Misplaced Pages

I've thought the same thing myself many times (about the accounts, not your craziness :) - plus I'll chip in the extra idea that you can log on and be logged onto all of them simultaneously. There's nothing more annoying that going, say, from en.wiki to common, signing something and then realising you're only logged on in en.wiki and have signed as an anon. 'Twould be most useful. Grutness...wha? 04:52, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

See meta:Single login. The developers have been working on this for a while, and it seems things may come to fruition soon (let's hope!).--Pharos 05:30, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

(in evil Gerry Anderson baddie-type voice) ex-thel-lent! Grutness...wha? 05:53, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

• Indeed meta-login has been discussed extensively, but we'll never have a single login that includes Demosphere's wiki, and Halo's wiki. We are not affiliated with them and there's no way we could get those databases to work together. - Mgm| 12:55, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
  • That could be possible even for unassociated wikis. For example, all Drupal sites support a shared login scheme. Angela. 22:50, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

The problem with shared login that springs to mind is that of duplicate usernames (but different people) existing across projects. For instance, I'm Robchurch on this wiki, and Robchurch on Meta, Commons, etc. but what if there's a Robchurch on FR-wiki that isn't me? This is going to be a technical headache, I feel.

If we start incorporating all wikis using the MediaWiki software, as Angela claims is possible (and I don't dispute that it is); then this username clash is going to be even more prominent. Rob Church 10:27, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

The problem is more social than technical since it involves handling the disputes between people who currently share a username. If all wikis were sharing it, it could be possible to have an ID like angela@enwikipedia which would appear as "angela" on en.wikipedia, allowing someone else to be "angela" on fr.wikibooks. The login ID doesn't need to match your displayed username. See m:Single login specifications and m:Single signon transition for more on this topic. Angela. 20:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

ESA Template

I'd like to propose having an image template for pictures from the EAS web site. This would be comparable to the {{PD-USGov-NASA}} template. Could somebody let me know what process I need to go through to make this happen? Here are the EAS site terms of image use:

Most images have been released publicly from ESA. You may use ESA images or videos for educational or informational purposes. The publicly released ESA images may be reproduced without fee, on the following conditions:

• Credit ESA as the source of the images:

Examples: Photo: ESA; Photo: ESA/Cluster; Image: ESA/NASA - SOHO/LASCO

• ESA images may not be used to state or imply the endorsement by ESA or any ESA employee of a commercial product, process or service, or used in any other manner that might mislead.

• If an image includes an identifiable person, using that image for commercial purposes may infringe that person's right of privacy, and separate permission should be obtained from the individual.

Thank you. :) — RJH 20:53, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

That is an unacceptable license. Images on Misplaced Pages must be usable by third parties, including for commericial purposes, which this license forbids. Superm401 | Talk 03:49, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

It seem to me to permit commercial usage - "commercial" and "educational or informational" are not mutually exclusive: consider, for example, use in a textbook, which would be a commercial educational use. However, Misplaced Pages:Copyright FAQ#Educational licenses states that "educational use permitted" licenses are not allowed, similarly to non-commercial use licenses. So it is still unacceptable, but not for the reason you give. -- AJR 23:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I can't see any prevention of use of images for commercial purposes, except where the image includes an identifiable person (so such images couldn't be used by Misplaced Pages), or the image is being used to imply endorsement by ESA (which seems totally fair as a restriction in my opinion).-gadfium 08:17, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

In any case, users of PD-US images of an identifiable person could be sued in other jurisdictions for breach of local privacy laws. I think this is an acceptable licence, in Misplaced Pages terms, and much freer than "fair use". Physchim62 19:52, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

It's the following paragraph in the license that I guess may be a problem:

If these images are to be used in advertising or any commercial promotion, layout and copy must be submitted to ESA beforehand for approval ()

:-( Johantheghost 22:00, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Ach, well then it sounds like ESA pictures are a no-go. I've seen some ESA images on wikipedia already, so they will need to be expunged, alas. — RJH 16:16, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Please see Meta:ESA images]. Superm401 | Talk 18:42, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposal about certain templates, and where they go (article or talk page)

Currently, many templates go on the talk page. I think they should go on the article page, because (just as NPOV warning adds important info and so is on the article page) they add useful or important content that one may want to know when reading an article, without having to go to the talk page.

My current list of things that should go on the article, not the talk page, are:

• Featured Article (could just be a star somewhere near the top of the article, like the Spoken Misplaced Pages icon)
• Featured Article candidate (to encourage more people to contribute, just as the AfD template is currently on the article page)
• Peer Review (but NOT Peer Review archived)

Please feel free to add to the above list, and/or tell me why this proposal is a good or bad idea. Batmanand 09:12, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you about featured articles. I think I have actually seen a little star next to the interwiki links to the German Misplaced Pages when the German article is a featured one. Mamawrites 11:16, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

There was quite an extensive poll done on this issue a couple months ago at Misplaced Pages:Template locations - SimonP 15:34, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

The idea of indicating the featured status of a article in the article page, have been brought many times, but I think there was a consensus about leaving the template in the talk page to prevent readers from considering non-FAs low quality articles. As for my opinion, I'm rather for putting some kinf of a FA mark in the article page. An idea taken from the vietnamese Misplaced Pages, about putting a star right next to the title of a featured article in being discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:Featured articles#Featured article icon on vi:.
As for the FA candidate and the Peer revew template, the main reason for putting them in the talk page is that there are "editors" templates, that concerns the ones who are interested in editing the page, and who should check the talk page. CG 14:15, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for a new navigation link

I propose that Misplaced Pages include a new link in its navigation menu to the page Misplaced Pages:Who writes Misplaced Pages. My primary concern is the potential for students to assume that all Misplaced Pages entries are of equally high quality. This MSNBC news article discusses how uncritically the typical student entering college approaches research: Colleges look to test internet IQ. This link documents the popularity of Misplaced Pages among kids: Alexa's Most Popular in Kids and Teens Category.

There is precedent for adding a new menu item to the toolbox; User:Angela made a proposal within the past few months for a "permanent link" option to be added at the bottom of the toolbox menu. It appears in all main articlespace pages. While users of the MediaWiki software may not make use of a link that says "Who writes wikipedia", I bet they would all appreciate a link called "About this site" or something similar. Ideally, this link would be customized for each installation of the MediaWiki software.

What do others think? Is this worth asking the programmers to do? Mamawrites 11:14, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

• I'm not convinced any one in the target audience will click it. Though I do think a very interetesting article could be written ont he subject. RJFJR 14:44, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it's important to have such a link in a prominent place. I've heard too many stories of people using Misplaced Pages as a more authoritative source than they should be, and getting burned by vandalism, POV warriors, and the like. User:Omegatron/sig 17:19, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessary think a link to Misplaced Pages:Who writes Misplaced Pages would be necessary, but I think that having an "About this site" is a great idea! Perhaps right under "Random article"... Thanks! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | W_S 22:02, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

About Misplaced Pages is linked at the bottom of every page already. Something like "Who writes Misplaced Pages" could be considered for addition to that article. --Michael Snow 01:58, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, I asked for a link on that page (it's protected, so I can't just insert one myself). I still think a top-level link in the navigation page would be valuable, though. Mamawrites 08:49, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:About isn't protected. I think the link there is enough. The permalink was a tool that needed to be on every page, whereas information about the project can be found easily enough via the about page so more links aren't needed. Angela. 23:00, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I was confused; it's the disclaimer page that is protected. I have added a link in Misplaced Pages:About. Since Angela doesn't think the top-level link is needed, I'll just continue my alternate strategy of linking Who writes Misplaced Pages to lots of the places that are mainpage links... it'll take two clicks to find, but hopefully people will stumble acrss it through Help or Misplaced Pages:About. Mamawrites 10:43, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

WikiPDA - The pda version of wikipedia.

Would people consider making a PDA compatible Main Page and Page layout specifically designed for PDA viewing, like Google PDA (www.google.com/pda), although not necessarily as bland...

Also, it could be named wikiPDA, so there'd be no need to resort to adding wiki to a word to invent a new one... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.42.72.223 (talk • contribs) 22:09, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

This can more or less be done with skins. See your "preferences" and try the "Chick" skin, or see m:Gallery of user styles. Sorry, you have to create an account before this will work. —AlanBarrett 05:46, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Take a look at Main_Page_(PDA_Version), which has simplified layout for PDAs. On my own iPaq 4700, I find the normal main page renders adequately, but I've got a larger screen than most.-gadfium 07:30, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I proposed this on the main page talk page a while back. I agree it this is somthing we should do. It's nice to have that PDA version but unless PDAs are automatically redirected there it is useless. Also the search box is at the bottom of the page when it is viewed in a PDA. Using skins is not a good solution because one shouldn't have to be a wikipedian (or even a user) to view and use wikipedia on a PDA. Broken S 22:59, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

If the ?useskin= links ever work properly, it might be useful to convert that page to always link to the "chick" skin. See Main Page (PDA Version)?useskin=chick. At the moment, the skin is lost as soon as you click another link though. Angela. 23:03, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

But one of the biggest problems on PDAs is that, due to incomplete CSS support, on the monobook skin the search box ends up at the very bottom. On Chick, the search page is at the bottom on any browser. ~~ N (t/c) 23:09, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

We already have special spoon-feeding of IE5 and I know there are even sites that detect the PSP, so the technological side of adding a redirect is probably a minor one. However a completely rearranged visual theme that works suitably on all PDAs would need to be designed, not just a tweaking of the main page. Garrett 16:33, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

alternate method for identifying anonymous users

Since IP addresses are publically shown, and anonymous proxies are currently not allowed, we are probably scaring off some legit contributers.

So I am suggesting that an alternate (but optional) method of identifying anonymous users. Each anon would have a special ID given to them (for example, Guest user:48388422389), generated by a special algorithm. I've been to a forum that uses such a method, and I don't think it's a bad idea either. --Ixfd64 22:52, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

We have no interest in encouraging people to contribute anonymously. We allow it, and will continue to, but would rather people choose user names. Superm401 | Talk 12:22, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

A possible compromise is to allow administrators to see all IPs. --Ixfd64 01:10, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure. The point of hiding IPs is privacy, and the fact that we don't want people to (potentially) get in trouble for their actions on Misplaced Pages; and as admins are selected on the basis of on-Wiki trustworthiness, not real-world trustworthiness, they shouldn't be given powers with potential consequences off Misplaced Pages just by virtue of their adminship. ~~ N (t/c) 14:44, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Possible equation enhancement for MediaWiki

Would it be possible to allow characters to be entered directly in equations, as they are in plain text. I have got some examples: Susvolans ⇔ 07:52, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Why?? User:Omegatron/sig 23:54, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Makes the wikitext clearer. ~~ N (t/c) 00:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Ahhhhh... That makes sense. It's not really TeX anymore then, though. User:Omegatron/sig 00:12, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I believe the math article editors would strongly object to actually using such a capability, they seem to prefer TeX markup and oppose any form of WYSIWYG. My unicodify bot changed &gamma; to literal γ in one math article (not \gamma within <math> but &gamma; in the main article text) and they objected to that. So I don't know if this enhancement will actually be used in practice (it will probably be reverted if used), although enabling the technical capability makes sense (perhaps other wikipedias and other wikis will have a different policy). -- Curps 16:50, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I think the ability to add things like \gamma is non-standard for TeX. There are some extensions to standard TeX in our version of the software:

"In addition, texvc provides some extensions to standard AMSLaTeX, such as \codes for HTML math character entities (for example, Σ → \Sigma) which have different names in LaTeX." - Texvc User:Omegatron/sig 05:57, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

new warning system for admin use

I have been thinking about a new system for warning vandals. Usually, unless the vandalism is extremely severe, users will get a warning on their talk pages before being blocked (if necessary). However, users might use excuses like "but I didn't notice any messages" and such. Therefore, I am proposing a system that allows "official" warnings by admins. When a warned user requests a page, he or she will get a warning message instead of the requested page. There would be a button that says "I confirm that I have read this message" that must be clicked before the user can continue using Misplaced Pages. This would make sure that the user has seen the message, and leaves no room for excuses. Still, I'm sure that this is a very controversial idea, and I'm not even sure that I like it myself.

Any thoughts? --Ixfd64 01:16, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

If they are repeat offenders and have several warnings on their talk pages they obviously know what they're doing, and any excuses they use are therefore irrelevent. Editors are still the best tool the admins have in reporting vandals. Misplaced Pages is still a community afterall, and like in any good community, the people are the best watchmen. Ereinion 03:41, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Why care about those excuses? We know they saw the warning. ~~ N (t/c) 14:45, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Even if they don't try to monitor their talk(which any responsible user should), they get those orange boxes. Therefore, no excuse. Superm401 | Talk 00:42, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we can edit Mediawiki:Newmessages to add "Please read them at your earliest convenience" or something similar. But then again, we don't want Misplaced Pages to get too wordy. --Ixfd64 06:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Extra deletion button

When you move a page, a handy little button box comes up saying "do you want to move the talk page too?" Very useful, since you almost always do. So why not do the same with deletions? If I delete a page, likely as not I'll forget to check whether there's a talk page that also needs deletion - I often realise a few minutes later then have to hunt for the relevant talk page. A button asking "do you want to delete the talk page too?" would be a wonderful addition to the admin's page deletion options. Grutness...wha? 10:26, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Having just spent a two-hour bout of Wikibooks cleanup with essentially double the workload because each transwikied page had a talk page, yes this would definitely be a nice feature to have. Garrett 11:56, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Static snapshots

Could it be possible to make static snapshots of the database without histories to download for when you are not connected to the Internet? You could use it from a laptop when you're on a plane, or when the site is down. It would simply be the zipped .sql backup file. Of course, only advanced users would know how to use it, but it could still be worth it. The files could be downloaded as torrents from friendly servers.

Eje211 21:03, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

You just have to download only the cur table, instead of the cur table and the old table. I believe there are separate downloads for the cur table and for the full data (cur+old). See http://download.wikimedia.org/. --cesarb 21:22, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I was wondering to myself the other day about whether it would be possible to release annual copies of the entire wikipedia in DVD format? Warts and all... :) That could be useful, for example, when you're away from the network and need to look up something, such as a family vacation in a car. — RJH 21:55, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:TomeRaider. You'll need the TomeRaider reader(shareware), and would obviously have to burn the database to DVD yourself, but the latest version with images(April 2005) is only about 900 MB compressed. It should easily fit on a DVD when unzipped. Superm401 | Talk 00:18, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

That was EXACTLY what I was looking for! I was just about to complain about the fact that they were hard to find, but I just noticed that they are mentioned almost first in the FAQs. I crumble with shame. I usually carefully read FAQs before making that sort of inquiry. Sorry about that. Eje211 13:29, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Jobs

Since it is likely that Wikiholism has negatively impacted the personal lives of numerous people in the community, myself included, I propose the creation of Misplaced Pages:Jobs that will list various jobs or careers that Wikipedians would be good at in real life, such as writing encyclopedia articles for Encyclopædia Britannica (although we probably shouldn't promote something like that). The goal of this would be to encourage people who are currently unemployed, and whose only motivation is their tireless work on Misplaced Pages, to get jobs. The first goal of this project will be to find me a job. So, Misplaced Pages community, get to work! — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-14 05:08

• What a noble goal. Whatever I can do... What about an exciting career as a librarian, a position that also allows an excellent opportunity for the semi-subversive promotion of Wikidom?--Pharos 05:50, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
• Your first job at getting your job is to write the article. (SEWilco 05:57, 14 October 2005 (UTC))
  • I was being mildly sarcastic, but I do think it would be useful. There are probably several careers out there that younger Wikipedians wouldn't even think to consider. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-14 12:02
• Freelance editing and researching? Apwoolrich 06:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

If you feel that WP is negatively impacting your personal life, maybe it really is time to take a break. Have no fear, it will all be here for you down the road. People whose "only motivation is their tireless work on Misplaced Pages" may need more than jobs. They may actually benefit from spending time focusing on other aspects of their life.--Gaff 07:19, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

• You're free to remain in the delusion of the importance of life. I'll remain in the delusion of the importance of Misplaced Pages. :) — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-15 15:00

Votes to Create?

Moved to perennial proposals. Steve block talk 18:44, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

search engine

OK, so alotta poeple are complaining about the wikipedia search engine. now that i think about it, yeh, it sucks. someone mentioned that they use google search instead, and disregard wikipedia's own method. I also noticed that when the wikipedia search engines are down wikipedia invites the user to search through google or yahoo. Many websites have boxes that say "powered by google", so why doesn't wikipedia get that too and solve the problem of poor searching ability? --Ballchef 10:14, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

EDIT: I know I prob shouldn't have moved this to the front but i was hoping that some one of authority here could at least acknowledge it, or suggest it to the developers for me (bugzilla makes little sense to me). thanks. --Ballchef 07:52, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

You can already search Misplaced Pages via google just by adding site:en.wikipedia.org to your searches. I.E., to search wikipedia for "siamese twins", do a google search on "site:en.wikipedia.org siamese twins". Misplaced Pages does rely on Google searches when its database is overwhelmed, but there's a reason to have internal searches otherwise. Indices can be updated dynamically as articles change, which Google is not. I agree that there are some issues with the internal search; however, the developers are busy, and probably working on some of the search problems. If you have a specific complaint, try going to Misplaced Pages:Village pump (technical). Superm401 | Talk 19:56, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Categories, Portals, Wikiportals, Wikiprojects and Notice Boards

It's my view that our systems for co-ordinating both readers and editors are currently poorly organised. I'll describe what each of these things attempt to achieve (as I see it) and then explain why this causes several problems and suggest solutions.

Categories are in theory perfectly simple. Category:English poets, for example lists all our articles on English poets and does nothing else. We also , however, have categories pretending to be portals. Category:Mathematics is the perfect example of this - there is a perfectly good Portal stuck on to the top of a perfectly good Category. The Mathematics Portal actually redirects to it.

We also have straight-forward Portals, which are purely (or almost purely) designed for readers. The Cricket Portal is a good example of one of these. It contains an introduction to the topic, a few pictures and links to some of the more important related articles. The only item which is not aimed solely at readers is an invitation to participate in the associated WikiProject.

We also have WikiPortals. These contain the same sort of stuff as Portals but with extra bits thrown in, aimed at editors. To pick a few examples at random, the Brazil WikiPortal invites people to add information to a list of Brazil-related stubs and contains a little information about when it was made and who runs it, The Physics WikiPortal has a brief 'things you can do' list and the Music WikiPortal links to connected WikiProjects.

WikiProjects aim to "help coordinate and organize article writing". Lots of these are aimed purely at getting articles on the same subject to share a format/layout etc. The mountains WikiProject for example is 90% instructions on how to set out articles on mountains, 8% administration and 2% links to resources for article writing. The only thing in the Archaeology WikiProject is a list of articles that people might like to contribute to.

Finally, there are also Regional Wikipedians' Notice Boards. These contain all sorts of lovely stuff - articles to create, expand, pictures to find, relevant peer reviews, articles for deletion, featured article candidates and so on.

The problem as I see it is that the functions of these things overlap, making the system as a whole overcomplicated. I'll now list the three main problematic areas and suggest solutions.

1. Categories and Portals are essentially coming at the same job from different angles. They both provide topic-based navigation, Categories with the emphasis on being comprehensive and Portals with the emphasis on providing an attractive interface. At the moment our Categories are far more developed than our Portals, but given enough time there probably would (or could) be a portal covering each Category. There are two obvious solutions to this and at the moment we're doing both inconsistently. We should either decide to split the two up completely as is done in Portal:Cricket and Category:Cricket or put them together one one page as at Category:Mathematics. My personal preference is to keep them separate but with prominent links between them, but either solution would be acceptable. The system as it stands, however, is illogical and confusing.

2. Portals and WikiPortals are more or less the same thing. The editor related content in WikiPortals is useful but certainly not the sort of thing we should be presenting to the public. I think we should take all the reader-orientated content from our WikiPortals and transfer it to Portals. One link inviting people to edit is probably acceptable, as at the Cricket Portal, but certainly no more. What is left can be incorporated somewhere else, which leads me to...

3. Our editor-orientated pages. Here we have Noticeboards and WikiProjects doing the more or less the same thing - co-ordinating editors' efforts in a certain field. Regional Wikipedians' Noticeboards I think are a great idea, except for the first word. I see no reason why the Noticeboard concept should be restircted to regions. I think it would be equally applicable to any other topic area. I discussed mountains earlier and I think the content at the Mountains WikiProject could quite easily be incorporated into a Mountains Noticeboard (possibly on a well-marked subpage) which would also allow for the inclusion of information such as that currently on the Regional Noticeboards - requested articles, articles for expansion, up for featured articles etc. These could also include any information left over from the relevant WikiPortal.

Basically, I think we should attempt to simplify the system and organise it along more logical grounds. This would help our readers to navigate the site and find the content they want and also help our editors to create this content.

Comments and criticism etc welcome

(Also posted to the Mailing List)

--Cherry blossom tree 20:04, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I can see your point about Portals and WikiPortals, and - to be honest - would not mind at all if they were merged. Noticeboards and WikiProjects are, however, a totally different matter. Some of them are like the Mountains one you refer to. At this level, some Wikiprojects do behave similarly to noticeboards, but with slightly different purpose. WikiProjects tend to be for people who are actively working on particular subjects. Noticeboards are more for people who - by dint of their location - may be able to solve problems relating to their area. They are also good places to post information about things like local get-togethers. Ideally, these two things should mesh together well - an Armenian astronomer on Misplaced Pages may spend most of his time formatting articles on stars as per his WikiProject, but will still be available to answer questions about Armenia on his noticeboard that a local might know but a non-Armenian might not. What's more, some other WikiProjects, however, are a different kettle of herring entirely from what goes on on a noticeboard (have a look at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Stub sorting and its dozen or so subpages as an clear example of one like that!). Grutness...wha? 09:31, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Redirect and un-redirect log

Creation of redirects (and their "uncreation") should be logged, displaying the page title and the title of the redirect target:

How it would work

] would contain lines like:

02:00, 16 October 2005 Guillermo en las ruedas redirected User talk:Curps to User talk:Cvrps

02:49, 24 February 2002 213.253.39.193 created London, England as a redirect to London

To be more specific, there should be a log entry any time a page becomes a redirect by editing (initial creation or modification of existing article), and not as the automatic side-effect of a page move.

It would also show up in the Special:Recent changes log, but instead of appearing as an ordinary edit, it would appear in the same way as other log entries there:

Instead of:

02:00 User talk:Curps (diff; hist) . . Guillermo en las ruedas (Talk | block)

it would show up as:

02:00 (Redirect log) (diff; hist) . . Guillermo en las ruedas (redirected User talk:Curps to User talk:Cvrps)

Rationale

This would help spot cut-and-paste page moves by clueless newbies (or edit warriors), and it would also help spot cut-and-paste pagemove vandalism.

Turning a page into a redirect is fundamentally a different concept than editing it. Actuallly, it's exactly like a page move, except the "page move" target already exists.

-- Curps 04:02, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Comments

• If you use CryptoDerk's Vandal Fighter, you can pretty much spot this already, by watching for edits that substantially decreased the filesize of the page (mostly used for catching blankings) — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-16 04:08

True, but it should still be logged within Misplaced Pages itself rather than only on IRC... -- Curps 04:33, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

• I think this is another one of those "wouldn't it be cool if we had" proposals that really doesn't belong on enwiki. There are no privacy implications or other implications at all other than that we present information slightly more usefully. Get it coded up and once it exists in mediawiki I don't expect anyone to object to enabling it on enwiki. --fvw* 04:42, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I've been tempted to get into Mediawiki source code, but I'm already spending too much time on bot code and time doesn't really permit it. I was hoping perhaps an existing developer might take an interest in this (I already left a note at Ævar's talk page). -- Curps 05:47, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Ah, in that case you should put it on http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ instead of here. --fvw* 05:50, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I did some poking at it and have a crude prototype of this working, might finish it... —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 07:29, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

This is impossible to do currently due to Special:Log only working for logged-in users, anonymous users can also create redirects. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 03:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

The mention of CDVF above got me thinking... the edit-size display that that gets from live RC is really one of its most useful features, but it's only available to people who are using it and happen to be looking when the edit in question is made. It covers both this case and numerous other cases that require attention--blanking, copyvios, etc often trigger its alarm. So, would it be possible to have some sort of special page for recentchanges above a certain size, or an option to highlight changes on your watchlist or in a page's edit history (like in CDVF) if they're above a certain size? For that matter, would it just be possible to turn on edit-size displays on those pages? Or is this already available somewhere? --Aquillion 01:01, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmmmm, well, is it possible to do outside of the Special:Log hierarchy, as Special:Newredirects instead of Special:Log/redirect ? Various logs such as Special:Newpages work for both logged-in and anonymous users, so perhaps it's doable? -- Curps 02:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages Cleanup Day

I was thinking of doing something along the lines of Gentoo's Bugday, where on a regularly schedule day, such as every other week, once a month, etc. We get editors to meet in #wikipedia on freenode to work on a cleaning up/adding to a selection of articles.

An example would be a biography stub day, where we editors would work together on finding information on biography stubs and fixing them up.
Another would be wikify day, go through all articles that need to be wikified, one by one, and turn them into a proper article.

Sure this gets done all the time, but I would believe that editors working together on a single article with realtime collaboration could be much more effective
AppleBoy 05:52, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, the Misplaced Pages:Maintenance collaboration of the week was recently started to help concentrate fixup efforts on the most urgent problems. If people actually show up to participate in a fixup day, I think that would be great. You could pick the day of the week that the most editors are usually logged on, and dig into whatever this week's collaboration was. Alternatively, the event could inject some life into the Misplaced Pages:Cleanup Taskforce, which tends to deal with the most stubborn cleanup problems. It needs people to assign issues to other participants, and of course actual article work. Over 1% (9,000+!) of the articles on the English Misplaced Pages are tagged for generic cleanup right now. If this is to work, it would need to be well-publicized, like on the Community Portal and IRC, and maybe the Signpost. -- Beland 06:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

WikiWebServices ?

I am not sure this is the right place to propose; neither am i sure that nobody ever brought up this topic before. Anyway, wouldn't it be nice to expose the most useful data from Misplaced Pages and other Wikimedia projects as Web Services, so that it may be useful not only to humans but to computers as well? The idea is very fuzzy in my mind at the moment, but I am absolutely sure that a lot of applications would benefit from having XML-style access to various information from Misplaced Pages. Ivan Memruk 09:05, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

There is a discussion of exposing machine interfaces on Meta (the meta-wiki for discussions about all Wikimedia wikis) at m:Machine-friendly wiki interface. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:38, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Multilinugal Mechanisms

It is proposed that each page be modified such that an individual wishing to transate that page to another language might do so by selecting the language and clicking a button. I was eager to contribute in this way, but found myself clicking aimlessly and in vain. It would also be a real treat to read the a corresponding alternative language wikis a page has.

Implementaion would be could be fairly simple or very complex depending on the level of interconnectedness desired...

Browsing between languages is already possible, please see Misplaced Pages:Interlanguage links. These links (to corresponding articles in other language wikipedias) appear in the "In other languages" box in the navigation frame which is on the left in the default skin. There is no "click to translate" feature for a couple of reasons. First, the versions of wikipedia in different languages each currently require their own login registration. Once "single sign on" is available, this becomes far more feasible. Second, the article name in the target language is not necessarily obvious. If you'd like, you can effectively do the same thing but not quite automatically. Step 1 is to obtain logins in all the language wikipedias you're interested in contributing to. Then, to translate an article (not already translated) add the interwiki link in language 1, save this change, then click the interwiki link which will take you to the page in language 2's wikipedia. Please also see Misplaced Pages:Multilingual coordination. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:26, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Mountain biking

I am suprised at the lack of mountain biking information here. For instance, there isn't even an article for FOX Racing Shox, which is one of the top porducers of suspension for mountain bikes. I'm going to start improving some of these articles and creating new ones for non-existent info. If anyone wants to help me on this, feel free to post on my user talk.

Thank you--Windsamurai 02:09, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know how much detail is needed on every manufacturing company, but I do wonder how much detail is missing from shock absorber. (SEWilco 04:23, 17 October 2005 (UTC))

I've been doing a bit of work on various mountain biking articles. You may be interested in Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Cycling where there's a few people working on various cycling related stuff. There's also a lot of articles in Category:Cycle manufacturers that could do with some expansion / improvement. --Vclaw 14:09, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject_WheelOfTime?

I'm curious if anyone reading at the Village Pump is interested in helping co-ordinate/organize/flesh out these articles on Misplaced Pages? (I'm aware of Gherald's new wikicties project, but I have reservations about that format's usefulness -- especially when compared to the EWoT , and in any case it doesn't obviate the need for cleanup here on Misplaced Pages.)

Please respond here or on my talk page, and if we reach 5-10 (currently at 3-4) I'll start a WikiProject page. nae'blis _(talk) 01:20, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

• The new book coming out will likely result in a fair amount of new content (along with vandalism). It would be good at least to have a number of people watch the relevant pages. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Blocking proposal

Please let your opinion be known in regard to the Blocking policy proposal, we are now voting on the issue. thanks! Martin 09:34, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Next and Previous at the bottom of Category pages

Basically, at the moment the only Next 200/Previous 200 links are at the top of a category list. I suggest that it would be logical to have identical links at the bottom as well. - SoM 16:09, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

That would be very useful! Grutness...wha? 23:31, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Writing from personal experience

In writing for the Commonwealth School article, several editors (including me) were writing description from personal experience. Another editor came in and started deleting all the portions that were not Verifiable through reputable sources. I've been reading through relevant Misplaced Pages policy, and I think I have a decent handle now on what is allowed. The problem is, the way I've been treating Misplaced Pages and the way many others seem to treat it is at odds with official policy. People do write from personal experience. We could just say these people are sloppy and should go read policy, but that seems like it doesn't deal with anything. When people do this they are being useful, and often informative and helpful articles get created. One example might be the Slashdot subculture article, as there are very few if any "reputable" sources for it, but many people who could provide useful information. It seems the problem is with information that is:

• Well known among members of some group.
• Interesting to people outside of the group.
• Not documented in official sources.

Current Misplaced Pages policy does not make a way to include this information, but people want it included and want to provide it, and so write pages for it. These pages get worked on, and often get to be pretty good. Then someone comes by applying policy and removes anything not verifyable. Grouping all writing from experience in with "origonal research" seems simplistic and not really helpful. Is there a nice solution here? -- Jeff 18:31, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, no nice solution exists. No Original Research is king. Unfortunately, we have no way of telling whether someone's "personal experience" is real, or made up. You may want to consider checking out Everything2, for a community that welcomes personal experiences and well-written non-encyclopedic stuff. --Ashenai (talk) 18:35, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I know nothing about the article of which you speak or the controversies involved, however I think it is reasonable that material that cannot be verified is challenged, if not removed. If,as you say, there are a few of you speaking from personal experience and you all broadly agree with each other I would perhaps recommend that you pool your talents to make the case for the material. One thing that you might consider as an interim measure is to ensure that any material you feel shouldn't be removed is placed on the articles Talk Page. That way it is at least available to be read and debated with a view to possible inclusion in the article. However if the persoanl experiences are in violation of Misplaced Pages:NPOV you might consider producing a personal account of your experiences on a website of your own and linking to it from the article. If it's something you feel very strongly about, have you considered whether there is in fact a way to verify your information? Ie, could you get records from archives and place those online somehow? --bodnotbod 18:47, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

It's none of it particularly controversial, just information that has not been written about in verifiable sources. The people adding content were not in disagreement about the facts of any of it, the problem was that it was not externally verifiable. -- Jeff 18:53, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

So what should happen about all the pages that have this sort of writing? When I look at other pages for schools, so many are like this, and they are informative. Should we really go in and delete (or ask for external information for) all the non-externally verifiable information there? -- Jeff 19:06, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

After trying and failing to verify it, yes absolutely. -Splash 19:22, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

"In such cases, one option is for one or more of the people involved to write up their personal experiences and post them elsewwhere on the web, then cite "My histroy with slashdot" or the like as a source. This wouldn't fly when better sources are avaialbe, or for a new scientific theory, but in the kind of case you cite I thimk it might be workable. What constitutes a "reputabel source" is soemwhat flexible, i think. DES 20:02, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I must admit I've got a great deal of sympathy with what the original writer is saying here. There are a couple of times when I've written an article about a place based on my personal experience of it and found a "no references" template slapped on the article. What references do you use if you're writing about somewhere you live? You use your eyes and ears. Grutness...wha? 00:02, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Sure, but if we want to build wikipedia's reputation as a reliable source of information, we absolutely have to discourage this as much as possible. Lupin|talk|popups 22:04, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't see how this is unreliable. If everyone in a place knows something about it, and so it gets put into a book (which gets referenced by a Misplaced Pages article), how is it different than if these people post the information themselves? Maybe it is even more reliable, as the averaged observations of many tend to be better than those of a few. -- Jeff 02:32, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

It is not as easy to verify as reliable as something documented in a published source. ~~ N (t/c) 02:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

"I don't see how this is unreliable. If everyone in a place knows something about it, and so it gets put into a book (which gets referenced by a Misplaced Pages article), how is it different than if these people post the information themselves?". One would expect a book that makes it all the way to published status has been through a number of hands; proofreader, editor, publisher - all of whom would hopefully challengethe writer on any claims that look shaky. This is very different to Misplaced Pages where anyone can slap up anything anywhere and, in fact, very, very frequently do so. --bodnotbod 06:11, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I believe dot book is a prime example of an unverifiable article. This comment is unrelated, but I would really hate to see that article get AfD'd (creator's pride). Unfortunately, it is constructed primarily on my experience. It's got pictures and lots of information but no sources... what would you guys say? — Ambush Commander 03:38, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually the dot book search that has been appended to the article seems to return enough evidence of their existence on a cursory glance to me. I think your case is also helped by the fact that it would be beyond weird for someone to invent such an article ;o) I strongly suspect the community feels it is much more important to verify articles that mention people (especially living), particular institutions (esp. those still active/attended) and matters of science than they would with articles - such as yours - which are about an obscure tool of a trade. --bodnotbod 06:11, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Personal experience not being admissible as encyclopedic content is at odds with what we allow as sources to support articles. Consider ... all news items are examples of personal experience (a journalist has a personal experience and writes about it); practically any weblink will suffice (apparently) as evidence of verifiability, but anyone these days can slap up a website, write on it, then add the URL here as evidence of verifiability (take the schools example ... persons at the school write on a school website about an event, then link to that description from Misplaced Pages, claiming that the statement in Misplaced Pages is now verified); persons are allowed (indeed it is essential that they do) to take pictures of objects and add those pictures to articles as part of the article content (for instance, take a picture of a spoon and post it as an example of what a spoon looks like), which is certainly an instance of instantiated personal experience. All this being said, the notion that is under consideration here should not be one of personal experience vs. secondary reputable source but rather one of what we mean by "verifiability", "reputable", and "encyclopedic". I think that is a valid contribution to this discussion, but I'll look forward to responses before making a final judgement call on that :). Courtland 17:23, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

The purpose of NOR is to prevent Misplaced Pages from being a publisher of new ideas. And that means new ideas in a bigger sense than writing from personal experience. These points are important:

• Not everything is on the web.
• distinguish between personal experience and primary sources
• Not everything is on the web.
• Facts are facts regardless of personal experience
• Not everything is on the web.

If someone wrote in an article about their school that the school had won the state badminton championship 6 times in the last ten years since the hiring of Coach Belinda Munchabox, but that information isn't on the web - that doesn't make it personal experience. If the school has plaques on the wall that every student passes THAT is primary source material. Hiring records for Belinda Munchabox are available. If that is what make it verifiable then there it is.

Examining a primary source material isn't personal experience either. If you personally went to interview someone about some historic local event then take good notes, that person is primary source material and there is no reason not to include what you've learned. Your notes or recording would be verifiable of that persons claims.

Similarly, you and your memories can be a primary source. If you witness a bridge sink on a certain date - that's a fact. However, don't present new ideas or claim to know why it sank unless you've also examined data about that. A claim that it was shot down by alien missiles would, uh, need some verification.

For the example of Slashdot subculture, the slashdot forums are primary source material. Stating facts "Slashdot has a lot of trolls." is verifiable by any examination of the forums. There are a few places that article verges on presenting new ideas, but the article is also backed up by a lot of example posts in the forums. A real sociologist writing a paper to a scientific journal about the Slashdot subculture would be absolutely awesome as a secondary source material - and I'm sure it's been written, go find it.

When interpreting NOR, don't stray too far from it's intent. The intent of NOR is to discourage crackpots not to discourage editors from contributing what they know. Don't let it get in the way of contributing what you know but be willing to back it up. SchmuckyTheCat 21:21, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I suppose it's also important to add notability into the mix. As you say not everything is on the web (though with the inexorable rise in blogging and the falling prices of data storage, you could spit distastefully that everything that happens from now on will be, I digress) but we can expect things of a degree of notability to be. --bodnotbod 05:05, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

The real definition of the noob

I have been playing video games for years, the word noob first meant someone that is stupid on the game. Then people started getting the word noob and newb mixed up. Now even google thinks that the word noob means newb. They had the real definition but now it is gone. This website also has it wrong.

I know what I'm talking about aswell :(

I'm pretty sure both words came from "newbie" which is a much older word than video games. --Golbez 17:33, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

See, if we had references in that article, we'd be in a much better position to resolve this (minor) dispute. Lupin|talk|popups 22:10, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

A proposal to reform Misplaced Pages editing permissions

I have created a User:Thue/Wikipedia editing permissions reform, which proposes a way to create a web of trust among Misplaced Pages editors. The proposal limits the editing rights of users who are not yet trusted, but the idea is that it should not be too hard to become a trusted editor (on the order of a few hours quality work on Misplaced Pages if the editor is competent).

To still allow newbies not yet in the web of trust to contribute, and eventually become part of the web of trust, the proposal suggests a way to place "untrusted" editors' edits on hold until the editor becomes trusted, or until a trusted editor OKs the edit. By always treating anonymous editors as untrusted, the proposed solution also removes most of the problems with anonymous editors, while still allowing anonymous editors to contribute. Far most of the vandalism seen today would be eliminated by this proposal.

Having this big population of trusted editors will make it much easier to design a validation system for Misplaced Pages 1.0.

Comments appreciated!

Thue | talk 19:05, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

This seems more like "red tape" to me. It would slow Misplaced Pages's growth, especially from a technical standpoint, and a lot of those people who edit Misplaced Pages anonymously but benevolently may end up getting turned away.  Denelson83  19:26, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. Trusting users could become almost as basic a function as greeting them, and getting recognition for their first few good edits could encourage new editors to stay... The restrictions for being untrusted, as described, wouldn't be any worse than just being a new user, so I don't think it would scare anyone away... New users don't generally try to move pages as soon as they register anyway. I suggested something like this a while back, but only requiring trust from 1 trusted user (on the theory that anyone who abused it to 'trust' a long line of socks would just be giving all of them away once any one of them acted out, assuming trust-logs were public.) In any case, we should probably move this discussion to the proposal's talk page. --Aquillion 19:52, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh, wait, I somehow didn't notice the bit about "edit approval." Ugh, no, that doesn't strike me as a very good idea at all. A "trust" system could be used for things like page-move abilities, sure, but requiring approval for all untrusted edits would never work (the anons alone are so numerous that we'd never be able to keep up with them.) --Aquillion 19:56, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, we would save a lot of time currently spend checking anonymous edits anyway. I check all anonymous edits to the articles on my watch list anyway... Thue | talk 17:50, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I would oppose this idea as being very non-wiki. Instant gratification was what got me hooked in the first place. Lupin|talk|popups 22:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I like the proposal, but we would need a way for not-yet-trusted editors to see their edits before they are approved. For example, we could have a "permanent page" and a "proposed page", showing the unapproved edits. Any trusted editor could copy the "proposed page" into the "permanent page", thus approving all edits, or could copy the "permanent page" into the "proposed page", thus rejecting all edits, or could edit the "permanent page" directly. Note that this would double the Wiki disk space requirements, however. StuRat 15:32, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Spellcheck

What if there could be a spellchecker activated by the preview button? Misspellings would be highlighted in red with alternatives offered at the top. This would save many people a lot of work correcting typos later. Of course, it would be nice if users were required to preview before sending. ;) User:Purplefeltangel/sig 21:06, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

• Also, it would be good if there was a script that would go through the entire Misplaced Pages and fix common typos (it could not fix all misspellings due to proper names, quotes, etc). It might cause downtime but it would definitely be worth it . . . . User:Purplefeltangel/sig 21:19, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

• Been proposed very often before. Too much server load. ~~ N (t/c) 21:44, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

• See User:Humanbot for a project to fix common misspellings, though it seems like its not active right now. There's also Misplaced Pages:List of common misspellings. --Vclaw 12:07, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I think the first idea, of a spell check in the edit function, perhaps activated by preview, perhaps in some other way, is worth persuing. Couldn't this run on the client side, and so not impose significant server load. And even if it ran on ther server side, it would run one article at a time, which is very different from a tool to do a mass spell-check on wikipedia. DES 15:02, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

• how would you get it to decide between us and uk spellings? Wiki doesnt use a standard spelling. BL kiss the lizard 23:14, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Ahh, but this would be a way of achieving in-article consistency on one of the variants; spell checker databases exist for each of the variants of English and it would not, I believe, be out of the question to either a) exclude from the Misplaced Pages spell checking database those terms that are ambiguous with respect to dialect and/or b) provided a "dialect conflict" detector that would flag when an article has internal use of several dialects and/or c) allow selection of which dialect to use in conducting the spell checking. Further, having such a facility could facilitate the addition of a meta-data flag affixed to each article that would indicate which dialect has been used in it (hiddent to users, a comment on the talk page perhaps?). Courtland 16:06, 29 October 2005 (UTC)