The thing about transwiking is that a lot of readers and editors come here for these articles and there is an element of convenience just navigating around one main wiki rather than googling for other specialized wikis and I believe that Wikipedia attracts a lot more editors than these other wikis, which augments the likelihood of us covering some of these articles even better than the other wikis do. Now, granted our articles when transwikied thus carry that work over to the other wikis, but then editors and readers who had worked on or used the articles here are oftentimes baffled when it's all of a sudden no longer here. An idea could be something like having internal links that can allow for easier navigation among the wikis. Or having deleted pages that are transwikied somehow redirected to the transwikied page (that has to somehow be technologically possble). --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 15:04, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Another possibility: having related Wikia pages in the external links. However, I like both suggestions and believe Le Grand Roi's idea here is a good one that could be implemented and improve the encyclopedia. Red Phoenix ^{flame of life...protector of all...} 15:10, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Please see - Qwika and Qwika - WikiIndex. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:27, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Something like this was proposed recently, see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 29#Interwiki redirects Mr.Z-man 15:36, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I checked that discussion, but the "vandalism targets" as a reason for oppose don't strike me as that compelling as everything from articles on presidents to my own userpage have been vandalism targets. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 16:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• I think there is a lot of sense of redirecting to wikimedia foundation projects but I'd expect any other wiki that we linked to be at least respectable. I'd personally like to see some examples of how this would work in practise before I could go along with it but I agree there are possibilities. I'm wondering mostly about whether there should be a disclaimer? Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:56, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Is there a way to do some sample/practice ones to see how they work and then proceed from there? --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 17:00, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
    • To Spartaz, yeah, we can slip in a disclaimer. I think it would be a helpful addition if we decide to implement this. And to Le Grand Roi, I'm not sure if a soft redirect can do that or not, but there's a possibility. Red Phoenix ^{flame of life...protector of all...} 18:54, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• its a good idea, to over come the vandal and spam link concerns
  1. Admins to create and full protect the page
  2. bot to monitor these pages, and edit to break links. On unprotected pages the bot will be able to do this then add them to a list of speedy deletions.
  3. persistent spam links could then just be added to the list of spam sites, and editors blocked where appropriate. Gnangarra 04:18, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Along these lines, I've been wondering about the possibility of keeping some of these deleted pages within Wikipedia, just not in the main-space. I suspect that if we went to the offices of the Encyclopedia Britanica, we'd find numerous file cabinets with articles with material that the editors determined was not fit for the printed edition. There is a middle ground between trash and material suitable for the main space. Keeping this material in our "back files" instead of deleting them would have several advantages:

• People who created the pages in good faith could continue to work on them within Wikipedia. Deleting a page is often a severe reaction to pages that are just shy of what we think is acceptable. Deleting them can feel harsh and off-putting to newbies.
• Articles about people and things that currently fail notability tests might it the future become more notable as the result of some event. At that time, we'd have material ready to shape into an acceptable article.
• There is group knowledge often fails strict verifiability guidelines, but is none-the-less quite useful.
• If articles are moved to the back files instead of being deleted there would hopefully be much less contentious bickering at AFD.

As an experiment, I created some dummy accounts in the user space to hold these pages. The main account is User:Back files. I own the account, but I do not use it for editing. Several months ago, after an AFD discussion deleted List of songs with numbers in the title, I moved it to a subpage of one of my dummy user accounts. It is now at User:Wikilists/List of songs with numbers in the title. Some of the editors who worked on the page have continued to add information to the page.

I still believe that many pages should be deleted. I would not change any of the policies for speedy deletions. However many, if not most, of the other pages now deleted at AFD could be moved to user space instead. As far as I can tell, there is nothing against policy about moving deleted pages to user space so they can be worked on and improved. However, to make these pages more useful, there should be more links to these pages. I think it would be helpful if any page that gets moved would be replaced with a page that explains that there previously had been a page that was deemed unsuitable for the mainspace and also have a list of the reasons why the page was deemed unsuitable. It could then have a link to the moved page in userspace. There could also be links to similar pages outside of the project. This could be very much like a disambiguation page. As the back files fill, there would need to be templates created that make it very clear to users what the shortcomings are with the articles. It would also help if there was a taxonomy of categories for these pages. The taxonomy should be kept separate from the other categories, but could be linked when appropriate. For instance, there might be a subcategory of back files of song lists that is linked to Category:Lists of songs.

I think a collective userspace could work as long as it is transparent what the problems are with the articles in the space, and we have clear standards that help remove the trash. It might even make Wikipedia a much more pleasant place on the web. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 06:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I recently got a message on my talk page from an admin saying that I placed a speedy tag too quickly after the page creation. That may have been true but as the page stood it was certainly eligable as not asserting notability. I could have tagged the page with the notability tag but in my opinion this doesn't really fit as it makes no reference to the fact that the page could be speedily deleted. Indeed it says 'ultimately deleted' which to me suggests it's not going to be deleted for quite some time not the matter of minutes / hours it may be deleted in if it does get speedied. If I was a new editor and had my page speedied after reading the notability tag I'd be surprised to say the least. By putting the speedy tag on the page it makes the editor aware that they need to assert notability but also alets admins to the page which means it may be gone before they get the chance. Is it worth creating a template along the lines of "this page appears eligable for speedy deletion and needs an assertion of notability if this is to be avoided" as an intermediate step. If one is not fortcoming in say an hour then the speedy tag could be added. This way the editor gets a chance to update the page if they can but the page can still be tagged by those who patrol new pages so making it less likely to be missed then if we just avoid putting the tag on for, say, the first hour. The only other speedy criteria I could see something similar applying to is the copyright tag. Sorry if this has been raised before. Dpmuk (talk) 21:38, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I think Dpmuk's idea of a speedy-warning template is a good one. Maybe it could include a time that's set to one or two hours in the future, after which it may be deleted if not properly sourced?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:53, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I see no particular reason to add more steps and regulation to the process. While they do not need to be perfect or fully formed, articles should have sourcing and assertion upon creation. If an editor believes the article can meet the criteria, he is fully free to use {{hangon}}. seresin ( ¡? ) 21:58, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Rather than adding yet another step to our processes, perhaps we could emphasize that editors recommending deletion for lack of notability should evaluate the possibility that a subject is in fact notable - ideally, by doing just a bit of research in cases where doubt exists, and that the more obscure the subject matter, the more an editor should lean in the direction of a "lacks notability" template rather than a speedy delete template. That way, we can be welcoming (to those who are adding articles that really are useful) while still quickly deleting cruft. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:06, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they should have sourcing and assertion, but I'm sure when I was new I didn't get the edits all lined up and previewed before committing anything - lots of people will write a paragraph, save that, and so on - it's reasonable that they shouldn't be bitten too hard if there's every chance that they're about to get to the point in their next edit. Prompted, yes; slapped, no. It shouldn't be another step, just another variant template, in the same way that one can choose between any number of warning templates, using uw-vand in different situations from uw-test. I'd perhaps timestamp the notice, but wouldn't make an hour a hard limit; I'd leave it to admin discretion as at present. Pseudomonas_(talk) 22:16, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

That's my point exactly. Yes it should be sourced and have it's notability asserted at it's creation but new users may not know this and so it would seem to me that as it stands this entire speedy category will often fall foul of WP:Bite. Maybe I haven't come up with the best proposal but this seems to be a geniune problem that needs something done. Dpmuk (talk) 18:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Could we have a db-friendly template and associated user warning? One that has the gist of "It looks like you're probably trying to build a decent page here, but really and truly you do need to have at least one source and at least one claim of notability, thanks a lot, your efforts are appreciated". In the same way that admins informally give db-attack their highest priority, they could give db-friendly a bit more leeway, without it having to be another tier of bureaucracy. Pseudomonas_(talk) 12:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Would there be any opposition to adding purge to the navigation (...history, watch, purge)? Or, possibly, to the toolbox? I can never remember how to do it and I have to look it up everytime. It seems as though it would be more helpful than harmful. Thoughts? JohnnyMrNinja 05:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't the purge action provoke some extra server load and add to the job queue sometimes? Do we want to encourage it? I never remember it either, but trying &purge and ?purge always clears it up, one way or the other. Franamax (talk) 05:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

From your preferences, you can activate the gadget "clock in the personal toolbar" (under the section "user interface gadgets"), which displays a UTC clock on the upper right corner of the screen and purges the page if you click on it. Both its functions are very useful. Waltham, The Duke of 08:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

This = awesome. Thanks!

Or, if you want it as a tab, use Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Add purge to tabs. Algebraist 10:25, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Now that the majority of navboxes are collapsible should the printable version expand these all so they should when printing?Gnevin (talk) 09:29, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Please speak up at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Adminbots. Thank you. rootology (T) 13:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The sensible way to edit a large, oft frequented discussion page is by clicking on 'new section' or the 'edit' link next to the section of interest. Otherwise, one must search for the relevant section within the edit window and deal with the horror of edit-conflicts. Currently on pages like the Science Reference desk et al., the 'edit this page' link is bold and the 'new section' link is regular, leading to me accidentally being drawn to the bold link when I want the regular one. Indeed, I imagine few people ever need the 'edit this page' button on the reference desks. I suggest that the 'new section' link is made bold and the 'edit this page' link is made regular, so that people are drawn to what is probably the correct link out of the two. ----Seans Potato Business 17:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

It sounds sensible, but... Can this be done for a single page? Waltham, The Duke of 20:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

How about doing it for all talk pages and pages with __NEWSECTIONLINK__ on them? – FISDOF9 23:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

That might be a good idea. Pity that we seem to have failed to receive enough attention here. I had forgotten about this myself for almost a week... Stupid Pump. Waltham, The Duke of 00:30, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I think users commenting misunderstood my prior post which can be seen here: 1 . It is my understanding that subscription websites compile data because it is hard to get, not because they pay for it. I do not suggest that people get a subscription and post the data on Wikipedia, but I do suggest that Wikipedia acts as a mechanism for people that compile data on their own to post the data. Thus, the service other webpages provided of searching for and compiling data would no longer be necessary. Academics could easily post data they have collected, provided they did not think they could make money off of it because perceived demand is low.

Many datasets would come up in Wikipedia when many researchers might not even know that data existed, and people could make use of already collected data when they do not have the resources to compile data on their own.

The idea is to create a new system, not to steal from the old. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.37.94.10 (talk) 20:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Support: I think this is a rather good idea. There are tons of pages that use data such as List of countries by foreign exchange reserves or List of countries by GDP (nominal) that would be great to keep track of by year or even by month. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 23:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Strong Support Such a separate DataCommons would be a good place to use the Semantic Wiki tools so that the data could be reused in different ways. If the data in the Wikipedia Infoboxes were moved to there then that data could be available in every language wiki. Once one language had created a template to import the data then other languages could have the same by just localising the template. However this idea needs to be raised on Meta since it affects much more than the English WP.

In the meantime, is there a way that info from WikiSpecies can be transcluded into en.WP taxoboxes? Where can I learn about doing that? Filceolaire (talk) 10:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It is my understanding that subscription websites compile data because it is hard to get, not because they pay for it. I question this - the alternative view is that subscription websites compile data because people are willing to pay for that data. In this view, the income from subscriptions isn't primarily for web hosting; it's for the costs of collecting the data, data quality reviews, etc. In my opinion, much, if not virtually all the data collection wouldn't occur if someone wasn't paying the people who put it together. In short, while there isn't any reason not to have a WikiMedia DataCommons, let's not be extremely optimistic that it will make much difference. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Following a poll on this village pump (here) and a recent software change, I have proposed implementing a move of the search bar here. Any thoughts or comments are much appreciated on that talk page. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:18, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

There are several long tables on Wikipedia. Take the List of unit testing frameworks for instance. Wouldn't it be nice to have a way to filter out only the results for operating system X, language Y, or licence Z. Maarten Tromp 14:30, 1 July 2008 (CEST)

Interesting, but making all the tables that dynamic seems complicated and likely to increase load time. What about Greasemonkey? Dar-Ape 03:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Pretty much anything that'd work in Greasemonkey would work as a Wikipedia user script, perhaps one that can be offered to everyone in the Preferences section. Pseudomonas_(talk) 07:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm posting this here rather than to Bot Approvals since I think it requires more general discussion before formulating the proposal, being a social issue as much as a technical one.

I wrote and manage PseudoBot, which reverts the addition of redlinks/no-links/links-to-disambiguation-pages to the Births or Deaths sections of the date pages (e.g. 1986 or October 15) made by anonymous users or recently-registered users. This is in line with the date page policy.

I've now had a couple of people ask if I could do the same for list-sections of other articles, and given that I do a lot of recent-changes patrolling and anti-vandalism, I can certainly see the appeal - some sections seem to attract vanity and attack entries. Things that come to mind are the "Notable Alumni" sections of certain schools, "Famous Residents" of certain towns/villages, and "List of Famous Fooizens" where Foo is some country or other.

If done right, registering a section with the bot could be a less-intrusive version of semi-protection, prevent a lot of junk, and save a lot of wasted time. If done wrong, it could restrict genuine edits and bite newbies. In any case, I think it'd be best restricted to only reverting non-autoconfirmed users - that way if something is mis-reverted, any autoconfirmed editor can reinstate the text, and the bot shouldn't touch it again.

Building the bot would be technically easy; there are many ways in which sections could be registered with the bot, I've already thought of quite a lot of them, and (though it's not my place to tell people what to discuss) I think that deciding on such mechanisms are best left until the Bot Approvals stage, lest we argue about what colour to paint the bicycle sheds.

What I'd like opinions on:

1. Is this just a terrible, terrible idea in all cases?
2. If not, should it apply to any blanket sets of articles (such as "School stubs" or "Members of Category:Villages in Foo" or "Lists of people with no more than 5% of their entries currently as redlinks") - or should the bits of the community that are working on an article or wikiproject or antivandalism nominate individual articles as the need arises?
3. Who should be able to register pages? Admins only, or any autoconfirmed user, or anyone?
4. By what means should pages be unregistered?
5. Are there any sets of pages which (like the date pages) already have a "no redlinks" policy?
6. What notices should be put on the sections? The date pages have HTML-style comments including Do not add people without Wikipedia articles to this list.
7. What notices should be issued to editors whose contributions have been reverted? I'd favour something fairly gentle and taking care not to imply vandalism.
8. Anything else that people think is relevant.

Pseudomonas_(talk) 13:17, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

In my view, what is needed is to establish policy for groups of pages, and then have the bot police that policy if need be. A good place to start might be "those bottom-level pageslists in Lists of people by occupation". The current style guideline (at Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)#Lists of people) says: "Selected lists of people should be selected for importance/notability in that category and should have Wikipedia articles (or the reasonable expectation of an article in the future)." If consensus can be reached to tighten that up to say "no red-links" and make it a policy (with date pages being a precedent) then policing that policy would be a good task for the bot. I don't see that as a big ask: all that the policy is saying is "create a stub first". I don't see that the BAG need be involved except at the highest level - to approve a bot to police certain kinds of pages (e.g. lists) for which there is an established no-redlinks policy. Having a separate mechanism for adding or removing pages is even worse - it just adds bureaucracy. If consensus on a no-redlinks policy is established, and the BAG have approved the bot, that should be enough. Philip Trueman (talk) 13:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

(e/c) I think this is an excellent idea. As far as which pages to have the bot patrol, I have no idea how you would be able to find them all. I would say, just add as many as you can find easily, and then let autoconfirmed users add more to the list if/when they find them. I think that the pages should be assumed to be permanently added to the list. If any of them became a problem, just let an autoconfirmed user remove the name. For the notice that the bot gives people it reverts, how about something like

Hi, your recent edit to Middleofnowhere High School has been reverted by an automated bot because it added a name with a red link to the "notable alumni" section. If you believe that this was an error, and the name should have been added, please leave a note on this page. Thanks, PseudoBot signature would go here

And then make the error page similar to User:ClueBot/FalsePositives. People who are autoconfirmed could review any requests that come up, and if the name is legit, they could add it to the article, and the bot wouldn't revert them. Considering how few people (relatively) leave messages on the ClueBot error page, I seriously doubt that a hypothetical error page for PseudoBot would be a major burden, and in any case, the amount of time wasted dealing with people reporting errors would be far outweighed by the amount of time the bot would save if it reverted all these other pages as well as the date pages. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 13:56, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I suggest starting out slowly - do this for specific sections of specific articles/lists by request only. After you have the bot doing this for a while (at least a couple of months), then I think you should come back to the community and ask if anyone objects to your expanding it as you see fit. As for who can make requests, I suggest that you be bold and let anyone do that, but that you also adopt the practice that if any experienced editor objects to deletions, you'll stop using the bot on that particular section. (Treat this as a content dispute, in which you're not going to take sides.) I think an invisible comment, similar to the one you mention, is good to add to sections. I suggest that you not notify errant editors - particularly if the comment is in place - because a lot of them are probably going to be IP editors, and that's fairly pointless (shared IP addresses, like schools, in particular). A good edit summary should suffice to let editors know why their addition was reverted. (If you find that you're answering a lot of questions about deletions, then, yes, consider posting a notice to user talk pages.)

And thanks for doing this! Bots like yours help make Wikipedia articles better. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:47, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec)this sounds like it could work very well on the many "List of xyz Bands/Artists" articles we have here, some of them are a mass of dead links added by spa's to promote their non-notable bands, take this early version of List of Korean musicians, 2 for example--Jac16888 (talk) 14:50, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Whilst I'm happy to be bold, I need Bot Approval Group permission to run any bot, and I need to detail the specifics of how the bot will behave before I start. PseudoBot has already been running for some months with what I consider to be a good track record, so I feel I'm at the stage of asking for expansion into perhaps more contentious areas. Interesting point you make about not notifying IPs - I wonder what the general view is about that? Pseudomonas_(talk) 15:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

WHile I think this could be good and useful if done right, it may upset a lot of people. You'd have to be careful with it's coding and usage. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:22, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Obviously accurate coding is important, yes. What features do you think would minimize the upset it might cause? Pseudomonas_(talk) 21:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

It may upset people who think that redlinks are okay. Again, I suggest starting slowly - ask permission to run the bot, on a by-request basis; set up a subpage in your user space to list the pages that your bot is patrolling, and see how things go for a couple of months. Then you'll have more information about whether (and how) the bot might be more widely used. And as for WP:BOTREQ, I think you should just go ahead and ask permission to start (slowly, manual requests) and see what happens. The worst that can happen is that BAG denies your request; if they do, you'll have your answer. (Or, to put it differently, if you start out with an incremental approach, it doesn't matter that much what "features" you bot has; BAG will raise any issues that are important.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:30, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Problem is, I think there's a de jure presumption that redlinks are OK, even if de facto a human editor who removes a random unsourced uncommented redlink from List of vegetarians or whatever isn't going to have any opposition in the matter. Perhaps your suggestion of just taking it to the BAG and seeing what conditions they're minded to impose is the way to go. Pseudomonas_(talk) 12:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm generally in favor. A few thoughts:

• Some lists are factual and limited, such as Neighborhoods of Cincinnati, or List of Sesame Street puppeteers. Theoretically, every member deserves an article, and so redlinks (if factually correct) should stay. Other lists are not supposed to be complete: List of people from Cincinnati should not list each of the millions of people born in Cincinnati, obviously, so if a person is not notable enough to have an article then he/she is not notable enough to be included in the list. This task should only focus on the latter sort of list. (Some lists may be gray area: should all Cincinnati High Schools be listed at List of high schools in Cincinnati, Ohio, and do all deserve articles?) But I think that should still be a guiding principle.
• This task seems to focus on new additions of redlinks to articles, but I'm not sure that's a smart priority. Imagine two redlinks at List of people from Cincinnati, one that has been around for months, and one that was recently added. In my opinion, it should be a higher priority to remove the older redlink. After all, the addition of a new redlink could be the first step in creating the article, while a stale one is not likely to have its article in process. It's not that I would oppose the task as described; I just think it would be better to, say, wait 48 hours to delete redlinks, so that you can be reasonably sure the article is not being worked on. On the other hand, I would support the removal of all redlinks over a month old in those lists, no matter who added them.
• This really isn't anti-vandalism task; it's more of an anti-vanity, or anti-trivia task. Unconfirmed users are more likely to commit vandalism than confirmed ones, but are they more likely to commit vanity edits or trivial edits? I'm not sure. I'd support this task for all users, with the caveat that redlinks get a 48 hour grace period for an article to be created before the links are removed. Perhaps the caveat shouldn't apply for unconfirmed users... perhaps the bot should warn the user immediately, and then remove the redlink (if undo is still possible) after 48 hours... but these are details.
• Whatever the method of bicycle shed painting, it should be opt-in. Preferably by a hidden template in the list's section.
• I'd support this in disambiguation pages too. Disambiguation to non-existent articles is not useful.
• I suspect that notifying IPs is not useful, but that's not a strong opinion.

All in all, I think this is a well needed task, and I encourage you to submit a bot request. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 14:08, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Similar non-list sections are also highly susceptible to such vanity additions, e.g. adding your non-notable band to your city's page. (In this example the link is blue, but you get the idea.) Should this bot handle non-list entries as well? – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 12:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

As I say above, I had in mind the "famous residents", "notable alumni" and so on sections. I don't think anything can be done about people inserting redlinks into prose. I'm even worried about legitimate prose entries in lists, especially disambiguation pages - for instance:

• • Various kinds of thingy, such as
    • Widget
    • Whatsit
    • Doodad

In this case, I need to avoid reverting, even though the first line is a bulleted entry with no link. Maybe if the text is over a certain length with no links of any colour I should consider it to be OK. I think what it will come down to is that the bot just isn't suitable for all sections. Pseudomonas_(talk) 16:45, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

• I think we need to ensure a time limit here. I edited Wikipedia for several years before I ever created a new article without first creating a red link for it in at least one other article. ("Build the web", save the orphans, etc.) We should not instantly remove a red link without waiting at least a little while to see if someone is writing an article on the subject. (also then "Don't bite the newbies" probably applies) Rmhermen (talk) 17:01, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Good point, thanks. I wonder what delay mechanism would be best, and how to deal with the page being edited by other users in the meantime. Pseudomonas_(talk) 07:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

• Please let us know here if/when you create a BRfA for this. – Quadell ^{(talk) (random)} 14:03, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Will do - I'm mulling things over :) Pseudomonas_(talk) 07:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi all.

I would like to request your attention to a vote that will start this midnight, regarding a rearrangement of the top ten Wikipedias that are displayed on the main wikipedia portal (http://www.wikipedia.org).

This topic has been wandering around for a long time on Talk:www.wikipedia.org template, coming to surface in many occasions, especially on the times around the milestone of 100.000 articles of the Chinese and Russian Wikipedias.

After a tentative wrap-up of all the proposals made in that page throughout the months in Talk:www.wikipedia.org template#rethinking the top ten, a discussion was launched in Top Ten Wikipedias, to which all the major Wikipedias have been invited to in their village pump.

A lot of good opinions have been collected and discussed, and a vote proposal has been made and received some feedback. That proposal was now implemented on Metapub. Please head to the poll to vote. I hope to see you there! --Waldir ^talk 12:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Note that the poll has now moved to m:Top_Ten_Wikipedias/poll. Dcoetzee 06:54, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I have had trouble finding a specific word or phrase within a article using the standard find function which only seems to work well on .txt type of files, not html. I was wondering if others were having the same problem if wikipedia could add a search function to search within an article for specified words or phrases using double quotes("), to delimit a phrase? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.243.178.196 (talk) 21:37, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Ctrl+F works fine in FF and IE for me. ninety:one 21:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Please ignore if others are not having this problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.243.178.196 (talk) 21:44, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with ninety:one; a browser's search function usually suffices.

As an aside, I suggest signing your posts, so that people can see the name (or, in your case, IP address) of the post's author, as well as the exact time it was made, without troubling bots. You can do it by typing four tildes in the end (~~~~). Waltham, The Duke of 08:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

You can do a search on google now, simply enter your search terms and after it put "site:wikipedia.org" and it will give you results just like it does any other search. I find this very useful when trying to find out if a specific topic has been written about previously %%-SYKKO-%% (talk to me) 18:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that there should be an option in a user's preferences, after unified login is enabled on their account, to temporarily disable it, or to temporarily disable the creation of accounts on other wikis just by browsing to them while logged on. I don't like accidentally creating accounts that I'm never going to use on other-language Wikipedias that I've only visited once. — Insanity Incarnate 21:30, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you like that? —Wknight94 (talk) 21:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

It does prevent people from impersonating you on other wikis, which has been an issue in the past. Grandmasterka 22:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Feature requests should be made at Wikimedia's bug tracker. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:19, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I've grumbled about this a few times, having followed a link to an article on some other wiki, then (particularly on low traffic sites), noticed my name at the top of recent-changes. I've often wondered if people would see CharlotteWebb "account created automatically" (or however this is explained in the local language), and ask themselves what the hell is she doing here? Wonder what she's reading... Of course if and when I ever visit the same site again and see a big thing on my talk page (which judging by babelfish is probably a "welcome" template of sorts) even I won't remember the answer to that question. So I try not to worry about it too much. Hope this helps.

Really I consider this temporary hack with all accounts becoming global, eventually (at which time "local" account-creation logs are phased out). But there is a certain dilemma of what to do about two or more accounts with the same name on different sites, but with neither a password nor an e-mail address in common, who due to inactivity are unable to confirm or deny that they are the same person (that is if one or zero of them have a confirmed e-mail address — differing address would suggest a different identity). In this manner all conflicting accounts could be forcibly disambiguated (by wiki-of-origin), and ones later established to be the same person could be merged back together. Until then we must err toward assuming they are different. — CharlotteWebb 14:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I would find it very useful if there was a way mass watch pages. I'm not aware of such a function on Wikipedia, but perhaps there is. What I have in mind is the ability to watch either all the pages tagged with a specific Wikiproject, or all the pages within a category. This way if you become interested in say, military history, then you could watch all the pages tagged with {{WikiProject Military history}}, or something. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 01:37, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Support if it is possible and a realistic thing to do it would be nice if it also makes it possible to do groups based on sub pages or transclusion. Watching all the articles in a project would be very helpful so I really love this idea! %%-SYKKO-%% (talk to me) 02:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
• Support, with the caveat that it should be subst'd, to prevent a vandal from mucking with my watchlist. For example, "Mass watch everything in WikiProject United States" would add those articles that are currently in that project but would not add or remove articles as they were added or removed from the project. I don't think I want Some page I don't care about showing up on my watchlist because some vandal added it to the Wikiproject. Likewise, I don't want United States disappearing because some vandal removed it from the project. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:42, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
• You can do something like this now if all the pages of the wikiproject are in one page or category using Special:RecentChangesLinked. For example to see changes to all articles about living people go to Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Living people. Hut 8.5 06:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
• I wrote some simple javascript to do this for myself and a few others. It turns category links on a page into "Watch this category" buttons, and creates buttons for the subcategories. It would not be hard to add a version for backlinks that is add "Watch What links here" button to the toolbox. JackSchmidt (talk) 18:46, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

• So.... how does that work? As in how would people use the script? Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 15:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

• Wikiprojects could maintain such lists using Special:RecentChangesLinked and invite its participants to monitor them. I think I have seen somewhere in WP something called "Public Watchlist". Eklipse (talk) 14:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Just edit your raw watchlist and paste a list of articles into it. _{1 != 2} 15:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I see that the navigation bar in the left has been tampered (i.e. the headings not capitalized.The background of wikipedia too looks little rusty at http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/monobook/headbg.jpg
The background I think is not needed.
I also want to make the logo colorful (but not change it).
What do you all think at my comments.
• Autographed by RRaunak • Wanna meet him ? •

You mean the logo used by default on Wikipedia? There is a more colourful logo situated at Wikipedia:Wikipedia logos... You can read this. --ɔɹǝɐɯʎ!^Talk 15:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It's encouraging to hear WP needs a fresh infusion of style every now and then but as a graphic designer and one who has performed many boring usability web tests, I feel the current layout is fine. Yes it could be tweaked slightly, I've always felt to move a few pixels here and there but considering the "atmosphere" of the WP layout, it's just enough texture and variation to let you focus. Rraunak I suggest you edit and work on some articles and overtime get the feel of WP, I noticed you are a new user. WP should always be focused on the content, the style comes secondary (not to mention you can change your default css). .:davumaya:. 15:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales appeared on the TV show Squawk Box this morning, and in the hour he was on, the article about the host Rebecca Quick was treated savagely. Another user suggested here that Wikimedia staff and Board should, by policy, warn the community before noteworthy public broadcast appearances, so that the related pages (about the show, about the host, etc.) can be temporarily protected for 24 hours or so. This would save a lot of embarrassment. I saw the show this morning, and Becky Quick was mortified by some thing she saw on her biographical page. This could so easily be prevented, yet Jimmy Wales and the male co-host seemed almost titillated by the prospect of sexually offending Quick. The other user who suggested a policy change was basically drummed off the Rebecca Quick talk page, which is also shameful. Why this culture of "we don't care how much we offend living people"?

Go Green Go White (talk) 22:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I was the user that supposed drummed another user off the talk page, by suggesting that they bring a policy discussion here instead of having it on the talk page for a single article...

I disagree with the idea of preemptively protecting articles, but I don't think it would be a bad idea if the community was made aware of appearances to get more eyes/watchlists focused on articles that may see a spike in vandalism. --Onorem♠Dil 22:30, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• Support for specific reasons to ask nicely I am not sure either way about protecting a page like Onorem says but I would like to have a central place where I could find out about up and coming media appearances. %%-SYKKO-%% (talk to me) 22:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
  • It is impossible to compel the Foundation to do anything like this, by local policy. Asking them nicely would be about the only thing you could do, and is more likely to get results. Daniel (talk) 08:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
    • I think User:Go Green Go White might have meant by "policy" that they should have a policy of doing so, not that we make a Wikipedia:Policy on the matter; the wording might have been unclear. Agree that just asking nicely would probably suffice. :-) --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 08:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
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