the wars between the two sovereign nations. Additionally, relations are getting better between the two countries. For nearly 30 years, relations were rock bottom, diplomats were not found in Azerbaijan nor Armenia and tensions were at an all time high. However ever since the 2020 war the two nations have started to make amends. This first started with the peace deal ending the war between the two nations. Turkey whom is a staunch ally of Azerbaijan has started to resume direct flights from Yerevan, the capital of Armenia and Istanbul, the largest city in the Republic of Turkiye. In 2023, Armenia and Azerbaijan entered into extensive bilateral negotiations as well as a prisoner exchange between the two countries, and Armenia supported Azerbaijan for being the host of the UN climate change forum. Finally, last year the two countries solved many border issues and created a transport route between the two countries which is a symbol of peace. The two nations are much better off now than they were just 4 years ago and can be seen as having a cooperative/reconciling attitude. That is why I propose an amendment that will immediately downgrade all protections (from ECP to ACP) for all Armenia-Azerbaijan related pages. SimpleSubCubicGraph (talk) 00:31, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  • Notified: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:53, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This statement does not provide an adequate or relevant reason for vacating WP:GS/AA's ECR remedy. Community sanctions are related to the conduct of editors on Misplaced Pages, not the conduct of international affairs. Since page and editor sanctions are regularly issued pursuant to GS/AA and CT/A-A, there is still a clear need for ECR. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:46, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    @Voorts Response Well I believe that the editors that cause edit conflicts and wars are mostly Armenian, Azerbaijani, or Turkish. They feel patriotic of their country and their side and have vilified the other side in their head, but with calming geopolitical tensions I believe that these editors will no longer feel the need to edit war on wikipedia. Its the same reason why you do not see British people edit warring on the page for the United States of America over the loss in the Independence War. Geopolitical relations between Great Britain and the United States of America are good. SimpleSubCubicGraph (talk) 00:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    But you do see Armenian/Azerbaijani people edit warring on pages about Armenia/Azerbaijan still. JJPMaster (she/they) 00:56, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
    To add further context, you're correct that we don't have any sanctions regarding the US War of Independence. However, we do have sanctions regarding other historical topics, including anti-Semitism in Poland around World War II (WP:APL) and The Troubles (WP:CT/TT). As such, just because country leadership may communicate a lack of conflict doesn't mean editors on Misplaced Pages immediately edit within policy and treat each other with civility. Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 01:24, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Per Voorts, GS/AA is enacted in response to the actions of editors. Real world diplomatic activity is not directly relevant. CMD (talk) 01:01, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

ITN Nominators

I believe we should add a small section which includes all of the nominators who have made it onto In The News. I think this would be just a polite way of saying thank you for your proposal. SimpleSubCubicGraph (talk) 05:15, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I will just note that we do not do that for nominators for any other elements on the main page. We don't use bylines in Misplaced Pages. Anyone who cares enough about who did what for an article can examine the page history. Donald Albury 15:16, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
Disagree, that would just incentivize many people to try to get their name on the Main Page for millions of readers to see, leading to more competition and less constructive contributions. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:51, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
A small section where? Obviously not on the main page, as the previous replies have been assuming. But if someone wanted to maintain some sort of list at Misplaced Pages:In the news/Contributors and link it from WP:ITN, 🤷. We have Misplaced Pages:List of Wikipedians by number of DYKs that is something similar for DYK. Anomie⚔ 16:01, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
That would be a much better idea indeed! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:20, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
I agree! SimpleSubCubicGraph (talk) 18:18, 4 January 2025 (UTC)
Draft:In the news/Contributors I created a page if anyone wants to edit it. SimpleSubCubicGraph (talk) 18:21, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

The use of AI-generated content

As of late, the use of AI has caused controversy. As it currently stands, the only thing we have on AI generated content is WP:LLM which is more of an essay and not a policy/guideline.

This lack of AI-generated content guideline is baffling considering the increasing prominence of AI in our daily lives. We don't have any form of guideline for such.

As such I wanted to bring up that there should be a guideline and recommend a few things:

1. As someone who uses a second language, I heavily rely on AI assistance, however, I do not believe all the content on Misplaced Pages should be AI-generated as such, I recommend the limitation of AI generated content which is as follows:

a. While Misplaced Pages does not prohibit Wikieditors from using large language models to plan their contributions, the Wikieditor must personally check and take responsibility for every word and every fact.
b. It cannot be used in talk pages or any form of communication. This is because AI-generated content with headlines are a mess already, and we don't need clutter on the talk pages. Plus existing guidelines require competence and communication is a social skill that is important anyways.
c. If it is AI-generated or any form of it is, in the edit summaries, it must be disclosed. This should not be used against the editor in any form unless somehow it becomes an issue.

2. You are responsible for making sure the content generated by AI follows the guidelines and policies. You cannot make the old "oh but AI generated it, not me, so I'm not responsible." excuse. This clause is being added to avoid that excuse from causing headaches that could already be avoided in the beginning.

Many of the ideas that already exist at WP:LLM I can see also being part of the guideline. What are your thoughts on making an official policy on this. This means that the policy would rely on other policies and if the policies change, it must keep in mind about the AI policy.

As it currently stands, essays and information pages are not POLICIES & GUIDELINES so we desperately need one for the sanity of everyone here working on Misplaced Pages.

Pinging @Giant Snowman as I find he would be interested in adding some stuff regarding the creation of this policy.

Sincerely,
Reader of Information (talk) 01:06, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

By byte count, 71.38% of WP:VPP is currently taken up by discussions about AI. Why don't you join one of those discussions? Anomie⚔ 02:20, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
In this case, that wouldn’t be possible as what I’m requesting is a formal policy and guideline that actually explains what AI use is allowed and what isn’t.
From what I understand, the other threads are asking for clarification on if AI is allowed in a certain circumstance NOT a guideline.

Cheers,
Reader of Information (talk) 11:17, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
what I’m requesting is a formal policy and guideline That's two separate things and...where is the proposal? Selfstudier (talk) 11:22, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Whoops! I thought that it was obvious that was what I meant when I said “I recommend a few things… as follows:”. That is my fault and I’m glad I was able to clarify!

Cheers,
Reader of Information (talk) 11:31, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
A guideline won't happen without those threads being solved. I would recommend not using AI for second-language writing, translate in small chunks if needed, and it's likely closer to what you want to say. CMD (talk) 11:30, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
I disagree. I can write in English easily when it’s what I’m expressing in terms of what I’m thinking that’s easy.

However, whenever I write something with a lot of guidelines, I end up tensing up and my brain cannot create it completely from scratch without having random words in front of it. If random words are written already and all I need to do is revise it so it makes sense, that’s where I am able to be successful. I do this to avoid WP:MADEUP as that’s not what the Misplaced Pages project is for. That’s how I’m able to make constructive edits that contribute to Misplaced Pages as a whole. That’s also how I avoid the misuse of AI as it’s a godsend for me as someone who always tenses up when I’m writing something within guidelines and restrictions.

Of course I believe I need to clarify, I completely revise the text to the point none of the words from the AI is in the final version.

Cheers,
Reader of Information (talk) 11:41, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
That doesn't address my suggestion, which was using translation software that isn't designed to generate extra content. The idea that "none of the words from the AI is in the final version" is not believable, English is varied but generally there are some standard common words. CMD (talk) 11:44, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Oh! I COMPLETELY misunderstood. I don’t translate it whatsoever. The only way I translate anything is through DeepL or Google Translate. If it’s worth anything my first language is sign language so you can’t really translate that language with the use of AI.

Cheers,
Reader of Information (talk) 11:51, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Thank you, that's very helpful clarification. I'd like to know more, I'll take to the user talk. CMD (talk) 11:58, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
I'd broadly support a proposal like this. If I'm being (very) nitpicky, I'd say we shouldn't include must contain no words that were initially created by the AI, as this implies literally every word needs to be re-written, which might not be feasible (nor would it significantly impact AI-generated detector tools in the case of simpler phrases). — Czello 11:46, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
What would an alternative be? I’m more than open to a different way of applying it. Reader of Information (talk) 11:51, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Whoops, I need to reclarify what I meant. I meant to say:
Do you have any suggestions on an alternative for that part of the policy? I’m open to any ideas.

Cheers,
Reader of Information (talk) 11:52, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
"While Misplaced Pages does not prohibit Wikieditors from using large language models to plan their contributions, the Wikieditor must personally check and take responsibility for every word and every fact." How's that? If someone's little brother etc. gets into their account and violates policy, the person who holds the account is held responsible. Of course, that always involved the assumption that the user was lying about a little brother... Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:11, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
That seems reasonable to me. I’ll edit it to include that. Reader of Information (talk) 13:15, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Isn't that already the case? LLMs do not exempt anyone from the responsibility of their edits. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:51, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Can someone here move this to idea lab, it’s clear this needs more improvement and is not ready to be implemented as I previously thought. Reader of Information (talk) 13:17, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
As I've previously discussed, I think any guidance should not refer to specific technology, which changes rapidly and has many uses. isaacl (talk) 15:53, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
I'm sympathetic to this argument but in reality we do this all the time. This isn't a perfect analogy (i.e., if you nitpick it, then I am probably already aware of what you are nitpicking) but WP:RSN and by extension WP:RSP are both extremely useful resources about any given media outlet, and also something that lags behind how reliable they are now, as opposed to when someone brought them up.
(that is, if it wasn't just wrong from the outset; there are one or two cases where I literally know the guy employed as a fact-checker at publications people claimed were unreliable for not fact-checking) Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:36, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
We have an information page regarding AI usage on Misplaced Pages, see Misplaced Pages:Artificial intelligence. Some1 (talk) 02:07, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
The original poster was suggesting that there be a guideline on AI; since that's an info page, I don't think it fits the bill w/r/t what OP was looking for. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 05:20, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
Pythoncoder explained it well. Sorry. I didn’t see this message. My apologies. Reader of Information (talk) 11:15, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
The community held an RfC back in October 2023 regarding the promotion of WP:LLM to policy status, but it failed to gain consensus: Misplaced Pages talk:Large language models/Archive 6#RfC: Is this proposal ready to be promoted?. (There was another similar RfC afterward, but unfortunately, I can't remember what it was called.) To quote the close: The most common and strongest rationale against promotion ... was that existing P&Gs, particularly the policies against vandalism and policies like WP:V and WP:RS, already cover the issues raised in the proposals. I think the best approach now would be for editors to initiate community-wide RfCs focused on specific uses of AI on Misplaced Pages, such as what I did with Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#BLPs, and work on integrating the consensuses of those RfCs into the existing policy pages themselves (the RfC consensus of that discussion, for example, is currently reflected in WP:BLP, WP:NOR, WP:IMAGEPOL). I would also suggest adding the RfCs to Misplaced Pages:Artificial intelligence#Discussion timeline to make it easier for readers and editors to find and read past AI-related discussions and their outcomes. Some1 (talk) 12:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
I disagree with that statement in all honesty.
I can be empathetic to the idea of having it into existing policies, but should we be really putting it into already existing policies and then making it more confusing for people looking for the AI aspect’s when it could be in just one page. I don’t know, as logistically, it doesn’t add up in my opinion. Reader of Information (talk) 13:55, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
Sure, the issues raised are covered but its covered for normal human interaction not AI, AI is whole different ball game and it’s advancing to the point where it might even pass off as human eventually. Reader of Information (talk) 13:57, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Emptying Category:Wikipedians

Hello, I am bringing a proposal here as I have received conflicting advice at the original discussion (perhaps due to an incorrect usage of {{edit request}} by me?). I propose the category is either unmarked as a container, or the existing top-level user pages are sorted/removed (with possible exception of historical users?). Tule-hog (talk) 20:28, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

This comes up periodically when someone notices the container cat filling up with new users.
Just follow the normal process of removing the users. Leave them a note to add themselves to some more appropriate subcat, if you wish. - jc37 20:43, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Perhaps important context is that the categorization of Wikipedians is a minefield that has led to a lot of spilled ink and anger. If you dig in the archives you can find the discussions. Spending a lot of times to make those categories look nice does not help us achieve our goal of writing an encyclopedia, and therefore it may be considered a waste of time by some. See also Category:Wikipedians who retain deleted categories on their userpages. {{edit request}} is for when you can't make the edit so someone else has to do it for you (e.g. if you need an admin to edit a page you can't edit because it has been protected). Polygnotus (talk) 20:48, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Did we finish the encyclopaedia? If nit surely there's some reader-facing makework we could do? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:51, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
How are we ever supposed to finish when you keep writing new articles? You are part of the problem! I propose we get rid of all articles, except horse, and then we replace the content with a single sentence. Polygnotus (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Sections

I noticed that some sections are written like: == xxxxx == and some are written like ==xxxxx==. Some have gaps and some do not. Won't it be better if it was standardized? I prefer the one without gaps because it should save space. TrueMoriarty (talk) 06:47, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Such a proposal is infeasible, as we have over 6 million articles in a mix of both styles. Although a script would probably handle 90% of them there'd be heaps of edge cases among the remaining ones to consider. Also that's assuming that editors would actually agree on a single style; given our track record with such things I think that's unlikely.  novov talk edits 09:03, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
Yes, or shall we have an inconclusive discussion that lasts for months and involves hundreds of editors? Phil Bridger (talk) 09:14, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
What else is Misplaced Pages for?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 14:25, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
That means only 700,000 articles would be left. New editors can fix the others as a beginner's task.
TrueMoriarty (talk) 12:20, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
So Misplaced Pages adopts a novitiate/apprenticeship system? I like the idea of that, so long as it's not mandated at all but voluntary. I don't think this particular task would be of any help or use, though. It really doesn't matter.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 14:25, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
Istruggletothinkofabiggerwasteoftime,thoughofcourseweshouldalldoourparttosavespace.– Joe (talk) 09:15, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
Joe, where should I send the the 0.00000004 cents that it would cost for you to use spaces? Phil Bridger (talk) 09:21, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
This would fall under WP:COSMETICEDIT, because the spaces (or lack thereof) has no change in visual output. It's not worth our time to fix something that has no real effect on pages, flooding watchlists and annoying people in the process. Also, ironically, the heading for this thread is written with spaces. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 12:52, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
That is likely because as far as I've seen most of the software and scripts add spaces. CMD (talk) 13:59, 10 January 2025 (UTC)
It's potentially worth making a call on what's considered ultimate best practice, just so that the software and scripts can be aligned. But agreed that this is far too cosmetic to be worth changing, even within something like the GENFIX set. Sdkb  23:03, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Good Article visibility

I think it would be a good idea to workshop a better way to show off our Good, A-class and Featured articles (or even B-class too), and especially in the mobile version, where there is nothing. At present, GA icons appear on the web browser, but this is it. I think we could and should be doing more. Misplaced Pages is an expansive project where page quality varies considerably, but most casual readers who do not venture onto talk pages will likely not even be aware of the granular class-based grading system. The only visible and meaningful distinction for many readers, especially mobile users, will be those articles with maintenance and cleanup tags, and those without. So we prominently and visibly flag our worst content, but do little to distinguish between our best content and more middling content. This seems like a missed opportunity, and poor publicity for the project. Many readers come to the project and can go away with bad impressions about Misplaced Pages if they encounter bad or biased content, or if they read something bad about the project, but we are doing less than we could to flag the good. If a reader frequents 9 C-class articles and one Good Article, they may simply go away without even noticing the better content, and conclude that Misplaced Pages is low quality and rudimentary. By better highlighting our articles that have reached a certain standard, we would actually better raise awareness about A) the work that still needs to be done, and B) the end results of a collaborative editing process. It could even potentially encourage readers who become aware of this distinction to become editors themselves and work on pages that do not carry this distinction when they see them. In this age of AI-augmented misinformation and short-attention spans, better flagging our best content could yield benefits, with little downside. It could also reinject life and vitality into the Good Article process by giving the status more tangible front-end visibility and impact, rather than largely back-end functionality. Maybe this has been suggested before. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. But thoughts? Iskandar323 (talk) 15:09, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

With the big caveat that I'm very new to the GA system in general and also do not know how much technical labor this would require, this seems like a straightforwardly helpful suggestion. The green + sign on mobile (and/or some additional element) would be a genuinely positive addition to the experience for users - I think a textual element might be better so the average reader understands what the + sign means, but as it stands you're absolutely right, quality is basically impossible to ascertain on mobile for non-experts, even for articles with GA status that would have a status icon on desktop. 19h00s (talk) 16:43, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
While GA articles have been approved by at least one reviewer, there is no system of quality control for B class articles, and no system to prevent an editor from rating an article they favor as B class in order to promote or advertise it. A class articles are rare, as Military History is the only project I know of that uses that rating. Donald Albury 17:16, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
I totally agree we should be doing more. There are userscript that change links to different colours based on quality (the one I have set up shows gold links as featured, green as GA, etc).
If you aren't logged in and on mobile, you'd have no idea an article has had a review. Lee Vilenski 20:15, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
A discussion was held on this about two years ago and there was consensus to do something. See Misplaced Pages talk:Good Article proposal drive 2023#Proposal 21: Make GA status more prominent in mainspace and Misplaced Pages:Good Article proposal drive 2023/Feedback#Proposal 21: Make GA status more prominent in mainspace. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:20, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
@Thebiguglyalien: Is that feedback discussion alive, dead, or just lingering in half-life? It's not obviously archived, but has the whole page been mothballed? So basically, there's community consensus to do something, but the implementation is now the sticking point. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:57, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
Categories: