Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:11, 29 November 2006

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Recurring policy proposals are discussed at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (perennial proposals). 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.

Before posting your proposal:

• If the proposal is a change to the software, file a bug at Bugzilla instead. Your proposal is unlikely to be noticed by a developer unless it is placed there.
• If the proposal is a change in policy, be sure to also post the proposal to, say, Misplaced Pages:Manual of style, and ask people to discuss it there.
• If the proposal is for a new wiki-style project outside of Misplaced Pages, please go to m:Proposals for new projects and follow the guidelines there. Please do not post it here. These are different from WikiProjects.

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.

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... --`/aksha 02:27, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, this is definitely a good idea. `/aksha is right - move this to a technical section and it'll get noticed and maybe even implemented. Good luck. Nihiltres 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. -- nae'blis 19:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Overhaul of Userpages, userboxes and user signatures

In response to a number of landmark deletions, I think there needs to be a review of how userpages, userboxes and signatures are used in Misplaced Pages.

Userpages

The majority of pages I am seeing now are becoming nothing more than social networking pages (which violates WP:NOT), which make no relevance for inclusion into helping Misplaced Pages. By this I mean pages full of photographs, use of code designed for other pages (ie. picture of the day or the featured article of the day) which bear no relevance for that user or helps that user to contribute, vandalism boxes which encourage vandals to vandalise, lists of personal information and pranks on user pages.

Also included in this proposed overhaul is the use of complex code within userpages, to which I am gulity as charged! A number of comments made to the Esperanza user page award speedy deletion stated that people spending hours designing and redesigning their user pages distracts them from making valuable contributions to the article. At the very least guidance needs to be given regarding the appearance of user pages. Some are turning into mini websites to say the least and less about the main aim of the user pages, which I quote:

--tgheretford (talk) 12:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Specific comments

I am inclined to agree with some of the conerns voiced here about uesrpages, especially with respects to categorisation of users. I am not against a little humour going into userpages every now and then - but some of the Wikipedian self-categorisations do seem rather frivolous. I have left details about myself on my userpage which either (a) help to explain my academic credentials (for example, the fact that I teach at a university, have access to a university library and intranet site, have an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. (b) clarify my interests (that I am interested in psychology and belong to the British Psychological Society); (c) give indications of my reasons for interests in particular areas (the fact I am left-handed, suffer from Type One diabetes and have low bone density explains why, for example, I may wish to consult the articles on osteoporosis or hypoglycemia; give indications of my likely bias in editing papers (for example, that I belong to the categories of "Christian Wikipedians" and "Interdenominational Wikipedians" should indicate a fairly liberal Christian perspective which will give Misplaced Pages readers an indication of my particular bias when editing articles on religion). I thought that categorisation of users was to serve useful functions such as these - all right, I know that on my userpage, one can see I do not smoke and drink tea, but at least the latter would explain my interests in the article on tea. ACEO 20:11, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Social networking is, like it or not, an essential part of community formation, without which we are not a community at all but only a number of individuals who do not work together. I agree that I've seen many user pages that seem nothing but a waste of time but we don't have a minimum ratio of work vs humor edits to which all must conform. If an editor spends essentially all his time in userspace and never does any work, then NOT MySpace/blog comes into play; such editors should be very gently moved in the direction of article editing -- or out. I object to userpages which break my browser; otherwise, I do not endorse the extreme position taken against elaborate userpages.

certain aspects of user pages are valid. Listing articles you have worked on, projects you belong to, tools you find helpful, essays or guidelines you want others to read, background and expertise areas that might help others identify you for help in editing are all very good things. Even barnstars and awards are not entirely objectionable, as it lets others know that the wikipedia community values you as an editor. However, some user pages, as cited above, clearly go over the limit. What should be done? Hopefully nothing more drastic than a friendly comment on a users talk page. We are faced with the possibility of an unenforcable policy that cannot avoid instruction creep in order to be enforcable. All we can do is tell others what to do correctly; it is difficult to enforce any rules on this... --Jayron32 05:58, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Social networking is an important part of keeping the project up. I won the latest Esperanza userpage award even though I use it mainly for WP-related info. I think deleting the userpage award project was a mistake. This idea needs to be refined. Vandalboxes are clear counterproductive, but I can't think of anything other than that that's problematic on userpages. - Mgm| 13:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes

Specifically the ones in userspace. Although Jimbo Wales on the May 27, 2006 quoted:

The number of userboxes that are appearing in userspace which do not help contribute to Misplaced Pages are now starting to get numerous, and again, I am gulity as charged. For example, having a userbox which says that I have a girlfriend or have a dog or post in a certain forum don't make any contribution to the encyclopedia and in all respect, should be deleted. As I quoted above, userpages should be for anything compatible with Misplaced Pages, having a userbox that says you have a cat doesn't. Again, a review (but not a mass deletion) into the boxes which have migrated into personal userspace may be required.

--tgheretford (talk) 12:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Specific comments

Sorry to be blunt but where were you during the last year of debate on this subject? Jimbo has been quoted over and over, to indeterminate effect. Almost our entire community has weighed in on the subject of userboxes, sometimes at enormous length. You are not going to settle the issue here by starting all over.

Userbox migration is, for better or worse, in full swing and contents many editors. I've spoken against the idea since we generally agree that userspace enjoys much greater latitude than other namespaces; thus it's more difficult to "review" userspace content. Now that the boxes are there, though, we have to deal with them there. The entire point of the former-German solution was to escape delete-warring over UBX.

Userbox policy has been heavily edited by those on all sides of the issue. It has been taken around and around, run through the wringer, and beaten into a semblance of consensus. I suggest you take your UBX concerns there, preferably by editing that page. John Reid ° 09:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

User signatures

I am coming across more and more fancy signatures across the talk pages of this project. Now, creativity is a good thing, but where does it stop? More and more fancy signatures are coming along, which although are given guidelines at Misplaced Pages:Sign your posts on talk pages I don't think go far enough. I myself was thinking of a fancy signature myself, but held back a bit thinking that it would be distracting.

What I am noticing a lot of is messages and even a case of someone providing a link to a category for deletion and asking people to delete the category. I don't think this is necessary of helpful to Misplaced Pages in the slightest and would suggest myself that messages be deleted from signatures altogether. Again, a review and tighter controls need to be implemented to stop the ever growing complexity and messages appearing into signatures.

So, to summarise, what I am asking is a review into the use of non Misplaced Pages relevant information, code and userboxes userpages and the design of user signatures on talk pages as outlined above. --tgheretford (talk) 12:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Specific comments

This should, of course, be discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:Sign your posts on talk pages, where similar proposals have come up in the past. Fagstein 06:59, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I added a proposal at Misplaced Pages talk:Sign your posts on talk pages#Proposal to discourage changing the background color.

This is a perennial issue. I agree with the general position taken; overelaborate sigs are an annoyance and, in some cases, disrupt the editing process. I don't agree that policy needs to change.

I don't know all the editors in our community -- I wish I did but I can't; there are too many and more coming in daily. When someone I don't know makes a comment, it's useful for me to try to understand who he is. That goes past knowing his username; I want to know if he's an adult, a child, an expert, a crank. If he's stated a fact or proposition this is irrelevant but if he's rendering an opinion, it's crucial. To get an accurate "read", I need to check out his userpage, go through his contribs, and see what he's done. A light scan usually isn't enough; most edits are trivial. It may take quite a lot of digging to learn what I want to know: Who are you?

Sigs -- created freely by each editor -- are a wonderful shortcut. I've learned that editors who use bright colors think they're more special than other people; those who use dark colors, especially white or yellow reversed out of a dark background, imagine themselves as subversives. Editors with a number of self-referential links have insecurity issues, especially those with visible text that reads how'm i doin? or equivalent. Those who provide links to their own talk pages are open to discussion; those who omit a link to their own user pages are secretive; those who pipelink their usernames to some obscure alias are deceptive. Cleverly technical sigs are a sign that someone a) is real smart and b) wants me to know it -- not a sign of maturity. Images in sigs always indicate a confrontational person -- oddly enough, not always a partisan of any particular position but simply a trollish type who likes to get in one's face. He who links to pages outside of userspace is telling me what he thinks is so important that everybody needs to know about it -- and I'm happy to know what that is; if I follow the proffered link I'll learn a lot about who he is. Finally, those who use special characters that require me to have another language font installed to read them are people who just don't care about anybody else.

Any editor who has an elaborate sig does me a service by telling me more about himself and by giving me a visual handle by which to recognize him the next time he surfaces. It's probably of secondary interest that most such editors lose much of my respect, having declared themselves unsuitable to participate in mature discussion.

The only addition to SIG I'd endorse would be a specific caution that talk pages are routinely refactored and managed by other editors and that some sigs may interfere with some templates, word processors, and bots. If somebody or something munges your overelaborate sig or simply replaces it with your username, you don't get to complain. This is the standard at AN. John Reid ° 09:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

There must be a happy medium. A few color or font changes are fine, as they help ID specific users easier, and aren't that invasive. However, if a sig ever eclipses the length of a comment on any talk page, it gets too far. When a sig makes it hard to weed through comments on the edit box, it gets too far. But again, what to do about it? Friendly note on a talk page saying something to the effect of: "Your sig is so long it is making it hard for me and others to read your comments on talk pages. Please consider simplifying it" Any policy on sigs would be unenforcable in an equitable way. --Jayron32 06:02, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

• Using sigs to solicit votes is clearly out of line. Other than that, I just ask someone to change their sig if it's annoying. The rules are clear enough and if people don't respond to a mass request to change a sig they can always be blocked after thourough discussion. - Mgm| 13:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

I don't think it's harmful to let people express some personality on their userpages, userboxes or signiture. I'm personally in the belief that as long as the amount of "socializing information" and "for fun boxes" are balanced by decent genuine contributions to wikipedia as an encyclopedia, then it's fine. A gallary of pictures from someone who hardly contributes anything to wikipedia as an encyclopedia is probably a violation of WP:NOT, where as a dozen "favourite pictures" or "pictures i've contributed" on the userpage of someone who's done a lot of work in the image namespace of wikipedia would probably be fine. --`/aksha 12:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

About the signature part: If there is a violation of the signature policies, then shouldn't we enable admins to change your signature preferences?--Ed 16:37, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

So what if we have userpages and userboxes that violate some policy? As long as it doesn't get out of hand. That really doesn't matter; what does matter are our contributions. I particularly agree with Yaksha. About the signatures, Ed has a point too. This is getting way to out of hand. Does everyhting that is fun to help Misplaced Pages grow have to be deleted? It's much too strict. --Kyo cat 18:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I've just visited Tgheretford's userpage, and it seems to violate the WP:NOT as much as the other's do. Marital status? Favorite music? A picture of yourself? I really don't see why you brought up this proposal when your page is as violating as what you just proposed up there. My apologies if I sound rude, but I just don't get it! Kyo cat 19:02, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Just pointing out that hypocrisy does not in itself invalidate an argument. The speaker shouldn't matter so much as the content of the speech. (See ad hominem) --tjstrf talk 19:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

If you believe it violates WP:NOT, please feel free to edit or nominate the pages for Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion. One of the beauties of Misplaced Pages is that anyone can edit, and that includes my userpages. --tgheretford (talk) 20:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

No,no, I won't edit it. I never edit userpages, with fear of being grudged or hated by that user. I'm sorry if I offended you or anyhting. I was just confused. Kyo cat 20:44, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion none of these things does significant harm. Fancy userpages may not aid the project directly, but some users enjoy decorating things and it provides them practice with templates and coding if nothing else. Joke userboxes make me ill personally, but I think banning them is unnecessary. As for user signatures, unless you're doing something insane like adding categories(possible ), AfD vote canvassing, or adding 12-layer colour gradients I think those should be allowed as well. My own userpage features a brief personal description but everything else is project-related, btw. (1 WikiProject userbox) --tjstrf talk 19:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I would amend that to say "for the most part none of these things does significant harm". The problem I see is that there appears to be an increasing trend towards doing many of the these things, and there are certainly a number of cases where it has crossed "the line". The problem is with trying to define the line too sharply, but I agree that this needs to be reigned in, or at least discouraged. Where I might be a little stronger is with the language regarding signatures. Since these get populated all over the place, an annoying or disruptive signature is much harder to ignore than an gratuitously decorated user page—although I wouldn't complain if those were reigned in somewhat also. —Doug Bell  23:30, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• "use of code designed for other pages (ie. picture of the day" correct if I'm wrong here but wasn't the POTD template originally created for userpages. The template predates its front page usage when user pages was practically all it was used for  YDAM TALK 20:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

"then shouldn't we enable admins to change your signature preferences?" <<no, i think it's way too much room for abuse (or pranks). However, something like allowing admins to just reset someone's signiture (so it turns your signiture into the default one that everyone has before they change their preferences) may not be such a bad idea. But letting admins change other people's preferences is going too far IMO --`/aksha 07:09, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• We have in a few extreme cases blocked a user for having an outrageous signature. There have been occasional calls to the developers to disallow images in signatures, or reduce the maximum length in bytes, which have not so far led to an implementation thereof. (Radiant) 10:53, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

The developers are unwilling to use technical enforcement on issues such as this unless it's required. For example, disabling transclusion in signatures was done because users were ignoring the various problems these presented. Images and HTML in signatures don't constitute those sorts of problems, although they can piss people right off. :) There is a statement somewhere to the effect that if users commit egregious abuse of the fact that one can make one's signature look a bit nicer, then such abilities will be revoked. 164.11.204.56 20:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Even if the signature setting in the preferences was changed/locked/reset etc, there's nothing to stop a user from just pasting in their (inappropriate) signature manually at the end of each comment. Tra (Talk) 21:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, but that would be WP:POINT. We do not take kindly to gaming the system. (Radiant) 10:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

references text box when creating a new page

Why not create a second text box for references when creating a new page. Like when editing a Non-existant red link page, we can have a second text box below the main one with a title of something like "Enter sources used here". It's not a requirement to fill the box out but atleast the creator will be easily exposed to such an option, good example: new user. All the information entered in this box could automatically be put into a software-pasted "Reference" section. How does that sound? - Tutmosis 18:47, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that would actually help; "casual" contributors are likely to ignore it as they do now. The 'edit' screen already shows some warnings about sourcing and not making copyvios, but people still do that anyway. (Radiant) 10:51, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• As far as I am aware it isn't possible for when one follows dangling hyperlinks, such as the aforemented, but one can set things up so that new articles come pre-supplied with text when one clicks on the "Start the article" link on MediaWiki:Noarticletext. It's the same mechanism that is used at Misplaced Pages:Articles for creation. I've created Template:Noarticletext preload that pre-supplies a "References" section. It would look, and work, something like this:
  • Start the Project:Sandbox/Village Pump Demo article
• Please discuss at MediaWiki talk:Noarticletext#Preload.Uncle G 17:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
• Preload text is currently used in WP:AFC and while it requires reliable sources in order for an article to be created many of the people still ignore the warnings. I don't see how a separate box would help if it's not mandatory to use it. - Mgm| 13:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikilyrics

I thought it'd be sweet to have a lyrics section. I can never find the lyrics to my music, so I could just post it! So everyone will eventually make the biggest lyrics site around.

Try http://www.azlyrics.com. —Mets501 (talk) 19:42, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource does lyrics but many song lyrics are copyrighted, so they cannot be included. Tra (Talk) 20:16, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Why does this keep coming up every week? Durova 02:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• Another task for WP:PEREN? (Radiant) 10:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
• Um, copyvios anyone? The ubiquitousness of lyrics sites on the web seems to give many people the impression that lyrics are in the public domain. They are not. They belong to their copyright holders, and we, nor anyone else, does not have the right to reproduce them without permission. Period. Full Stop. --Jayron32 06:07, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Nor may we link to sites which violate copyright. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:56, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • For details see Misplaced Pages:External_links#Restrictions_on_linking. Deco 01:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Closing deletion debates

I'm currently working on a new way to archive deletion review debates, which if it works could eventually replace the archiving system at all XfD's. I'm soliciting feedback, both technical and procedural, on the idea. An example is here; User:Trialsanderrors/DRV, discussion at User talk:Trialsanderrors/DRV. Thanks, trialsanderrors 08:37, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Nice. Very stylish, and it would be a lot easier on your eyes in the list-closed processes. I'm not sure how this would work for AfD and MfD, since they use subpages which don't require list viewing. --tjstrf talk 09:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

They're still transcluded on the daily log, and slogging through the logs to find XfD's to comment on (as I assume most regulars do) can become a bit easier when the closed debates are moved out of the way. One problem I see is that the load time might increase. ~ trialsanderrors 20:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• Makes viewing archives considerably easier on the eyes. How do the colors work? You need some way to make it clear for closers how to get the color correct. - Mgm| 13:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Hatnotes inactive? (continued)

Old discussion copied out of archives for further discussion. Carcharoth 13:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Radient placed inactive tags at Misplaced Pages:Hatnotes, and his comment on my user talk page reveals that he feels the page is an inactive proposal. I disagree (I thought it was an active guideline), but the page hasn't been updated in a while; should this page be rejuvinated and/or perhaps integrated into the MoS? —AySz88\^-^ 15:28, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• Note that the page was never marked "guideline". I would have no objection to it becoming part of the MOS, but must point out that the last serious discussion was in July. (Radiant) 15:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

End of copied section.

I think this is more a case of a proposal being written to reflect practice at the time, and to help prevent diverging practices. It seems that either people started following it, or they always did follow it (from what I can tell, the hatnote templates are widely used). I suspect the proposal just never got tidied up and pushed forward to being a guideline or merged into the Manual of Style. The absence of anything on hatnotes in the MoS is rather a glaring omission. I would support this loose end being tidied up and accepted, rather than just tagged "inactive" - which struck me at the time as very strange - people add hatnotes all the time - the practice of using hatnotes is not inactive, which is what some people might have thought when they saw the page tagged as inactive (I realise that Radiant was probably tagging the proposal, not the activity, but not everyone clearly understands this difference). Ditto for the recent tagging of the Misplaced Pages:Death threats proposal as inactive (by me, not Radiant) - some people might interpret this to mean that they can get away with death threats! I think we need to be careful with these "inactive" tags. Carcharoth 13:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• The obvious solution against death threats would be redirecting it to NPA, which already has a clause on it. I have, of course, no objection to a MOS page about hatnotes, but I have not had sufficient experience with hatnotes to write it myself. Hence, until someone can be found to write it, we don't actually have such a MOS page, and this proposal is presently inactive. (Radiant) 15:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, the rewritten tag I had there was my initial attempt to avoid this, but the redirect you did for 'Misplaced Pages:Death threats' looks good. I've moved the tag to the talk page to prevent people adding discussion to that talk page, but still leaving the talk there for people to read, plus a link directing people to the talk page of WP:NPA. I've also updated the archives box at the top of WT:NPA to link to the talk page when a subpage has been turned into a redirect. Hopefully people following old links to Misplaced Pages:Death threats will work out what has happened here! As for the hatnotes, I'll wait a bit to see if anyone else wants to volunteer, and then I'll see about setting up something in the MoS. I'll add a note over there. Carcharoth 15:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Agree that Hatnotes does summarize current practices and is a useful guideline. older ≠ wiser 16:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Helping Misplaced Pages editors see purpose of Discussion pages

I shall plead guilty, but I have to admit that I have used the Discussion page to discuss a topic, rather than - as Misplaced Pages discussion pages are meant to be - discussion of the article as it appears in Misplaced Pages. Would it be an idea to include, heading the occasional article, examples of what would be and what would not be acceptable commentary on the "Discussion" page, so that new Misplaced Pages editors can learn? ACEO 20:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Some of the more well known articles have templates such as {{talkheader}} at the top which give the information you're looking for. This uses a parser function to only tell you not to discuss its subject if it's in Talk: space, as opposed to Misplaced Pages talk: space etc. Tra (Talk) 22:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Pay no attention to any of that. You can discuss anything you like on talk and many editors do. It's good to stay on track and relevant to the matter at hand but the only thing I really care about is that you remain rational, polite, and fairly respectful of your fellow editors' status as human beings. John Reid ° 02:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with John. Talkheader and those types should only be introduced when there is a huge problem with that or, like let's say on a Soap Opera, the article is a stub yet there are hundreds of comments on the discussion page talking about "how hot he was" "did you see what she was wearing?" "can you wait till next week?" "can you believe they did that".... In instances like that, it is okay to introduce those templates to get the ball rolling. Cbrown1023 02:27, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Article Improvement Drive 2

We have WP:ACID, which chooses an article to collaborate on once a week. I propose (although it is likely to get rejected, as my proposals always do) that we start a second Drive that, unlike its sister, collaborates on the chosen article until it is featured. --Gray Porpoise 22:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I actually like that idea but if you have an "until FA" approach, then focusing on a single article does not appear reasonnable. We all have different areas of expertise and it would make sense to have a project that picks, one article in science, one in history, one on technology and so on and only replaces them when they have reached FA status. One problem with the collaboration of the week is that there are many weeks where I don't feel like I can bring much except picking up typos and adding {{fact}} here and there. Pascal.Tesson 22:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• You may be interested in this: Misplaced Pages:100,000 feature-quality articles. (Radiant) 11:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikicite program - proposed name change

Wikicite is a .NET program that helps people to properly reference their Misplaced Pages articles. Recently User:CyberAnth attempted to create an article about it, but the article was rapidly deleted. CyberAnth created the article because he felt Wikicite was a valuable tool but it is very difficult to find without an article on Misplaced Pages that shows up in a search.

One of the issues contributing to the difficulty in searching is that Wikicite is also the name of a template, and a (unrelated) project. Some people have suggested a name change for the Wikicite program to avoid such confusion. But what should the new name be?

As the author of the Wikicite program I will go with a reasonable consensus. So its over to Wikipedians to decide on a new name, or to keep it as Wikicite. To find out more about the Wikicite program, take a look at User:Dmoss/Wikicite. To follow the discussion so far, take a look at User talk:Dmoss/Wikicite. Over to you. What should we call it? --Dave 23:23, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

From your dscription it sounds more like something that should be mentioned in Misplaced Pages: name space. How about wikiref or wikireference? ~ trialsanderrors 01:40, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Names mentioned at User_talk:Dmoss/Wikicite include WikeRef, WikiCitator, WikiBiblio, EasyCite, SimpleCite and QuickCite. I favor keeping it as Wiki--keeping "Wiki" in the name. CyberAnth 07:34, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

If the desire is to keep "Wiki" in the name, I'd go with "WikiRef", "Wikiref", or "wikiref". Reference is synonymous with citation. The citation templates use the <ref> and </ref> codes so there is a parallel there and a memory "hook". "WikiReference" or "Wikireference" are too long, in my opinion. The name also needs to be a generic "umbrella" name; the tool already handles three varieties of citation templates for web, book, and journal, and I believe Dmoss would like to expand its capabilites in the future.

Since the citation templates are in all lower-case ({{cite web}}, {{cite book}}, etc.), perhaps keeping the name in all lower-case as well—"wikiref"—would be appropriate.—Chidom   12:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• And don't forget to put it in the Misplaced Pages namespace. It's not a good idea for an article. (Also, I link on WP:TOOLS may be appropriate if it works. - Mgm| 13:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Change The Deletion Policy

I think we should shange the deltion policy to where if follows all sensiable rules and if it does not hurt anything we should keep it. A article was recently deleted because it did not have importance on the subject, and that was the only reason it ws deleted.The topic did have importance to some people-just not the administrator that saw- so there was no reason to delete it. The people of that fourm created it to have a quick helpers guide and overview for members on it. The article helped some and hurt nobody so there was no real reason to delete it, and this is why i think we should change the deletion policy to where as long the article follows all other rules than the importance rule and it is not spam it should stay. Spartan 7 04:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Even though anyone is free to edit wikipedia, the project is about building an encyclopedia. In the course of this, we've had to develop certain standards and policies. An important one helps us define not what WP is, but what wikipedia is not. Among other things, it is not a how-to guide. Please don't be discouraged by a bad experience, there are many ways you could help contribute to wikipedia; writing a whole article from the ground up is a tough one; maybe it would be better to start small and work a little bit on other articles while you get to know the ropes. --Doc Tropics 09:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Why does the forum need to use Misplaced Pages space for their forum-specific information? Why can't it be stored on the forum's webpage? User:Zoe|(talk) 22:52, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I think some people are wa-a-a-a-a-y too overzealous to delete, and adhere to all sorts of letters of policies that get in the way of building a unique and reliable encyclopedia. I am completely in favor of revisiting the subject on many fronts. CyberAnth 22:58, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Deletion is largely based on the ability (actually, the lack thereof) to provide reliable, third party sources which can be referenced to write an encyclopedia article about something notable. If an article cannot be referenced to provide more information than say, a telephone book or high school yearbook entry, would provide, it has got to go. Every fact in an article should be verifiable. If all of the verifiable facts are non-notable, then the article should be deleted. It is that simple. It has nothing to do with harm. Likewise, there should be no benefit to having an article here. If deleting an article makes its subject less notable in the world, it didn't belong here in the first place. --Jayron32 06:11, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Policy: Television

I propose we get a policy going on television personalities, because WP:BIO isn't really enough and there is a bit of controvery in some AfD debates. Atlantis Hawk 07:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

• What, specifically, do you suggest? Are we too quick to delete TV personalities? Or too quick to keep them? It might help if you link to some of the relevant AFD debates. (Radiant) 11:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
• I agree with Radiant, how specifically would it be differerent than WP:BIO? BIO criteria seems quite approriate and relevant for TV personalities to me... - Tutmosis 17:12, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
  • WP:BIO currently isn't being applied properly to reality contestants. There is a decided lack of discussion regarding it at WP:BIO, to boot. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Can you give an example of that? The primary notability criterion would seem to be pretty simple to apply to !reality show contestants; the major problem people have in applying it is confusion over the difference between the topic of the article being the subject of the source or merely mentioned there. JChap2007 18:24, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Badlydrawnjeff said the magic word himself: contestants. A contestant is just that. That the contest was televised makes no difference unless we want to hand out articles to everyone who was ever a contestant on Match Game and Wheel of Fortune. Contestants, be they on game shows or reality shows, are not actors and actresses. They are not emcees, hosts or personalities. They are simply... contestants. And that doesn't automatically imbue notability. wikipediatrix 18:43, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I agree...articles for every contestant from every game show is by no means neccesary, but some (Michael Larson, Ken Jennings) are probably exceptions. But then that brings up the question of where to draw the line. Paragon12321 00:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
        • It seems that particular line would be if the contestant is ever mentioned (in reliable sources) in a different context than the show itself. If not, all sources are really talking about the show as a whole, and the contestant should redirect there. (Radiant) 09:38, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Instead of "in a different context than the show itself", I'd say "in a non-trivial publication that focused on the person in question rather than the show". The show can still be mentioned. - Mgm| 13:26, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this subject recently and tried to organize my thoughts at User:Dina/Workshop/Reality Television Characters. Please edit mercilessly, or give feedback. Cheers. Dina 13:54, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

"For other uses" of what?

We have this template {{otheruses}}. It's very convenient for linking to a disambiguation page, printing out:

For other uses, see Pagename (disambiguation).

But imagine yourself as a first-time visitor, new user, or someone whose first language is not English. In many contexts, it reads as if it's saying "For other uses of this article's subject", instead of "For articles on different subjects that have the same name as this one".

When someone sees "For other uses, see Woman (disambiguation).", do they think "For other uses of women", or do they think "For other uses of the term 'woman'"? It doesn't even make sense in certain contexts, like "For other uses, see William Herschel (disambiguation)."

I and several other people think it needs to be worded better. There have been several suggestions, but none have stuck. Either they aren't "inaccurate" to the purpose of disambiguation pages ("not all the articles on a disambig have 'similar names'!") or people just want things to be done the way they always have been. But I bet someone can come up with a clear, concise, accurate phrase. Some of the ideas so far:

• For other meanings, see...
• For other senses, see...
• For other articles with similar names, see...
• Not what you were looking for? Try...
• There are other articles with similar names. See PageName (disambiguation) if this isn't what you were looking for.
• Disambiguation: for other uses, see...
• For other uses of this term, see...

Please suggest alternatives. See Template talk:otheruses and Talk:Disambiguation. — Omegatron 04:44, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Haven't been to those talk pages yet, but a quick fix might be a new otheruses template:

For {{{1|other uses}}}, see ]

or

For {{{1|other uses}}}, see ]

Individualizing the treatment of articles with regard to the wording of the template might help resolve the ambiguity inherent in the template and its wide use. Nihiltres 05:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think making the template more complicated helps anything. Why must it be a variation on "For other x"? — Omegatron 08:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

AFAIC, {{Otheruses}} is just fine most of the time. Where some variation is appropriate, just use {{dablink}}. I don't see much point to constructed an elaborate array of templates -- but then there are a lot of things on WP that I don't really see the point of (like stub-sorting, or overly specific categorization). older ≠ wiser 14:11, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

No offense but anyone who reads "for other uses, see Woman (disambiguation)" and thinks "other uses of women" needs to get their head examined. I personally think that on the long run, uniformity in the presentation is more important than avoiding problems with the occasional idiot. That being said, I don't mind tweaking the wording of the template but I'd rather have a single template that we use in all situations, for the sake of uniformity of presentation. Pascal.Tesson 01:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Haven't been to those talk pages yet, but... That is where you should take up this discussion. That's where all the previous discussion is stored and that's where all the dab experts hang out. Read first, read deep, then comment. Thank you. John Reid ° 09:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to bring more people into the discussion. — Omegatron 00:27, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I think "For other meanings" is the best alternative. Many Misplaced Pages readers are not native speakers of English. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Notability (comedy)

Could some editors take a look at Misplaced Pages:Notability (comedy)? It has already been used six times in AfD discussions:

1. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/All Sorts of Trouble for the Boy in the Bubble Sketch Comedy
2. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Swami X
3. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Foe Pa
4. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Women Fully Clothed
5. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Memphis Improvisational Theatre
6. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/The Wiseguys: Comedy You Can't Refuse

The most recent discussions, for the Wiseguys, highlighted some area of the guideline that possibly might be improved/clarified, so I will take a look at doing that. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 07:47, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

This proposed guideline is a mess. There are, what, over a DOZEN secondary inclusion criteria? That is rediculous. When any guideline includes any criteria over the primary notability criteria it should do so only for specific, narrowly defined reasons. For a good example of a guideline that does this, see WP:CORP. If there are not non-trivial third party references to cite in an article, we can't include enough information to make the subject notable. All secondary criteria are either redunant with the primary criteria (and thus pointless) or they extend it beyond what can be used to write a good article. In the WP:CORP example, the secondary criteria DO extend inclusion to articles otherwise not-notable, but only for a narrowly defined reason, which is the solution to a unique problem. There is no evidence that ANY of the secondary criteria in this guideline serve any purpose except to allow editors to circumvent the clearly defined standards of the Primary Notability Criteria which only allows for the creation of substandard or unverifiable articles. --Jayron32 06:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I adopted this from Misplaced Pages:Notability (music), and other than modifications for the genre, it is largely very similar. I'm not really sure I understand how to address your arguments. Actually, I'm not really sure I understand your arguments. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 21:53, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Flagging blocked users

At the moment there is a mechanism that allows a user or an IP to see when they have new messages; this box appears at the top of every page until the message is read. I propose that we have something similar for blocked users: to have a message, at the top of each and every page they look at, reminding them they have been blocked for bad behaviour - including the blocking time, date and reason.

• Most useful in schools - if someone is blocked, it is immediately obvious to teachers in which class a block was raised, and that can possibly be pinned straight onto a person. Accountability increases, and hopefully reduces the rate of vandalism. More visible to a non-WPer than finding the talk page and then searching down it to find the reason.
• Marginally useful for dynamic IPs - same reason of visibility, though this time to innocent parties who arrive on the back end of someone else's ban.
• Deterrent - being blocked from WP does not affect the ability of the user to research content; I don't believe that ability should be restricted, but it at least makes printing the page more difficult without flagging the vandal student.
• Deterrent - for those who never found the talk page, and the warnings on it. I thought the talk page was obvious, until I saw someone blithely researching pages with a new-messages box at the top of his screen, who simply determinedly checked his email more often.
• May be clearer to innocents who want to edit a page? If the message begins "This (IP, machine, computer?) was blocked from editing Misplaced Pages on..." it may be more informative than the current message recieved when a blocked user hits edit - not sure how true this is, haven't been banned!

Negatives:

• May aggravate the problem of people going round on multiple machines and getting banned in as many places as possible?

It should hopefully be simple to implement since the mechanism is already present from the new-message dialog. I want to propose the inclusion of latest-warning at the top of the page instead, but I think that's probably too complicated for now and would really be a second version of this proposal. Please add +ve/-ve to the list above if you think of any! --Firien § 10:35, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

What an unnecessarily aggressive, almost vindictive proposal! I am pleased to see the complete lack of support so far. Sumahoy 03:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with this. It should be as clear as possible to a new user that their IP has been blocked so that they can ask for it to be unblocked or they can register if they want to edit. This could make it easier for well-meaning editors to use IPs that have been blocked by others' actions. --Chris Griswold (☎☓)

Misplaced Pages:Overcategorization

This is a list of kinds of inappropriate categorization, as extracted from existing policy/guideline as well as CFD precedent. Comments wanted. (Radiant) 14:49, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The trouble with lists

I'm sure this has been noted before, but quite often references on a list will differ from the articles to which they link. For instance in the list of most luminous stars lists the luminosity of the Pistol star as 6,500,000, whereas the page itself suggests a value of 1,600,000. Currently I've tagged this as , but I suppose thats not quite the correct tag to use, and so I wondered if there were something along the line of or with which I could tag particular facts, rather than a tagging a whole page as needing cleanup. --Neo 12:53, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

e-mail notification of talk page messages

Strange, I got to thinking that this might be a good idea this morning. I guess it's just some big cosmic coincidence that it is a new feature at the commons. Are there any plans to enable it here at the 'pedia? It would be very useful to me. Checking my talk page is like having to check e-mail twice! Mike 22:31, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Featured Diagrams

Diagrams keep getting shot down at Featured pictures, which makes sense since they are not pictures. So I would like to start Featured Diagrams as an area for diagram makers to be recognized and hopefully to build community. After a number of diagrams were "featured" they could then be put into the rotation for picture of the day. -Ravedave 04:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Depends on whay kinds of diagrams you're thinking of. Can you direct me to an example?--Ed 04:52, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Everything on this page is diagrams that made it through FPC: Misplaced Pages:Featured_pictures/Diagrams,_Drawings,_and_Maps -Ravedave 04:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

And as a note both the villian and the animated horse have been nominated for removal more than once. -Ravedave 04:57, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Automatic transliteration for languages with different orthographies?

Some languages do have several official written forms, the different wikipedia language projects however just choose one most common ones to use. What I was thinking of, would be an option of automatic transliteration for those languages in question (such as Serbian) - having an additional page in the other writing for each article - and each edit would automatically result in an tranliterated update in the sister page. This way, Belarusian wiki, would there be a lacinka version, would be accessable to Polish speakers; Croats could use the Serbian one; Tojik could be used by Persians etc. Aside from that people in different counties may use the same language, but different writing systems - such as the Molodvans and Romanians (their two wikipedias were recently merged after some hot debates), or Chechens living outside Russia; It maybe should have been submitted as a software feature request via the bug report thing, but, well, let's first hear what you think about it! It's somewhat politically controversial after all. Mind that the languages in question (Yiddish, Serbian, Chechen etc.) do not have that many articles and wouldn't take that much space in doubled form. EDIT: Actually, serbian wikipedia works exactly that way. The Azeri or Roma versions, however, do it in a strange way. The front page in both is typed in two scripts, articles seem to be random - I rephraze the question: What about using the Serbian way as standard for the diff. lang.? Maybe for am./br. English as well? Turkmenbashy 13:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I aggree with this idea. It could be applied to so many language sets. List of languages to which transliteration can be applied: Hindi and Urdu (there are many online and offline transliteration tools availble for free) Charles.2345 16:20, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Dissimilar color usage in charts and diagrams

There are so many people (including me) who have trouble differentiating between similiar/close colors/hues. Therefore Misplaced Pages should have a policy on this. Let me illustrate my point. If you see the chart of population at http://en.wikipedia.org/Image:World_population.PNG you will find countries marked in different (but close colors).

The problem is that we can not find out the population values using the legend as the color/filling pattern is not easily distinguishable on the legend. Now I would know that the population of Guyana is more than that of French Guyana (see image http://en.wikipedia.org/Image:Suedamerika-klein.jpg to see the location of these countries (top of the continent 'South America')). But it is very hard to find out what actually is the population range of French Guyana. Is it 100K+ or 50K+?

As you would aggree the first information was easy as we were comparing two shades close to each other (color filled in the two nearby countries) but when we want to find the value, we need to compare the shade in the country with that in the legend which is far away from them. But if it were a pattern like 'diagonal blue lines', 'checkered red pattern', 'black and white circles" etc it would be easier.

What I want is that we should not just depend on colors. There should be some more aid; hover-on text-information (which I think is best) or the legend should use patters along with colors and the colors should also be strikingly different (please read my comment on http://en.wikipedia.org/Image_talk:Audiocv.gif#Why_so_similiar_colors.3F)

If one is making a chart like above where only a handful or colors are needed then we must make them as contrasting as possible. Because for charts with many items in the legend (as in the population chart which we saw above) we are anyway going to do some more reasearch to find out the values, unless one does put the effort to make them strikingly different by using patterns, designs, differnt styles of lines, dots and finally colors or one makes it dynamic with 'hover-over-the-item-to find-the-value'.

Please second this if you aggree and also tell me if I should suggest it at some other place in the Village pump or Misplaced Pages. Charles.2345 17:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Accessibility guidelines are at Misplaced Pages:Accessibility, which are incorporated by reference in Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:31, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Rick. I now found the right place to point to the people who contribute without sticking to these guidelines.Charles.2345 04:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair use in portals

There is a discussion in Misplaced Pages:Fair use/Amendment/Fair use images in portals about whether to allow fair use images in portals. Although it might have been brought up before, it has not closed as consensus has not been reached for either side. Ddcc 20:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

List of User Add-Ons

I think that it would be good if there was a list/catagory where all the "user add-ons" (like the scripts a person can add to thier monobook.js files, or the monobook.css files, if they use monobook.) are listed, as there are plenty of them, but they're hard to find, as there is no list or catagory where they are.--//Mac Lover _C 02:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:WikiProject User scripts, Misplaced Pages:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts and m:Gallery of user styles. Tra (Talk) 03:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but those are 3 different places, I was thinking about 1 place.--//Mac Lover _C 05:16, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

new article entitled "List of area code cross-references"

As a programmer I often consult the Misplaced Pages to find data to help me create help files or references. A good example is the list of area codes contained in the Misplaced Pages. From this list I have created an array to index City and State using area code. Problem is that sometimes programs need to provide users with even more information. For instance, if the program is calculating sunset and sunrise it needs to know latitude and longitude as well as the local time zone. The program could ask the user to input this information but if he uses his modem for dialup chances are he already provided the answer.

Since Windows XP has no provision to provide user location information beyond area code such programs need to be able to use this info to get whatever else it needs. Since others may have a similar need I would like to create an article entitled "List of area code cross-references" in either CSV comma delimted or in wikitable format depending upon the preference of each editor who responds. Adaptron 07:36, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Format:

COUNTRY CODE, IDD PREFIX, NDD PREFIX, NPA, NXX, COUNTRY, STATE, CITY, ZIPCODE_POSTALCODE, COUNTY, LATITUDE, LONGITUDE, TIME ZONE

I probably have not looked hard enough for this, but a totally cool and obvious addition to Misplaced Pages would be to have a

• Misplaced Pages community forums
• To Village Pump (assistance)