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Village Pump - Archive

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Sections archived on 00:14, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

recommendation - automatic referencing

i was just using wikipedia and though - hey - Wiki should have a link at the bottom of every page that appears that automatically generates a proper refernce in MLA and APA, to assist those doing scholarly research?

It's not on the bottom; it's in the "toolbox" on the left side of the article. It's called "cite this article", and you'll get a page like this. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:44, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll point out, though, that citing Misplaced Pages in your scholarly research doesn't currently go over well in academia. You should follow the sources given by the article and cite those instead. (And if the article doesn't give sources, what are you doing trusting it for your research?) rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 02:32, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Highlight search box

Final suggestions at bottom of section

A proposal that came out the Main Page Redesign discussions was:

• Improve visibility of the left-nav search box, with an orange-colored border (as used on the active tabs at the top).

This would be to aid new users in finding the search box. (a frequent complaint at WP:SEARCH)

this is easily shown by adding this line to one's user/monobook.css.

#searchBody {border-color: #FABD23;}

The proposal was initially offered as an alternative to a second search box that was appearing in the headers of many redesign-drafts. (links to discussion archives: 1 - 2 - 3 (main discussion) 4 (vote and three colour examples))

It is possible to code this highlight to only display on chosen pages.

3 questions:

• Does anyone disagree with this plan in general?

• Which pages should the highlight be displayed on?

• just the Main Page
• All Help/Community pages (+ Main Page)
• All pages.
• other.

• What color? (we can shade the background or the border)

thanks. --Quiddity 19:25, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a bad idea. It looks utterly horrendous. It's a horrid mismatch of styles. By all means make the search box more prominent, but this is not the way to do it. It doesn't fit in with the overall site design at all. The colours are not just randomly applied. They are semantic, and this box is not part of the group with the orange borders. I'm all for making Misplaced Pages easy to browse, but not at the expense of making it ugly to the extent that it's unpleasant to browse. Sam Korn 19:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The colour used is changeable. Do you like any of the other colour options, or have one to suggest? --Quiddity

To be honest, I think using colour is not the right way to achieve this. I don't know what is, though I support highlighting it in principle. I think consistent site design is very important and lends a sophisticated, integrated feel to the encyclopaedia, rather than a slip-shod mess of styles. Sam Korn 22:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Strong Support. with a very weak preference for on just the Main Page, and orange as on tabs (and in example). --Quiddity 19:55, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I like it too, as long as it is the same shade of orange used on highlighted tabs. Ideally, it should be pushed up, to be above the navigation bar, but I don't know if that will happen anytime soon. Titoxd 06:36, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

That was another suggestion we talked about during the redesign. The main objection was that the search box breaks up the boxes of test in the nav bar, in a useful way visually.

A third suggestion was retitling the box to be "find" instead of "search", as search is the label of the secondary button, and hence confusing. I think both are worth discussing some more. --Quiddity 06:54, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

–M]]

Strong Support moving the search to the top, or setting the border to the orange of the tabs. On all pages. Orange is a highlight, and does not indicate "you are here" (indicated by bold text, and the missing border-bottom on the tab). It is not out of place in the current style. The blue border looks terrible and the yellow background is indistinguishable. Those two options should be removed. The border should be set for all pages. While it may not be perfectly appealing, it is of great benefit to the new user. As for moving the search box, I recall the top right as the correct position, but perhaps not appropriate here. I can't disagree more with the opinion that the search provides a "good seperator" between the two boxes. Moving it to the top makes the leftnav look much more uniform, much less scrambled. A related point I'd like to bring up is the severe error of bolding the "Go" button when it is not the default action of that form.–M 15:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Strong support: Just love the concept, what else is there to say. Should be orange and on all pages. –Tutmøsis · (Msg Me) 22:13, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Strong Oppose. The argument against a search box in the body of the Main Page was the possibility of the newcomers becoming reliant on it and not seeing the one to the left. By putting that here, you eliminate that. but there was another concern, not brought up as much but still mentioned: "What makes this search box different from all the other search boxes? Will it search off this site and the others won't? Will it bring up things using Google and the other's won't? Why is it highlighted?" And NO, we are NOT highlighting it on all of the pages. People see it. Do you see "Can I search your site for articles?"-type complaints from anons and new users? Please.--HereToHelp 22:21, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Main_Page#Search_Box_Location and Talk:Main_Page#Suggestion:_Removal_of_the_.22Search.22_box_caption. and Talk:Main_Page/Archive_59#Position_of_search and a cpl others i can't find. But i understand/agree that it might be confusing because of "Why is it highlighted here and not there, do they do something different?" concerns.

Frankly, i'm more in favour of raising it above the Nav box in the sidebar, than the highlight. Or just give it a darker-gray/black border instead of the orange.

It does tend to blend in/get ignored more than it needs to, so something needs to be tweaked. Somehow. :) --Quiddity 23:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

"omething needs to be tweaked". I'm not sure it does. People see it. Like I said above, we are not flooded with "how can I search your site" complaints. I think it needs to stay where it is and divide the two sections of text. A slightly darker grey may also get some people wondering what's special about it, but not much. I'm still opposed to it, but not as much. Getting them to see it subconsciously is interesting, but still not necessary. If it's not broken, don't fix it.--HereToHelp 17:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

If the search box on only the main page is highlighted, nobody is going to think that it performs some special function that the other searches do not. Suggesting that is ridiculous. As is suggesting that a user can be competent enough to post a question, and yet is unable to spend the few seconds searching. This is clearly targetted towards uncommited users, and towards promoting the use of the search function. Imagine arriving at a site from google, and the page isn't what you were looking for - a prominent search box would prevent you from exiting. Perhaps you're interested in some other subject, but have found no good site yet. It's a very minor change for a minor/moderate gain. Constant users will quickly come to ignore the color, so that isn't an issue. Another point is that the seperation is a problem. When I first arrived, I didn't notice the toolbox at all. The languages box caught my eye, and I assumed that anything below such a prominent seperation was not relevant to me. Amusingly, the first times I uploaded a file, I had to repeatedly use the search box to get to a page that linked me to the correct one. But :moving the box up might be a different proposal. –M 14:24, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

final suggestion

My final suggestion: A darker gray border, that ever so slightly draws the eye. Change site-wide --Quiddity 22:54, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

What shade of gray exactly are you suggesting? -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 00:50, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

#searchBody {border-color: #444;}

At first I liked the idea of highlighting the search box with color, but less so as I've tried various options in my monobook.css. This particular shade of gray seems a bit too dark, as it makes the border around the search box seems busy to me with the search being lost in the chaos. I've tried several shades of gray. I found that actually a lighter shade than the present gray made the word "search" and the actual search box stand out a little more to me. Or the status quo is fine with me, or I'm still open to the idea of moving the search box above the navigation box. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 14:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I like lighter too, say #searchBody {border-color: #ddd;}

I'm also in full favour of moving the box up to the top. I'll make a final screenshot, and minimize those at the top.--Quiddity 23:53, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Media Watch Feature

Can I propose that Misplaced Pages features a new section entitled "Media Watch" which details any recent media coverage (whether in newspapers, televisions, radio or through other media) of Misplaced Pages? On U.K. television this week, on "The Gadget Show" on Channel Five (April 17), Misplaced Pages was mentioned. A summary of this and other media snippets could summarize and assess such coverage. ACEO 08:24, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages in the media. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Search Queries

When we search for something, all the results that have an entry in any of the other wikiprojects should also be displayed.

Please reply.

Thanks.

24.70.95.203 23:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

A unified search of all projects would be useful, yes, though perhaps not on Misplaced Pages.

Golbez 23:45, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

How not?

Please reply.

Thanks.

24.70.95.203 08:22, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmnn, now that I think of it, a unified search of all projects would be useful, but not on Misplaced Pages. Why? Because this is the English Misplaced Pages, and people come here to read/edit encyclopedia articles. Misplaced Pages is cluttered enough as it is. Btw, get a username.

Osbus 01:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, your being VERY fair. So to say that littering the ENGLISH wikipedia WITH MY PROPSAL IS crap, & all others aren't? Not to say that even you agree it is a good idea. No, do you want to make Misplaced Pages better then stop hating on me! Oh, & get a username, how the hell do you have the right to tell me what to do; FYI, I'm not getting a username, cause I coudn't delete once I get it!

68.148.165.213 07:04, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Um, when did I ever say that your proposal was crap and all others aren't? I assume you are angry because you thought I meant that, but I really didn't. And besides, I was only suggesting you get a username...I still think you should. That's what I suggest to all anons.

Osbus 20:31, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

It's possible this user was talking not about languages, but about wiktionary, wikiquote etc. I think it would be useful to integrate searching of these. That way, if there is a wiktionary article on the thing I search for, but not a wp article, I see it, and, am not tempted to create a wp article on it.

For great justice. 22:19, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

That's probably true, but I never told this anon that his/her proposal is crap and everyone else's was better. And in no way was my statement hateful...was it?

Osbus 22:24, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't really care. I was just saying that I thought the proposal had some merit.

For great justice. 22:27, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Yea, I believe a unified search would be better, I guess since the search WILL be made more powerful , maybe Search could also be changed so that it searches for in ALL of the WIKIPROJECTS. Yes, I did mean IN THE WIKIPROJECTS, NOT WITHIN THE OTHER LANGUAGES, but that might not be as important, cause a word spelled the same in another language usually has nothing to do with the word spelled excatly the same in another language.

68.148.165.213 02:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Buttons

Sometimes, the radio buttons don't show up. Is this an issue that has been brought up? Will this be worked on?

68.148.165.213 08:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Which radio buttons, where?

Brion 18:26, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I've seen this happen on edit pages (like where I'm typing right now). The alt text shows instead of the graphics, so you see "Horizontal line (use sparingly)" as a button to click on. I think it's related to slow graphics elsewhere in the system, but maybe it's part of the revision of the javascript (see several questions back, where I replied). Ctrl-Alt-R refreshes the javascript cache in Firefox, and fixed it for me.

Dhartung | Talk 23:32, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

That's been happening to me for the last two days. I've refreshed everything in sight, including clearing Firefox's entire cache, and I still can't get editing button graphics - just the alt text. Somebody broke something in the last change, I suspect. --John Nagle 05:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm sorry, Dahrtung, that's not where I'm talking about; I'm talking about the history pages.

68.148.165.213 01:49, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Page protect levels

Right now, we have page protection, but it only has two settings, "on" and "off", and must be applied manually. It might be useful to have more options. Not all pages need to be protected, but when a page has been vandalized more than once in a week, some kind of protection should kick in for a while. Maybe levels of protection are needed, like this:

• Unprotected - the normal case
• Protected against anonymous edit - kicks in after vandalism by an anon, turns off after a few days/weeks.
• Protected against edit by named but unverified user - kicks in after vandalism by a logged in but unverified (no verified e-mail address) user, turns off after a few days/weeks.
• Protected - as at present, applied manually; only an admin can edit

This would provide some additional options, and cut down on casual vandalism, without giving up the "anyone can edit" goal of Misplaced Pages. The vandalism-reversion bots would be empowered to turn on the lower levels of protection. Comments? --John Nagle 05:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

There is semi-protection already, blocking IP and new users from editing an article. It doesn't turn off automatically, though. I'm not sure whether automatically unprotecting pages is all that useful. Kusma (討論) 05:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Protected against anonymous edit makes sense, probably just as "reminder" display - people can still edit without logging in, but it is explicitely seen as bad style. alex 12:16, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

As Kusma already said, we already have that. — Saxifrage ✎ 18:02, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

But it's not automatic. We need more automation in the anti-vandalism area. Too much effort is going into reverts. --John Nagle 18:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

How can we possibly automate turning protection on? Tawkerbot2 is good, but not good enough to be in charge of automatic page protection. — Saxifrage ✎ 19:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

How do you automatically detect a vandalism revert as opposed to someone reverting for POV, testing, redundant information, etc.? How is it justifiable to have widespread protection of pages (which this would seem to imply)? I think that would be counterproductive. --W.marsh 20:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Request for expansion/rewording of CSD:A7 policy

Please visit Misplaced Pages talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Adding more examples to A7 for a discussion on changing the wording of CSD:A7. I consider this an expansion of policy. The proposer considers it a "clarification" of existing policy. --Rob 11:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:14, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Parkinson Factor

In reference to Parkinson's Law I propose to periodically calculate the Misplaced Pages:Parkinson Factors, Page-PF, defined to be the ratio of the number of pages in the "Misplaced Pages:" space (including talk archive pages) to the number of pages in the article space, Byte-PF, the same in terms of bytes. This would be a gauge of bureaucratization of wikipedia, with its multitudes of policies and guideliness. Not to be confused with Parkinson's Coefficient of Inefficiency).

Individual Parkinson Factrors might be of interest as well.

Is this idea technically feasible? `'mikka (t) 18:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

What is the formula? Ardric47 05:11, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

it was actually defined in the original post - Page-PF = n_pages(Misplaced Pages:*) / n_pages(*) FleetfootMike 19:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

What is the general formula? Ardric47 00:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:15, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Multiple levels of adminship

There have recently been a plethora of complaints about admins abusing their powers, such as indiscriminately blocking users who offend them or are involved in an edit conflict with them. Some of these complaints can be found at User_talk:Jimbo Wales. I have once experienced been repeatedly blocked for no reason by a rogue admin, which forced me to temporarily leave Misplaced Pages.

A possible reason could be because it is relatively easy to become an admin in Misplaced Pages, so many new admins make mistakes, or deliberately abuse their powers.

I suggest Misplaced Pages have multiple levels of adminship, and different levels of admins have different types of admin rights. In some online groups services, for example, one level can only moderate posts, one level can moderate posts and ban members, and one level can do both and change group settings as well. Could we implement something like this for Misplaced Pages?

Once an admin at a certain level has proven to be trustworthy, capable, consistent and commited, he can be promoted to a higher level. However, this might require an approval vote by multiple (e.g. 5) members of a HIGHER level, to prevent abuse. This allows admins to gradually gain trust, and be "put on probation" with the powers they already have before gaining new powers. If the admin receives complaints from users, he risks being demoted or stripped of his admin powers.

Do take my issue and suggestion into consideration, and expand on it further. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 11:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

We already have editors, admins, bureaucrats, stewards, Danny, and Jimbo. How many more layers of hierarchy do you want? -- Donald Albury 11:37, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Please explain the rights of each of these levels of adminship. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 04:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

See ].

I would support having admin-light (or whatever name you like) that cannot delete/undelete nor block. Only protect/unprotect and edit protected pages. This would be great for template maintainers like me which often stumble upon protected pages which have a template call that needs to be changed due to a change in a template. Or editing protected templates which were protected because of their high usage. This would be a more technical admin. --Ligulem 18:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

admin's with disordered user page: go through approval againalex 12:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

This isn't the place to argue your politics. — Saxifrage ✎ 18:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

sorry i removed it. IMO admin user page's should give a good example. alex 16:37, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I have seen some admins with offensive user pages, and I agree that they are setting a bad example. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 04:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

• This kind of "admin level" thing gets suggested from time to time, here and on WT:RFA and elsewhere, and I used to support something like it. But it's ultimately instruction creep, I think... especially as you have a ton of levels, different voting procedures for every one, all kinds of pages, etc. I do think a "trusted user" level could be nice... able to view deleted pages, use rollback, and issue blocks for simple vandalism, for example. It could be bestowed and taken away by beaurocrats at will. But ultimately to get the ball rolling on this, see Misplaced Pages:How to create policy, it's going to take a whole lot to effect a change on this issue, I'm afraid. --W.marsh 20:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

You don't need tons of levels. Three to five are enough. All can use similar voting systems. For example, if there are 5 levels, 1-5, 5 being highest, and you are at level X (it can be 0, for non-admin), and want to be promoted to level X+1, you need N (say, 5) admins of level X+1 to approve you before you officially become an admin of level X+1. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 04:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Two levels would be enough. Admin, as we have today, and admin-light. No new voting system. Each candidate states in her/his acceptance of the nomination whether she/he applies for admin or admin-light. Admin is the default. Admin-light is no prerequisite for admin. Of course an admin-light could later apply for admin. Admin-light rights would comprise the admin set without blocking/unblocking and without delete/undelete. That's it. No new bureaucracy. No new procedures. No new voting system. RfA remains as it is. --Ligulem 13:59, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:18, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

WP:PP

I have a protection script that takes out all the slow, tedious paperwork of listing on WP:PP for every single (un)protect. Is there a way to have something like this enabled if people check it in there preferences or something? The list at WP:PP often gets VERY out of date and I think the problem is that people just don't feel like updating it since we already have the category.Voice-of-All 22:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Strongly object. A category doesn't explain why an article was protected, nor when. User:Zoe| 05:21, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Auh...I am for the list. That is why I made the script. The script does the paperwork for you, and part of it asks "enter an explanation". People don't bother to update, so I made this script that automatically delists whatever they unprotect and vise versa (when the use the script's protection tabs).Voice-of-All 06:16, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

As someone who uses VOA's wonderful script, I highly recommend it for, well, every admin really. But particularly those who involve themselves regularly with RFP. · Katefan0/poll 06:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I think that it works quite well. The only bug that lingered was the mis-parsing of special characters like accented letters, which was fixed on the 22nd (yesterday). It almost always finds and delist articles, and it works best when more people use it, since it can always recognize and delist what it lists, where as people sometimes use the wrong template/no template/redirects to the actual articles, which may cause it to be unable to find the article. The only thing to work on know is to trim the size, which I can do by having more general variable that switch to the constant ones, so that I can have one or two command blocks for each function.Voice-of-All 06:31, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, VofA, it wasn't clear to me that that was what your script was doing. I retract the oppose. User:Zoe| 22:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:13, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

slash page(s)

It means to add a sub-page to an entry. In example i would like to "outsource" the information about "discriminatory usage of watermelon imagery" within the watermelon article. For the reason (I believe this) the majority of people does not seek "neagtive information/communications".

It would be included by "discriminatory usage of watermelon imagery", which links to watermelon/discrimination. There seems to be various occurance of such usage, but most of it connnected to north american racism.

Your ideas/do you agree/how can it be done? I have already performed it for an explicit illustration (within another article). I have seen "need for action", because the illustration is illegal to display in certain countries. It is still possible to access it, but people do not need to see it all of the time. Is it possible to understand the idea/concept of "slash page", any idea for a better indentifier (the name for this sort of pages)?

alex 15:05, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not quite clear on what you are proposing. As for your last question, they're called "subpages", but no longer work in the main article space, i.e. watermelon/subpage is a free-standing article that happens to have a slash in the title, not a subpage of watermelon. Note that this won't keep it from being displayed where it is "illegal", since clicking "Random Page" will still deliver them to readers randomly. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:26, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Well i am basically asking if it is accepted most likely (if i believe the majority of people does not seek a specific information, but it is required for completeness sake). Important, i do not wish to prevent anything from being displayed, just to add a sub-layer to skip around explicit information. Then, it requires an additional action of will to display the information. Probably it is useful to apply/rewrite articles generally (if they contain cruel/illegal illustration, information on racism and hate, etc.) It is absolutely not about omitting any information, just the way how it is displayed. alex 12:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not censored, so I don't think the idea of adding extra layers to prevent information from being displayed will be accepted by anyone. This is currently done for some pornographic images, but this is reserved for the very small number that are uncontestedly pornographic, not for things that people "might" find objectionable. — Saxifrage ✎ 19:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I just do not know if it is acceptable to put information into a slash page (which is linked clearly visible): -If the article gets shorter and better readable. -If negative information is not longer scrolled by default. And how about to add statistics tables (i.e. south american countries) but not to the article itself (it would expand too much). Such tables are not original research, but applying a static method (addition/division, standard degression). It is also possible to put them into an external site (they do not take much bandwidth). I do not (yet) need to do it, just asking in general. The watermelon article has improved on its own, i checked it today. The proposal itself is that such pages are not counted as articles on their own (however it wont bug very much if they are). alex 08:38, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Generally, no. Do not use slash pages. Instead find an appropriate title. For example. Instead of Melbourne/transport, we have Transport in Melbourne. For your example you may have wanted to start the article called simply Discriminatory usage of watermelon imagery, but that is only if that section of the watermelon article got too long. Hope that clears things up —Pengo 08:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Well i can live with this method. However such articles are hard to find (by search) sometimes. Hence it is required to include a link into the basic article...i am just thinking in MSDOS directory structures. It takes additional thought to understand "wikipedia is not a MSDOS directory tree" alex 09:04, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

And how about Watermelon(discrimination) ? A link to explicit naming policies? alex 09:06, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Parentheses are only used to disambiguate subjects, such as to tell the difference between Spore and the game Spore (game), not to separate different sub-topics of a subject. — Saxifrage ✎ 09:37, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

patern of abuse from certian ip ranges?

I've noticed that approximatly 99.9999% of wikipedia vandalism, by ip users seems to come from the same ip range,

NetRange: 1.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255

I suggest that if it were blocked, nearly all vandalism could be ceased indefintly--152.163.100.134 21:06, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

You amaze me. --Osbus 00:54, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

April Fools was half a month ago, 152.163.100.134 … Nihiltres 03:29, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

and the other's are from 0.0.0.0 - 0.255.255.255 -> now it includes 100% of vandalism, and we can ban the entire range. please excuse if this sentence is grammatically incorrect/figures a language abuse alex 12:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

But people will just go to the ISPs with IPs like 301.341.287.1023 and then we would have to block an even larger range!!! r3m0t 20:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the end of the 8bit ISP age to me alex 08:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Email message

I suggest that users ought to have the option to enter a message to be displayed to other users emailing them, for example Please have the subject line as Wikipedia10 for my spam filter. Any opinions?--Keycard 08:08, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

If somebody emails you by clicking on the "email user" link on your User or Talk pages, the default header is "Misplaced Pages email". User:Zoe| 22:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I know, and most people will change it, unless they're requested not to.--Keycard 06:47, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Alt. text to give a description of link

I don't see this mentioned anywhere else, but maybe it's just because I don't know exactly how to describe it. I always see a little text box pop up when I mouse over links in articles. It is usually exactly the same text as the link. A lot of the time, I wish this contained a short definition or description of what is contained in the article that is being linked. That way, if I didn't know what something was, I could just mouse over it for a quick definition and then continue reading the article I went to in the first place. Netflix does an incredible job of this. When you mouse over a movie title, you get a summary and a picture of the movie packageing. I'm not even sure if this could be implemented on wikipedia, and it wouldn't have to be anything complicated, but it would be very nice.

Brilly 22:54, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

You may be looking for Lupin's popups tool, which gives a popup with the beginning of the page and the first image whenever you scroll over a link. Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you. Brilly 23:33, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Sections archived on 00:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Paying Editors

For those of you who don't yet know, there is a proposal underway to pay users for their contibutions. It can be found here Misplaced Pages:Paid editor job board. There is also a straw poll on the proposals talk page. 69.192.8.106 22:18, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Drafts

There are many editors on Misplaced Pages who know an article they'd love to reorganize, wikify, expand, et cetera, but don't have the time to, due to work, school, family, or other reasons. I know that I've drafted an expansion of Shade's Children here but can never post it because it is so unfinished. I know that since there are a lot of terminal stubs in Category:Old Kingdom series, Abhorsen327 has started her own draft to merge them, posting the merge suggestion on each page - see the work so far. My suggestion is thus a wikiproject to unite these sporadic edits which, without help and without the level of completion to post on the actual page without guilty twinges, will take a long time to reach completion and posting - the project could also "adopt" stubs for expansion. By the way I'm not entirely sure about this idea, so please constructively criticize if you have ideas or suggestions. Nihiltres 03:25, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Marvelous idea! We could have /Article name, which would accompany all the different drafts (say, /Article name/John's draft and /Article name/Jane's draft). Then when a rewrite of the article is being drafted, we could link to it from the main article's talk page! I cannot emphesize enough what great of an idea this is! —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 18:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Requiring All Changes To Be Made With An Account

It seems like there's a LOT of Vandalism GOing Onn. Well, we could require all changes made to be made from a logged on Useraccount. Depending on the vandalism though, I acually don't know what the vandalism is like,, but it must be made clear User Accounts have the option to be deleted, & after a certain period of time, they should be deleted; somepoeples personalities are like that they like to have things open ((open ended/no closure)).

24.70.95.203 20:04, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Village pump (perennial proposals). You should have looked at it the last time I mentioned it to you. Also, why do you constantly repeat "your" email address and that screed about why you won't sign up? We saw it the first few times, we don't need to be reminded of it every time you make a comment, unless you're just trying to make some point.

Golbez 20:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should require 24.70.95.203 to register before making any more edits. ;)

Will Beback 22:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I checked Perennial Proposals, but the thing thats' not there is the ability for the user accounts to be come deleted after a period of time, & the option to delete an account. 1 reason people do not sign up for an account is because a name they want has been taken. Another reason is because they want closure; if the person decides they no longer want to be associated with Wikimedia, they have no way to achieve that.

24.70.95.203 15:18, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages works the way it does because the entire history of the project is visible in the database. Being able to delete accounts would interfere with the ability of editors to see who did what to an article.

Saxifrage ✎ 07:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the importance

24.70.95.203 21:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

What do you actually mean by account deletion?

Sam Korn 21:35, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

When you sign up for an account to any project, & any language division, you must set up a username & password. That's what we sould be allowed to delete.

24.70.95.203 21:56, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

You can change your username and password afterwards to something anonymous (by WP:CHU). Otherwise, I don't really see what you expect account deletion to give. Deletion of all contributions?

Sam Korn 21:59, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Well no, I think that deleting your username, allows people who want your username to not go thru so much red tape. Also, I was I was given the choice, I wouldn't mind people taking credit for my work; here's an idea, you could make policy a page where you must click accept, in order to delete your account, so that it because legal or whatever, that the deleter abides by those rules, maybe namely to reliquinsh all rights to credit for any work done on any part or parts Wikimedia projects, Language Divisions, &/or Wikimedia itself.

24.70.95.203 22:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see how this is not an extremely bad idea.

Saxifrage ✎ 03:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the importance of having EVERY changed documented. Besides, accounts that are deleted does not affect the change history, & accounts that have been inactive for to long also makes no impact to the change history of wikimedia.

24.70.95.203 21:47, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

You show a fundamental lack of understanding of how the database and code works. Of course every change matters: how do you think articles are stored? The article you read is not stored as it appears, only changes to the original are stored. Take away changes in the past and you break Misplaced Pages. Similarly, take away accounts and you lose vital pieces of the database.

There's also no advantage to your suggestion: it won't save on usernames, because it would be chaos to allow new users to take a name that used to belong to someone else.

Also, stop saying "please reply". I realise English is not your first language, but it's rude. "Please" is not always polite in English, especially when it is part of an command given to someone who is not your subordinate.

Saxifrage ✎ 02:59, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

That didn't make sense the last sentence you had. Are you insulting me? Isn't there a way to have a an article so that the changes would be saved as the sole article? Like in Word, when you make changes to a file, the changes are stored ON THE ORIGINAL FILE, so there arn't 17 files if you make 17 Saves, & not like 1 big original file, & 16 small changes? Are the developers working on that?

68.148.165.213 07:20, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I suspect you must be the same person as the other IP addess. Your suggestion that all changes be saved in one "file" shows even greater fundamental misunderstandings of the way the software works than you did before. There is no "original file": it's all saved in a database, and each change is saved individually. If it weren't, there would be no history for you to look at and want to see three different versions of (as below). Since every change needs to be saved, saving everything in "one file" would take up enormous amoungs of storage. Do you remember how you suggested that all the extra spaces be taken out so that articles take up less storage?

Now, you haven't the slightest understanding of the things you talk about, you seem to have little to no experience with the way Misplaced Pages works either technically or as a piece of software, and you refuse to get a user account to make it easier to communicate. In sum, you annoy and bore more. Go away.

Saxifrage ✎ 19:31, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

You see, I actually appreciated that last reply. You actually taught me somthing, though you have definiatly some social personality problem. Well then I proprose that Misplaced Pages not be stored on a database, but as documents. Refering to 'Extra Space', I take that those ideas back. Actually, its not hard to communicate; you seem to lack an understanding of the internet. Recently, gadfium sent me a personal message, you could send me a message!?

68.148.165.213 02:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Banning all anonymous editors isn't really the way to go. Anonymous contributors are like the little gnomes that walk around and make fixes all over the place. Without them, Misplaced Pages wouldn't be what it is today. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 18:57, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Cite Assistant

Misplaced Pages would be a much better encyclopedia if more people referenced their contributions. But referencing is not that easy. Many people who can make valuable contributions may not be willing or able to come to grips with referencing.

Recently I started putting references into my own contributions. I can remember the syntax now, but I still sometimes make errors that break the reference, or even the page. I found referencing to be so painstakingly pedantic that I took time out to write a quick and dirty VB.Net program to help me with web references. It allows form based reference building and copies the result to the clipboard ready to be pasted into the Misplaced Pages editor. I've put a copy of the executable, wikicite.exe on my website. I only have a 128k link so I'll have to take it down if the whole world comes knocking.

A much better solution to the referencing problem would be for Misplaced Pages to make a Cite Assistant available within the editor as a javascript popup form. That way validation checks could be performed on cites before they made it into the page and even novice editors would be able to include references with confidence.

I believe such a Cite Assistant would be a valuable addition to Misplaced Pages.

--Dave 01:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

You may want to talk to the folks at Qwikly, your program idea seems suitable for their site? Others may have better suggestions though. (link via How to cite sources) --Quiddity 00:14, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

general discussion forums

I think it would be nice if we had general (off-topic) discussion forums that are not related to Misplaced Pages. The forums that I am suggesting are meant as a fun factor. I understand that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia and not an online chatting site, but adding these forums may encourage potential contributors to stay.

Possible forums include:

• The Lobby - for new users to introduce themselves and ask questions
• The Study Lounge - for users to discuss academic topics
• The Debating Room - open for civil debates, as the name implies
• The Cafeteria - for discussion on current events
• Writers' Club - for Wikipedians to share their literary works - songs, fiction, etc.
• The Recreation Room - for general chatting (users can vent about their frustration at work or post pictures of their new car, etc.)

What do you guys think? --Ixfd64 07:24, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

"The Lobby" may be useful. We already have a "Study lounge" of sorts in the categorical Q&A project pages. I don't know about the rest, that may be better on seperate forum. Certainly, it is a way to get this particular community together.Voice-of-All 07:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I was involved for a while in a support program in which all off-topic discussions were confined to a "community chat forum". It was very popular and a lot of fun. It was also constrained in certain ways: no vulgarity, no personal attacks, no political or religious discussions. There was a moderator, assisted by sysops from the support program, and offending comments were summarily removed. -- Donald Albury 11:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering around the italian wikipedia, and they had a bar over there. And we think the english wikipedia is advanced.--Rayc 15:15, 25 April 2006 (UTC)