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'''Challenger, Gray & Christmas''', with headquarters located in [[Chicago, Illinois]], is the oldest executive outplacement firm in the US. It has offices in 52 cities in the US and [[Canada]], and has operations in [[Japan]] and [[Mexico]]. The firm also conducts regular surveys and issues reports on the state of the economy, employment, job-seeking, layoffs and [[executive compensation]]. They also conduct one-off surveys on such subjects as workplace bullying, lost productivity due to the Super Bowl, and working women. Their core business, finding jobs for laid-off executives, is unusual in that they will only accept as clients people whose former companies will sponsor the client's job search.
{{Villagepumppages|Proposals|The '''proposals''' section of the village pump is used to discuss new ideas and proposal that are not policy related (see [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)]] for that).
<ref>{{cite web |author= |http://www.challengergray.com/services/whoarewe.aspx |title=Who are we? |publisher=Challenger, Gray & Christmas |accessdate=2007-06-22}}</ref>
==Notes==
Recurring policy proposals are discussed at [[Wikipedia:Village pump (perennial proposals)]]. If you have a proposal for something that sounds overwhelmingly obvious and are amazed that Wikipedia doesn't have it, please check there first before posting it, as someone else might have found it obvious, too.
{{Reflist}}
Please sign and date your post (by typing <nowiki>"~~~~"</nowiki> or clicking the [http://en.wikipedia.org/skins/common/images/button_sig.png signature icon] in the edit toolbar).}}
[[Category:Wikipedia community forums|{{PAGENAME}}]]
{{US-company-stub}}
'''Before posting your proposal:'''
{{Chicago-stub}}
{{Chicago}}
* If the proposal is a '''change to the software''', file a bug at [http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org 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, [[Wikipedia:Manual of style]], and ''ask people to discuss it '''there'''''.
* If the proposal is for a '''new wiki project''' outside of Wikipedia, go to [[m:Proposals for new projects]] and follow the guidelines there. '''Do not post it here!'''
[[Category:Employment]]
== [[Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive|Proposals archive]] ==
[[Category:Employment compensation]]
Discussions older than 7 days (date of last made comment) are moved [[Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive|here]]. 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.
[[Category:Marketing research companies]]
[[Category:Public opinion research companies]]
== Wikihow & Wikipedia ==
[[Category:Executive search firms]]
[[Category:Companies based in Chicago]]
[[Wired Magazine]] has an article, "[http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67765,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3 Wiki Targets How-To Buffs]" on [[WikiHow]], a website dedicated to "how-to" information. Wikipedia does not have a clear policy on whether [[how-to]] information belongs in Wikipedia:
*[[Wikipedia talk:How-to articles]]
*[[Wikipedia talk:How-to]]
Furthmore there is a separate [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How-tos_bookshelf How-tos bookshelf] at [[Wikibook]]s. As a matter of practicality, there should only be a single global wiki on a given area to maximize the community size needed to ensure the success of the community. IMHO how-to info belongs in Wikipedia and we should subsume Wikihow content. If Wikipedia does not want that information, we should VfD all our "how-to"s to move that information to WikiHow to aid in their success (and maybe encourage them to move into WikiCities, but that's a separate discussion.) What do others think? [[User:Samw|Samw]] 03:07, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:We can't just take content from WikiHow since it isn't copyleft (although they were considering that at one point - see their [http://wiki.ehow.com/Copyrights copyrights page]). I don't think the existence of that wiki should affect whether or not How-tos are kept on Wikipedia. [[User:Angela|Angela]][[user talk:Angela|.]]
== editors indexing section and member only editing==
NO MEMBER ONLY EDITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think that there should be a place that stubs and arcticles that need serious editing are temporally moved to. What do you think?
I strongly disagree with members only editing. what if someone browzing the Wiki notices something wrong or something he could add. He probably wouldn't take the time to become a member to make just a few changes. (Left by anon 141.156.241.63)
:#The vast majority of us strongly disagree with members only editing as well
:#There are multiple ways for articles that need editing to gain attention. There are various templates, categories, and the article improvement drive. —[[User:Sean Kelly|Sean κ.]] <span style="cursor:help;">[[User_talk:Sean Kelly|+]]</span> 18:48, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:I agree. Some of the most important contributions (sometimes the most annoying for people who have worked hard on a page!) come from experts (e.g University researchers) who come across factual inaccuracies or misunderstandings and put in their own corrections. These people are rarely Wiki members, and rarely follow wiki style guidelines, but are essential for keeping Wikipedia '''factually accurate''' (and it is up to the rest of us to wikify what they contribute). [[User:Rnt20|Rnt20]] 19:25, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I would like to see a preferences option for members that would display some statistics about who edited the currently viewed page. I.e. whether the page was created by a member; edited by a non-member; number of edits; last edit, &c. That way a random page viewer might get some quick clues without going to the history page. — [[User:RJHall|RJH]] 02:15, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Wiki content from the internet ==
Hi,
There are lots of owners of (e.g. University-based) websites who would be happy for the research content (projects/articles) of their websites to be copied onto Wikipedia pages. Could Wikipedia come up with a logo which website owners could put at the bottom of their websites which says something like "feel free to copy the contents of this article which I have written and use it (word-for-word or otherwise) as the basis of a Wikipedia article without copyright restrictions"? A wiki page with external links to all of these websites would also be required (or an easy way of searching for the logo in Google).
It's a lot less effort for a busy postdoc researcher to stick a logo on all his/her articles than it is to wikify all the articles and put them onto wikipedia. If the material was worth copying, then I'm sure there will be plenty of Wikipedians to do it!
[[User:Rnt20|Rnt20]] 18:51, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:That is very simple. They have two options. One is to say "I release this under the [[GFDL]]", the licence on which Wikipedia is based. Then everyone who uses it, including Wikipedia, can use and modify their text, as long as the original authors are credited. The other option is to place it into the [[public ___domain]], which gives up those crediting rights. They cannot give Wikipedia-specific permission. Well they can, but we can't use it. [[User:smoddy|smoddy]] 18:57, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:: It would be nice to have an eye-catching logo, which other scientists could spot on websites, and copy onto their own websites. Most scientists have a duty (both morally and sometimes in funding contracts) to support the public understanding of science. I, for one, would be happy to email such a logo to people in several Universities. It needs to look professional (and I'm not much of a graphic designer, I'm afraid). Preferably it would mention GDFL and Wikipedia (with a link) as Wikipedia has goals which most scientists would agree with (wheras GDFL is a little obscure). (PS obviously this would be equally useful for humanities researchers -- please excuse my personal biases!). [[User:Rnt20|Rnt20]] 19:29, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:::You can't really seperate the GFDL and Wikipedia, as our content is licensed under the GFDL and anyone wanting to contribute their work to Wikipedia would have to do the same. GFDL might be obscure but anyone wanting to contribute their hard work to Wikipedia needs to understand what it entails. If you create a useful website and allow Wikipedia to use its content, you're also allowing anyone who wants to to mirror the site for profit by stuffing it full of popup pr0n ads to do so as well. It would be a little misleading to suggest to people that they are giving Wikipedia permission to reproduce their work without making them aware that anyone else can do the same. — [[User:Trilobite|Trilobite]] ([[User_talk:Trilobite|Talk]]) 20:41, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I decided to act myself, and have created a Wiki page which is designed to help website owners at the following ___location:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adding_a_GFDL_license_to_your_webpage
I have also added the following footer (or something similar) to some of my webpages:
<nowiki>
<TABLE><TR><TD VALIGN=CENTER><IMG SRC="http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~nevec/outreach/gfdl.png"></TD><TD VALIGN=CENTER><B>GFDLcontent</B>. The work on this page, and in the project subsections linked to by this page are covered by a <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License">GFDL</A> license, and the author states that the text and images can be copied within the restrictions of this license (e.g. the material can be copied into free encyclopedias such as <A HREF="www.wikipedia.org">Wikipedia</A>). Please <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Adding_a_GFDL_license_to_your_webpage">add a footer</a> like this to your own webpages to promote free access to knowledge.</TD></TR></TABLE><!--Please also list your webpage at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_GFDL_content_on_the_internet-->
</nowiki>
See e.g. http://www.geocities.com/robert_tubbs/page1.html
The non-word ''GFDLcontent'' is included so that Google searches can find this footer.
Please tell me (urgently!) whether there are any problems with this. Otherwise I will try to get the same footer added to lots of University webpages at several different Universities. [[User:Rnt20|Rnt20]] 10:19, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:Wouldn't it make more sense to use [http://www.wikicities.com/skins/common/images/gnu-fdl.png this image] since it's more of a standard representation of the GFDL, and one which is included by default in MediaWiki installations? [[User:Angela|Angela]][[user talk:Angela|.]] 02:17, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
== Splitting article RfCs by topic ==
On the [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/RFC|RfAr/RFC]] page, Maurreen suggested splitting the article RfCs into the main Wikipedia catergories, Culture, Geography, History, Life, Mathematics, Science, Society, and Technology. Could be a way of getting more responses, by breaking down the list into more digestable sized chunks, and allowing people with specific interests to pick up on items which may be of interest. Thoughts [[Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment#Splitting article RfCs by topic|here]] please! [[User:Dan100|Dan100]] 07:43, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)
:This might also have the benefit of encouraging people to write RFCs about topics rather than people. I'm begininng to suspect that few of us are big enough to react well to being the named target of an RFC. [[User:Bovlb|Bovlb]] 04:35, 2005 Jun 13 (UTC)
== hierarchies ==
i often thought of a certain thing but didn't know what it is called.
like what the various parts of a barrel are called, what parts usually constitute a castle and stuff like that.
these things are often tedious to find out and it would be nice if this
would be addressed in a more systematical way in wikipedia.
like a standard box of links kinda like:
harddrives usually consist of
platter
read write head
...
harddrives are a common part of
computers
mp3 players
whatever
harddrives are commonly associated with:
(dunno ... think castles - knights, siege, ...)
somehow like that.
most of this information is of course already there but like i said ...
it would benefit from a more systematical approach.
anyway ... just felt the need to post this.
not much of a wikipedia expert ... dunno if something like this was already discussed/dismissed or something. not even sure if this is the correct place to post this. Sorry if it isnt.
please comment
:Not encyclopedic; this would have to be part of a different Wiki project. —[[User:Sean Kelly|Sean κ.]] <span style="cursor:help;">[[User_talk:Sean Kelly|+]]</span> 18:59, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::hmm ... i don't really intend to start a discussion about it ... just wanted to suggest it ... nonetheless: i'm not sure what you mean with "not encyclopedic" here. given that the information is often already included in the articles (only harder to access) and the whole thing not being all that different from categories - really don't see it as much of a step. --[[User:Qnnq|Qnnq]] 00:24, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:::I think that it would be great to have projects such as this, but Wikipedia adheres to the belief that an encyclopedia is a collection of essays, not facts. It sounds like what you are suggesting can't be put into essay form, so it can't go on Wikipedia.
:::Exceptions are the infoboxes popular on some pages, and the many list articles. However, the list articles generally are only used in the context of another article, and infoboxes are used to summarize the information in an essay. I don't really think this idea fits either of those categories. —[[User:Sean Kelly|Sean κ.]] <span style="cursor:help;">[[User_talk:Sean Kelly|+]]</span> 00:38, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:::: essays, not facts ... hmm yeah it's a hard fit then. perhaps i should check with wiktionary. thanks for the comments --[[User:Qnnq|Qnnq]] 05:02, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:::::Many series of articles have "navigational templates" at the bottom of the page to help readers find logically related articles (look [[Los Angeles, California| here]]). Succession boxes are used for many political offices so that readers can easily see who held the office before and after. Categories ties together articles in a hierarchical fashion. There are many existing methods to allow readers to find the articles on staves and bung holes (or rather, to allow editors to help readers find the articles). Also - "essays" is not the best word, as it implies an expression of an opinion. The word "articles" best captures what we try to create. (Yes, there are ''many'' lists, but if that was all we had Wikipedia would be a very dry reference). Cheers, -[[User:Willmcw|Willmcw]] 06:28, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
==Good idea...==
You know how in user preferences you can set your date to display a certain way if an article has the date within parenthesis (or something like that)? I hit upon an idea. How about putting unstandard spellings of words within parenthesis and then they would display according to the setting you indicate in your user preferences? If you speak American english then someone who wrote in British english would put nonstandard words in parens and then that word would render in american english. Did I explain myself well?? [[User:Jaberwocky6669|Jaberwocky6669]] 02:58, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
:That has been proposed in the past, and rejected on grounds I can't remember at the moment. -- [[User:Cyrius|Cyrius]]|[[User talk:Cyrius|✎]] 08:44, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:Was it maybe a developing problem?[[User:Howabout1|Howabout1]] [[user talk:howabout1|<span style="color:red">Talk to me!</span>]] 14:56, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
:: Nonstandard? It's probably a POV problem about which spellings should be () and which should not. Also, it would be confusing for new editors, difficult to maintain (what, ''every instance'' of "colour" to be converted?) and it is not really needed. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 17:33, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
:::It would make editing much harder if so many words had to be marked up in this way. See my [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-September/035308.html mailing list post] about this, with an example showing how complicated the markup could get. [[User:Angela|Angela]][[user talk:Angela|.]]
Ah, I get it now. Originially I thought that British spellings could simply be bracketed [[]], but as I was about to explain it I realize that doing it that way would only convert British spellings to American but not American to British! Thanks for showing me the light. [[User:Jaberwocky6669|Jaberwocky6669]] June 29, 2005 16:23 (UTC)
==Images in other wikis==
Hi! I'm from Ukrainian wikipedia. Recently I have translated article about [[Gavrilo Princip]]. I need to put images in my article, and there are some in English article. But images in English article is not images from WikiCommons. How about to create a special tag, like <nowiki>[[Image:en:Example]]</nowiki> or something like that, which would put images in my article from articles from other Wikipedias? It will be easier for me and for servers. 13.06.05 Please [http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Обговорення_користувача contact me]
:I would also like to know how to make Wiki-crosslinks for images too. Also, is there an easy way to move an image from one of the individual Wikis to WikiCommons where all Wikimedias can have access to it? In the long run, I think it is a better idea than uploading redundant images. [[User:H Padleckas|H Padleckas]] 01:34, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
There's no ''simple'' way to link to images in other Wikipedias, but the process of transferring is not so hard.
* To move to another Wikipedia:
**First, of course, check the image's description page to be sure you understand the copyright license. Many pop-culture images in the English Wikipedia (screen shots, album covers, movie posters, etc.) are used under the United States [[fair use]] concept, and may or may not be usable in other jurisdictions.
**If you believe it's usable in your Wikipedia, just right-click the picture and save it to your hard drive -- you might want to change the name to a more descriptive one in your local language.
**Upload the picture to your local Wikipedia.
**On the local image description page, make a link to the English image description page, and copy any licensing or source information from the English page to your local page.
*To move to Wikicommons, it's the same process:
**Check licensing -- it can only be uploaded to Commons if it is [[GFDL]] or [[public ___domain]].
**Right-click and save from local wiki to hard drive.
**Rename file (on your hard drive) to be more specific or internationally understandable if necessary.
**Upload to Commons, following instructions there.
**Tag image on local wiki with {{tl|NowCommons}} and list on [[Wikipedia:Images for deletion|Images for deletion]] (or the equivalent image deletion procedure on non-English Wikipedias).
Image syntax should not need to be changed unless the filename has changed -- <nowiki>[[Image:Foo.jpg]]</nowiki> will look first for a file named "Foo.jpg" on the local wiki; if it finds one, it will use the local one, if not, it will look at Commons and use that one. — [[User:CatherineMunro|Catherine]]\<sup>[[User_talk:CatherineMunro|talk]]</sup> 21:05, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
You could create the following template in the Hungarian wiki: "Template:CrossWikiImage".
<img src="http://{{{1}}}.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:{{{2}}}">
Then when you wanted to reference the page, you could use the following template:
{{
CrossWikiImage|en|Gavrilloprincip.jpg
}}
It's not a perfect solution, but it might be a reasonable workaround until the software supports cross language images. And because it would be implemented as a template, it would be easy to change if/when the software changes.--[[User:Arcadian|Arcadian]] 22:58, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
==Edit summaries==
I think more needs to be done to encourage users to use this feature, especially on controversial articles. Far too few people make proper and regular use of it. I propose that edit summaries be made compulsory for articles with neutrality/POV disputes (possibly through the mediawiki software?). How might I propose this to become official policy? Its only a guideline at the moment. ([[Wikipedia:Edit summary]]) [[User:Deus Ex|Deus Ex]] 15:31, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:I think this was proposed earlier and opposed for a reason I forget. [[User:Howabout1|Howabout1]] [[user talk:howabout1|<span style="color:red">Talk to me!</span>]] 16:21, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
:Edit summaries should be required via software, period. However, as Howabout1 also says, I think this has been brought up before, so you may want to search for old discussions. [[User:Thue|Thue]] | [[User talk:Thue|talk]] 17:09, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::Software can't recognize pages with POV disputes at the moment (and I don't see any way it can do so, reliably), so this would have to be the rule for all pages. However, sometimes I don't want and need to take the effort to enter a summary; for example, for making very small changes (spelling, links, etc.) I'll check the "minor edit" box. If an edit summary is required for all edits, I'll just type some "asdfafdsfa" nonsense, to satisfy the software. So you're just making it more difficult for me to make small changes, so I won't correct as many spelling errors. And you make it more difficult for new users. I think this easily outweighs the possible small positive effects. [[User:Eugene van der Pijll|Eugene van der Pijll]] 18:36, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:::Well, the way I imagined it would be that the software would detect all articles in a POV disputes category, or something like that. I wouldn't suggest that an edit summary should be required for minor edits, as you say that would be pointless. But for articles in factual/POV disputes for major edits forcing people to enter summaries would be desirable. If they just entered nonsense in the summary for major edits, it would show that user negatively, and hopefully they wouldn't be taken seriously for the rest of the POV dispute, as they are not evidently not interested in constructive editing. [[User:Deus Ex|Deus Ex]] 22:40, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::::See: [[Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28perennial_proposals%29#Always_fill_the_summary_field]]. [[User:Bobblewik|Bobblewik]] [[User talk:Bobblewik|(talk)]] 23:14, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:::I can't see that it should be that big a problem to just write fx "sp" when making a spelling correction. [[User:Thue|Thue]] | [[User talk:Thue|talk]] 17:31, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Last update? When? ==
Can we add a function to display a "Last update: 6 months ago" message on an article's header if that article hasn't been edited for a while, say, over 6 months. If I see such a message, I'll be more skeptical with the information.
This is not a good solution. Sometimes people edit a page to fix a typo or adjust layout. A page with outdated information may have been edited multiple times without the needed update (for example: the current U.S. president: ''Richard Nixon''). -- [[User:Toytoy|Toytoy]] 18:03, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
:At the bottom of the page (at least, in the stylesheet I use) it says "This page was last modified 18:03, 13 Jun 2005". A more prominent notice, for example in a large font just below the article's title, would just put unnecessary emphasis on something that correlates only weakly with quality. [[User:Eugene van der Pijll|Eugene van der Pijll]] 18:39, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Wikipedia [[Special:Monitor]] ==
It struck me that to speed the discovery of vandalism, pumping out diffs at a high rate on a specific page, thereby getting rid of the Recentchanges middleman, may be a good idea.
It would be similar in structure to Slashdot's [http://slashdot.org/metamod.pl Meta Moderation] system: a designated page, perhaps [[Special:Monitor]], would pump out X number of recent diffs made within the last Y days, on one single page, for the purpose of fast eyeballing.
This would cut out the "middleman" of Recentchanges for those on janitorial duty; only the refresh button needs to be repeatedly abused in order to view massive amounts of diffs and scan for vandalism at a very fast rate.
The details of the method by which diffs are chosen for display can be left to people with more expertise, but I'll offer up some suggestions:
*The number of diffs and timerange to pull from can be
**user customisable, or
**fixed at say, 10 diffs per page, pulled from diffs made within the last 5 days
*The choosing of whether a diff displays on Monitor can be
**completely random, or
**completely random, but "viewed" diffs are never viewed again, or
**use a probability system.
***a more frequently edited/viewed article, the diffs of the article will appear on Monitor more frequently
***an already viewed diff would have its probability of being chosen for Monitor cut, to say, 1/1000th of the original probability
Only suggestions, I don't know enough about the throughput of changes and the number of janitors on duty at any given time to know which method is more feasible. But I believe a Monitor page would greatly facilitate the speedy discovery of vandalism.
-- [[User:Znode|Znode]] 05:40, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)
: Now, there's something for me to consider... [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 12:07, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
: Perhaps you could put this in [http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org Bugzilla] and tell us the bug number here? [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 12:11, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
: Some further ideas:
:* This could begin with IP removal edits with blank summaries and expand.
:* Buttons on the page can cause the required action to popup in a new window.
:* This could be done on an external site, RC IRC channel bla bla.
: Basically, Znode, a) thanks for your idea and b) I may be way ahead of you. If I will be allowed to make this... muahaha. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 13:56, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
:: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2411
:: -- [[User:Znode|Znode]] 16:52, 2005 Jun 14 (UTC)
:Or you could just summarize the diffs and put them right in the edit summary, so they are visible in recent changes without having to visit each one. See [[Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28perennial_proposals%29#A_better_description]] - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 17:14, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
:: Well, that would help. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 06:00, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)
:: Perfecting an algorithm to summarise large edits is non-trivial. If it merely chooses the first change, it can also be easily worked around by vandals (make first change valid).
:: It also does not solve the problem that once it is off the rapid-flowing Recentchanges, it is never to be seen again. Thus if a time period has a higher vandal rate than usual, but that time period does not have enough janitors, the vandalism done at that time cannot be "saved for viewing" at a time period when there are more janitors online and less of a vandal rate.
:: -- [[User:Znode|Znode]] 07:34, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)
:I'm quite a fan of this idea. I think a significant reason that vandalism remains in wikipedia is that someone isn't actively monitoring RC (or not enough people are.) Once an edit has passed from the most recent changes, it's not likely to be picked up again by someone looking for vandalism, so then it sits until someone sees the article, notices the vandalism, and cares enough to fix it. This idea, if well implemented, could serve as a check to that problem. [[User:Kmccoy|kmccoy]] [[User_talk:Kmccoy|(talk)]] 06:36, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
: Oh, another idea would be giving anonymous edits and accounts created in the last X days a higher probability. Don't know if the database load of the latter makes it feasible. -- [[User:Znode|Znode]] 07:35, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)
==a question==
I already asked this question at the Dutch wiki, but here I'll go: For historians it is pretty important to have good sources about the opinions of people in the past. Wikipedia is a good project, which shows the interests and points of view of a lot people. Is it a idea to make a offline-copy of the whole wikipedia every year or so? I don't know exactly how much spacy on the harddisc wikipedia needs if we would do it that way, but it would be nice. Of cource we would only need the articles, not the editing software. Does anyone know if such a thing exists? I heard of a copy from 2001, but is there also a more recent copy? [[User:Effeietsanders|Effeietsanders]] 08:06, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
: The whole of Wikipedia in English is [http://download.wikimedia.org/#wikipedia 905] [[MiB]] (text and current versions only). This means that on (say) a [[DVD-9]] you could fit it about 9 times (say, for 9 years). This includes articles, talk pages, user pages, templates, wikipedia pages, etc. The whole of en: is 35.15 [[GiB]] (text including all old revisions). This means that it could be fitted onto about 5 [[DVD-9]]s, or about 2 [[DVD-18]]s (rare) or one 50 GiB [[Blu-Ray]] disk. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 11:53, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
: I forgot to mention that on a [[HVD]] (3.9 TB) one could probably fit all old revisions and current ones, in all projects, across all languages. You may even be able to fit all the images too. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 12:02, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
::thanx a lot! and how could it eventually be downloaded? (I'm not planning to do so right now, but investigating the possibility)[[User:Effeietsanders|Effeietsanders]] 11:58, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::: Well, I don't think that Wikimedia will be able to afford that - it may eventually be served out with a [[BitTorrent]]-style system, or there may be a grant to mail people discs free (rather like [[Ubuntu]]). Alternatively, there could be a program which downloads articles on demand and then saves them on your hard disc. Ask [[User:Magnus Manske]]. Also, filtering systems may be able to greatly reduce the amount of articles to distribute through quality control, ommission of minor edits, image compression and selection of articles by notability or topic. In any case, I feel it's unlikely that old revisions will be distributed; they are of interest to very few people. Most people just want to know what we know about [[pie]] ''now''. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 12:07, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
::: PS If you were a serious historian, you would probably be able to access it in, say, the [[Library of Congress]] or some other [[copyright library]], and probably other large libraries too. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 12:10, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
::: It would probably be best to include as many revisions as possible: imagine an event against (say) [[North Korea]] and the [[US]] in one [[June]] and you were interested in seeing how the story unfolded and how the overall POV of the [[North Korea]] article changed as a result. The media would probably be more useful, but a mere yearly snapshot of the [[North Korea]] article would be near-useless. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 12:13, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
::::of cource, but the more sources, the more information. We can never know exactly what historians may want to use in the future. Ans of cource I don't want to distribute the wiki, but just place it in the larger libraries like the Royal Dutch Library (for holland large, probably not for you :P). And a lot of information can be taken from the talkpages as well. Well, anyway, we never know... [[User:Effeietsanders|Effeietsanders]] 12:17, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:Effeietsanders, I just wanted to make sure that you know about http://download.wikimedia.org -- that's the place where you can download the contents of various wikimedia projects. [[User:Kmccoy|kmccoy]] [[User_talk:Kmccoy|(talk)]] 18:41, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::Yes I found it out. Thanks to ask. I'm trying to get the Dutch Royal Library as far to take care of the "archive" we will produce, I think they will take care of the nl.wikipedia.org, but I don't know if they want to take care of the othe languages. As soon I know, you'll hear from me.[[User:Effeietsanders|Effeietsanders]] 21:31, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Flash articles and spoken articles ==
Hello all,
I've been very impressed with the self-made Flash animations posted on various web pages, and I got to wondering whether something like that couldn't be incorporated into Wikipedia. For example, an overview of the Physics article might feature a Flash animation of Newton's three laws, or something like that.
I notice also that some articles are being made into "audio articles" by volunteers, but not in any systematic way right now. Is there any way that someone could edit either of these types of media in a similar way that he or she edits articles? (I assume editing a Flash animation would be easier, but the difficulty in both would seem to be matching the voices).
Really I am very impressed by short summaries of topics either in audio or video form, and I think it would add a lot to Wikipedia. What do you all think? [[User:Mjklin|Mjklin]] 03:19, 2005 Jun 15 (UTC)
*The people who are recording spoken versions of wikipedia articles mainly focus featured articles and other pages that interest them. The idea is to make our best articles available to sight disabled people. It's not possibble to upload Flash animations at the moment, but if you find good ones you can always link them. Problem is that most of them are copyrighted and therefore not eligble to being uploaded. Combining the two is a great idea, but would require people making sound files and animators to work together. At the moment we don't seem to have any animators. - [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 09:20, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)
::Flash versions would be good in some ways, but anti-wiki because it would require a lot of technical knowledge for people to edit them. If you want to make a flash animation for Wikipedia, then create it, upload it to an external site, then link to it from the relevant article.
::Spoken articles are different. They are just snapshots of the text article at a certain point in time. There is no need to change individual lines in them. One individual should record the entire article, and it should then be redone a few months later if significant changes have been made to the article. Only stable articles (not ones likely to caught up in an edit war at any time) should be recorded.
::I've tried to make the recording of articles more systematic. I've created [[Template:Spoken Wikipedia request]] and I hope to co-ordinate the work a bit more when we have more audio contributors. At the moment we are slowly making our way through the featured articles. — [[User:Chameleon|''Chameleon'']] 09:39, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::For animation, it would be better to push [[SVG]], which is an open standard (Flash is proprietary). For audio I don't really see a problem, as people browsing the web will have screen readers running; and since Wikipedia keeps its code pretty clean, there should be no problems. ¦ [[User:Reisio|Reisio]] 03:31, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
:::But is SVG as complete and easy to use as Flash? We don't need the technology to be all flashy and interactive with clicky things, but there are certain features it really needs. Besides the technical side of things, it would be great to see PNG diagrams animated instead and whatnot. Cool stuff. [[User:Master Thief Garrett|Master Thief Garrett]]<sup>[[User talk:Master Thief Garrett|Talk]]</sup> 05:42, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::::What certain features? Vector & animation - what else is there? [[MNG]] would be great, but afaik that is even less supported than SVG. Eventually they should both be well supported; until then, there's GIF. ¦ [[User:Reisio|Reisio]] 18:15, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
== Automated conversion of an existing article's citations to a footnote system ==
:''This was cross-posted to [[Wikipedia talk:Footnotes]].''
If someone wants to do a lot of people a big wiki-favor, please create a macro for automated conversion of an existing article's citations to a footnote system. For instance, [[Convention on Psychotropic Substances]] needs to be converted to footnotes, but that would be rather time-consuming to do manually. There are probably hundreds or thousands of articles in need of such conversion. Please take a look and see what you think. Thanks! [[User:Remember me|Remember me]] 14:35, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:That particular article is fixed now. [[User:Remember me|Remember me]] 03:16, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Articals ==
I for one am sick to death of seeing "artical" in wikipedia, mostly on discussion pages, but still, these people sound like morons. It's '''article'''.
Is there anything that can be done about this? Perhaps a subst:template for user pages? An awareness campaign? Or would it be easier to just contact the people at Oxford and get them to change the spelling of the word?
--[[User:Robojames|Robojames]] 15:41, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:Go to [[User:Humanbot]], a bot-assisted spelling project, and add it there. [[User:smoddy|smoddy]] 15:52, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:: That's already been done; see [[Wikipedia:List of common misspellings]]. Also, comments may not be edited, even for misspellings or typos. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 16:16, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)
:::I guess I'm not proposing that we edit comments, merely that we educate people that this is incorrect and if you use the word ''artical'' to describe your edits, you might not be taken seriously. --[[User:Robojames|Robojames]] 18:47, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::Whhhhhh. Good luck. If you succeed with teaching people about article, try to get them to learn the difference between its and it's... and not to put apostrophes in decades like "the 1970's"... and that people start their surnames with capital letters. There are tons of these "language nasties" around out there... [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...<font color=green><small>''[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?''</small></font>]] 28 June 2005 14:07 (UTC)
:::No one actually spells it "artical" it's more of a typo than anything. Everyone ''knows'' the difference between it's and its but when you are typing quickly you make these mistakes. If they only/mainly occur on talk pages then why should we fix them? [[User:BrokenSegue|This link is]] [[User talk:BrokenSegue|'''B'''roken]] 28 June 2005 14:29 (UTC)
==[[Wikipedia:Clueless newbies]] proposal==
I've been watching/editing the [[Wikipedia:Clueless newbies]] page, and I'm just wondering if it would be OK to create an archive page for all the anon IPs. Here's my comment (taken from the talk page):
There's been quite a lot of promoting anon IPs as clueless newbies. Most of these newbies are only here for a day or two; the vast majority listed here have not been active in Wikipedia for over a month. Does anyone oppose making a "Clueless newbie" archive page? In addition, does anyone oppose splitting listing registered users from anon IPs when someone lists them here (i.e. list as two different sections?) Thanks!
Thanks, I just wanted to see what everyone else thinks before making a "Clueless newbie" archive for those not "officially" resolved- i.e. an anon or registered user who doesn't come back. Thanks for the input! [[User:Flcelloguy|Flcelloguy]] 19:19, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
* Go right ahead with that archive. Once the old request are archived, you'll see there's no real reason to split the listing anymore. - [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 10:16, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)
== Combined watchlist ==
It would be nice if we had one single watchlist for all projects. I guess this is tied into [[m:Single_login|single user login]], though. - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 14:06, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
== In "Upload file" page, change "licence" to "license" ==
In the special page [[MediaWiki:Uploadtext|'''Upload file''']], which is apparently protected from editing by guys like me, there are two instances where "license" is spelled "licence". Everywhere else on the upload page, the word is spelled "license". I propose that those instances where the word is spelled "licence" be changed to "license" for consistency with the rest of the page. [[User:H Padleckas|H Padleckas]] 01:09, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:The first addition of the word uses the "licence" spelling" [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Uploadtext&diff=next&oldid=2448666]. The original uses American spelling ("dialog") but doesn't use that word [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Uploadtext&oldid=2448646] - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 01:35, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
::Or we could just change "license" and all other misspellings to make everything consistent and correct. — [[User:Chameleon|''Chameleon'']] 21:38, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:::I too find bad spelling irritating, but have learned to see the multicultural spelling on wikipedia as a good thing. lets face it, none of the minor differences between British english & American english are exactly a threat to comprehension. I far prefer to see that a page has been contributed to by speakers of both standards (remember that British english is most the common form for 'english as a foreign language' speakers from the EU) than to watch another form of U.S. hegemony spread to this international pool of knowledge. - [[User:DavidParfitt|DavidP]] 01:06, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== An "Articles needing pictures" category in the Community Portal ==
I think this is a good idea. There are many articles in need of pictures, such as [[Ancient Egyptian art]]. [[User:Revolución|Revolución]] 04:41, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:I think we should have a page describing articles needing pictures and what kind of pictures they need (lead picture? diagram? what should it show?) It should also be mentioned on the article's talk page. I like making pictures for articles and would find this helpful. [[User:Dcoetzee|Deco]] 17:26, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
: We have [[Wikipedia:Requested pictures]]. Note that [[:Category:Articles that need pictures]] was recently [[Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:Articles that need pictures|deleted]]. [[User:Bovlb|Bovlb]] 17:06, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)
== User page block ==
I see alot of vandles (sp?) edit others user page(s). I think that only the user of that page should be able to edit it. Could the wikipedia code be changed to allow such a proposal that I am asking? And if someone has a proposal or suggestion to change the user page, a link on the top of '''all''' user pages should be place to let the user know that another has a proposal or suggestion to make in altering the page (perferably a link to make a new note on the users talk page).
--[[User:Admiral Roo|Admiral Roo]] 14:27, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
*'''Disagree'''. Edits to user pages are easily visible on Recent changes, and tend to get reverted quickly. They can be the first identification of a vandal; many, many edits to articles could have passed by and have to be reverted (I did anonymous IP this week). So on the whole, apart from preserving the WikIdeal, allowing edits to user pages helps flush vandals out of the system. [[User:Physchim62|Physchim62]] 08:44, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
*Yes, it makes vandals ten times easier to spot. I'd be against it. - [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 10:02, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
==Sockpuppet check via hashing==
:''Cross-posted to [[Wikipedia talk:Sock puppet]]''
How about revising the WikiMedia software so that along with each edit, a [[Hash function|hashed]] version of the editor's IP address would be listed in the edit history? That way, it would be possible to determine if two users have the same IP address, without actually giving away their IP address. [[User:Joo-joo eyeball|Joo-joo eyeball]] 15:23, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
: It's already possible, although only 2 people are able to use the IP checker. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> 15:44, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
::Sounds like a good idea in principle. However, it might be prone to abuse: someone looking to find a user's IP address could iterate through the space of all IP addresses finding those that match the hash. The IPv4 space isn't so prohibitively large as you might expect. My workstation (a 2GHz Xeon) can compute ten million MD5-Base64 hashes in 43 seconds in Perl, while still doing other things at the same time. At that rate, it would only take about 18500 seconds (5.1 hours) to test the entire 4 billion possible IP addresses. --[[User:Fubar Obfusco|FOo]] 15:58, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:::Without commenting on the idea itself, you can prevent this attack by concataneting some (constant) secret bytes to each IP address before hashing it. [[User:JosephBarillari|jdb ❋]] ([[User_talk:JosephBarillari|talk]]) 18:23, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::Sockpuppets aren't illegal. I don't like this idea. An IP checker that only two people can view sounds ideal to me for cases of banned users returning under different names, etc. - [[User:Omegatron|Omegatron]] 16:39, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
:Another issue is that "two accounts posting from same IP address" and "sock puppet" are not interchangeable, and must not be confused in Wikipedia policy or practice.
:Example one: I and another Wikipedia editor post from the same IP address ... for good reason; we live together and share the same ISP connection! It would be a mistake to interpret this condition as the two of us being the same person. (Our writing styles are completely different, and we work on different sorts of articles, so perhaps it wouldn't be an issue usually -- but if we both happened to vote on the same VfD, it would be erroneous to discount one of our votes because we happened to be on the same IP address.)
:Example two: Many systemic Wikipedia abusers have used open proxies to do their evil deeds. To conflate "same IP address" and "sock puppet" would hand these abusers an argument in their own defense: "Since we're not posting from the same IP address, we are ''therefore'' not sock puppets. Wikipedia practice even says so!"
:Making more information about users' IP addresses, for the purpose of finding out sock puppets, will tend to lead to people conflating "same IP address" with "sock puppet". This is a ''bad mistake'' and should not be contributed to. --[[User:Fubar Obfusco|FOo]] 23:29, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
*See also [[Wikipedia:Sockpuppet/Proposal]] - most people seem to support checking for sockpuppet accounts of ''disruptive and blocked'' users, which is basically where the problem lies. Good faith multiple accounts need no checking. [[User:Radiant!|R]][[User_talk:Radiant!|adiant]][[meta:mergist|_<font color="orange">>|<</font>]] 08:09, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
== Proposal regarding era designations in Manual of Style ==
I have created a [[Wikipedia:Eras/Compromise proposal|compromise proposal]] regarding era style (BCE/CE vs BC/AD). Please discuss the proposal on [[Wikipedia talk:Eras/Compromise proposal|its talk page]]. [[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 20:28, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Merchendise ==
I think that in order to help [[Mediawiki]] with funding, the creator (I forgot his name now) should allow someone to make Mediawiki merchendise. What do you think? Personally, I would like to have a [[necklace]] madallion (sp?) of [[Wikipedia]] around my [[neck]]. [[User:Admiral Roo|Admiral Roo]] <small>([[User talk:Admiral Roo|Talk to me]])([[ Special:Contributions/Admiral Roo|My Contributions]])</small> 19:02, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
* See this [http://www.cafepress.com/wikipedia CafePress] link - [[User:Skysmith|Skysmith]] 10:28, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== New request type: copyright examination ==
[[Wikipedia:Requested copyright examinations]] --[[User:Easyas12c|Easyas12c]] 20:02, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Talk pages: permanent Wiki policy header ==
I think it would be useful to create a small (couple of lines) summary of Wikipedia policy, with appropriate links. Things like [[WP:NOR]], etc. This would be a permanent header at the top of every Talk page. In a relatively unobtrusive way (if kept very short) it would (a) remind regular users of these policies and (b) bring them to the attention of [[Wikipedia:Clueless newbies|newbies]] who may well be entering the site via some random content page.[[User:Rd232|Rd232]] 22:59, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Wikilinks: Tooltip summary ==
In a nod to the [[semantic web]], there could be a mechanism for pages to contain a very simple definition or tiny summary, for display as a [[tool tip]] over the link.[[User:Rd232|Rd232]] 22:59, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:Problem is we've [[chocolate|already]] [[Llama|got]] [[LEGO|tooltips]] that tell you where a link [[Link|is]] [[July|actually]] [[Halo|going]] [[WP:VP|to]]. But that's not to say such a system can't replace it. Problem is where to get the summary from?
:*Do you use the first paragraph? Some are too short--just a line like "this is a fictional character in the blabla universe"--and others too long--requiring the system to auto-cut off the description after a certain number of characters have been displa...--so that's a problem.
:*Alternately, do you define a new /Summary subpage of each page? Well that could work but would take many months for the use of this manual summary to be comprehensive.
:*Do you code in an auto-summary tool akin to Microsoft Word's that will make use of everything between the <summary> and </summary> tags?
:**Possible, but how would it generate it?
:***on-the-fly--that's a BIG resource killer
:***sequentially cached cutups--summaries could be wrong for a fair while if it crawls a vandalised version of the page
:**Also, how would it be delivered to the end user?
:***Downloaded with the page--LONG loading times
:***Downloaded when pointed over--long wait to download the IFRAME's contents and the user may not even realise that you *can* see a writeup when pointed over
:Not to say it's a bad idea, it's in fact quite a good idea... just that it's got some issues. [[User:Master Thief Garrett|Master Thief Garrett]]<sup>[[User talk:Master Thief Garrett|Talk]]</sup> 06:05, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate that of the three proposals I made, this is by far the hardest to implement. To answer one of your questions, I had envisaged some kind of a <nowiki>{{summary}}</nowiki> tag on each page (or a separate subpage or whatever), with purpose-written content. Efficiently getting that content onto pages linking to it is another matter. Still, sometimes it's worth floating ideas, you never know where they might lead. [[User:Rd232|Rd232]] 13:55, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Page history: Display size of page ==
To help users evaluate page histories, display the size of a page version in the history, or possibly the change in page size (in % and/or kb) caused by each edit. This would make it easier to spot major changes worth looking at in more detail. [[User:Rd232|Rd232]] 22:59, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:That's an interesting idea; do you (or anyone else) have any idea how difficult it would be, or what extra drain on servers it would constitute? [[User:Mel Etitis|Mel Etitis]] ([[User talk:Mel Etitis|<font color="green">Μελ Ετητης</font>)]] 13:28, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::Well, its served up by the IRC of recent changes (the change in size), so generating it is clearly not a difficulty. I doubt keeping it would be a large server resource – it would never be more than about 10 bytes, about the same length as the user identifier. Maybe a feature request? [[User:smoddy|smoddy]] 14:11, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== Births and deaths in year articles ==
I'd like to propose that the list of births and deaths in year articles should be restricted to figures of major international repute. If we listed everyone with a Wikipedia article in these categories, the year articles would be dominated by them (e.g. 1944 would contain over 800 births). If people wish to spin off the articles for, say, [[Births in 1944]] article, then fine (although this should have more detail than just the Category of course). [[User:Average Earthman|Average Earthman]] 22:50, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:How long would 1944 be with all those? If under 32k, I don't have much of a problem with it. Even if over 32k, I dunno, what other content would [[1944]] have? It's supposed to list what happened that year. And I dislike this "international importance" bit. A prime minister of a small African country may not be internationally important, but he should go there. Likewise should a pop star, who has no relevance whatsoever :) --[[User:Golbez|Golbez]] 22:58, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
:: Actual news events? The birth of someone who will go on to appear in TV movies is pretty irrelevent, and most people going to the year articles won't be looking for this. Full lists of people who were born in that year are better served either by the category or by a separate article - e.g. we have a separate [[Deaths in 2004]] article rather than include the whole list on the [[2004]] article. I've broadband, and it just took nearly five seconds to load the [[Deaths in 2004]] article. So, for an earlier year, a full births and deaths list is potentially wasting up to ten seconds of time for the majority of people who would go to the year to look at the news events. Personally, I'd like a summary of the most famous/influential people who died, such as Ronald Reagan and Marlon Brando in 2004 (we're able to summarise other news events after all, why not deaths?). [[User:Average Earthman|Average Earthman]] 22:00, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:''How long would 1944 be with all those?'' Golbez, Golbez, Golbez... you should know better than to leave a straight-line like that lying around. 366 days - it was a leap year. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...<font color=green><small>''[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?''</small></font>]] 28 June 2005 14:03 (UTC)
== Directory ==
I brought this up once already, but I think it still needs to be addressed.
The condition of the english-language wikipedia's directory is horrific compared to that of the German-language wikipedia's (de.wikipedia.org then click on "Artikel nach Themen") I have talked with [[user:Spangineer]] about doing something with a combination of the portals system into the directories, and addition of new portals, etc., but neither of us can offer the immense amount of time needed to work on this sort of project. Please talk to one of us if you are interested in helping in any way.
PS: Is there any way I can keep this from being deleted? Because I think it is <i>very</i> important to the user-friendliness of Wikipedia.
[[User:Clarkefreak|Clarkefreak]] [[User talk:Clarkefreak|∞]] 01:14, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:A direct link to the page in question: [[:de:Wikipedia nach Themen]]. Since I seem to be the only one "emptying the brackish water" out of the Pump these days, I'll try to remember to to leave this one alone. Besides you'll probably have lots of responses posted here so would no doubt keep it alive all the longer. [[User:Master Thief Garrett|Master Thief Garrett]]<sup>[[User talk:Master Thief Garrett|Talk]]</sup> 02:35, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Another option could be expansion of [[DDC and LOC]]. --[[User:Arcadian|Arcadian]] 22:47, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:That sort of thing doesn't give the nice-looking portals and such that I think wikipedia needs more of and better quality ones. What I'm looking for is what the German wikipedia has at [[:de:Wikipedia nach Themen]]. Even if you don't understand German, you can tell that this is a good system that organizes information easily, with a featured picture, article, etc. for each cateogory. [[User:Clarkefreak|Clarkefreak]] [[User talk:Clarkefreak|∞]] 18:18, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
== maps ==
It would be fantastic if every place name and every historic place name had a map.
:We think so too! --[[User:Golbez|Golbez]] 03:41, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
:It would be a great thing to have, but the problem is how to make such maps. Hopefully one day we'll have a "WikiAtlas" project so you can just cross-link to a fully-explorable world map with the view centered on that ___location, but until then it's up to each article author to arrange one. [[User:Master Thief Garrett|Master Thief Garrett]]<sup>[[User talk:Master Thief Garrett|Talk]]</sup> 03:50, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:: There are several academic historical maps of China. For example, the 8-volume tome ''The [[Historical Atlas of China]]'' (中国历史地图集) published during the 1980s in China contains hundreds highly detailed maps for about each province of each major dynasty. Another two-volume work also named ''Historical Atlas of China'' (中國歷史地圖) published somewhat earlier in Taiwan, also contains dozens of highly detailed maps. Trust me, it is an exteremely difficult work. It'll take countless trained personnels years of efforts to duplicate the feat on a global scale. And the end result will still contain countless gaps and unanswered questions. I love this idea. It's just way beyond our abilities. -- [[User:Toytoy|Toytoy]] 13:34, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
== "Books on tape" ==
My wife and I often listen to books on tape. There's a lack of free content out there. If I were to record myself reading a public-___domain book, and release it into the public ___domain, it would be a large file, even in ogg format. Would Wikimedia be willing to host it? Where would be an appropriate place for it? Commons? Wikisource? Thanks, – [[User:Quadell|Quadell]] <sup>([[User_talk:Quadell|talk]]) ([[Wikipedia:Image sleuthing|sleuth]])</sup> 18:36, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
:Please also see [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia]]. I was planning to upload some readings of PD poems to Wikimedia, which seems like the appropriate place for such things. Cheers, -[[User:Willmcw|Willmcw]] 18:47, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
*I'd say wikisource is the right place to put recordings of PD books and poems. You could put a template with a link to the file right at the start of the page. - [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 19:27, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
*I'd put it on commons and link to it on source. Even though it will be the wrong language for other wikipedia's they might want the original english version (assuming it was originally english and the translations aren't always in PD yet) (have they split the wikisources yet?). [[User:BrokenSegue|This link is]] [[User talk:BrokenSegue|'''B'''roken]] 18:36, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
==Cite wikipeda==
Take a look at the bottom of [http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761554245/Pledge_of_Allegiance.html#endads this encarta article]. On the bottom of every page they tell people how they can cite that encarta article. Wouldn't it be nice if we did that also? We could add a template to the bottom of every page giving MLA style or, even better, we could make a special page which would output a whole bunch of different citing styles. We always have lots of people asking how to cite us and I bet there are people who don't want to cite wikipedia because of the diffuclty. [[User:BrokenSegue|This link is]] [[User talk:BrokenSegue|'''B'''roken]] 18:36, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
*We've got the link to [[Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia]] on top of both the help desk and the reference desk and yet people fail to notice. I doubt putting info on the bottom of an article would help much. Still, I used greasemonkey to put a link "How to cite Wikipedia" on the very bottom of my own wikipedia pages between "About Wikipedia" amd "Disclaimers". There's too many ways to cite to put them all at the bottom of an article, but maybe we should spread that link globally so they don't have to read help pages to find it. - [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 21:13, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
*Good idea. Put a citation at the bottom of each page, automatically generated for each page/version; it's only an extra line. Agree a default style (eg APA), and put a link to [[Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia]] for more info. Eventually, let users specify a preference for the citation style. Thought: for now, it may be worth putting it manually on, say, featured articles, as the very last thing on the page (if a non-ugly way to do it can be found).[[User:Rd232|Rd232]] 28 June 2005 21:17 (UTC)
** Secondary thought: this proposal is in a similar spirit to my suggestion to put a short summary of helpful links on the top of every Talk page. Don't make people look for things, put them right where they'll find them without trying. It's one of the reasons (recommendations right where you can't miss them, without being intrusive) that Amazon became so successful.[[User:Rd232|Rd232]] 28 June 2005 21:20 (UTC)
==Special color for admin/steward usernames==
Would it be a good idea to have administrator usernames have a different color? This feature would help people catch admin impersonators quickly (as opposed to having to go to [[Special:Listadmins]]). --[[User:Ixfd64|Ixfd64]] 05:15, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)
:No. It's harder to tell administrators from normal users on purpose, because administrators shouldn't be treated differently from normal users just because they are administrators. --[[User:CesarB|cesarb]] 13:12, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:: I hate color tags. If you colorize admins, the impersonators would also colorize their names. However, it's a good idea to ban all color tags. -- [[User:Toytoy|Toytoy]] 13:19, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
I agree that admins shouldn't have special colours, etc. — but what do you have against colour in general? (I only ask because I want to know.) [[User:Mel Etitis|Mel Etitis]] ([[User talk:Mel Etitis|<font color="green">Μελ Ετητης</font>)]] 13:25, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
: I just don't like colorful pages. To me, colors are reserved for vital tasks such as warning and visualization. I don't want to see a page full of unuseful colors. -- [[User:Toytoy|Toytoy]] 18:06, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
== Where has the archive gone? ==
I can't see the archive. Has it disappeared? [[User:Bobblewik|Bobblewik]] [[User talk:Bobblewik|(talk)]] 13:02, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:No, its just empty! [[User:smoddy|smoddy]] 18:11, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::So what happened to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29&diff=prev&oldid=14852204 ?
== Breakup controversial articles ==
I suggest that we breakup some controversial articles if possible. We can keep the core concept in the original article and make it as short as possible, and place details in many sub-articles. If a part is protected because of a debate, it will not affect other parts. -- [[User:Toytoy|Toytoy]] 14:07, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
== Changing "Random page" to "Random article" ==
Would it be a bad idea to change "Random page" to "Random article" for accuracy? See my post on [[MediaWiki talk:Randompage]]. --[[User:Ixfd64|Ixfd64]] 18:44, 2005 Jun 26 (UTC)
== Hit-counter of non-users to a page ==
So that the editors can see how many people are coming to pages they frequent? Non-users part is optional, but I'd like to actually see how many people are going to the [[George W. Bush]] page or any other ones that I'm working on. Doesn't have to be complex webtrends statistics, just a simple number since a certain date. --[[User:Kizzle|kizzle]] 00:55, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)
:Even that is hard to do. When a page is only being read by a non-logged in user, the request doesn't even hit the servers most of the time; there is a layer of [[Squid proxy|Squid]] proxies which serves more than half of the hits. Beyond that layer, the page is cached on [[memcached]] on the [[Apache HTTP server|Apache]] servers; if the data isn't there, it's read from the slave [[database]] servers, which are read-only. Writing even a small counter would be a big performance hit. --[[User:CesarB|cesarb]] 01:05, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::If it didn't have to be accurate, could there be an estimator within a 100 or so just based upon Apache logs? --[[User:Kizzle|kizzle]] 01:28, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)
:We used to have a counter of the number of times a page had been read. It was turned off, apparently in October 2004, because it made a significant hit on server performance. You can see statistics up to that point at [http://wikimedia.org/stats/en.wikipedia.org/]. You can click on the month, then about half way down the resulting page, at the bottom of the table of top 50 URLs, you'll see a link to "All URLS". That's about 40 MB as I recall, so you probably want to save it to disk rather than open it in your browser.-[[User:Gadfium|gadfium]] 02:18, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::I agree, it would be an unwarranted usage of resources. Maybe if wikipedia had lots of resources left over it'd be fine, but that isn't the current situation. [[User:Grenavitar|gren]] 02:23, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:::It would be largely worthless anyway, because there are so many copies of Wikipedia articles on other websites. For every hit an article gets on Wikipedia, mirrored articles get who knows how many hits. So even if we counted the hits here it would be no indication of how many people are actually reading stuff that was written for a particular Wikipedia article. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...<font color=green><small>''[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?''</small></font>]] 28 June 2005 13:57 (UTC)
==Wikis==
Ok, here is my idea. A collaborative music score. I know this doesn't belong in Wikipedia, but if it were worth it to do this, where could it go? [[User:Jaberwocky6669|Jaberwocky6669]] 04:27, Jun 27, 2005 (UTC)
==Watchlist removal shortcut==
I'd like to suggest the addition of a shortcut to remove items from a person's watchlist.
Currently, the "My watchlist" page boasts the usual list of latest updates such as
*(diff) (hist) . . '''[[Wikipedia:Copyright problems]]'''; 04:22 . . <u><font color=blue>Username</font > </u> (Talk | block) ([[Wikipedia:Copyright problems#June 27|→]] ''June 27'')
Would it be too difficult to make it instead show this?
*(diff) (hist) (unwatch). . '''[[Wikipedia:Copyright problems]]'''; 04:22 . . <u><font color=blue>Username</font > </u> (Talk | block) ([[Wikipedia:Copyright problems#June 27|→]] ''June 27'')
It would save having to farf between a couple of pages when trying to change a watchlist. [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...<font color=green><small>''[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?''</small></font>]] 04:57, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
*Have you tried displaying the entire list? (There's an option for it on the watchlist) It has checkboxes to remove individual items. [[User:Radiant!|R]][[User_talk:Radiant!|adiant]][[meta:mergist|_<font color="orange">>|<</font>]] June 28, 2005 12:37 (UTC)
Yes, but I just thought it might be useful if a watched page pops up near the top of your watchlist that you no longer want to watch, to just be able to remove it straight from the top page. (hmmm...did that parse OK?). BTW, I've clicked on "Mark pages visited", but nothing's appearing in bold. Does the "last visit" function not work properly, or am I doing something wrong? [[User:Grutness|Grutness]]...<font color=green><small>''[[User_talk:Grutness|wha?''</small></font>]] 28 June 2005 13:52 (UTC)
I also would like this option. [[User:Rd232|Rd232]] 28 June 2005 21:23 (UTC)
== Junior Wikipedia proposal ==
This is a suggestion that might be related to the [[Wikipedia:Village_pump_(perennial_proposals)|perennial proposal]], "Filter or Site for Young Students" but offering an alternative solution to filtering for concerned parents. It would also bring certain other advantages.
I propose an off-shoot/fork of the the EN wikipedia, targeted for children. I envision articles with a reading level of, say, 12 years (hopefully without becoming patronising!). Emphasis would be on articles with an obvious attraction to children. Articles covering objectionable material could/would be avoided without impacting the main wikipedia. Articles on complex topics (e.g. the high-level mathematics articles) could be provided at a much more appropriate level.
Has this proposal been offered before? Is there any interest in such a "en-junior" for children? Would anyone else be prepared to help on such a project? [[User:Stewartadcock|Stewart Adcock]] 28 June 2005 11:22 (UTC)
*It already exists :) The Simple English wikipedia. [[User:Radiant!|R]][[User_talk:Radiant!|adiant]][[meta:mergist|_<font color="orange">>|<</font>]] June 28, 2005 12:36 (UTC)
::My intended emphasis is on focused content, not simplified language. [[User:Stewartadcock|Stewart Adcock]] 28 June 2005 14:25 (UTC)
:[[m:Wikijunior]]? -- [[User:Cyrius|Cyrius]]|[[User talk:Cyrius|✎]] 28 June 2005 19:03 (UTC)
::Actually, [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior Wikijunior] is what gave me the initial idea. That's a series of books though, not an encyclopedia. [[User:Stewartadcock|Stewart Adcock]] 28 June 2005 19:57 (UTC)
:::The "books" are really just mini-encyclopedias. The Wikijunior people are interested in exactly the sort of project you're talking about. Target your audience. -- [[User:Cyrius|Cyrius]]|[[User talk:Cyrius|✎]] 29 June 2005 12:26 (UTC)
== Bug Reports ==
Could an authorized admin create a link to bug reports for all of mediawiki's navigation links page? Thanks. --[[User:Admiral Roo|Admiral Roo]] June 28, 2005 14:53 (UTC)
: What? [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> June 29, 2005 21:19 (UTC)
== Page history last and first ==
Wikipedia recently upgraded to a new wiki software version, but there is a feature that I had hoped would be in it.
Whenever you click on the history tab, there are several numbers at the bottom - 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, etc. that gives you the "results per page" feature. However, I really want a "last" and "first" feature - that is - I can hop right to the beginning of a page's history to see how it began as an article. That way, I don't have to press the "next 500" button over and over again to see the article's beginning.
Hope this will be in the next version of the wiki software. — [[User:Stevey7788|Stevey7788]] ([[User talk:Stevey7788|talk]]) 28 June 2005 20:18 (UTC)
== make user filtering easier in [[Special:Listusers]] ==
It would be nice if Special:Listusers was made easier for filtering. The list for users and admins has been merged for this new version of MediaWiki. For example, I can select so that only admins are listed, but when I click "next 500", etc, it shows regular users again. I know that I can add "&limit=500" to the original URL, but not everyone knows that trick... :o --[[User:Ixfd64|Ixfd64]] 2005 June 29 02:56 (UTC)
:File an enhancement "bug" request in [http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org Bugzilla]. -- [[User:Cyrius|Cyrius]]|[[User talk:Cyrius|✎]] 29 June 2005 12:27 (UTC)
== Overhaul this page ==
My proposal is to change the format of Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) as follows:
There would be only three sections to this page:
# Instructions on how to post a proposal and how the approval process works.
# Links to active proposals, with each proposal posted on its own page. Each proposal would have its own talk page as well.
# Links to inactive proposals and the decisions that were reached.
'''[[Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/New format for proposal page|Here's a mock up.]]'''
'''Advantages'''
* The page won't get so long.
* It will be easy to see the results of discussions, and what steps are being taken.
* Discussions will take place on separate pages. This will make it much easier to follow the discussions you participate in or choose to watch.
* Easier to archive discussions.
'''Disadvantages'''
* A little more difficult to start a proposal.
'''Please discuss on [[Wikipedia talk:Village pump (proposals)|talk page]].'''
:: -- [[User:SamuelWantman|Samuel Wantman]] 29 June 2005 05:56 (UTC)
== Special Page ==
Could an Admin place the following tag in this [[Special:Listusers|Special Page]]? <nowiki>{{CategoryTOC}}</nowiki>. The page is [[Special:Listusers]]. It would make it easier to browes, in my opinion. Thanks. --[[User:Admiral Roo|Admiral Roo]] June 29, 2005 19:47 (UTC)
:I do not think it's possible (special pages are not editable, and the messages shown at the top are shared with other lists). --[[User:CesarB|cesarb]] 29 June 2005 20:18 (UTC)
== Major cleanup confusion ==
I’ve been here about a month now, poking about, looking for articles that need cleaning up. But, just when I think I’ve finally found all the categories and pages listing articles in need of help, I discover a whole new set. This has become confusing and tiresome, so I started a list to keep them straight.
Some of these pages are just links to other categories/pages. However, most of them are lists of articles. I did a rough count, finding more than 13,200 articles listed. There is no easy way to tell what articles may be duplicated in this count and this total does not include the 19 large dump files of the punctuation project. Also, the [[Wikipedia:Pages_needing_ attention]] (802 articles and subpage 540) and [[Special:Ancient_pages]] (1,051) lists do not specify what sort of fix has been requested, so these may include stubs and who knows what else.
Limiting this to just those categories/pages that call for actual editing, not disambiguation, fact-checking, copyright, etc., [[User:Jekoko/Cleanup links|here]] is my list so far.
To my mind, this is a mess of major proportions, both awful and awesome. I checked around the Village Pump and found no mention of this, which was a surprise. Doesn’t anyone else have a problem with this? Or is it just too vast to even discuss?
Although it is difficult to pick out a structure here, the articles seem to have been sorted out according to three schemes: 1) when someone requested a fix; 2) what sort of fix was requested; and 3) alphabetically by title with a very few subject subcategories.
I can understand why it might be useful to have three different ways of sorting articles. What bothers me is that I only stumbled on some of these huge lists by accident, while poking about. I suspect a massive duplication of effort and content and I can verify that there is serious confusion for a newbie such as myself (which may turn off those who are eager to help).
In keeping with the Wikipedia exhortation to be bold, I have a few ideas on how to address this.
# I think we need a much clearer delineation between cleanup and maintenance. A page listing which tasks go with which major category would be useful. We have some things similar, such as [[Wikipedia:Cleanup]], but which don’t really resolve what I see as a current ambiguity.
# I think we need to have one page showing the three different ways of sorting articles in need of cleanup and '''all''' the links necessary to get to '''any''' list in any of the three schemes (by date, by work needed, alphabetical).
# I think we need to look at all the cleanup and maintenance categories and weed out those that are not used or are not useful, disposing of their associated templates as well. For example, [[:Category:Wikipedia_articles_needing_their_fiction_made_clear]] has just one article listed.
# I think we need to drop use of the {attention} tag and dump those articles listed on [[Wikipedia:Pages_needing_ attention]] and [[Wikipedia:Pages_needing_attention/Maintenance]] into the [[Special:Ancient_pages]] list, bringing its total to ca. 2,400 articles. At that point, it would be necessary to view each one and decide whether it, in fact, needs attention and what kind of attention, adding the appropriate tags, including the one stating that it has been more than six months since cleanup was requested, {cleanuplo}.
# I think we need to go through the articles listed under [[:Category:Wikipedia_cleanup]] (6,600 articles) and do the same thing, parceling them out into type of cleanup (or type of maintenance) needed.
# I think we need to keep the pages listing articles to be cleaned up by date of request. However, I think the [[:Category:Cleanup_leftovers]] page is redundant to [[Special:Ancient_pages]].
Well, now. There. I’ve been bold. I await your responses. [[User:Jekoko|Jekoko]] 29 June 2005 19:53 (UTC)
:Did you look at the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting|WikiProject Stub sorting]]? Some time ago, there was only one category, Category:Stub, which was really huge. That project managed to sort all the stubs on the hierarchical tree you can see at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types]], making it much easier to find stubs related to an area you know of. Maybe something like that should be done to the cleanup templates/pages. By the way, you cannot add anything to [[Special:Ancientpages]], since it's automatically generated. --[[User:CesarB|cesarb]] 29 June 2005 20:13 (UTC)
::I just took a look at the stub project. Impressive. Doing something like this for cleanup ought to be do-able. I don't see any real need to have articles sorted by subject, like the stubs. Do you? Can you tell me '''how''' the [[Special:Ancient_pages]] list is automatically generated? Thanks. [[User:Jekoko|Jekoko]] 30 June 2005 01:56 (UTC)
::: [[Special:Ancientpages]] is not any request. It's just pages which might be outdated because they haven't been edited in a while. Oldest pages appear first. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> June 30, 2005 06:17 (UTC)
== Uploading of images ==
I just went through the history of front page articles and someone (user Lolwtf) uploaded a horrible picture, then he/she (from what I know) used an ip address (64.26.109.9) to reuse that image on two occasions on two articles. I was wondering is it much work to allow only people who have contributed a certain number of articles (10 maybe) to be allowed to upload an image. I was also wondering why was the image not removed immediately? It is still there!! If not delete it at least replace it with something - blank dot maybe. I looked some more and the image was on the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion for deletion. Going through the bureaucratic procedure of wikipedia the image will still be there for a week.
: {{User|Lolwtf}} and {{User|64.26.109.9}} and [[Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion]]. Do you mean [[:Image:3QTFUN-4.jpg]]? Well, it was deleted. [[User:R3m0t|r3m0t]] <sup>[[User talk:R3m0t|talk]]</sup> June 29, 2005 21:23 (UTC)
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