Misplaced Pages

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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:

• Read this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.
• 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.

etymology field to the anatomical entries

I would like to suggest adding an etymology field to the anatomical entries of Misplaced Pages which are in Latin. For example: "latissimus dorsi" Etymology: New Latin, literally, "broadest (muscle) of the back"

Practical jokes in "new message" boxes

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but here goes. Are there any restrictions on off-site links - and if not, should there be? Many editors have probably seen the practical joke imitation "new message" banners that redirect to the Wiki article on practical jokes, or something similar. However, yesterday I came across one that redirected off-site to a blog page. I asked the editor to reconsider the setup, since there was no indication to a casual user that such a jump would occur. He appreciated my concerns, and reworked his pages accordingly. However, at the same time, he pointed out another user's "joke" nm banner, advising me to "Make sure your anti-virus is up to date." I didn't actually click the link, but found that it linked off-site to a CGI titled "brain.cgi" - which apparently has some reports of virus activity connected to it. Thoughts? --Ckatz_spy 09:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Malicious links have no place on wikipedia. (even articles like shock site need to make it explicitly clear what lies on the other side.) Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

If it were up to me, I'd ban every single one of those silly immature new message joke banners. It isn't funny, the joke wore thin ages ago and they are just plain annoying. But, it isn't up to me. pschemp | talk 09:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Concur. Let's get rid of them. There is a page somewhere saying that userpages are for the purpose of writing the encyclopedia (not an exact quote). I always took this to mean that anything off-topic can be brought up for discussion and possible removal. Along with userboxes, this seems to be a prime example. Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I've disabled the external link in question . I didn't dare look at the link in question but a peek at it through on online web checking tool confirms the presence of a script. Very naughty. Megapixie 10:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Hah he reverted it back. On closer inspection it is harmless - but it's very naughty disguising an external link as an internal one. Megapixie 10:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

So everyone agrees that it is acceptable to delete fake "you have new messages" boxes? CMummert · talk 12:58, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think all we need to do is adopt wording in policy somewhere that spoofing the MediaWiki UI is not allowed and it will be open season on the little buggers. —Doug Bell  13:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I added a paragraph at Misplaced Pages:User page (here) and pointed discussion this way. CMummert · talk 13:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I have never supported a change more than this one. Said elements are annoying. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I would also agree with disallowing this sort of practical joke. I think there was a situation in which one of the userbox migration bots kept stopping because it came across fake new-messages banners and thought they were real, so this is more important than just the annoyance value. (It's kind of ironic that users sporting such banners had their userboxes gradually degrade due to the bots not being able to replace them, but this interfered with other users too.) --ais523 15:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the fake 'You have new messages' banners should be banned. However, with the bots, if they come across a false-positive new-messages banner, they can always check http://en.wikipedia.org/w/query.php?what=userinfo&uihasmsg to see if they really do have messages. Tra (Talk) 15:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The annoyance factor certainly high, but I didn't think about the potential for username phishing and other fraud before this morning. Since these fake messages have no positive function, the easiest thing is just to make them deletable on sight. CMummert · talk 16:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Not all UI changes are disruptive or confusing. This wording needs to be rethought. Take a look at User:Coelacan, where I have a username overlay. Nothing wrong with that. — coelacan talk — 21:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course not everything is disruptive. The sort of page the wording is intended to cover is User:Drahcir (this version). It isn't going to be possible to define "disruptive" objectively, so some common sense will be required in applying the policy. I don't expect an automated "user page bot" to go around scanning for unsuitable user pages. CMummert · talk 22:01, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Faking the UI is intentionally creating confusion where something looks like clicking on it will give you one thing when it gives you another, or producing a page that looks like something it isn't (like creating a user page the looks like the page you get when there is no user page by that name). Decorative changes that don't impact how someone interacts with the UI wouldn't meet this criteria. As CMummert points out, however, trying to define this too narrowly leaves the definition open to abuse. —Doug Bell  22:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Lone voice of dissent here. I think declaring open season on a harmless joke (I'm only talking about the harmless versions, like the one that was just removed from User:Certified.Gangsta's userpage) is unkind and petty. It sorts oddly with the next sentence, which has been there for a long time, and which I really like: "As a tradition, Misplaced Pages offers wide latitude to users to manage their user space as they see fit." The new suggestion also fits badly with all the other matters under the heading "What can I not have on my user page?", because those all have very good reasons. For instance, putting extensive personal information, or fair use images, on userpages is readily seen to be actually harmful. The fake New Messages box thing is the only single one that's merely based on irritation. I ask people to please reconsider. What happened to "The Misplaced Pages community is generally tolerant"? Also, it seems illogical to bother to say "please", if the jokes are actually going to be vigilantly removed and "should" not be put back. That's not "please", that's an order. If y'all want to include advice against joke messageboxes in this guideline, OK, but could we please at least leave it as advice, rather than encourage other users to go on removal rampages? Because that's going to upset people. Bishonen | talk 01:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

I agree, as annoying as I think they are, I think it's better to mention it as advice not order. It's not THAT annoying. If they are disruptive (linking to a virus/script) yes, then obviously they have to go. Garion96 (talk) 01:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

We tolerate silly user page content up to the point at which it becomes harmful. Deliberately misleading people in this manner impedes their efforts to build an encyclopedia. These pranks are flagrantly harmful, and I would have attempted to outlaw them long ago if I'd realized that so many others agreed. —David Levy 16:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Bishonen here. I find the fake messages stupid and annoying but I don't see much gain in outlawing them. I do however see one serious concern- there are occasional new editors who don't click on new message links since they think that the links are some sort of spam. This may be more likely if they were to click on one of the fake links before getting any new messages. However, this circumstance seems unlikely. JoshuaZ 01:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Here are the two reasons the reason that I support the change in the User page guideline.

1. Suppose that user A makes a fake UI that points to external site X. Then the person who controls external site X can, without the help of user A, turn site X into a phishing attack by making it a copy of the "You are not logged in" page.
2. There is no positive, or even good-faith, reason to put fake UI on your page. Its only purpose is to harass other users. Given that it is also a potential security risk, we might as well say that it "may" be removed.

It is true that there is great lenience about user pages, but it seems reasonable that the guideline can ask users not to engage in behavior that is broadly offensive to the community. This is underlined by the potential phishing risk of fake UI - it should not benecessary to doubt every UI link when editing a user's talk page. CMummert · talk 01:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Upon further reflection, I realized the issue is already covered by WP:DICK. CMummert · talk 02:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Gee, it's hard to think of things much worse to put on your user page than things that undermine the trust we expect people to have in the UI of the site. Much more disruptive than a nasty statement on their user page that we wouldn't allow. Why oh why we want to tiptoe around letting people spoof the UI so that we don't cut into the freedom of expression allowed on their user page I don't get. It's a small curtailment of what people are allowed with a better reason than much of what is on the current policy. —Doug Bell  02:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Last night I removed this very fake-banner suggestion from the 'motto of the day' project. That would have added the fake banner to dozens(hundreds?) of user pages. Ick. Barring it altogether gets my support. It's a bad meme, and should be snuffed out. However, I think the section currently at Misplaced Pages:User page is in violation of WP:BEANS...? --Quiddity 02:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:BEANS is always a Catch-22: if there is no written guideline, then it is much harder to argue in favor of removing things, but every guideline in oppositon of some behavior violates WP:BEANS. Still, when I wrote the current wording, I made it as vague as possible because I respect the idea behind WP:BEANS. Can you rewrite it to be even more vague while still being comprehensible to the average editor? CMummert · talk 03:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Good point; struck. (I guess I was hoping there was a solution to that, which I just hadn't thought of. ah well) --Quiddity 06:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

There is one useful benefit to the practical joke you have messages. It lets the reader know that the user whose page they're looking at is, more than likely, a dick. I don't think they're worth banning on that ground alone, there are plenty of other cases of things that are rude and stupid but legal. And so there should be, because creating thou-shall-nots all the way to the border of good behaviour will inevitably mean that we overshoot sometimes, and ban some good behaviours. But given that the messages will cause some bots to stop, I agree with the prohibition, at least until there is another equally simple way for bots to know that they really have message. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a simple way for bots to find out if they have new messages. In fact, it's even simpler than screen scraping as it's an api. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/query.php?what=userinfo&uihasmsg will show if the bot has messages and http://en.wikipedia.org/w/query.php will document this function. However, a down side of this is that an extra server request must be made every time the banner appears to check if it's legitimate. Tra (Talk) 11:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that a fake new-messages bar is worth complicating bot programming for. I also don't think that there's a query.php uihasmsg check built in to the popular bot frameworks, so it would mean changes to existing bot code (which can be a bad idea; imagine if a new-messages banner was confusing an adminbot, it would have to go through a new RfA so that the uihasmsg check could be implemented!). By the way, Tra, you probably want to change the output format of that query.php check from the human-readable xmlfm, which has to be screen-scraped, into something more useful for bots. --ais523 11:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

you probably want to change the output format Yes, I know it would need to be changed; I just left it as xmlfm for this discussion, which is being read by humans, and not bots. Tra (Talk) 12:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm still amazed by all the angst this proposal is creating in the name of freedom on user pages. We're not "creating thou-shall-nots all the way to the border of good behaviour"—we're talking about a very specific, practical and non-content-based prohibition on spoofing the UI. There's not lots of gray area here or some dangerous slippery slope. Even without the bot issue I would think this is a no-brainer; with the bot issue this should be a slam dunk. —Doug Bell  12:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Bots, slam-dunk. Off-wiki links of any sort, slam-dunk. On-wiki practical joke type links, I don't like them. But it feels heavy handed to ban them just because they're childish and annoying. Regards, Ben Aveling 12:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

• Excellent idea to finally ban those stupid new message boxes (by which, of course, I do not mean banning the users that create them). >Radiant< 12:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

DOWN with fake MediaWiki UI elements!!! HighInBC 17:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't have an issue with the existence of the joke as it wasn't funny when I didn't click on it the first time. However, shouldn't hiding a malicious link be a bannable offense? MLA 17:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I think purposely hiding any external link is a punishable offense. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I consider that this div class (usermessage) has been abused, and that its abuse should be curtailed by enforcement, not by a “please don’t” message on WP:UP. Most importantly, the community is able to be elastic about interpretation of WP:UP in murky cases. If consensus is against such orange user messages, which appears to be the case, then they shall be removed. There may also have to be an MFD for all of the user subpages of the general note “Sign here if you’ve been fooled, lol!” Gracenotes § 18:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The "please don't" message is unlikely to curtail the fake boxes without enforcement. Having the wording in the policy guideline just makes it clear that there is consensus against them. —Doug Bell  19:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Policy.. ? You're talking about "enforcing" a guideline. If what you want is "banning" the boxes, and sending in the marines to aggressively remove them (which seems to me quite counter to the wikipedia spirit, and you, Radiant, may wish to flee in terror in an orderly manner round about now), perhaps you should in fact propose a policy to that effect. Bishonen | talk 19:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

In this case, however, this proposal and common sense line up very well. Guidelines should not be ignored unless there's a relatively good reason or exception. Enforcement... would be troublesome, yes. Editors might feel insulted if they were compelled to follow it by force. Blocking someone else as a preventative measure, from putting a usermessage on his or her user page, is ridiculous and pernicious. Overall, that this issue appears light ignores some relatively significant consequences.

There is consensus against deceptive usermessage class use, but the enforcement of consensus is not required for general circumstances. I'm still wondering about whether a policy is worth it or not. Please fill in the following table as you see fit:

This table can also be completed for other UI elements, some more significant than others, others trivial compared to some. Gracenotes § 21:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it would be helpful to have a policy to point to. I disagree that the prohibition of deliberate trickery that interferes with the encyclopedia's construction runs counter to the Misplaced Pages spirit. —David Levy 21:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

As a proud owner of the practical joke banner, I firmly believe that outlawing the joke banner is against the true spirit of wikipedia. If we decide to censor everything on userpage, talkpage, and subpages, there are things such as User:Markaci/Nudity, which some people consider to be disruptive. It is basically a breach of individual freedom on userspace. I have removed the joke banner on my talkpage couple of months ago after a bitter dispute with User:Centrx who blocked me for 1 second for doing so despite strong opposition from the community and later refused to apologize. Since I believe talkpage is the main source of meaningful conversation on wikipedia, as a compromise, I removed the banner from the talkpage. However, subpages, archives, and userpages are different. Userpage is more about being creative, at least in my opinion. And just because I have a banner on my userpage doesn't automatically make a WP:Dick or a sockpuppeter.--Certified.Gangsta 02:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The one second block was for your habit of egregariously removing valid warnings because you viewed them as "a mark of shame", and unrelated to the banner. --tjstrf talk 02:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Those warnings are not valid, obviously. That guy is abusing the system and admin priviledges. Anyway, I could've build a case to desysop him but I don't have time. The reason he blocked me seems to start from the banner dispute which he interpret as deception. Then things escalated from there. Then he randomly framed some unjust accusation to make me look bad out of personal vendetta obviously. The other thing is, if wikipeida is only for editing, we might as well remove userpages altogether since only talkpage is relevant to actual editing.Certified.Gangsta 02:49, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

We allow user pages to contain practically any type of content that doesn't cause harm. Deliberately interfering with people's attempts to improve the encyclopedia is harmful. —David Levy 03:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

They were valid warnings for delivering incivil threats of ban to other users. And you're continuing your disruptive behaviour along the same lines now by removing anything you don't like and saying that well-grounded warnings from admins are invalid. I suggest you drop both the vendetta against Centrx and the unfunny disruptive banner. --tjstrf talk 03:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

You're reincarnating the favorite straw man used against this proposal—censor everything. This isn't about censoring anything, it's about not mucking with the user interface of the site. There's no slippery slope involved with censoring content associated with this proposal because it has nothing to do with content, only with form. —Doug Bell  02:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The "true spirit of Misplaced Pages" does not include deliberately deceiving fellow users in a manner that impedes their efforts to improve the encyclopedia. —David Levy 03:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

First user already blocked over a guideline which is still being discussed.David Levy, you have now removed the banner three times from Certified.gangsta's userpage, and threatened to block him if he restores it again. This is exactly the kind of behavior I was worried about when I saw the proposed new paragraph, and I don't mean CG's, I mean yours. Would you consider walking away for a few hours, please? Sleep on it, and think about it? I'd also be interested to know if this type of conflict escalation is what other people were envisioning when they expressed approval of the new paragraph? I have reverted, by the way, removing the bit about how users "should not put it back", which you had re-inserted with this edit summary. I've got to ask, why are you so angry? P.S. Breaking news: and now I see you HAVE blocked him. This is too, too bad. Please unblock, or I will. :-( Bishonen | talk 03:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

1. I suggest that you re-evaluate your opinion that users should be permitted to forge software messages for the purpose of deliberately confusing and misleading others (thereby preventing them from improving the encyclopedia).

2. I removed these banners from more than 90 pages, and this is the only user to edit-war over the matter so far.

3. I did unblock Certified.Gangsta as soon as he/she promised to cease the disruption. He/she then explained that this promise is valid for 24 hours, so I'm prepared to re-block if the disruption resumes. —David Levy 03:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This makes me want to add it to my userpage, even though I think it's stupid. But I won't, and only because I don't edit to make a point. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Two cents here... when I was a newbie, I clicked on those joke "new messages" banners. Now that I've been around a while, I get the joke and don't click on them. Heck, I can go in my monobook.css and make my real "new messages" appear some other color or whatever. But, for the sake of newbies (per WP:BITE), these practical jokes should not be allowed. --Aude (talk) 03:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've got yet another con. When I'm on a slow computer (read: public one) and am just logging in for a few minutes (you know, just to make sure no one is calling for my head, maybe copyedit something, maybe make a follow-up comment on some talk page) these fake message bars can be really disruptive and time-consuming. They serve no positive purpose, yet they serve multiple negative ones. Luckily, I'm seeing consensus to remove them based on this thread, and will do so. Picaroon 03:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll invoke a wider consensus, as the matter of the guideline addition, and of this block in particular, is now on ANI. Bishonen | talk 04:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

Get rid of all of them. They've been annoying for a long time now. --Cyde Weys 04:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Lots of stuff is annoying. It's just a little joke, and it allows editors to feel human. We're not unfeeling content-generating robots - at least, those who are either have accounts ending in -bot or are not welcome anyway. Dehumanizing editors does not help build an encyclopedia, and I think that those who think it does are misguided. --Random832(tc) 04:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Am I the only one who sees the irony in this statement coming from someone with the user name Random832? :-) —Doug Bell  05:08, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

There's plenty of potential user page content (including humor) that causes no known harm. Is it so much to ask that people not waste other users' time by deliberately tricking them via forged software messages? —David Levy 06:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

P.S., David Levy, can you defend your characterization of these as "deliberately confusing and misleading others (thereby preventing them from improving the encyclopedia)."? --Random832(tc) 04:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

In case it wasn't clear, the word "deliberately" applies strictly to the "confusing and misleading others" part. The time wasted (which prevents the editors from improving the encyclopedia) is an unintentional (but nonetheless harmful) side effect of this joke. —David Levy 06:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Folks common sense needs to apply here. To make a blanket rule that's going to block everything resembling MediaWiki functionality including lame "new message" joke alerts is just draconian. There are no doubt legitimate concerns about users spoofing certains functions of MediaWiki but I'll be hard pressed to agree with those who want to inlcude the Practical joke "new message" alert amongst those concerns. (→Netscott) 04:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, there are worse examples, but that doesn't mean that this one isn't bad. —David Levy 06:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

David Levy, where did you get the impression that there is strong consensus for your block?--Certified.Gangsta 05:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I've made no such claim. Evidently, some people believe that I overreacted. I disagree. You deliberately violated a guideline (which you knew existed to prevent disruption) after being warned not to. You also removed the warning. —David Levy 06:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not an understatement to say over 95% of wikipedians believe you overreacted. The guideline is deliberately added by you and active discussion is still ongoing here, with various minor edit war on the guideline page. Unilaterally removing the banner, harssing me on my userpage, then intentionally warning/blocking me after you nearly break 3RR on my userpage is definite no-no for admins. The banner is not even disruption. I consider your warning to be one-sided, subjective, and an invalid threat. Basically, an abuse of administrative priviledge.--Certified.Gangsta 06:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

1. You're right. That isn't an understatement; it's an overstatement. I take the concerns expressed by these users (whatever percentage they constitute) very seriously, but I disagree. This, however, doesn't mean that I would dismiss their viewpoints and block you again. If there is no consensus for such an action, so be it. I'm but one sysop trying my best to enforce policies and guidelines to the best of my understanding; I have no delusions of grandeur or belief that my opinions are sacrosanct.

2. Again, I didn't author the guideline addition.

3. My removal of the banner was far from unilateral. At the time, there was overwhelming consensus.

4. Advising a user to follow a guideline is not harassment, and the 3RR does not apply to the reversion of vandalism. (Deliberately violating a guideline that exists to prevent disruption is vandalistic in nature.) I would never block someone with whom I was involved in a legitimate content dispute.

5. Considering the fact that I unblocked you as soon as you agreed to stop restoring the banner, would you care to retract your previous allegation that I sought to stop you from participating in this discussion? —David Levy 07:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This seems to me to be more of the same militantism that rears it's head on Misplaced Pages every so often. Some users seem to think Misplaced Pages should be as clean, stiff and dour as an English tea room or a board meeting in Japan, forgetting this is somethign most us do for FUN. Improving this project is, or at least should, not be another job, with a thousand HR decrees. It's a joke. take it case by case. Make the rule say such things should never lead to external sites, or to content of a non-family nature within wikipedia, for example Genital Piercings. But if you've got a fake 'leave me a message' up that leads to the Hand page, as in 'talk to the...', that's funny. Lame, but funny. (ish.). Tolerate it, and move on. I don't even see the associated WP:DICK in it that some here seem to. Learn to laugh. I try to remember, when I hit those things, that that user's here to have a GOOD time, and I should too. ThuranX 06:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages should be profressional. Playing jokes on other users is being uncivil. I support allowing it because wikipedia is BASED on freedom and accepting a whole host of different editors. There is no case where these things are helpful though, and users SHOULDN'T use them. I oppose enforcing such a rule, but support making it known to editors that it isn't appropriate. i kan reed 06:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

1. There are plenty of ways to have fun (and even joke) on user pages without deliberately confusing and misleading fellow editors.

2. Any attempt to deem certain types of content "non-family" in nature (and ban such links from user pages) would be met with far more controversy than this has been. —David Levy 06:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Alright, the idea of this - a spoof You Have New Messages box people can place at the top of their page - is really quite funny. But only as a joke told, not done. CyberAnth 06:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

My thinking doesn't fit the below poll. I think fake new message banners are annoying and I think a tiny bit less of contributors that use them, but they're harmless, as long as they don't lead anywhere bad. I'd support a suggestion that they not be used, and a further statement that if they DO lead anywhere bad, anyone can remove them with a good edit summary and a note on the user's talk page, and reinsertion is not approved. That may be too nuanced, but I have non standard things in my userpages too, and I'd hate to see us all restricted to everything completely standard. ++Lar: t/c 21:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Straw poll

There's plenty of commenting above, so please just register your position with your signature below. Leave the comments to the discussion above. ChrisGriswold removed the previous added text stating that there was no consensus, so I'd like to see if that's true or not.

Question: Should language similar to the following be added to WP:USER:

Please do not put fake versions of the MediaWiki user interface elements such as a fake "you have new messages" box or fake category links on your user page or user talk page. Because these fake elements are difficult to distinguish from the actual MediaWiki interface, they undermine trust and carry the appearance of fraud.

Why on earth do we need a poll? Good grief. Don't interpret this as a personal attack, but it appears that everyone in the community is fighting each other over something absolutely stupid and small, and not even bothering to block trolls or vandals. Ridiculous. If no good reason for a poll is brought up, I'll close this one. Yuser31415 20:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Yuser31415, although this is called a straw poll this is moreso a discussion and the reason this is true is that virtually every participant has voiced their views on it. (→Netscott) 20:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Agree

1. —Doug Bell  08:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
2. - Agne/ 08:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
3. There's room for harmless fun (including silly jokes) on user pages, but using forged software messages to deliberately confuse and mislead fellow editors is not harmless. —David Levy 08:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
4. This has the potential for serious abuse, and doesn't help build the encyclopedia. -Will Beback · † · 08:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
   • This is overbroad, why not just ban the "serious abuse" (I'd even support a blanket ban on containing external links in these) rather than everything? --Random832(tc) 17:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
5. It should be glaringly obvious to anybody who respects wikipedia and its encyclopedic purpose. Tyrenius 10:04, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
6. These false messages confuse new users and disrupt the activity of established editors who are trying to perform batch tasks. —Psychonaut 10:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
7. Editors should carry on with the business of editing. The Wikimedia servers are provided for the sake of creating an encyclopedia, not for engaging in practical jokes and other tangential activities. Zunaid©® 10:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
   • If people feel that wikipedia is "no fun anymore", some might not contribute at all. Time is not a fungible resource to the extent you are suggesting it is. --Random832(tc) 17:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
8. Agree totally with the suggestion — MrDolomite • Talk 10:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
9. Agree very strongly - it's deliberately disruptive, a potential security hazard for the unwary, confusing for new editors, and not funny anyway. I believe any kind of UI spoofing should be strictly prohibited by policy, but this is a good start. CiaranG 10:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
   • How is a link to Practical joke a security hazard? The stance you are supporting is too broad for your arguments, why not just ban external links in them? --Random832(tc) 17:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
10. Total agreement here. -- Qarnos 10:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    It's my opinion that the opinions in the discussion above are mostly in favour of this change. --ais523 11:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    • So, what's _your_ opinion about whether this change should be made? Summarizing the opinions in this discussion are the straw poll's job, not yours. --Random832(tc) 17:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Personally, I think they should not be allowed (see my comments above). However, straw polls are best for indicating whether a consensus exists, rather than forming one, which is why I was commenting on what I thought the opinion was at the time. (Note that the strength of opinions has changed since I made that comment, so I've struck my vote above.) --ais523 10:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

11. Yes, as long as it doesn't say "Fake MediaWiki UI elements may be removed without warning and should not be replaced once removed" which was in a previous edit on that page. Garion96 (talk) 12:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
12. Absolutely PeaceNT 13:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
13. Agree completely...and a bit surprised that there's any dispute about this. This juvenile nonsense serves no legitimate purpose, and is annoying to the point of being disruptive. Spoofing mediawiki interface elements does not fall under the umbrella of legitimate self-expression. -- Jim Douglas _(contribs) 16:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
14. I used to have it, but I'm convinced of it's inappropriateness after reading the above. · AndonicO 16:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
15. Of course you should not be able to fake part of the software interface to trick someone into clicking. It is a waste of time. It is not about power tripping, not about a failure to take a joke, it is about wasting my time by trying to fool me into thinking I have a message when I don't. It is disruptive. HighInBC 18:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
16. These things are easier to ignore after you've fallen for them once or twice, but that doesn't excuse the first two times being irritating and (now that further dangers have been outlined) dangerous. It's a good joke in theory, lousy in practice, and should go. UI is UI, not your playground. -- nae'blis 20:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
17. Very much agreed, if only for the precedent it sets. I will concede that many of the users who indulge in this do so with no malice, but nonetheless I feel it is a bad idea and a waste of time. DS 21:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
18. Definite 'agree; its annoying, disruptive, and the general idea of 'spoofing' part of the MediaWiki interface - this is by no means the only source of fun, but lets not even get started on signature books. :/ RHB 01:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
19. Per Jimbo. – Chacor 01:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
20. If you're waiting for something really important, you shouldn't have to deal with this.--CJ King 02:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
21. Maybe on April Fools' Day. PTO 02:33, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
22. Agree the wording is a bit soft ("please"), but if it is explained to people that this is community concensus, then they should observe if as if policy, methinks. Jerry lavoie 02:36, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
23. I am pro user page freedom in general, but aiming to mislead/fool others is generally childish and should be discouraged. Dragons flight 02:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
24. Agree. Might be a good April Fool's day prank though. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
25. Agree completely. -- KirinX 03:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
26. Strongly endorse such a proposal. Now to get tough on non encyclopedic user pages. Jorcoga 08:49, Thursday, 15 February '07
27. Per the as yet unwritten WP:NOT#A PLAYGROUND. Moreschi 19:13, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
28. Agree Wiki user pages have room for fun, but tricking editors decreases the quality of wikipedia, and is highly annoying -- feb 02:54, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
29. Endorse ~ Arjun 22:56, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
30. Agree They serve no possible good purpose, they annoy wide crosss spectrum of users. and they contribute towards deprecating the original and useful functions of userpages. DGG 05:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
31. I concur absolutely, childish jokes and pranks have no place on Misplaced Pages. We aren't Myspace. Michaelas10 (Talk) 20:28, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
32. Agree. Potentially very damaging to user experience (depending on the capability of the user to understand and the direction of the link) not to mention a terrible security risk with the risk of viruses and phishing for people's login details. --Seans Potato Business 22:58, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Plus if this doesnt' work out, I'd like to hear Jimbo's word on the matter. --Seans Potato Business 00:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
33. Strong agree. Fake messages are against the spirit of Misplaced Pages or User pages, IMHO. --Kjoonlee 18:54, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
34. Strong agree, no help to building an encyclopedia. -- Zanimum 16:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
35. Agree : I completely endorse messages that link to sites inside Misplaced Pages, but I say no to external links. --Jothesmo 04:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Disagree

1. While I didn't have that bar on my page before, I have it on now. Jeffpw 08:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
2. Honestly, David Levy, why do you care so much? Mike H. I did "That's hot" first! 10:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
3. you never hear their standard issue kicking in your door, you can relax on both sides of the tracks Pink Floyd, Gunners Dream. Sums it up. ALR 11:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
4. Malicious instances should be removed. However, a fake new messages bar that links to "practical joke" is not malicious, and fake categories are certainly not a problem. Most importantly, these are in userspace, hence almost invisible to the vast majority of users of Misplaced Pages. Policing userspace does not help us build an encyclopedia, it just annoys people. Draconian measures against userspace silliness are disrupting Misplaced Pages far more than userspace silliness does. Kusma (討論) 11:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
5. Disagree strongly, don't make "rules" based on WP:ITANNOYSME, don't bully users. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bishonen (talk • contribs)
6. How lame can you get? Honestly people, don't you have actual articles to edit? HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 12:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
7. Lamest, dumbest proposal ever existed. 'nuff said.--Certified.Gangsta 13:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
8. Whoa, everyone. Be civil, even if others aren't. That said, "deliberately mislead and confuse" is a gross overstatement of the matter, and as long as it doesn't link to an external link or an offensive article, I don't see the problem. We are not faceless content-generating robots, and trying to force us to act like we are does not help to build an encyclopedia. --Random832(tc) 13:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
9. In particular that it specifically mentions the "new message" joke is draconian. I agree with User:Bishonen this change is coming about as an application of WP:ITANNOYSME which is wrong. As I've said before, where MediaWiki spoofing is occuring for nefarious purposes then of course something needs to be done. If the wording were to more specifically target this then I would change my view and support additional wording. (→Netscott) 15:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
10. Can't you take a joke?! Reywas92 16:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
11. Why are we polling? There's obviously no consensus here. IMO, those that think these things need to be barred by policy from user and user talk pages are on a power-trip high. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
12. I'd be fine with it being mentioned in a "some people don't like it, you should consider not having it" sense, but an out-right declaration that you can't have it is, as many others have said, draconian. EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't see how the word draconian can be applied, we are asking that people not spoof parts of the Misplaced Pages interface, we aren't asking them not to make jokes. I cannot think of any website that would allow users to spoof the interface of their software. HighInBC 19:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, I can't actually think of any other websites where a user can spoof the interface... EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
13. Practical jokes are funny. They may not be the first time they get you or the 100th time you see it, but somewhere between #5 and #90 you thought about someone else clicking that link the way you did that first time and thought it was pretty cute. I wonder how some of you pushing "deliberate disruption and malicious intent" make it through April 1st every year. ju66l3r 19:51, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't think the rule prohibits jokes, just spoofing the software, jokes are fine. HighInBC 19:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    • No, the rule does prohibit practical jokes because they require some semblance of normal function in order to get you to use them in normal practice...to then show you the error of your assumption of normality. There are many ways of determining whether the item is content or not and some of these are not even disruptive (e.g. navigate a page or two as you would have been doing normally and see if the message persists before clicking on it). ju66l3r 20:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    • Why should users be forced to jump through hoops to determine whether the message notification is real or phony? Why can't we simply have a rule against deliberately tricking people in this manner? There are so many truly harmless jokes. Why should deliberate disruption be permitted? Simply because some people find it amusing? —David Levy 20:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    • I dunno if these were rhetorical or not, so here goes: Because consensus can not be met to add a new rule against these. Do you see Burma Shave signs and uproot them because someone might not have had their eyes on the road even though many of us find them humorous and unobtrusive? We deal with minor harmless disruptions every day. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Heaven help the child that knocks on your door and runs away. You really appear to be hunting field mice with an elephant gun. ju66l3r 21:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    1. I was asking why consensus cannot be reached on this matter.

    2. I remain unimpressed with users' "the harm is minor" argument. Yes, Misplaced Pages faces far worse threats than this, but so what? It's deliberately disruptive.

    3. Would you care to address the bot issue? —David Levy 22:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    David Levy, I don't recall reading anyone saying "the harm is minor"... who's saying that? I'm saying it is harmless (and that's what I'm seeing others say) (→Netscott) 22:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    Plenty of people have said they find it annoying and do not want to be subected to it. Annoying people is not harmless. It's disruptive. Tyrenius 22:34, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    Tyrenius, I disagree that if something is annoying be default is is not harmless. I have found the new message jokes very annoying yet completely harmless. (→Netscott) 22:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    Those were scare quotes. Yes, some are literally arguing that the messages are harmless, but others claim that the harm is too minor to justify spoiling people's fun. —David Levy 22:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    The rule does not forbid practical jokes, it only forbids practical jokes that impersonate features of the Misplaced Pages software. I see a lot of attempts to make this rule look like more than it is, it is a rule against impersonating technical features of Misplaced Pages, that is all. HighInBC 20:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    I'm actually swayed by ju66l3r's comment, which is the most insightful thing I've heard on this subject yet. Since UI spoofing is possible, it might be better that people are exposed to it via practical jokes and know they should question the validity of what they see. CiaranG 20:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    I ask that you try applying that logic to other disruptive acts. HighInBC 20:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    If someone found a way to replace my "Special pages" link in the toolbox with a wiki-link to the article on Mental retardation (with no way of using the real "Special pages" link then I would agree that impersonation impedes my ability to use a function on the page. When I have gotten new messages on a page that has one of these practical joke links, I have seen them both. One is not overwritten by the other (and in any cases where it is coded to do so, I would agree with you that it needs to be changed to a flatter more-joke, less-impersonation version). I have seen user page and user talk page items that "impersonate" real templates and warnings. Of course, those usually have text changes and not just link changes. Are you looking to strike all of those too? It's deliberately disruptive to make me read the entire template to determine if there's a serious warning on their user page or not. Where is the line drawn for impersonation of Official Wiki-business? ju66l3r 21:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

14. As long as it isn't malicious, I don't see the harm in this. I came across this once, and thought it to be quite entertaining. Rarelibra 21:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

    The fact that the person wasting my time does not feel malicious, does not change that fact that it is wasting my time. HighInBC 21:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

15. Ironically draconian and disruptive measures such as this waste more time and frustrate more editors than a million fake message bars ever could. — MichaelLinnear 00:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
16. First things first, I don't oppose this proposal. This is a "neutral" comment that's being posted here to make sure it's read by the supporters. Apparently there's a script at User:GeorgeMoney/UserScripts that removes those fake new messages boxes on userpages. I think installing a script like this is preferable to blocking people for something so petty and generating a lot of hot air on somewhere like ANI. -- Steel 00:25, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

    Some of these banners are generated using raw code instead of the "usermessage" class that the script replies on. Regardless, I don't see why it should be anyone's responsibility to install special scripts to block other users' deliberate disruption. —David Levy 00:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

    Damn you David, why do you have to say something that I actually agree with? Regardless of which way this goes, I fully agree that forcing everyone to install a script is unreasonable. EVula // talk // ☯ // 07:06, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

17. Disagree, per Bishonen. Let it go. riana_dzasta 01:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
18. Disagree. The panties-in-a-wad brigade should be stopped. Kyaa the Catlord 05:59, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

    lol. As long as there's a fake MediaWiki interface tool on Misplaced Pages, as long as someone's signature is the wrong colour, as long as our panties are in a wad, we will not be stopped! Actually, my vote is to support, so I probably shouldn't be seen consorting with the opposition, especially to make jokes about the state of our panties! :) --Seans Potato Business 01:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

19. I wholeheartedly disagree with adding the above statement to WP:USER. —KingIvan 07:27, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
20. Come on. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

    Okay, this isn't a vote, do you have a reason to oppose banning spoofing the user interface? I see a lot of votes here with no explanation. HighInBC 00:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

    Comment I think people are seeing this as a poll on that particular message box joke, rather than a pool on UI spoofing. -- Qarnos 01:17, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

21. Avoid instruction creep. I think the boxes are very annoying, but I don't think we should tell people not to put them there. If you see one, just remove it. ~a (user • talk • contribs) 19:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

    So you'd rather people edit war over them, than clarify existing guidelines/policies? -- nae'blis 19:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

    There's an indefinite number of things that people could argue about. I don't think we need to "clarify" everything that could possibly need clarification. We'd have too many policies for people too learn. Oh wait, that already happened. That's why WP:CREEP is there: this is a trivial issue. ~a (user • talk • contribs) 07:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

22. This poll has new messages - I oppose it. RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 22:25, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
23. User pages are not articles and we shouldn't crush jokes just because some people might find them irritating. Kingjeff 03:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
24. Everyone who thinks there is the need for some new rule here needs to chill and buy a sense of humor. If someone tricks users into clicking offsite links, that's disruptive, but a gag is not. Are we seriously going to block a user because his user page is a waste of time?— Randall Bart 21:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
25. Per what I said on the AN/I thread, this is utterly senseless. Titoxd 02:19, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
26. Though irritating, the boxes shouldn't be removed, unless it's used in a malicious way (ie linking shock sites).--TBCΦtalk? 05:49, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
27. The boxes do no harm and are humorous so as a result, they should be kept. Captain panda In vino veritas 15:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
28. DISAGREE - people should be able to do what they want with their page, including having a bit of fun. Starguitar 16:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

1. I didn't want to make a clothespin vote, so I going with no opinion neutral. It's a balance between freedom of expression and potential for abuse. Jumping cheese 11:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

   Comment - Abuse? How can a joke banner on a userpage do any abuse?--Certified.Gangsta 13:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

   Frankly, I voted for "neutral" because of the time of the voting, it was like 12 agree/4 disagree. I was swayed by the bandwagon pressure...had I voted now, I would have cast a disagree ballot. But, I don't want to change my vote, since it'll probably not pass anyways and settle on no consensus. =) Jumping cheese 20:23, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

2. I hate those silly boxes, but I'm completely against harassing users over something that really isn't doing any harm. If we want to edit the userpage page to discourage practical jokes, fine. It's probably a good idea. But PLEASE, no more edit warring with users over what they have on or remove from their pages unless it involves personal attacks, copyrighted images, or material designed to shock. And no more blocks of users for doing something that may be annoying but that doesn't violate policy. Musical Linguist 00:16, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

   It violated a guideline at the time. Despite knowing this, the user repeatedly restored the banner (mostly without summaries and sometimes with the edits labeled "minor") and removed a warning from his talk page. He later indicated that he was under no obligation to follow the rule because "it's not a policy, it's a guideline." —David Levy 00:25, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

   It still violates a guideline. See WP:USER below. It's there for the person's entertainment (at the expense of other users who don't appreciate it), not in any way constructive to building an encyclopedia. Tyrenius 02:23, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

   Tyrenius, I respect you as an editor but honestly your interpretation of that aspect of WP:UP is too large of a stretch. Its essentially a strawman argument to liken the "new message" joke alert to that line. That line is referring to info like what level you've achieved and how many armour points (etc.) you have on a particular roleplaying game, etc. (→Netscott) 02:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

3. I essentially agree with Musical Linguist. Asking someone to remove it is fine; but if they refuse, so be it. I'm not sure adding another !rule is worth it. I have a pretty low opinion of editors who have it on their page (I mean come on... it's so old at this point it isn't even funny; not that it was particularly so in the first place), but there is no reason to block and a !rule would just be used as a block reason. The only situation I would have a big problem with is if it was being used to feed editors out to an external link (particularly one to a site with malicious code) and at that point a block would be justified under existing conventions.--Isotope23 19:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
4. I'm also not too keen on this, but don't want to actually oppose it. semper fictilis 18:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

(End of straw poll)

1. Well duh. Of course we can recommend against it, we don't need a poll for that. That doesn't mean we should be blocking people for "violating" this rule though. >Radiant< 17:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Fourth option

That the real new message box should be moved outside the content box so that it cannot then be spoofed, rendering this whole thing irrelevant. Votesopinions in this section are in addition to support/oppose/neutral above.

1. --Random832(tc) 17:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

   While it seems sensible this "solution" is not very practical because the reality is that with CSS code virtually anything is "spoofable" with regards to how a page is displayed on the Wiki. (→Netscott) 17:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

   wikicode CSS can only apply styles to its own content. You can move the fake box up, but you CAN NOT move the title down to where it would be if it were naturally placed above it. --Random832(tc) 04:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

   I'm sure that most anyone competent in CSS could find a way to spoof it. I think this user page is fairly illustrative of what I'm talking about (notice the Misplaced Pages icon in the upper left hand corner). (→Netscott) 04:10, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

   This page is an example of how nearly anything can be spoofed. If I wanted, I could put everything in a div and move margin-top up, and change the title, so that it looks completely like the diff page. Gracenotes § 16:12, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Fifth option

With regards to the proposed wording, what would you all think of re-wording it to only exclude UI spoofing with malicious intent? Personally, I agree with the proposal as it stands, but re-wording it in such a fashion may at least allow us to come to a compromise consensus. -- Qarnos 10:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Better than nothing at all, but I'd still like to tread on it for it's annoyance factor. There's nothing to be gained by annoying people except a few cheap laughs so annoying people is wrong. Not to mention the confusion caused to people having not encountered a 'new messages' box before. --Seans Potato Business 23:40, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Crafting intial guidelines about "new message" joke banners

Per the fairly clear consensus about certain aspects of the joke "new message" banner discussions I have intiated a proposal to begin crafting a guideline about them. I invite those interested in participating to join the discussion. Thanks. (→Netscott) 18:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

New Misplaced Pages:User page addition

Stemming from the shared (and we believe consensus per the poll, etc.) concerns and after much discussion and back and forth I have added a section and subsection to WP:UP arrived at by a number of the parties involved in this. I invite those who have been following these developments to review this new section. As well as the talk that developed it. Thanks. (→Netscott) 00:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:USER

I fail to see what the discussion is about. See WP:USER#What_can_I_not_have_on_my_user_page.3F. This specifically mentions:

Games, roleplaying sessions, and other things pertaining to "entertainment" rather than "writing an encyclopedia,"

This is even more the case if some users find something annoying. I've already removed a false message box and would have moved to blocking if the user had not been co-operative (which he was).

Tyrenius 08:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Woah...hold on there. So you also support blocking users before a consensus on a iffy policy is reached?!? So users aren't allows to have stuff on the page that make people smile? Jumping cheese 08:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

And that rule was taken out of context. Jumping cheese 09:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No, I support blocking users on a stable guideline over which consensus was reached a long time ago, which I have copied above. Yes, users are allowed to have stuff which make people smile. They're not allowed to have stuff which annoy people, which one of the people who used to have one plainly admits is the case:

I know it can get annoying sometimes, so if you don´t like it, then never visit my userpage nor any of my subpages

There's quite a few people here forgetting that editing is a privilege, not a right, and it's one granted for one purpose only, which is the creation of an encyclopedia. Once that priority is put back in place, then other problems sort themselves out. I suggest you forget about practical jokes, and get on with creating some good article content. Also user pages are not "private property". They belong to wikipedia. If you don't like that reality, then there's always myspace.

Tyrenius 09:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Tyrenius, there should be a lot of latitude in the first statement that you quoted. Building a sense of community is important, and surely every involved Wikipedian should be able to have a trivial (not excessively time consuming) or personal subpage. The user page guideline is just that, a guideline; I agree with you that the trouble caused by this, however, transcends that of a guideline. Check out my table above. Please don't argue by quoting from WP:UP about what should and should not be allowed -- that's essentially not the issue, since it more applies to social networking.

Finally, blocking a user causes much more collateral damage than you can imagine. Protecting a page is a much much much better idea, if needed. Gracenotes § 19:25, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

There is a box that can be ticked when blocking a user to not block the IP address, therefore avoiding collateral damage. Tra (Talk) 19:41, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

That's not what I meant. I meant that a user that otherwise could contribute content and revert vandalism would be blocked, which is over all bad for the encyclopedia. Remember, blocks are meant to be preventative, so what are we preventing here? If the user is being disruptive, then a block might be warranted, not for this in itself. Gracenotes § 20:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Grace, I don't think a block would be given unless the user refused to allow the item removed, I don't think anyone is advocating blocking anyone who does this. To put it another way, the blocking policy that requires blocks to be preventative as opposed to punitive would not be effected. HighInBC 20:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm kind of hurt by your brash response. I don't like being lectured. It sure isn't helping Misplaced Pages either. grrrrr... Jumping cheese 09:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Then it might be advisable to be more cautious before making accusations. Tyrenius 10:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yo Jumping cheese. I got your back.--Certified.Gangsta 09:42, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Uh...thanxs? =) Jumping cheese 09:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

This reminds me of an AfD where people don't know the policy. It seems like many people don't know about WP:OWN and WP:USER and of course WP:NOT. HighInBC 14:17, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

You don't have to be mad to edit here but it help

If anything lends credence to the old adage it is this discussion. Steve block Talk 10:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

• Um, thanks, but this was a section for a reason. I give you, {{insanity}}. Steve block Talk 11:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  Oaky-dokey. —Doug Bell  12:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  pig in a pokey! Steve block Talk 17:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

  Mad ... angry? Or Mad... Insane? Wjhonson 07:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Question

Many of you feel these "jokes" are harmless. Say I found one of these jokes, and I fall for it, and I find it disruptive, what do you think of me posting a note below the "joke" saying "The above message is fake, you do not neccesarily have a new message."? HighInBC 22:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I placed a warning in a hoax box and the user removed it, obviously wishing to carry on wasting people's time. What was particularly annoying was that I was under pressure with a lot of intense messages and activities happening simultaneously, so I kept clicking the hoax one without thinking. Editors have a right to be able to trust and rely on official notifications. In this instance I found this hoax box to have a very disruptive effect. Tyrenius 22:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Cut-off point change to {{Wikipedialang}}

With the continuing growth of all the Wikipedias, I feel that the "20,000 articles" mark is too low a cut-off point. I suggest that the point be changed to 25,000 instead, which (separating out those that make 50,000) would look like as follows:

This Misplaced Pages is written in English. Started in 2001, it currently contains 6,930,454 articles. Many other Wikipedias are available; the largest are listed below.

• More than 250,000 articles: Deutsch · Français · Italiano · Nederlands · 日本語 · Polski

• More than 100,000 articles: Español · Português · Русский · Suomi · Svenska · 中文

• More than 50,000 articles: Bahasa Indonesia · Català · Česky · Dansk · Esperanto · עברית · Magyar · Norsk · Română · Slovenčina · Українська

• More than 25,000 articles: Български · Eesti · Hrvatski · 한국어 · Lietuvių · Srpski · Sinugboanong Binisaya · Slovenščina · తెలుగు · Türkçe

Complete list · Multilingual coordination · Start a Misplaced Pages in another language

This seems less cluttered, and adds more value to the Wikipedias that make the mark. There's always more room for expansion!

Please reply at Template talk:Wikipedialang#Cut-off point change, thanks :) Jack · talk · 09:54, Thursday, 15 February 2007

New pedophile policy

I have created a proposed policy on Misplaced Pages's attitude towards pedophile editors here. Misplaced Pages is listed as a "Corporate sex offender" at Perverted-justice.org, and I felt we needed to properly lay out our position. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 04:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate this effort, and think that it may be worthwhile to clarify these issues. However the POV of Perverted Justice should not determine our policies. We can decide them on our own. -Will Beback · † · 05:15, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Who is "Perverted Justice" and why should we care what they think? --Cyde Weys 06:07, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Cybervigilantes, evidently. Deco 06:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Oooof, no thank you then. Vigilantes scare me almost as much as the people they're supposedly "protecting" us from. --Cyde Weys 06:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Seriously. They're out to paint people in the most sensationalist light possible and structuring policies around a reaction to them would be horribly broken. I'm pretty sure that cases involving this are rare enough to be handled on an ad hoc basis. The snopake case had some related issues, but it was more creepy than outright pedophilic. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't find their coverage of neither Misplaced Pages nor Blogspot particularly sensationalist. (I didn't read anything else). I doubt if Misplaced Pages, and the same is probably true about Blogspot, can do anything about this issue without sacrificing other values, but the criticism should not be brushed away as sensationalist. --Merzul 15:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't find their coverage of neither Misplaced Pages nor Blogspot particularly sensationalist. Except that they are lying. They state in the Blogspot description that "advocating sex with children an illegal act in the United States," but it's not; as long as you're not calling people to action, it is protected free speech. That's called sensationalism. Ashibaka (tock) 05:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

"When you delve into exactly who the users are editing the "Internet's Encyclopedia" you find a vast pedophile cabal seeking to undermine it." isn't sensationalist? (incidentally, this should be added to WP:LOC) --Random832 12:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Preserved For Great Justice —dgies_c 18:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Is Perverted Justice the people who hack into other people's computers on the off chance of finding incriminating images on them? Corvus cornix 19:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Why should Misplaced Pages be run by a single website that accuses it of not taking great enough steps to fight pedophiles? There is a problem, but perhaps we should decide our own policy. Captain panda In vino veritas 22:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Why wasn't I invited to be part of this "vast pedophile cabal"? My cabal of people-trying-to-annoy-everyone-else is very annoyed that I... I mean *we* are out of the loop on this! Wjhonson 07:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Spelling: Jewellery VS. Jewelry

Dear Editors: I am emailing about the Jewellery category. I personally have no issue with the fact that we have 2 different spelllings on WP - both English and American - as I am aware there are 2 different spellings and for me, it is not a problem. However, I do feel we are having a siginifcant issue here on WP about the English VS. American spelling and I feel I have a good case to revert to the American Spelling. So - here it is. I am a graduate student at Bard here in US. I have read and researched literally hundreds of published titles on this topic. To that aim, I am endeavoring to beef up this category and help WP. However, in the act of reading many titles over many years, I have come to conclude that the American spelling is more dominent in published works on this topic. I don't have a reasoning behind why, I just know that it is so. Because of this, I feel it is neccesary to switch back to the American spelling. Even though in OED, it is jewellery, in every major book on this topic with the exception a few published in UK, it is spelled jewelry. For example - see what is known as "the bible on jewelry," the title is: Jewelry Concepts & Technology by Oppi Untracht. The spelling used is jewelry. Another example: On Amazon, you type in both. For jewelry there are 83,868 Results, for Jewellery, there are 61,300,000 Results - that is a significant difference in published works. I am more than happy to provide a complete bibliography if need be, but in the interest of being user friendly, I ask that you consider this and let me know what you think. Thanks, Archie, archimartinArchiemartin

Common practice here is, when it's purely a Commonwealth vs US English thing - we go with the original intent of the original editor, who in this case appears to have preferred "jewellery." --Golbez 19:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that WP would cater to one author as opposed to being user friendly. Also - after reading the spelling guidelines it actually looks like the intent to be consistant would trump any original author.

archie, archiemartinArchiemartin

Golbez is right, and we have a guideline on this, in fact. Read WP:ENGVAR. Specifically, in this case, since there is no cultural tie to one spelling or the other, you need to Stay with established spelling and Follow the dialect of the first contributor. In an article about Jewelry in the United States, use the US spelling, in Jewellery in the United Kingdom, use the UK spelling. In all general articles, leave it alone and use the spelling that's already established for that article. — coelacan talk — 19:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys - and I am leaving it alone in the sense that I am not editing anyone's writing to reflect my ideas. However, I am not leaving it alone in the sense that I think it needs to be changed. If it were not a problem we would not have this major discussion going on usage of style to have the spellings automatically transfer to the common use of the surfer, (see usage of style). I also did contact the original contributor to see what he she thinks. I truly believe there are some serious inconcistancies with not only the desire of WP to be consistant but also with trumping one contributor over the needs of the millions of users. At the end of the day - it just makes good sense - particularly with a noun. archie, archiemartinArchiemartin

It doesn't make any good sense to me. I use American English but I recognize that neither is "wrong". There is no particular reason to standardize to either spelling. Both are "right", and most contributors speak and write in only one or the other dialect naturally. Neither should be forced to adopt the other's dialect across the entire wiki. The best compromise so far has been to leave well enough alone. I see no compelling reason to change that. I would strongly oppose any attempt to get all of Misplaced Pages to use either US or UK English, and I can assure you that any such attempt that you may be proposing is already a lost cause. — coelacan talk — 20:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi - First off - the spelling is not a dialect. Second, I have no issue myself with the two spellings as I said, it is WP that clearly states in the usage area that the spelling and usage should be consistant. If they, or WP does not want that because as they state, "It makes WP look unprofessional" then they should change that. I don't care for myself but you have to admit that usage, and how people surf WP is important. This is not a personal debate - this is about serving the needs of the many and not the few.

Last - there is no such thing as a lost cause. archie, archiemartinArchiemartin

• So, to sum up your original argument, the books you have researched use "jewelry", but Google makes it clear that far more people use the spelling "jewellery" online. Because of that, you want to change it to "jewelry" to make it more user-friendly? I don't follow the logic of that at all. If more people online use the Commonwealth spelling, then surely it is more userrfriendly for us to use it here. Perhaps - just perhaps - being a student of the subject in the US means that most of the publications you have seen have either originated in the US or been translated by American translators. Up until now I did not know that there was a spelling "jewelry". It looks wrong (and is counterintuitive when you consider the pronunciation of the word, too), but now that I know it is an acceptable alternative I'm quite happy to see it in articles - though not for the category. I'm not happy to see it there both for the reason that it appears to be the more user-friendly spelling and - more importantly - for the reasons Golbez and Coelacan outline. Grutness...wha? 22:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
• I don't see how "needs" come into this, to be honest. Americans can read English spellings and vice versa. Yes, we could have debates on thousands of articles about which is the dominant spelling, or which is most widely used in publications, but we don't. Why? Because there are far better ways to spend time. So we keep it simple: if it's obviously tied to a country, use their spelling; if it's not, use the original one. You say "in every major book on this topic with the exception a few published in UK, it is spelled jewelry", which just proves the point - the ones in the UK spell it jewellery. It's simply a difference in spelling, and there's no compelling reason to change. Trebor 22:43, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

To address both of your arguments - there are more uses on both Amazon and Google for the American spelling indicating that the searchability is there for the American spelling. This is not an "alternative" spelling but another one. Again - I think many of you are taking this as a personal cause or argument when it has more to do with usability as well as the WP rules and manual of style. Believe me when I say that if WP did not state that they want consistency I would not be wasting my time. As for needs - I think it is obvious that we would like to have as much consistency and fact finding as we can so, I don't see how you can ignore the fact that many people, (like myself) originally went to "jewelry" and found zip. Also - if consistency is not important then why are we allowing an editor to make a recent chnage within that article to make the entire spelling to that of jewellery, the English one.

Last, no one has addressed the real argument here which is that the one spelling is obviously more used. Go on Amazon and Google. See for yourself. Thanks, Archie, archiemartinArchiemartin

If you go to jewelry, you get redirected to jewellery, so what's the problem? We aim for consistency where possible, but spelling is never going to be agreed on so we just used what was previously used. In this case, the title suggests that it is British English spelling, so editors are justified in changing everything in the article to British English. We don't decide these things by which is more used (which you are justifying using the Internet which is dominated by Americans); we just pick one and run with it. It is not a big deal - people have no trouble reading other variants of English - so time spent discussing it would be better spent elsewhere. Trebor 12:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

HI,

Trebor - just to be clear for the third time - I have no problem myself with the two spellings as I use them all the time. When you ask what the problem is, I thought I outlined it, but here goes again. If WP says that consistency of style is one of its tenants, then this is not consistent. If the posters here say that one must stay with the original poster's spelling then, that is not consistent with policy - so then you say that the original poster trumps the WP manual of style. Ok, fine I can understand that. But - then, when one looks at one of the latest revisions, one editor basically tells anyone working on it to revise using "jewellery", which according to one of these posts is only because the original poster used it. Ok - fine again, but then again - we are going back to inconsistency because that would mean that the original poster does NOT always have the right of way because the current revisions indicate that no matter who created what section of this category, their contribution was changed to the original posters spelling. So, once again, I point out that not because I have a personal mission statement or preference - but only because of the dominant use, (I did not justify use by Americans, only pointed out the dominant search) in print and on the internet, I ask - where does the buck stop and with which rule? If this were a non -issue, as I also mentioned before, there would not be a heated debate going on about re-directing. I am seeking answers and to make WP better - not a waste of time here either, but no one seems to be coming up with an argument that holds up and makes sense in a consistent manner. Once again, I ask if you could please be a little more respectful and address what I am asking you to address. Thanks, Archie, archiemartinArchiemartin

I think there is a valid argument here - not along the lines you mentioned, but the problem being that no matter which spelling the majority of contributors use, the "first" is given some special status. Spelling issues seem to be an exception to WP:OWN. --Random832 12:35, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

The first is given special status to prevent edit wars. Go look at yogurt if you need a reason why this position is needed. It basically ends the argument over which spelling is right. A long time ago it was agreed that the easiest way was to not have the argument, and let either the article topic decide in country specific topics, and the first major contributor in all others. It works, it isn't broken, it doesn't need fixing and it doesn't violate WP:OWN. You can't own spelling. When we're all speaking Chinese none of this will matter anyway. ;)Steve block Talk 20:12, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure we do say that consistency of style is one of our tenets. I thought we were consistent in our inconsistency. Spelling in an article has to be consistent. Spelling across articles does not. Steve block Talk 20:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree. As long as we set up appropriate redirects, it's not something worth arguing over. It's caused a lot of bad blood in the past, absolutely ridiculous edit wars, move wars, blocking sprees, accusations of vandalism, people leaving the project in a huff. The solution currently applied is "find something more important to argue over," as I read it. We have a decision rule to prevent arguments -- if a change can be made without an argument, then sure, do your thing, but if attempting the change does start an argument, that's why we have the decision rule. My opinion. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to say that I found some of Grutnes' arguments funny (22:33, 23 February). He finds the "jewellery" spelling closer to the pronunciation, but I just as surely find the "jewelry" spelling closer to the way I pronounce the word. How old is that song, "You say potayto and I say potahto ... Let's call the whole thing off"? Seriously, when I look at Google results, I count 53 million "jewellery" listings and over 300 million for "jewelry", so the user-friendly argument would seem to favor the shorter version.

The venerable rule that the first user to plant his spelling flag on a new article gets to claim that article for his country's spelling is a useful way of calling the whole thing off, but we pay a price if readers are confused OR if we are left with constantly having to create redirect pages. As a minor practical matter, we probably ought to have some kind of process for surgically removing some of those flags that the brave Misplaced Pages explorers used to stake out spelling territory. It would probably involve first asking the originator to reconsider, a good reason to switch spelling, conformity with a reliable dictionary, proof from Google or somewhere else that one spelling is dominant, at least on the Web.

(And I assume America currently dominates the English-language Web in a way that may change as poorer nations, such as India, become richer, increasing Commonwealth spelling in Google hits.) Ultimately, it's not the end of the world to create redirect pages, just annoying. (Incidentally, when the Potayto/Potahto song was recorded in the U.S., the lyrics were sent to England, where they were recorded locally. The English had no idea from the written lyrics how the words in the song were pronounced. Much embarassment ensued when the American recordings were eventually imported. Moral of story: Never assume, certainly not about pronunciation.) Noroton 21:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Sidenote: I'm not sure if this is directly related, or just coincidental, but people have been very slowly warring on Tongue piercing about this and some other, um, more unusual elements of wording. - RedWordSmith 18:36, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

• Bearing heavily in mind that nearly everyone speaking a particular dialect of English believes strongly that theirs is the "correct" one, I really think it is unreasonable to favour either type of spelling. Because we have the facility of redirect pages for alternate spellings of words, there is absolutely no "user-friendliness" issue - either spelling works, almost interchangably, and nothing other than a linguistic superiority complex could make the article less useful due to its use of a certain spelling. However, an even more important arguement arises: when you force an editor to use one spelling or the other, you are playing with the very potent force of nationalism. This will naturally drive a great deal of editors away from a particular page because they feel it is an affront that someone is dictating which dialect ought to be used, or even because they simply do not want to type in a language other than that which they natively speak. Thus, I really think it best to turn a blind eye to the whole issue, considering that it is irrelevant for all practical intents and purposes. Misplaced Pages cannot afford to be governed by the principles of nationalism or pride, not only because of the conflicts those invariably cause, but because the primary focus must be verified. Falcon 02:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I always spell jewellery with a double L. I honestly didn't know there was anywhere in the world where it was spelled differently. 138.217.252.28 08:18, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler tags

I am wondering if it is possible to hide information that is contained on a page between two spoiler tags. This way a person would need to click to read the rest of the text, and would prevent people from accidentally reading information they did not want to read.--NeilEvans 00:40, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Considering that people already dispute that we should even have spoiler tags, I doubt there's any chance that people are going to consent to hiding the text between them. But it is quite simple, from a technical aspect. -Amarkov moo! 01:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It'd be easier if the spoiler tag put its content in a box (if not a real box, then some sort of structural element - a div by any other name) - obviously, the existing tag can't be converted to this, but maybe a new version like {{spoiler-top}} {{spoiler-bottom}} {{spoiler-inline|some text that spoils}} --Random832 04:11, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

• Except that that could break page layout, and have additional complications for the people (including myself) who use CSS to hide those spoiler tags. >Radiant< 13:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

How would it break page layout - the whole point would be to have it be _new_ tags so that it will only be used in places that it wouldn't break the page layout. And the actual visible tags could have the same classes as the existing ones. something like <div class="spoilerarea">{{spoiler}} for the beginning tag, and {{endspoiler}}</div> for the end. --Random832 13:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the existing tags have css div tags in them which you can write some custom CSS or javascript to hide. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

They use a div tag for styling, but what would be required for this would be for the spoiler tag to contain an open div tag which the end spoiler tag has a close tag for. --Random832 18:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Honesty

I've started an essay on the subject of honesty as it relates to the project. It never seemed like the sort of thing we needed before, but perhaps there's some value to gelling community input on the issue. If you have an interest in the subject, please visit Misplaced Pages:Honesty. Your insight and improvement is welcome, and I hope it can be something positive. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 22:35, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I have read the article and I agree in the usefulness of it. Misplaced Pages should have an article on the importance of honesty in the edits people make to it. The only problem I see is that it may be redundant to have an article about honesty because people should know to only put true information on Misplaced Pages when they edit. Captain panda In vino veritas 22:48, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Seems redundant to the existing Misplaced Pages:Don't create hoaxes. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:49, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Don't create hoaxes focuses on the issue of adding false information to articles, whereas Misplaced Pages:Honesty seems to focus more on the issue of intentionaly lying or misrepresenting others in discussions and arguments.--TBCΦtalk? 06:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we broaden this, and write Misplaced Pages:Act in good faith as a companion to Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith. Broader policies are preferable to specific instructions, and the examples should be pretty trivially obvious. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:42, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea; go ahead and write it.--TBCΦtalk? 20:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I started it, but in reading over WP:AGF for ideas, it seems like it's going to fork much of that content. AGF has a lot of things for *you* the individual to do, which seem to go to the new AIGF (if I may be so bold as to suggest the acronym). Probably should get some of the the AGF editors to help divide the text.Wjhonson 07:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Add audible tone to vandalism warnings

I suggest having level-2 and above vandalism warnings send out an audible tone. A set of five beeps is my speicific idea, repeated three or more times. The idea is to give teachers a way of catching vandals in action. If they hear the tone, they can demand that people stop working on their machines while the person with the warning is located. A quick check of their web browser (or perhaps the browser's history) should quickly show whether the person in front of that machine is responsible for whatever vandlism earned the warning.

The implementation of this idea should be accompanied by a campaign to get newspapers to publish stories on the implementation of this mechanism. The tone won't be worth much if teachers and parents don't know what it means.

One more suggestion: The enabling template should be self-timestamped so that the tone will cease to be broadcast to the page's viewers after a set amount of time (say 5 to 10 minutes). (The reason for the time limit is that after more than a few minutes, the odds of this being a different user when the tome is emitted start to become substantial.) --EMS | Talk 20:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I have 4 concerns with this.

1. What about school computers with no speakers or only headphones?
2. Wouldn't this only work when the student checks the talk page? With this, what if another student, who didn't do the vandalism, checks the talk first?
3. Would this be a separate template, or an optional parameter on existing ones? As this would have no purpose on vandals not at a public computer (except annoyance)
4. This may put a much bigger drain on the already slower-than-the-rest upload servers. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 21:07, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

• While this is a great idea in principle, I think the only real effect would be to dissuade vandals from opening their talkpage. Falcon 00:53, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

• When a website starts making noises at me, I close it. A school could install it's own software for that sort of thing. InBC 16:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Can't they just turn the volume down so no one hears it? Cyberia23 23:52, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, is this even technically possible? Can media files be set to play automatically? Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 23:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Personal thought: I really, truly, unearthly, hate music or sounds from browsers. I can't stand going to MySpace to check added external links and being received with music. I hate the old Geocities pages with midi tones as background music. I prefer changing the background color of the pages being visited by the vandal in yellow, orange and red depending on the warning level he is currently at (and at this, I am being pretty extreme). No sounds, please. -- ReyBrujo 00:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Bad idea. —Centrx→talk • 00:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Anybody and everybody in the school (shared IP) will be beeping away whether they vandalised anything or not. CiaranG 14:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Capitalised Improper Nouns

I've noticed a really large increase in the number of improper nouns with capitals, such as the capitalisation throughout an article of its title wherever it appears in the body text, or perhaps that of various entities highly relevant to it (such as if I were to say Improper Nouns right here). Perhaps someone with more knowledge of SQL than I ought to start a wikiproject to this end. Articles with such things in them most likely need attention anyway because if they had recieved any amount of editing, they would soon have been cleared of these mistakes. Falcon 00:51, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Could you provide examples? Corvus cornix 02:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I spent a full day correcting the capitalization of japanese songs (especifically, Namie Amuro discography). Unfortunately, there is no way to determine when capitalization is right and when it is not, so I believe there is no "magic query" to save us. -- ReyBrujo 02:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I see lots of cases where Japanese song and album titles are in all caps. That seems to be a standard, at least here. I have no idea if that's a real-world standard. Corvus cornix 21:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It has to do with the fact that foreign words in Japanese are written with the katakana alphabet, and by custom katakana words are written in capital letters when translated to English to differentiate them from native words. While it is an accepted practice, Misplaced Pages naming policy establishes we must not respect the trademark if it is in uppercase. -- ReyBrujo 03:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Remove "no images" from signature policy

I think that the section that no images should be used on Misplaced Pages:Signatures should be removed. - Patricknoddy 12:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Most people fortunately disagree with you, name one good reason why allowing images in signatures would help improve the ensyclopedia... By the way, if you absolutely must transclude a subpage as your sig at least subst: it, template sigs are not allowed either. --Sherool (talk) 12:50, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, somebody can replace that image with something nasty and it is suddenly shown on thousands of pages with your sig. That is why templates are not allowed either. I think that is why it was originally disallowed. For example, someone could go to the {{yellow}} template you have in your name and change it to say anything they want, you signature would change to that everywhere you left it. InBC 16:11, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

That's not the real problem since Misplaced Pages isn't censored in any way, and templates can be reverted. The problem server strain and annoying the hell out of users with a 8000x10000 pixel picture. Koweja 23:13, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

No, but that doesn't mean it isn't bad to have obscene images pop up everywhere you've commented. Of course, server strain is a problem too, but large images could be disallowed, just like disruptively large text signatures are. -Amarkov moo! 23:18, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Please no. Your signature is already violating our guidelines by using templates without substituting them and for being very hard to read without highlightening it to also add flags and icons. -- ReyBrujo 23:29, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually the guidelines allow colors in signatures. - Patricknoddy 12:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

No one said colors where not allowed, just that your yellow text on the standard background is impossible to read, and the guideline do say that your signature should be readable. --Sherool (talk) 18:42, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Wakipedia

Create a mirror site called "Wakipedia", one that allows editors outside your circle to create terms and explanations. Monitor occassionally to make sure nothing on Wakipedia actually makes sense! Especially if it makes more sense than Misplaced Pages.

To avoid Wakipedia cogency, perhaps restrict Wakipedia terms to those that do not appear on Misplaced Pages. That way, your editors still get to gatekeep the "standard set" of terms people consider important. Then, though, you should have no authority to edit Wakipedia. Just to make it fair.

Regards, Arthur Mellin B-1-11, US Infantry, Ft. Irwin, CA —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.147.1.66 (talk) 22:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC).

Isn't that what Uncyclopedia is for? *Dan T.* 00:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Nope, this isn't what Uncyclopedia if for Dan T. He wants to create a site to view WP without actually being on WP. NO! - User:Patricknoddy/sig 12:26, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds more like Urban Dictionary. --Random832 17:17, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to Remove Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Parker's Adminship was Closed Prematurely, and it was decided to speedy keep the misc desk. --Parker007 04:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I am Proposing to Remove the Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous completely. All the questions posted there can easily fit in any of the other desks. --Parker007 19:51, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure, Parker. There's an awful lot of rubbish which could not be slotted into the other desks with any degree of ease. Clio the Muse 20:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

What kind of rubbish? Could you please direct me to some rubbish in the current misc desk? I am just trying to figure what you mean by rubbish questions? As if they are not signed they can be deleted on sight, if it is rubbish, as they have not followed the rules mentioned above (sign your posts)--Parker007 22:23, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Parker, rubbish is an expression of personal prejudice on my part, I freely confess. But where would you place questions on masturbation, matrixism, stool colour, cannot rid myself of spiders, car emblems, UK road signs, reading upside down, sheep and lights in the window, all subjects I plucked out at random from the current MD? I would hate to see this trivia block up the Humanities Desk, where I do most of my work. Clio the Muse 23:19, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Parker, not everyone knows how to sign their name, so that rule seems a little tyrranical. Also, what if I don't know where to post my physics equation question, science or math? Don't you think that we should seem welcoming? - AMP'd 22:51, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Could you imagine the crap we'd get at the other desks? And the signing part will not work at all, many questions are asked by anons who proabably don't know much abot Misplaced Pages aside from basic editing. Pacific Coast Highway 23:34, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Parker could argue that masturbation, stool colour, cannot rid myself of spiders, and sheep could be posted at the science desk. UK road signs and lights in the window could be deposited at the humanities desk (and help clutter it up). Reading upside down (depending on the actual question, too lazy to check) could be posted either at the language desk or the science desk. Nonetheless, I have very strong feelings about keeping the miscellaneous desk. As Clio and AMP'd pointed out, an everything-else category can be very helpful to the person asking a question here. Currently, I'm happy with the number of desks, if it needs to be trimmed down, the entertainment desk would be the first to go in my book, but I'd prefer keeping it too. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

• Entertainment Desk serves the purpose of keeping entertainment questions out of Humanities Desk. Sometimes I see very interesting questions in Misc Desk, which is usually ignored, which could have been at an appropriate desk. --Parker007 01:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I certainly agree that the Entertainment Desk has acted as a useful filter. But can't you just move individual questions where you feel they have been misplaced? I certainly think that the Otto Frank question recently posted on the Miscellaneous Desk would have been better placed on Humanities. Clio the Muse 02:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Its too time consuming to move individual questions from the misc desk to appropriate desk. --Parker007 02:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. But please look at the items on the current MD one by one. Do you really think you could place all of these, the good, the bad and the ugly? How much more time consuming that would be, and I still think, in the end, you would be left with detritus. Clio the Muse 02:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Regarding Signing Names, why cant we make it bigger font like how it is for No Medical Advice right now? --Parker007 01:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

People ignore the no medical (and legal) advice thing too - so changing the font size clearly doesn't work. Nobody ever reads instructions...trust me, you won't ever change that. Plus a lot of these questions come from inexpert users - that's why they are frequently unsigned. SteveBaker 01:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Questions regarding masturbation, matrixism, stool colour, cannot rid myself of spiders would be placed in the Science Desk. --Parker007 01:16, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Matrixism is a religion question - which proves the need for a misc desk - even we "experts" can't agree on where every single question should go. SteveBaker 01:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps while we're removing desks, we could delete the entire lot of them? Hipocrite - «Talk» 01:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

We could. Or, if we really were serious about it, we could actually make a proper, clean proposal to delete the reference desk, rather than throwing in the same old hints and comments every now and then. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:36, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong keep - I believe the miscellaneous desk serves a useful purpose - there are an immense number of questions that don't fit any of the other desks and the trolls will troll the other desks if they aren't trolling this one - so it's not gonna be a big deal either way. It's not much extra hassle to patrol the misc desk along with one or two of the others. SteveBaker 01:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Delete - I believe its time for the Misc Desk to bite the dust. --Parker007 02:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep - Without the miscellaneous desk, we would have nowhere to keep questions that don't fit in to other categories (i.e. "cannot rid myself of spiders") or questions by people who are directed to the reference desks by an external source. (Also, please stop bolding words in your sentences...) - AMP'd 03:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, for the record. Explanation given above, also agree with what SteveBaker and AMP'd said. ---Sluzzelin talk 03:33, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, yes, keep. There has to be a catch-all. (Has anyone actually read 'cannot rid myself of spiders'?) Clio the Muse 03:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: I couldn't actually find "cannot rid myself of spiders". - AMP'd 16:40, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
    • You'll find it in the MD archive under 25 February. Clio the Muse 19:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
• Shouldn't this be discussed on MfD?--TBCΦtalk? 06:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Strong keep for God's sake! Some things do not fit neatly into the available slots, and a question can be moved to the appropriate desk if it would fit there. Hiprcrite's suggestion to remove all reference desks looks like a pretty clear case of disruptive editing. 06:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

My opinion as an outsider is that, if questions are being placed on the misc desk, then this proves that it is needed, if only by those disenchanted few that (apparantely) don't have the gift of being able to manipulate their questions to fit other desks. I feel that the only plausible reason to delete a desk would be if it had extremely low traffic, which the Misc desk certainly does not have. Martinp23 09:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep (also for the record). It's a useful "catch-all" category. Gandalf61 11:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep of course - eliminating RD/M makes about as much sense as eliminating Category:Uncategorized. --hydnjo talk 16:43, 4 March 2007 (UTC) -- addendum: And ...007, WTF is this all about? - "Its too time consuming to move individual questions from the misc desk to appropriate desk. --Parker007 02:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)". That being the case then don't do it.. You don't need to move questions yourself, some of the other "few" of us will find the time. --hydnjo talk 21:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Reasons given for deletion just aren't good enough IMHO. So what if some questions aren't categorized correctly? I bet most of the questions at WP:RD/M belong there, rather than somewhere else. Also, we need a place for questions like "How do I get from Sollentuna to Sergels Torg?" or "Where can I buy buttons near Edsbergs Centrum?" --Kjoonlee 18:37, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment

Sometimes I see very interesting questions in Misc Desk, which is usually ignored, which could have been at an appropriate desk.

Do you have any examples? --Kjoonlee 18:40, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• "Otto Rank's view of Death, Life" a Philosophical question which could have been better answered at Humanities Desk. Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#Otto_Rank.27s_view_of_Death.2C_Life --Parker007 19:36, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• "looking for a digital thermometer I can hook up to my PC to track the temperature almost real time" would have been better answered at the Computer & IT desk.Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#digital_thermometer --Parker007 19:39, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• "Was not Galileo responsible for proving Copernicus' theory was correct: That the earth revolves around the sun, not the sun revolving around the earth" would have been better answered at the Science Desk. Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#The_Sun.2C_Earth.2C_and_the_Moon --Parker007 19:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• "Background music in Nissan Sentra ad?" would have been better answered at the Entertainment Desk. Miscellaneous#Background_music_in_Nissan_Sentra_ad. --Parker007 20:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• "So, I know that there are people in the U.S. who follow the lives of the British monarchy for whatever reason and they're called Anglophiles. So is there an equivalent word for people who follow the American scene? Amerophiles, maybe?" could have been better placed at the Language Desk. Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#Ameriphile.3F. --Parker007 20:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Geesh Parker, in about that amount of time you could haved the moved the questions to whatever desk you wished. --hydnjo talk 22:16, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Is this even the right place to put this discussion? As this is basically a proposal to delete a page in the Misplaced Pages namespace, shouln't it go on WP:MFD? Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 19:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Now on MfD at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous. For some reason, this discussion was deleted without reference, so I've just brought it back to point to the MfD, and for posterity. Martinp23 21:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Please oppose my adminship Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_adminship/Parker007. :) . --Parker007 22:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Random Article Navigation Upgrade?

I would like to suggest an improvement to the "Random article" navigation feature. If the following feature or something like it is already available, how do I use it? If it is not available, could someone please create it?: PROBLEM: When using the current random article feature, I find myself spending a lot of time skipping past two line biographies and descriptions of towns in the middle of nowhere, which although certainly random, are of little interest. PROPOSAL: Enhance the random article grab with the option of excluding certain categories/types/sizes of articles from the results (for example: no biographies, no articles less than xx lines, etc). Alternatively, it would be useful to be able to retrieve random articles from within specified categories (for example: only biographies, only articles greater than xx length, etc), rather than the entire Misplaced Pages. Another realated idea is a "Suggested article" grab for frequent users based on past page viewings. JUSTIFICATION: (Controlled) Serendipitous discovery is a major research tool at hard copy libraries, and has undoubtedly contributed greatly to the development of human culture and technology. Misplaced Pages is the perfect vehicle to take this tool to the next level. Thanks! Serendipitous Rex 08:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Counterproposal: Randomly generated lists of articles

It's a funny a thing that you should mention this now, because I was just going to post an idea that occurred to me. I have, essentially, created a program that spits out the title of every 1000th article or so from the February data dump. I've discovered two things:

1. - The subjects of most articles bore me to tears. It really is an encyclopedia, you wouldn't want to read it from beginning to end even if it were possible.
2. - I was still able to get some good value from the list, because I was able to reject looking at articles that I knew weren't going to be interesting, as opposed to Special:Random which loads an article and then lets you judge if it's interesting or not.

Would other people be interested in such a "random" list? How should this be implemented? As some sort of 3rd-party script hosted offsite (I might be in a position to do this), a bot that will place the list onto a user page like User:SuggestBot, a patch to MediaWiki, or what? - RedWordSmith 21:12, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Suggested policy: WP:DRI (Don't revert. Improve!)

In the years I've been editing Misplaced Pages, I continue to see many examples where editors have chosen to remove another editor's contributions, citing reasons such as NPOV, weasel words, etc. In so many of these cases, the reverting editor could instead have reworded the contribution. I would like to see this established as a policy on wikipedia, if only to allow editors to quote this and to spread the idea that reverting generally discourages editors (especially new ones) from contributing in future. --Rebroad 12:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

there's already a similar suggestion at WP:1RR/WP:0RR; this would never make it as enforced policy, though, because what happens if someone completely mangles an article in the process of adding information that doesn't even belong? The appropriateness of reverting is too subjective to ban it entirely. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 15:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

As an editor I don't see my primary task as the encouragement of new editors. Sorry. When an edit reduces the net quality of a page, a revert qualifies as an improvement. — RJH (talk) 21:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty contrary to WP:BITE. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of uncomfirmed images sourced from Stock.XCHNG

These have been lying around for a while, so I have listed them all at Misplaced Pages:Possibly unfree images#SXC images. I figure 14 days should be more than enough to contact the photographers for any of these images we want to keep. To help out go to the category, pick a few images, then follow the source link to the image page on SXC and click the "contact user" icon (you need an acount there to do this) and request that they release the image under a suitable free license. Then put add the {{contact|~~~~}} template on the image to make sure we don't send multiple requets to the same user. Images in the category with no comfirmed free license after a couple of weeks then be deleted (I think the standard is usualy 48 hours these days, but I can't be bothered to contact all the uploaders personaly, so I figure 14 days is a fair timeframe in this special case.

If this works out I'll propose the same is done to clean out commons:Category:Sxc-warning on Commons. --Sherool (talk) 18:19, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Calling a health psychologist

I have edited the article on locus of control, given that this required expertise from a psychology expert, but this article still requires attention from a health psychologist (for example, a Chartered Health Psychologist in the British Psychological Society or a professional member of Division 38 of the American Psychological Associationwho could cite some empirical data in relation to health locus of control. I believe that there is such a thing as Wiki-project: Psychology - if they could turn attention to this article on locus of control, I shall be appreciative. ACEOREVIVED 19:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposal and challenge to end anonymity

In light of the Essjay debacle, it is clear the policy of anonymity here must come to an end if Misplaced Pages is ever to have any credibility. At a bare minimum, anyone with authority (from admins on up) should be identified to the foundation and preferably be required to give basic information about themselves to the public as a whole. Additionally, any and all contributor's should be required to submit an email address in order to open an account and an account should be required in order to post (this is basic at any other web site). As a challenge to the community, I have decided to identify myself at my user page. In my opinion, the current situation is ripe for abuse and Essjay's action's have badly damaged the credibility of Misplaced Pages and I no longer have complete faith in the organization and it's decision-making process. Thank you for listening. --Jayzel 04:17, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to reality... I find it somewhat funny that everyone is wailing and moaning over how shocked they are by Essjay's actions. What did you expect? Of course someone lied about who they are, and what their credentials were. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner (actually, since I am sure it has... let me change that to: I am surprised that it hasn't become public sooner). This is common on the internet, where people can hide behind usernames, and create what ever persona they want for themselves. We should never assume that people are who they say they are. A healthy scepticism is a very good thing when you can't look the person you are talking to in the eye.

That said, there is no way you are going to get people to fully identify themselves on line... especially when doing so can open the door to identity theft and cyber abuse. What you suggest is a great way to kill the project. Very few admins would be willing to opperate under those conditions.

As for the credibility of Misplaced Pages... where have you been hiding? It never had any credibility to begin with. Why do you think all those high schools and colleges don't let their students to cite to Misplaced Pages. The basic concept is flawed. As long as "anyone can edit"... then "anyone" will. Not just smart, well-informed, honest people... but also fruads, idiots, and the ill-informed. My advice... sit back, have fun creating articles, and stop taking it all so seriously. Blueboar 17:05, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

This proposal seems completely bass-ackwards to me. If we force people to give us information, then clearly we'll have more people making it up, not less, since the people who don't want to give us personal information will just make it up. Even if it were otherwise, a) people are uncomfortable about revealing personal information on the Internet - most basic guides specifically advise against it - and b) while Misplaced Pages is a safer place to reveal your name than your average cybersex chatroom, certain groups have shown themselves to be very willing to use personal information to harrass editors in real life in order to achieve their goals. Requiring contributors to publicise personal information to this extent would reduce our editing population to that of Citizendium very quickly. --138.38.32.84 18:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Uh, please read before commenting people. I said anyone given authority at Misplaced Pages should identify themselves to the Foundation, not to the general public. And this very concept is being given serious consideration over at User talk:Jimbo Wales as we speak. --Jayzel 19:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually you said as a bare minimum.

Whilst in principle I can see where your arguments have some attraction I think that realistically many contributors would choose not to do so. THose of us who participate in contentious subject areas, and even in some non-contentious areas where we have knowledge, would not want our personal information available in any depth.

ALR 20:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's face it, there are some crazy people out there. Do we want our employers to find out we angered some vandal? I sympathize with your concerns, but privacy problems are probably even a bigger issue on the internet than some encyclopedia. Xiner (talk, email) 22:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

You said ...preferably be required to give basic information about themselves to the public as a whole. Short response: no. Longer response: Hell no. A quick perusal through my user page history will show how many vandals are less than enamored with my work. There is no way I would give any of them even a shred of information that they could later use to find and harass me outside of Misplaced Pages. Nor would I want my family to have to deal with the repercussions of my editing here. Information for the foundation...possibly. Information for the public...no way. IrishGuy 22:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I have seen, anyone registered with Misplaced Pages as a user, is at very least less likely to be someone who vandalizes pages. They would need to keep changing their name and password. The one listing here of a multi-use IP address is the only one under this heading, and it's comment page posts what is true-those users may register under any name and that will work with most any computer. Adding real names to the site would place extreme limits on who posts what, I have seen other sites that have done so, they work, but also info posted on the whole site is far less than here.

• It would seem the most problems come from non-signed in IP addresses, it would seem we could live with a few users who need to be blocked by user name. Is there any problem known with the false use of a registered user name- I.E. Spoofing the site under another user's name?Kidsheaven 23:02, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

There have been far too many people, admins and non-admins, who have been literally stalked in real life for this suggestion to fly. You would find far too many people abandoning Misplaced Pages if they had to reveal their real names. Corvus cornix 23:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I find the paranoia of people too much. Simply telling fellow editors your first name and letting us know your sex and age range isn't giving anyone any tools to track you down any more than introducing yourself at a party in real life puts you at risk. And frankly when I go to dispute resolution over a complex issue in a complex article, I do not want the mediator to be some 17 year old kid. They way things run now, that very well can happen. Anyway, without a doubt I think people in authority positions here should be required to ID themselves to the foundation. Anyone unwilling to do so should be stripped of their status ASAP. If you're THAT paranoid or secretive, we don't want you. --Jayzel 23:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Pardon me for asking, but are you personally in one of those positions of authority you speak of? Do you honestly know how many times those editors have to deal with harassment? Besides, how exactly would one provide ID to the foundation? Fax something? That can be faked. You can't seriously expect everyone in an admin on up position to fly to the foundation and present him/herself in person. IrishGuy 23:43, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)"If you're that paranoid or secretive, we don't want you." Speak for yourself, I and many others don't think it matters in the slightest if you don't divulge your identity. As has been confirmed countless times at RfA, what matters is a person's edits, not their personal identity or lack thereof. The Essjay problem would have been avoided just as easily by a policy forbidding users from claiming personal authority as one forcing them to prove it. I additionally would like to remind you that age is no guarantor of wisdom. --tjstrf talk 23:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

There are several teenaged admins. Corvus cornix 02:32, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Haha, no. Remember what Jimbo said: If Essjay had merely used a pseudonym, everything would have been fine and understandable (what with people like Brandt seeking to cause real-life problems for admins). The problem is that he was a trusted member of the community with access to tools that required a great deal of trust, while at the same time he used his pseudonym's credentials during content disputes. Using a pseudonym wasn't the problem, it's using it in an unethical way during a content dispute that was the problem. (which has always been true... I'm sure a number of admins have sock puppets... this is totally in line with policy, as long as they don't use the sock puppets to try to drum up support in a content dispute or AfD) --Interiot 23:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

No, we all have the right to be anonymous here, judge people by their contributions. HowIBecameCivil 23:56, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we all have just learned people are only judged here by how good a game they play. --Jayzel 01:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

As said above, judge on contributions. Sysops, after all, are not employees of the Foundation (and I would be astonished if people who ran the Foundation didn't have to submit CVs and stuff). I will be scared the day WP:RfA candidates are rejected "because this guy isn't who he is". After all, if one uses his/her credentials to justify something, it implies they know more than them, and unless it is sourced, isn't that violating WP:OR? Anonymity is one of the reasons some people contribute to Misplaced Pages, and I think it should stay that way. x42bn6 Talk 19:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Babel box categories

There is a discussion on Misplaced Pages talk:User categories for discussion#User en, but there are not presently many participants. I have posted on Misplaced Pages talk:Babel and I'm now posting here to try to gather more people to build a consensus. Issues being discussed are: Category naming conventions (should it be renamed to "Wikipedians ... etc" and if so, how in particular), and whether some of these categories should exist at all (do the -0 categories, in particular, aid collaboration in any way?) It is important to note that, first of all, this is NOT a UCFD nomination and it may not lead to one, it's just a discussion to try to get input on where to proceed next on this issue. And, second, no-one's suggesting deleting any babel boxes, only changing what (if any) categories they will add to the pages in which they are included. --Random832 17:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

"User created pages" list

The "My contribution" or "User contributions" link in the toolbox is very useful, but sometimes I'd like to take a list of articles that I (or a particular user has created. It doesn't seem like there is a filtering mechanism in place to view just those "created pages", is there? I don't think it's particular hard to add such a functionality, but it would help in fighting vandalism as well as determining a user's constructive contributions to Misplaced Pages. Minh T. Nguyen 23:55, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we have something to that effect on the m:toolserver - lemme search around -- Tawker 00:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

user:Interiot runs a tool on toolserver on request that does this if you're interested in articles you've created. I suspect he won't run reports on other users for you. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Unique Wiki Labeling on *All* Consumer Products and Ads

Would this *consumer product wiki labeling* initiative be appropriate for Misplaced Pages.org to participate in?

WikiPPP (Product,Planet,People) will be petitioning trade organizations and governments worldwide to require a *unique* wiki website on all products, and advertising related to all products.

A unique wiki web address/URL on every product's packaging, or in a product's advertising would help consumers find and contribute environmental, humanitarian, product details, and company information about any product. Un-developed product pages would automatically be redirected to product category pages.

Some of the advantages in creating a wiki article for every product would be:

• encourage informed and ethical consumer purchasing benefiting humankind and the environment
• quicker access to the product and 'product category' research, issues, reviews, pricing and availability
• easier access to related info provided by the company
• product pages could be accessed while in a store via cellphones with web access or store kiosks, or at home via the web
• more consumer and citizen participation in product development and standards

The unique wiki website required on all products and in advertising would be the main wiki URL followed by either:

• the product and the company name (preferable)
• the UPC (universal product code)

For example, the unique wiki address for any product might be "WikiPPP.org/" or "WikiConsumer.org/" followed by the product-model-company name, or the product's UPC code. Such as, the URL posted on a Schwinn made bicycle, and on its shipping box might look like "wikippp.org/bicyle8851schwinn". The names could be abbreviated when needed.

Because "bicyle8851schwinn" would be a file established under for the www.wikppp.org website, it would *not* be necessary for the Schwinn company to buy a domain name for this product, or any of their other products.

In cases where companies change their names or the product name, an old page with a product's old name or a company's old name in the title could be easily redirected to the updated product page with the corrected title. This is one argument for using the UPC code to create the unique URL for products.

Some companies might prefer to buy a top level name such as www.Wikibicyle8851schwinn.org to save space on their packaging and encourage participation in the Wiki. As such, they would still be obliged to point their domain to the central "www.WikiPPP.org/bicyle8851schwinn" page.

Each of these product's wiki articles would initially be set up the company. However, the company would be obliged to leave a product page "blank" except for entering the Product Name and model, UPC code (if applicable), Product Category and Company Name. This product name followed by the company name would become the page title. Depending on the Wiki's guidelines for allowing companies to edit, it may be determined that companies would be allowed to include weblinks on the discussion page (or, dare I say, even at the bottom of the main article page). These company added links could point to product details, environmental, humanitarian, manufacturing, financial and/or other product related info pages that are owned by the company.

Of course, wiki volunteer editors can add the company's weblinks to the main article page.

As long as a specific product page remains blank after its initial creation, the product page would be redirected after ~15 seconds to an existing wiki article that describes the *category* the product is in.

The 'long' ~15 second wait before redirecting to a product category would:

• allow volunteer editors a chance to click on the 'edit' or other links
• allow readers to click on the 'discussion' link to see volunteer talk and/or links a company may have posted
• allow time to click on other page links, such as the preconfigured search links described below
• allow readers a chance to click on company and product related links at the bottom

Once a wiki volunteer has edited the article to include product or company related information and links, the volunteer could then stop the automatic redirect to the product category page. Environmental, humanitarian, specifications, history are examples of product related material that an editor may want to add to the page. The editor would also make sure the product was accurately categorized.

A few of the features that might be nice on each product page include:

• a search button for other products in the same product category
• a search button for other products in the same product category from the same company
• a search button for other products from the same company
• a button that goes to a wiki page covering the company

These buttons would automatically be created and configured for the page using a script that would use the info inputted by the company when the page was set up.

Because many consumers would not be familiar with the wiki concept, the fact that anyone can edit these pages *may* need to be stated more clearly on product pages.

Editable product templates could be used to edit multiple similar product pages for a company. Plus, if companies could set up their "blank" product pages into the wiki via a "product tree" designed to categorize similar products, it would be easy to use product templates to edit multiple similar products for a company.

Guidelines could be established to exempt companies with "simple" products that are low cost, produced in limited numbers and with little variability from similar products from other companies.

An online petition will be set-up soon that consumers can sign to request *unique* wiki website on all products, and on all advertising related to products. It will probably be located on www.ThePetitionSite.Com.

Relevant links::

• Ethical Consumerism
• http://www.consumer.gov (US federal government consumer info)Consumer.Gov
• Consumer Reports
• http://www.consumersinternational.org/ Consumers International
• develop.consumerium.org/wiki
• Wikicompany.org
• Misplaced Pages.org search for "consumer information"
• WikiPPP.org

WikiPPP :: Product, Planet, People aka:WikiConsumer.org WikiC.org

Is there a chance in Wikitopia that this initiative might be workable here soon... eeer... or later? Greentopia 07:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not an indiscriminate collection of information, so this sounds like a massive policy violation to me. If another group wants to do that, fine, but there is no way that every product ever will be considered notable by our standards. --tjstrf talk 07:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Culture neutrality?

I assume this would be more a guideline than a policy, but I'm curious to know if any guideline etc exists regarding culture neutrality of WP articles? In particular, many articles appear to conform to a default American cultural POV, and I'd like to know if instances of these can be corrected inline with any particular guideline or policy? As an example, American placenames are often given without qualifying that they are located within the United States; US organisations etc are referred to directly without qualifying that they exist within the US and so on. In some ways I was able to read an ideal of cultural neutrality into the existing NPOV policy, but it goes a little beyond that in pursuing a cultural neutrality that doesn't make assumptions regarding the cultural POV of people reading any given WP article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 211.26.1.167 (talk) 11:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

Neutral means what you think it should mean: we have no idea where our readers may be, and unwarranted assumptions may make articles useless to them. We have a template for adding to (the many) articles written from a particular national/regional position: see Template:Globalize. It's far from being a US-specific problem. I'd reserve the template for the worst cases. For less bad examples, you can mention problems on the article's talk page. Angus McLellan (Talk)

Or fix them. Though be careful. I think there's a style guide about place names, you might want to check that for that issue in particular. And many "US organisations" are multinational; and even if not, it's often sufficient to name them with (at least one in the article) link to their article, without having to say "The US company $FOO" every time it's mentioned anywhere. For their articles themselves, the location can be mentioned in the lead paragraph. --Random832 18:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

One thing about placenames - while it would certainly be arrogant to talk about Cambridge, it would be less so to refer to Chicago. How unique the name is, how well-known the place is (on its own or vs other places with the same name), are all factors in how much qualification is needed. Context matters, too. One might simply say Los Angeles in talking about the american city, but it would generally be inappropriate in talking about the Chilean one, though contexts where this would be appropriate certainly exist. A perhaps related issue comes up in terms of highway signage near where I live, where exits only a few miles apart give you a choice of Columbus or Columbus, OH. --Random832 18:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not so much a matter of arrogance, as it is a matter of avoiding assumptions on behalf of WP's audience. For example, if I referred to Uluru, a majority of Australians would know exactly what I was speaking about. Most non-Australians, presumably, wouldn't. But beyond placenames, I've encountered content a number of times in articles where the cultural POV of the writer was very obviously American (not that it should matter what particular cultural POV it is, just that it's not a culturally neutral POV). An example would be these couple of lines from the entry on Gardasil: "On 2006-06-29, a panel of experts, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, gave their approval for the vaccination of Gardasil on children as young as nine years old. The ACIP recommended that Gardasil be placed on the childhood immunization schedule at the eleven to twelve year old visit." After a Google search it became obvious that the ACIP is an American committee, and therefore its recommendations would be applicable to American children. So, culturally neutral POV isn't simply about being pedantic, but about providing contextual relevance.--Planetthoughtful 06:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

There's a project focused on just this. See Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Current Events

I have proposed a new guideline (ish) for the Portal:Current events page - please comment at Wikipedia_talk:How_the_Current_events_page_works#Stories_without_links AndrewRT(Talk) 21:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Please do not add replies here

Redirecting city names

This falls into the overwhelmingly obvious category but I didn't see it at "perennial proposals." I get really frustrated when I type in "worcester MA" and get no results, type in "concord nh" and get a list of results (of which "Concord, NH" is the first), and so on. Why isn't this standardized? Why doesn't "town state" automatically redirect to "Town, State"? Why does "town state" sometimes give you a list of results and sometimes nothing? Is there a way to automatically create redirects so that for every location in the USA, "worcester ma" and "Worcester MA" and "Worcester, MA" and all other variations of capitalization and comma usage lead you directly to the correct article? Is this just too onerous to do? -204.52.215.9 21:29, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Considering there are over 30,000 US town entries - yes, it's a touch onerous. "worcester, ma" will work. It might be something to do in the future, but with such a huge workload, I'm sure no one is going to make it a top priority. Then again. maybe they will. As for "why does 'town state' sometimes give you a list of results and sometimes nothing", it's not giving a list of results - it's giving a list of possible results. The search failed, so the search page is bringing up what its meager algorithm thinks you MIGHT have meant. It's not intelligent by any means, but it sometimes hits it right. Sometimes. --Golbez 21:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess I was wondering if there was a way to do it automatically, like via a bot or something, to avoid having to create 5 redirects for each of 30,000 articles. -204.52.215.9 21:47, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Nope, sorry, no way to do it automatically. --Golbez 21:50, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

(after edit conflict:) This is something that could be done quite efficiently by bot. After all, most of these 30,000 articles were created by a bot. I suggest you leave a message at Misplaced Pages:Bot requests. -- Eugène van der Pijll 21:50, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd be careful with this, though, because there are many parenthetically disambiguated ones, and also potential for confusion. You might be best off going straight to Ram-man, since it was his bot that created the articles. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

"Did you mean" feature

I propose for Misplaced Pages EN to add the "Did you mean?" feature to the search box similar to the one Google uses. It's great because, for instance, if you are trying to look up the biography of say health guru Jack Lalanne and you type "jack lalaine" thinking this is a close enough spelling of his name and only get 6 results that aren't related to him at all because it's not exact correct spelling his name. Then you go to Google and type "jack lalaine" and it immediately asks "Did you mean: jack lalanne," the name even being a hyperlink" and still lists the hits it finds below that for the mispelling.

It's an extremely powerful feature because not only does it help the user to get to the correct file, but it also makes the user want to go to your site in the future if they're merely trying to find the correct spelling, those giving you more exposure. But mostly it's just great to not have to know the exact spelling to find what you need. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jmaruca (talk • contribs) 01:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

This sort of functionality exists in the underlying search engine, but it's disabled for performance reasons (unlike Google, Misplaced Pages basically has no source of funds for hardware other than donations). You can use Google to search Misplaced Pages by adding "site:en.wikipedia.org" to your Google search string. There's a bit more discussion about this at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Better search feature. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

"subst:" is almost certainly not necessary

Was the suggestion of using "subst:" to reduce server load informed by actual profiling? That is, did someone actually measure the non-hypothetical, real-life difference?

The suggestion initially seems plausible, until you learn a few things about computers. And the first thing to learn is that intuitive guesses about optimizing an application are almost always wrong. In fact, using "subst:" probably slows down the server since database throughput is orders of magnitude slower than CPU/RAM throughput. But until careful real-life measurements are taken, nobody can really know.

Of course, "subst:" is sometimes the desired behavior, regardless of server load issues. However other uses of "subst:" cannot be justified without hard evidence. Xerxesnine 04:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:PERF seems relevant --Random832 14:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Therefore we should remove all claims that the use of "subst:" reduces server load, because it could indeed have the opposite effect. For example Template:Subst. AFAIK there is no evidence either way, making the "subst:" belief pure superstition. Xerxesnine 16:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

It's important because without it, a single template update can spoil the cache for every single page that template is transcluded on, which is tens of thousands for some high-use templates. The only case where I've seen subst advocated for load issues is sigs, though. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Some templates, like {{subst:afd}}, don't work when they aren't substed; and some templates, like {{test}} (or I suppose {{uw-t1}} if you're a WP:UW fan), would cause a huge job-queue increase if they were modified after a large number of non-substings, which would probably swamp the other tasks for which the job queue is used for several minutes. Simply viewing a page with a transcluded template isn't normally a problem, though, as you noticed (the developers have installed a template-transclusion limit so that the cases where it is a problem can't happen). --ais523 17:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Heh. Gracenotes, a WP:UW fanboi. (Okay, I won’t use that term again.) The job queue is probably the most relevant thing here. Also, the {{prod}}/{{dated prod}} system can’t work without substitution. Gracenotes § 18:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there any hard evidence based on real-life tests by the Misplaced Pages IT folks? There is absolutely no way to profile a system by hypothesizing about it. It's always surprising where the bottleneck is---and isn't. For example, I could equally argue that RAM/CPU cache hits on the template routines are faster than the database throughput. If you re-read my initial post, I was asking for evidence, not more dubious theorizing. Xerxesnine 05:09, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

There have been cases (not testing, but situations nonetheless) where it can be a bad idea for transclusion. Although there is no need to worry about performance, if you wish to create a template, and it becomes very popular, it may well be beneficial to make it a good template then substitute rather than transclude. Yes, we don't have to worry about performance - but this doesn't mean, of course, we waste it. High-risk templates being protected could well be an example. In other words, substitution is pretty much a necessity when transclusion proves to be a bad risk. x42bn6 Talk 17:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Suppose I don't buy your arguments. I say, for example, that cached template functions are faster than the database throughput. How will you convince me otherwise? Xerxesnine 22:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a developer so I can't answer that question. I do know, however, that substitution is existent for a reason, and not just transclusion - and the effects of editing a transcluded template have been explained above. x42bn6 Talk 23:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Since you know some C++, I can give you an analogous situation. Suppose you take a small C++ program and force all the functions to be inline (via a compiler option, since the 'inline' keyword is merely a suggestion). It might run a little faster. Now do this with a large C++ program. In all likelihood, the large C++ program with all inline functions will run slower. Why? Cache hits.

The use of subst in Misplaced Pages is like inlining in C++. When the amount substed is not too great, there will be a benefit with subst. But as that amount increases, the benefit swings back to dynamic templates, like non-inlined functions in C++.

Maybe you buy the argument, maybe you don't. But the moral is: How do we decide the proper course of action with regard to 'subst'? Not by making arguments; only careful real-life testing can decide. Xerxesnine 23:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You're missing the point. Most of the arguments for subst aren't performance-based. 142.157.19.40 22:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Standard maps

Hi, I know the idea of wiki maps is too complex... but could we at least adopt one high quality map with appropriate markings as the common map for all geographical locations. I often see small and incongruent maps on the pages of cities, etc. Can we find one very good map and just have all maps get cropped from the good map? That way we have a good map standard. Even better is if each wikipage on a physical location have longitude and latitude, and the maps be automagically cropped off the good clear map and then used as the map. It would be good to have a large scale context map and then a more zoomed-in one on the actual place check out the difference in map quality: http://en.wikipedia.org/Sakhalin http://en.wikipedia.org/Pusan

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 140.180.154.101 (talk) 05:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

There are already fairly standard blank maps for many countries, which can then have dots added to them by a locater template. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Bot suggestion

Is there any point having an orphan page warning on a disambiguation page? It sounds good to me that ppl link the right page, not the disambiguation page. Eg, FPLC. Hence I suggest a bot deal to these pages with orphan page and disambiguation categories. Any reason why not?

Aaadddaaammm 07:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

PS I have no idea how to make a bot, just a suggestion for someone else.

You can request that someone writes a bot at WP:BOTREQ. --ais523 09:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the usefulness of this is. Ideally all disambig pages will be orphans, since links will be fixed to point directly and they'll just be there for people who type in the name. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 16:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Talk:NOR

Wikisuppression of free speech? What is the point of wiping active discussions from Talk:NOR? We are discussion *whether* we should be allowed to post *to* that page? How can *that* be discussed anywhere else? The question isn't, at this point, whether we should or shouldn't be discussing it there, the question at this point is, why is the discussion being suppressed and wiped? Wjhonson 00:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

That subject is discussed at WT:A right now. _InBC 00:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes but the question isn't discussing the historical policy page. It's discussing whether we *can* post to historical Talk pages whatsoever. Can we? Or is that forbidden by some policy? That's the question. Wjhonson 00:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

New essay: Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Cares

Please contribute. Thanks. Xiner (talk, email) 15:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages in sign languages

Are there any plans to have wikipedias in sign languageas, such as American Sign Language (ASL) or British Sign Language (BSL)?

stevo

(email removed, to protect you from spam harvesters)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.247.22.72 (talk • contribs) 18:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I really can't see much of a reason. Sign language is for the hearing impaired, but they have to be able to see to see the signs so they can probably read. Also, as far as I know, there is no keyboard or font that gives sign language letters and words, so writing articles could be very tedious. Wikipedias are generally only written in written language. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 20:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You are incorrect; sign languages are completely unrelated to spoken languages and can be written. See meta:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia American Sign Language 2 for a current proposal.--Pharos 21:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I am all for Wiki to have sign languages. For many Deaf people sign language is their only language. If Wiki went ahead and articles were converted into ASL, BSL etc, it would open up a whole new community of Wikipedians, who otherwise would not be involved in Wiki.--NeilEvans 23:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

This isn't the right venue. Take this to the meta discussion. 142.157.19.40 22:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Search page

I have been trying to produce a new search page for when there is an error. My prototype is available here tell me what you think. Click on the search box and make a search. It is pretty good. I know a few people @ ms. I will see if they will make a version where there are no advertisements. A few strings might be able to be pulled. Give me any feedback, errors or objections you have, I would really like to build on it. Sorry about the loading time, the background image is kinda biggish but i wanted it to look realistic.

thanx

symode09 14:41, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I have added this proposal again because nof the lack of response

symode09 04:52, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The Go/Search is lousy.

Who was Onetas? Well, if You look in Wik(english), You will find two pages of search-hits for "oneta" - but Onetas? Nothing. (For the curious, go to "Ephialtes.: Kdammers 05:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Clearer manual for Misplaced Pages!

Although I discovered Misplaced Pages quite some time ago and have spent a lot of time reading generally well-written and interesting articles, I've still not found any easy-to-use manual for Misplaced Pages through Misplaced Pages. It seems to me that such an introduction should be clearly available as a link on the very first page of Misplaced Pages. This manual should be reasonable short so that it can be read from the beginning to the end in let's say 15 minutes. Then of course in that manual there could be many links with more detailed information about rules for editing etc. I've seen that there is a lot of information about rules, news etc etc, but it's all too detailed and dispersed for a person to grasp the essentials within a reasonable time. The risk is obviously that many people, who would be interested in contribute and edit themselves, are put off, since they can't find an easy manual for what to do and how to use it all. For example yesterday I watched a speech by the founder of Misplaced Pages on the homepage of Ted. He said that there is a page, which shows all changes, which are being made within Misplaced Pages. Also, he claimed that there are discussions for what pages should be kept and what should be deleted. However, I can’t find such pages and I can’t find any manual, which could help me finding those interesting pages. Please let me know what you think about my idea.--Smallchanges 10:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I assume you know about Help:Contents but don't find it adequate. The welcome message on your talk page is meant to include most of the important pointers. The problem is Misplaced Pages is huge (really huge). What you're asking for is sort of analogous to a quick overview of New York City, although this might make a reasonable Wikibook. BTW - The specific pages you mention are Recent changes (in the navigation box, on the left) and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree. I have been editing on Wik for over a year and still find the information on how to do things on Wik extremely hard to (re-)find and often written in jargon (W:DK, NPOV sockpuppet, etc.). I have repeatedly suggested a search function for Wik (i.e., not for the content, which we obviously have, but for searching on how to do things with Wik, e.g., making footnotes, finding out all the edits a given editor has made), but this has fallen on deaf ears. The Help page certainly is any-thing but adequate. Kdammers 00:34, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

You might be interested in Misplaced Pages:Department directory or Help:Contents/Site map. Misplaced Pages's search function can search by namespace (search for something you know won't be found and you get a menu allowing specific namespaces to be searched). You can also use Google to approximately restrict a search to the wikipedia namespace by adding site:en.wikipedia.org "wiki/wikipedia" to your search string. I'm sorry you think previous suggestions have fallen on deaf ears - like pretty much everything else here the help system is a work in progress, put together and maintained by volunteers. I'd bet any specific concern you have would get addressed if you raised it at Help talk:Contents. You could also choose to be bold and try to fix it yourself. BTW - you can find out all edits a given editor has made - from either their user page or talk page, click "user contributions" (in the toolbox, on the left). -- Rick Block (talk) 01:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Rick Block and Kdammers, thanks for your quick answers and useful input. --Smallchanges 09:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone every created a mediawiki site which is free?

Has anyone every created a mediawiki site which is free?

Which allows anyone to post anything they want, and have access to all the files? I have an assbackwards system called Siteground.com, which is terrible.

This could revolutionize the way that people transfer and collect data. Kind of a yahoo, or google of the internet, based outside of the United States, with weaker or nonexistent copyright laws.

It would make wikipedia seem bassakwards.

Kind of like the internet on Enders game, it would revolutionize the way that everyone would do things, see things, etc. There are several Economist about the problems with patents, etc, which I can post offwiki. Odessaukrain 12:23, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

That would not work. Sure, it might seem to work for a while, when it's new. But running servers costs money, and if you accept everything, you would have to use lots of servers. Besides, it is not at all a good thing to allow people to post anything they want. -Amarkov moo! 17:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

See also, Uncyclopedia--VectorPotential 17:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Um... what? It doesn't accept everything at all, it's just that it accepts different things. -Amarkov moo! 17:42, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of wiki sites out there that have less rules than Misplaced Pages, but I don't know of any that have no rules at all. Laws would limit what could be posted, if nothing else. If you want to create a wiki of your own, you can download the Mediawiki software for free. Koweja 17:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Make Misplaced Pages p2p

This is a crazy idea that I randomly had the other day so bare with me... But I think it would be amazing if wikipedia could somehow make an application that utilized peer to peer software. In other words... store the contents of wikipedia on user computers that have the application running on their computer. Still keep up the local servers but somehow create a p2p version of wikipedia that could act as a "backup" for the site. And if the idea caught on enough we could do away with the local servers completely. It would totally revolutionize wikipedia and make it a permanent stable of the internet that would not be reliant on donations or massive local servers. Just food for thought. --Tobyw87 21:55, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

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