...when Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.9.4 (talk) 12:42, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

What a perfectly formed rhetorical question, I would feel like I am spoiling it by trying to answer. If only we still had BJAODN... -- RoninBK _{T C} 12:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

It's an inside joke. Jehochman ^Talk 13:12, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

The bureaucrats here do not really fit their name. They just have a few special buttons that allow them to give special permissions to users such as adminship and bureaucratship. They also can flag users as bots and rename users. They are not bureaucrats in the way that one usually thinks of a bureaucrat as being. Captain panda 04:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

When we say Wikipedia isn't a bureaucracy, we're talking about the Wikipedia environment as far as its users are concerned. The wiki itself, however, on the technical end, does have a structure with clear rules and hierarchy. That's required in order to keep everything working correctly -- Without it/them, anyone could rename their account and assign permissions. Bureaucrats maintain that technical structure, so the name is accurate. Equazcion •✗/C • 03:50, 8 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Do you think that a category for Unanimous Supreme court decisions would be cool? I mean, Wikipedia is a learning environment at the same time as a research environment, and it would foster a lot of learning. And that's good for society. What do you think? --Heero Kirashami (talk) 02:03, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

To me it sounds like an odd thing to categorize by. Maybe you would be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases. You can make suggestions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The category is really "Notable U.S. Supreme Court decisions that were unanimous", since non-notable cases don't have articles. Probably a pretty small number of cases. (My first reaction was to consider this a WP:NOT violation - indiscriminate collection of information - but upon reflection it's actually an interesting question as to how many of these cases were unanimous.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:18, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:United States Supreme Court cases is large. I'm sure many of them were unanimous. I just don't think it sounds suited for a category. But Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases would be a better place to discuss this. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Some articles have various edit wars over the length of trivia dedicated to a given subject. One policy could be implemented to have trivia appear in its own box in the discussion page. This would remove long lists from the article body.

It would be a really, REALLY bad idea to codify this into policy directly, without at least spending some time as a guideline. -- RoninBK _{T C} 03:37, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The "length" of trivia sections shouldn't be a concern (ie. they shouldn't be shortened just because someone thinks they're too long). We have some pretty descriptive guidance already as to which items should be kept, integrated into other sections, or removed. Each individual item should be decided on its own merits. Equazcion •✗/C • 03:42, 8 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Since deletion debates are not settled by vote counts, but rather by strength of arguments and appeals to policy, I recommend that closing admins provide a rationale for their decision. A lot of debates include fallacious arguments along with the good ones, so I think it would be helpful for the admin to explain which ones form the basis for the decision. We have already seen with CSD that providing a reason, even if it's just a one-liner, is useful to others reviewing the decision. And the admin who deletes based on a PROD also provides a reason in the deletion summary. But AfD is different from PROD, in that many users provide input, and so a reference to the AfD debate can leave it unclear which were the decisive rationale(s) on the winning side. It would also further help avoid the appearance of it being a vote. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 23:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I've seen deletion debates closed with "decision was Delete," when the !votes were about equally divided, and there were cogent arguments on both sides. Or with, say, a clear majority of Delete !votes, but mostly bare (no arguments, or per nom or per Username !arguments), with cogent arguments for Keep; what, then, is happening, almost certainly, is that the personal opinion of the closing administrator is being implemented, but we don't know the reasoning. My own opinion is that the whole deletion process is a waste of time, that the encyclopedic project is more properly about the categorization of knowledge, and that no sane encyclopedic project would discard verifiable or verified information on the grounds of non-notability, though it might not be included in a print or other restricted publication. What, exactly, is the harm of having, for example, an article on a "non-notable" grammar school? Are verifiable facts about that school not "human knowledge"? You might call me an inclusionist, but that isn't accurate. I'd have layers to the encyclopedia, with a top layer being not only notable, but essential. Below that would be a layer that still requires something like present standards of notability, and below that a layer with only verifiability as a standard. The exact structure is something that would be worked out by consensus, but deletion is something that most sophisticated computer users have stopped doing with their own systems: disk space is cheaper than the time it takes to figure out what to delete, and, even if it is rare, the work wasted when something that later turns out to be useful, is, again, more valuable than the disk space; rather, they will actively categorize what they see as important, and leave the rest as an amorphous mass that can be searched quickly. I learned years ago about a technique for organizing files: Hold For Discard. When you know something is useful, you file it. When you know it isn't useful, you immediately toss it in the trash. If there is doubt about which category it belongs in, you toss it in a box called Hold for Discard. Periodically, you close the box and date it, starting a new box. After a lapse of time, when you haven't needed anything in the HFD box, you can toss it. With computer files, though, you can keep that doubtful stuff forever, you can bequeath it to your grandchildren (who can throw it away if they like, or not, depends.) If you never need it, what does a DVD cost? Weigh that against the work of going through it all to figure out what to delete, and, here, against the work involved in a single AfD.

What we should be doing as editors is classifying and categorizing knowledge, not deleting it. None of it should be deleted. Every minute, a torrent of information comes in to us from our senses. We pay attention to (we "note") very little of it. But we don't delete any of it; what is kept, though, is only what has been noted in some way, whether consciously or unconsciously. Collectively, as to human knowledge, if someone took the significant amount of time it takes to create an article, and someone provides sources for verification (whether meeting WP:RS or not, but meeting WP:V, i.e., what is stated in the article can be verified by anyone), it has been noted, and we delete it at our peril, just as we would be risking our own welfare by sealing off certain kinds of sensory input, or repressing what we have noticed. There had better be a good reason. Here, the reasons would be that the article is actively causing damage, the two salient examples being copyright violation and libel. And those causes for deletion don't require AfD.

So, personally, I wouldn't be putting much effort into fixing the AfD process. If we keep it, yes, definitely, a closing administrator (nor non-admin closer) should clearly state the controlling arguments, otherwise, we may reasonably suspect, the closer didn't even pay attention but just made a snap judgment.--Abd (talk) 13:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I don;'t think the above view will have much support. We're not a web preservation project, but an encyclopedia. But as even you say, if we have the process,we should do it right. so let's discuss that, which was the question raised. I think a closing rationale must do more than ate the result, but given a summary of the reasons and how consensus was judged--we do not want the admins opinion on whether the article should be kept or not, we want the admins judgement about what the people who contributed policy based arguments said. The point of the arguments is not to convince an admin one way or another. the admin merely sums up the discussion, taking account of the opinions that were based on a reasonable interpretation of policy--whether or not the admin agrees with the majority. DGG (talk) 02:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't bother. When Arbitrators are required to give a rationale for their votes, they ignore the requirement. Why make another rule to be ignored? -- SEWilco (talk) 02:55, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Pointless process. The majority of AFDs are usually close to unanimous, a rationale would just be repetitive in those situations. If you can't tell by a quick review of the discussion why it was closed the way it was, ask. Mr.Z-man 06:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree this is pointless as most AfDs are pretty clear in what the outcome was going to be. Note that in controversial discussions it is quite common for the closing admin to leave a closing rationale. Hut 8.5 16:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

This is an option in Twinkle, but why don't we just make it part of the software? It could be placed right after 'undo' on page histories and such. It's somewhat like the opposite of undo - undo removes what that edit changed, while 'restore this version' undoes everything since and reinstates that revision. It also never fails, whereas undo often can once other edits have occurred after the one in question. I think it would be a great help for editors to go with the undo function, and it really makes little sense to have one and not the other. It's a moderately big change though, so some feedback on the suggestion would be in order first. Richard001 (talk) 07:48, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, for starters it's dangerous. It wipes out all those subsequent edits. Rollback does this, doesn't it? And we restrict the use of rollback to vandalism, and we restrict access to rollback to a trusted class. It's easy enough to restore an old version, just not one-button. The current software, for users without rollback, requires us to pay a little more attention to what we are doing, to actually look at, preferably, each of those changes. But I can restore any article to a prior version simply by loading that version, editing it, and saving it. And we do have rollback, so the essence of this proposal would be to give rollback to everyone, that's all. An idea which has been pretty roundly rejected, given how much fuss there was over giving it to non-administrators.--Abd (talk) 13:58, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Rollback just allows you to undo the latest version (and any other versions by the same user), it doesn't allow you to go back arbitrarily far. Load-Edit-Save is fast enough, I think - it's rarely necessary to revert multiple edits by different users, so there's no need for a one-click way of doing it. --Tango (talk) 14:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Since I don't have rollback, I'm obviously unclear on the details. Load-Edit-Save is quite easy, and very rarely appropriate. I've seen it happen by mistake. This is Wikipedia, though, we get to make mistakes.... --14:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs)

If it was like undo it wouldn't exactly be one click but two. If you do any reasonable amount of reverting you get sick of the extra clicks and bandwidth wastage. Perhaps we could restrict it to registered users, perhaps even with a certain number of edits as well. Or perhaps we could even make it like the current rollback system (need to be approved), or require modification of settings (which is basically how you 'get' Twinkle). Twinkle is already far superior than the rubbishy rollback thing, so the whole trusted user thing is a complete waste of time really. Richard001 (talk) 05:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Currently, if their is any information in an article which is disputed, it is only mentioned on the discussion page. But the majority of readers will not check the discussion page after reading the article, and will accept as fact anything which is found in the article. I therefore propose that there be some form of format-based identifier, for example a red dashed line under the text, to show that something is being disputed. When the issue has been discussed and concordance reached amongst the disputants, then the word or phrase in question could be rectified to reflect the outcome of the discussions and the format tag removed.

At the moment, it is possible for people to identify in the page claims which are unsourced, but there are cases when the use of this tag would not be appropriate, e.g. if there exist two or more equally reliable but conflicting sources. - R160K (talk) 18:00, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Category:Inline templates has a collection of tags which can be added to a particular statement which seems in need of revision or substantiation. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Readers also have to use a certain amount of critical thinking. Just because a sentence doesn't have a citation needed at the end, there's certainly no reason be sure it's true. If the truth of what you're reading is important to you, you may want to use a better encyclopedia if the article is weak on citations. Richard001 (talk) 05:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

What about putting the Simple English language link on top of all languages on all pages like it is on the main page?--Kozuch (talk) 17:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I already suggested this, see here -> (link) and the revelent discussion here -> (link). Although it was very popular amongst us, the developers have yet to implement it. -- penubag  (talk) 21:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice to hear. Hopefully, it will be available soon!--Kozuch (talk) 21:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't count on it, the devs don't really like the idea, but I did file a bugzilla report, I'm not sure how this works but maybe if you vote here (account creation required), they'll implement it faster. -- penubag  (talk) 02:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, the Hebrew Wikipedia places links to English at the top of interwiki links. This was the result of a community discussion a few years ago. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 16:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I have a suggestion about making a Wikipedia "survey" about who the greatest military leaders of history are. A person can nominate let say three notable leaders and give reasons why they would be in the list. It should include people like Caesar, Atilla, Alexander the Great and other "titans" from the past. This would be an interesting event which can even be put on the main page to attract more people who love history. It would have an endtime of like a month or less and then an article will be made with the final list of a hundred leaders.Dakovski (talk) 20:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

WP is an encyclopædia, not a poll service, and the end product of your proposal would be tantamount to OR. Adrian M. H. 20:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone have anything to contribute on this front...The Black Crows, their start in Marietta Georgia, etc. Or do "Wikipedians" consider this to pedantic to write about?

Anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.201.33.15 (talk) 04:21, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a whole bunch of information about The Black Crowes (note the "e"). Or are you soliciting help on the "Early Years" section of this article? -08:32, 8 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nkocharh (talk • contribs)

I think it might be better to propose this on the article's own talk page. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 22:11, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

• {{birth date and age}}
• {{death date and age}}
• {{Birth date}}
• {{Death year and age}}

with User:Gnevin/sandbox2 which gives User:Gnevin/sandbox, have a look , works like standard templates expect takes 7 fields , if the first contain a char is indicates its a birth box if it's blank it does the death stuffGnevin (talk) 00:35, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you have a look I've made some further updates Gnevin (talk) 18:41, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

{{AgeDobDOD}} in used with Albert EinsteinGnevin (talk) 18:57, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Copied from Wiktionary:Feedback Conrad.Irwin 01:36, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh no, I just noticed that i am not supposed to write about Wikipedia but about Wikitionary. I just found out that it existed and i had somehow stumbled onto it somehow. Well I've just finished writing a long message about Wikipedia now so I might as well send my opinion and suggestion for improval of Wikipedia. Maybe someone to do with Wikipedia as well will read it. If you know where this would be better in place you could copy it there and give me the link: <email removed>

Opinion about Wikipedia

I really like Wikipedia. Its the best source for knowledge in all areas I ever had and I use it very often. I also really like the fact that anyone can contribute. It simply makes it up to date and much better and much more complete than any commercial encyclopedia could ever be. And I really believe knowledge is and must be a public good of humanity and everyone should be free to share his knowledge and should be able to have part in this public good for free. After all knowledge should be spread and preserved and the best way to do this is to share it. I really like the idea of Wikipedia being free and having the option to donate if and whenever one wants to and according to what one can afford and what one is willing to give. When I get wealthy I will donate for sure. I don't contribute a lot, but when i see something wrong or something to be improved, that I know about, I take my time to correct or improve it. Thats simply because I like to share my knowledge to help others. And I really want to give something back to the comunity and to contribute to this great website, which has helped me a lot and is a blessing to mankind.

Suggestion for improval

I have one suggestion for a small improvement I would like and I think it would help everyone and disturb nobody. I grew up bilingual in german and english and as these happen to be the the two most present languages on this site I use it in both languages and switch between them very often.

I mostly visit wikipedia via the german Url www.wikipedia.de, which I find very handy (more intuitive than de.wikipedia.org), and sometimes I don't find what I need in german and want to search for it in english. And now it would really be very handy to have the languages on the left hand side all the time, wherever you are in Wikipedia in whatever situation (maybe with few reasonable exceptions). I know they are there for most of the time, but for example if you search for something and there is no article found, then the main frame and the sidebar are both nearly empty and there are no language settings on the left hand side. I noticed that the languages are displayed according to the search keywords and in which other languages they are found in the search result list. Similar thing with articles, there are only languages displayed for which an article about the same topic exists. That makes sence, its a good feature and should not be changed.

But if you don't find the article with an english searchword, maybe you want to switch to another language quickly and then you will miss the languages that are not listed at the side because there is no article containing the enlish keyword in the german wikipedia for example or because no article was found and therefore no language links are displayed. Or maybe you read some english article and would like to read about something else that has to do with the subject, but you can only think of the german word, then its handy if you can just click german and type in the word thats in your mind to find the article you want. These are just 2 examples for loads of situations that happen where you want to change the language of the site, preferably at one click and without having to press the back-button repeatedly or having to type a new Url.

So I think the section languagues that exists should keep its functionality the way it is, but there should be a second section as well for the languages the article or search word or section is not available or found in, lets call it "other languages" for example. At the same time the current language section should be renamed into "also available in" or "also found in" to make the difference between the two clear: "also found in" for corresponding sites/results found in other languages and "other languages" for the rest of the languages without any hits on the keyword/topic so you can still choose one of them at a klick if you want to.

So there would be a section working like the current language section and another new section beneath that, displaying the languages that were left out in the first, because the article, page or searchresults are not available in those languages, so that users can still switch to these at will.

The names I made up for the two sections in "" are just examples to make my idea clear, there might be better ones for the same thing and then they should be named whatever is best.

I think there are more such situations where the languages should be added on the left hand side in some form, preferably the two-section solution I suggested, because they are simply missing and there are equivalent pages in other languages and there is enough space to add them at the side.

For example if you visite the sidebar-links "content" or "recent changes" or "special pages" there are no language settings at the side. There might be more such situations to be found if someone knows his way through the site well.

I would be happy if that change could be done. I know its not a very big or important modification, but it makes navigation through languages much easier and more consistent, so it does not happen, that you wonderingly search for the languages and think they were somewhere here on the left hand side. Because exactly that happened to me once, when I was fairly new to the site. So changing the language could be faciliated and speeded up a bit. Seeing that there are so many views of wikipedia daily from all over the world I think even such a small improvement would repay the effort hundertfold by saving each of the millions of viewers a little bit of time each time they want to change the language. It would help everyone even if only a tiny little bit. Thats exactly the reason why I just spend so much the time to think and write and explain so much about such a small suggestion.

Thank you to whoever takes the time to read and consider my suggestion! Before you delete this, please send me a link to where it should be post it or post it there yourself and send me the link. Thank you. <email removed>

I would suggest the Qwika tool 2. It searches in 1,158 wikis and (machine-) translates the text. JoJan (talk) 14:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Excellent idea! And when you're looking at search results and click on one of the interwikis which you're suggesting, perhaps it should automatically display search results using the same search term you just used. I don't know whether that would be hard for the developers to set up. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I have been informed that on 31 January 2008, a "Did you know" feature was featured on Frederick Madison Allen,but I have not been able to find it. Do you know where I might find it? Is there way to make back editions of "Did you know" easier to access?ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

It's at 3. There are archives at Wikipedia:Recent additions, but they only go back to early February, otherwise it would be easy to find using "What links here" on the article.-gadfium 04:25, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Would it be feasible to modify the template put on the article's Talk page to include a link to the actual DYK diff where the article appeared? Sbowers3 (talk) 18:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

There is discussion ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#nobots about whether or not bots should obey the {{bots}} template (especially in regard to user talk pages). Please chime in there. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

We all know what you mean; that you don't intend by your post to convey what the words actually say, but please be aware that "chime in" is generally a pejorative, usually employed to mean the insertion of an unwanted and unwelcome opinion.--68.237.2.101 (talk) 06:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Er... I was not aware that "chime in" was a pejorative. I certainly didn't mean it in any negative way... —Locke Cole • t • c 06:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

That's why I said "we all know what you mean..." It's crystal clear from the context that you don't mean it in that way. I just thought you should be aware. See, for example, here for a definition:-)--68.237.2.101 (talk) 14:47, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I have never before heard that it was pejorative. My dictionary defines "chime in" as 1) interject a remark; 2) join in harmoniously. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

From various dictionaries listing only first entries (primary definitions):

To interrupt the speech of others, especially with an unwanted opinion.dictionary.com;
interrupt other people's conversation: to interrupt or join in a conversation between other people, especially in order to voice an opinion Encarta;
To break into a conversation; "her husband always chimes in, even when he is not involved in the conversation" interlingua;
chime in, cut in, put in, butt in, chisel in, barge in, break in -- (break into a conversation...Worldnet; etc.

I just wanted Locke Cole to be aware, not cause a ruckus; I apologize that this is spiraling into a larger discussion and thus causing the original post's topic to be obscured.--68.237.2.101 (talk) 15:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Now would be a good time for someone to update the Wiktionary entry; it does not mention the negative connotations of the expression. Waltham, The Duke of 22:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

The pejorative stuff is merely a connotation, which is merely there sometimes when the word is used. Most of the definitions listed above do not have pejorative primarly meanings, only (in some cases) pejorative connotations. In my opinion, a connotation is something different from "what the words actually say." In my opinion there was nothing at all wrong with what Locke Cole said. In fact, I support Locke Cole's usage of the phrase. I generally oppose the sliding of meanings from neutral meanings to necessarily positive or pejorative meanings, and boldly using a word or phrase in a neutral fashion like that helps prevent that slide. --Coppertwig (talk) 01:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not about right and wrong, it's about word usage and primary meanings. "Merely a connotation"? Language is nuanced and delicate and choosing one word or phrase over another because of its connotation is what we must all do when we set pen to paper (or fingers the keyboard). For good or bad, the primary meaning of to chime in is negative, and of those who know the phrase, the majority will understand it under its primary definition (that's why it is the primary), and will thus read the initial post with a bit of puzzlement as to the word choice. The lady squatted has a different connotation than the lady kneeled; the physical act described can be identical, but the reader gets a very different impression from the one as opposed to the other. I don't understand what you mean when you refer to the "sliding of meanings from neutral meanings to necessarily positive or pejorative meanings". Words mean what the mean (including their connotations) until usage changes in society. There is often a lag time between a change in usage and dictionaries' reflection of that change, but the subject we are focused on here has not, I think, had a usage shift.--68.237.2.101 (talk) 02:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

To avoid taking up space here, I continue this discussion at my talk page. --Coppertwig (talk) 12:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:April Fool's Main Page. Are we doing this again this year? Anyone else interested in helping? The "joke" is that everything on the main page is a completely factual (yet unusual or unexpected) collection of information. - Chardish (talk) 01:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-03-03/Dispatches. Corvus cornix_talk 18:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I propose that, to take the userbox migration solution into account, CSD R2 and T1 be amended to read:

R2. Redirects to the Talk:, User: or User talk: namespace from the article or template space. If this was the result of a page move, consider waiting a day or two before deleting the redirect.

T1. Templates in "Template:" space that are divisive and inflammatory and have been copied to user subpages.

NeonMerlin 21:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Requests to alter the criteria for speedy deletion should go on the talk page of the CSD page Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion Harryboyles 03:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I finally finished with Wikipedia:Proposed blanking and Template:Prob. Whew, it was hard writing all that stuff from scratch, but at last it's complete. (Wipes sweat from brow) Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 23:23, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Why would we want or need to blank an article? There's deletion on one side and cleanup on the other. bibliomaniac15 I see no changes 23:38, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

But deletion is so permanent! It's almost contrary to the idea of a wiki. See WP:PWD. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 23:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Deletion is not permanent; pages can be restored or viewed by administrators. If you ask me, PWD and XD are some of the most WP:CREEPiest things I've ever seen. bibliomaniac15 I see no changes 23:48, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The idea of a wiki is easy collaboration. How is deleting something that we don't want (and by extension, don't want to collaborate on) contrary to that idea? Mr.Z-man 07:09, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of ways to allow easy collaboration. But the fundamental concept of a wiki is to focus on making things easy to fix, rather than hard to mess up. Deletion, as it currently exists, errs on the side of making it "hard to mess up" (i.e. by the user coming back and making the content visible again). And that makes it harder to fix as well, e.g. if consensus would have otherwise changed somewhere down the road, and the content would have been resurrected. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 00:01, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Blanking is temporary. Keeping all previous revisions in history doesn't just "not prevent messing up" but it encourages resurrection with little or no change to the content, which was decided by consensus to be deleted. Deletion on the other hand forces "resurrectors" to request a copy of the deleted material from an admin, whereby upon fulfillment of such a request, an admin takes the responsibility of making the user aware that restoration of the article in too similar a form will not be allowed. Equazcion •✗/C • 00:23, 14 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Deletion is intended to be permanent, although:

• There is a delete page archive that retains deleted content for a limited amount of time, to facilitate undeletion of accidentally deleted content.
• This archive can be cleared and items can be removed at any time.
• Though this has not happened in recent history.

More detail from foundation head developer: WARNING ABOUT DELETION

If the intent is to keep a record, then blanking is to be preferred.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 19:31, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

But the intention is not to keep a record, but to remove content that we (as a community through an appropriate XfD process) have decided we do not wish Wikipedia to include. How is that consensus-based system opposed to the ideal of a wiki? Happy‑melon 10:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Then you are in disagreement with bibliomaniac15 I think.

That and records are kind of handy when studying community behavior, among other things.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 22:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I propose that a tag is introduced for when a plot summary in an article reaches an optimum length. At the moment some articles e.g Goodfellas, No Country for Old Men are subject to constant revisions with users placing uneccessary detail, speculation or their own interpretations of what happened.

When a consensus has been agreed upon the tag would be placed before the article which could read The plot summary below is considered to be a suitable length for the article. Please read discussion on talk pages before editing it. Obviously the wording would have to be discussed but I think you get the idea. Users would of course still be able to edit the plot summaries but would hopefully give them pause for thought before firing in. Yorkshiresky (talk) 12:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You might try a <!-- Hidden comment --> that can only be seen on editing, but {{ambox}} style templates should only be temporary. Mr.Z-man 23:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

A while ago there was a proposal to make visitors see the last reviewed version of a page rather than the current, potentially vandalized one. This proposal was supported by most users, and the people who own the website said that they liked it, but it was never implemented. What is the point of this place if people can propose good ideas and they are never acted upon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.193.45.183 (talk) 19:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Flagged revisions Adrian M. H. 21:49, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

In August they said that they would do it in "a few months", and it's now been seven months. The idea has clearly been abandoned by the higher-ups. We need to find someone who knows how to change the site's code and get them to change it for us. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.15.164.67 (talk) 00:17, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The extension is still under development. Its currently being tested on the test wiki and IIRC, the discussion here really didn't result in anything being resolved. Mr.Z-man 17:28, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a proposal to simplify locating the relevant text in a linked article - and given that's software based i might try to lodge it over at Bugzilla, but alas, I am a noob.

It would be handy when clicking on a link to be able to have the option to go directly to the main (or first) part of the linked article which is directly relevant to the article the reader was just reading.

For example, I was reading about the Double Layer (Stern potential) and there was a link to Milk, which is obviously a large article. It would have been great if I could have selected, perhaps as a right-click option, the whole article, or the point in the article directly relevant to the Double Layer. Of course, I can easily just do a "ctrl-F" and find that, and I realise funding is not easy for wiki.

Apologies if this has already been raised, but I couldn't find any reference to it. And I have no idea how easy/possible this proposal is, but it would certainly make searching easy for the average reader.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Countskogg (talk • contribs) 09:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe something like this: Milk#Physical and chemical structure|Milk, which produces Milk, a link to a particular section within an article. It's not exactly what you requested but it is something editors can do now. What you really want is a form of Artificial Intelligence, which takes you to a place based on the context of where you came from. Sbowers3 (talk) 10:09, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I just changed the milk link in double layer to Milk#Physical and chemical structure|milk which displays as milk. Is that what you were looking for, Countskogg, or did you particularly want to be able to right-click and have a choice? I wonder whether a userscript could be written to give that sort of choice. I'm not sure that it's needed. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:15, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this has been proposed before, but I think it would be nice if new users automatically got a welcome template on their talk page. That way, we could put them on the right track and hopefully convince them to stay. bibliomaniac15 00:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

There is (or was) a welcome page for newly registered accounts. I'll dig around and find it. Nick (talk) 01:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

That was quicker than I thought. MediaWiki:Welcomecreation. It did look like this 4 at one point, but the consensus was all that information was too overwhelming for new users. There's no consensus for welcoming bots either, I should add. Nick (talk) 01:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_22
Text je dostupný za podmienok Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 Unported; prípadne za ďalších podmienok. Podrobnejšie informácie nájdete na stránke Podmienky použitia.