Meta:Babel/Archives/2009-03

Username policy

It seems as if we have no username policy. I think that such a policy is something we should consider making, since its pertinence to a rapidly growing project like Meta is manifest. What do people think? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

That would be a good idea, IMO. -- Avi 06:01, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

• 1. This page is not for discussing meta issues. Please go to Meta:Babel:-). 2. How do you expect to get any real consensus when the norms of the cultures represented by the languages are very different to each other? Hillgentleman 06:32, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I think a policy banning names like "EVula is a fuckwit" would be easily agreed upon (though I'd seriously be pissed if everyone thought that was a fine username). Outside of that, though, I don't think we really need one; I think we can get by with just "winging it" when it comes to usernames. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
    • Well, the example you listed was rather extreme. What about borderline cases? It is, after all, always nice to have a benchmark or documented precedent to refer to. (Moving to babel, btw.) —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:43, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
      • Because answering a question with a question is fun: what examples of borderline "WM:U" violations can you think of? My example was a bit on the extreme side, so I could still be convinced of a policy's value. EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:48, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
    • Violations would include names disparaging other people (users or non-users), cultures, creeds, etc. Most anything where the purpose of the name is to provoke or engender a negative response, I would reckon. -- Avi 06:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
      • There's no need for a policy to do that. A disparaging name will be blocked, policy or no policy. —Pathoschild 20:52:02, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
      • I think it can be covered by custom. not policy.--Kwj2772 (論) 23:51, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. The gray area arises if a name that is offensive to some in one language, but is not offensive in its own language, is used by someone not native to that language. Is that a concern? If there is bad blood between two people, I guess it is obvious, but if not… Case-by case is the way to go, it seems. -- Avi 05:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• Sorry, but how can there be a policy that fits, on a multilingual project, something offensive in one language can be something non offensive in another... I think common sense and in case of doubt asking the collegues and moderate blocking & warning users first (if they are not obvious vandals, and replacing fast or adding gross insults), should suffice, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 01:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
  • That rationale is fine, but some usernames are blocked on bases other than because they're offensive, and language does not matter in these other regards. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 11:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
    • So You are basically saying that this is too complex to have a policy ;))) Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 11:43, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
      • Eh, I can see there's not much enthusiasm. Mike below seems to think that it will enable wikilawyering. I don't want that; I just want a vehicle for transparency and something to universally refer to when common sense is in dispute. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:16, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• Bad idea for reasons I explained at length on Commons. See my edits to commons:Commons talk:Username policy, for example.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 01:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• Agreed with Mike. I do think we should make a practice of organizing/unifying good short rules of thumb that are applied on many existing wikis -- using Meta as a neutral reflection on multiple different wiki policy implementations, and a place to discuss them. -- sj | help translate |+ 03:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

pages about mailing lists

Is there any special reason why there are three summaries of the existing mailing lists:

• Mailing list
• Mailing lists/overview
• Mailing list directory

It seems like there should be one master list, for clarity and accuracy. Any objections to merging these pages, or comments? -- phoebe 20:11, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

It would of course be better to put them all on one page, so it is easier to update and maintain. Majorly ^talk 20:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Go for it. Kylu 20:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be better to recreate a lot of the information there from a more authorative source (like the current list of mailinglists), and create routines for updating the lists when lists are created/updated. Checked list-master for the norwegian list, and Wolfram hasn't been active in several years on norwegian wikipedia (at least not with that username). Laaknor 22:46, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Idle steward thought

Just an idle thought I had: would it make sense for all the steward pages to have their own namespace? The main "article" namespace tends to be for essays, content pages, cross-wiki content and announcements, and other such sundries; steward pages are decidedly cross-wiki, yes, but they're also highly focused; I can see all the related steward pages being combined into a single namespace to help with tracking requests.

Of course, I can just as easily see it not being done (if it ain't broke, don't fix it). I'm just throwing it out there. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:01, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

This might be a good idea. There was some talk of re-organizing Meta by using namespaces for broad categories of content sort of like this - making a "historical" namespace was on the list of ideas. IIRC, this was on Meta's (dead) mailing list.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:03, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Hm, I don't think that's necessary. Tracking requests means watching the request pages, independent of their namespace. Maybe there should be an organization namespace for all cross-wiki organizing pages without real content. --Thogo (talk) 21:05, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Past discussion was on wikimediameta-l and Meta:Babel/Archives/2008-03#Meta_namespaces. I think the ideas presented there would be worthwhile for overhauling Meta.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Could the Meta: namespace be used for this? (In Thogo's terms, for the organizing pages without content) I started organizing some of the main-namespace pages that were really about meta policy and implementation today, which made me rethink this. Perhaps it would make sense (as the wiki's name implies) to roll up all levels of meta-ness in one namespace, from coordination of the Meta-wiki [admin and style issues] to coordination of self-administration of other projects [steward issues] to guidelines for all wikimedia projects [wikimedia-wide community issues] to shared cross-project events [voting, bidding, &c]. -- sj | help translate |+ 00:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Tell us about LANGUAGE Wikipedia

I brought this up several months ago, but I'd like to say that it is my opinion that these pages should become subpages of the central tell us about your Wikipedia, of the form /LANGUAGE Wikipedia. The current means of creating an entirely new master page for every "Tell us about x Wikipedia" piece of content is somewhat unwieldy and feels organisationally inferior to a subpage scheme. But, of course, that's just my opinion, and I brought it here to see whether anyone agreed or not. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:17, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Subpages seem reasonable to those of us that use wikis a lot. But will they be for those who are just getting started and may not speak English really well (possibly the case for folk who are enthused about a relatively new wiki in a language that doesn't have a lot of speakers). If that can be addressed, I'm for it. ++Lar: t/c 15:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

If the vector to the subpages is the current page, and the list is composed of links to the subpage, I think that would be pretty self-explanatory. -- Avi 15:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Plus some clever person could make up a "add YOUR language here" button/box thingie, so ya. ++Lar: t/c 00:42, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Lar, Subpaging or not makes very little difference on the edit button. Hillgentleman 06:28, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with this, for no other reason than the fact that it would be neater and better-organized. –Juliancolton ^(talk) 04:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

• In wiki the main organisng tool is the category. The pagename is a pointer and so a natural sounding name should be preferred. We have the Category:Tell us about your Wikipedia already. You may add a redirect Tell us about your wikipedia/Cantonese if you like. But then there is a problem: future wikimedians who want to internationalise this set of pages would be confused whether this is a page in Cantonese about "your wikipedia" or a page in English about the Cantonese Wikipedia. Hillgentleman 04:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

No, they won't. Looking at my proposal, you'll see that I was proposing that it would be Tell us about your wikipedia/Cantonese Wikipedia, not Tell us about your wikipedia/Cantonese. In any case, we denote lingual subpages with shorthand like "de" or "fr", not "Cantonese". —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure, then you would: 1. create a glaring redundancy in your pagename; and 2. which is what I wanted to bring out: make it confusing whether we should have tell us about your wikipedia/Cantonese Wikipedia/De or tell us about your wikipedia/de/Cantonese wikipedia, etc. It is likely that we would have both. In any case, that is not even my primary reason for opposing such a move. Hillgentleman 06:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I think common sense dictates that we'd have /LANGUAGE Wikipedia/de, not the other way around. And I don't see a problem with that. Double subpaging is not much more confusing that single subpaging. If that's not your reason for opposition, why did you mention it in your initial objection? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:39, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

As to redundancy... —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:41, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

1. A problem is that tell us about your Wikipedia/Cantonese Wikipedia/de is not a subpage of tell us about your wikipedia/de any more. And that could be confusing 2. I stated two arguements, and you have only replied to the secondary, forgotten the first, and now would you be kind enough to consider my primary, i.e. first reason? If you have missed it, it is in the first two sentences of my chronologically first comment in this section. Hillgentleman 07:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Right, the category. I understand that the category is often used, but this does not give reason why subpages are not a good idea. Precedent has seen pages such as these grouped in a common master page, and I can find examples if you like (although it will expend my time and I may take a while in responding). I think you'd be aware of that anyway. We can categorise the subpages into the category, if you like. The category won't be hugely different from the way it is now anyway. Ultimately, I fail to see why this is an issue, and, furthermore, the category scheme is hard enough to navigate at any rate. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:55, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

And the MediaWiki tendency towards naturally sounding pagenames? Hillgentleman 08:01, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd say the millions of subpages on Wikimedia and the precedent they set somewhat override your idea or my idea or anyone's idea of "naturally sounding" titles. Entirely subjective. I don't see why it's redundant or "unnatural", personally. It uses the word "Wikipedia" twice. So what? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 08:05, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I do not see the need to make it more complicated.--Ziko 22:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Either do I, which is why I've made this proposal. It sorts things better. The reason is because it is right and well-principled to do so. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:00, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Are you familiar with the longstanding discussions about subpages v. non-subpages? They originated on meta long, long ago, so there are historifcal artifacts of trees of pages that are quite different from what en:wp policy would suggest, for instance... but in this case I don't think subpages are particularly appropriate. -- sj | help translate |+ 03:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not enwp policy that is the reasoning behind this. What is it about this that makes it inappropriate? You've not given reasoning. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 04:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm certainly not suggesting the two should be similar. I like page names that you might use in a sentence. When I talk to you over the phone, I would say "did you see the updates on 'tell us about dutch wikipedia'?" I wouldn't say "did you see the updates on 'tell us about your wikipedia/Dutch?' I mentioned the older debate b/c that was one of the outcomes that had reasonable consensus. So the one place that I appreciate subpages are those where you always use as a nickname the title up to the slash (if it's twelve language translations of the same page, you might just use the base name. once you start given the page a different name in each language, it should no longer use subpages). -- sj | help translate |+ 04:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, okay, but I'm not sure I'm convinced that the ability to read a page title aloud whilst speaking on a phone is a viable reason to not perform a move. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 04:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Since this is apparently a big deal, the original name scheme can be improved. "About Cantonese Wikipedia" is simpler and more informative than "Tell us about Cantonese Wikipedia". It could even redirect to [[Cantonese Wikipedia#About this project]], eventually giving Meta comprehensive encyclopeidc articles about individual Wikipedias... -- sj | help translate |+ 00:25, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

There's no big deal unless it has to be. This particular matter could have been a simple housekeeping chore. The problem isn't the name itself, but the classification of these pages, which should be subpages. Anyhow. I can see people are disagreeing, so, so be it. There's no point in doing something that's against the community's desires, because it has no benefit to anyone. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 05:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Abuse Filter testing

Hi all,

The Abuse Filter is available for testing on small to medium traffic projects.

In essence, the Abuse Filter allows fine-grained restrictions to be placed on edits, with varying consequences if these restrictions are breached – all the way up from a customised, friendly warning, to red flag on recent changes or an emergency desysopping. Any or all of these consequences can be activated for each project. The Abuse Filter is primarily intended to target pattern vandalism.

The Abuse Filter also has excellent testing and evaluation systems – filters can be tested against the past hundred or so edits on recent changes with a handy web interface, and individual edits can be tested quickly against existing filters. A log is maintained of which filters have been matched by particular edits, and it's very easy to drill down and examine individual edits.

For a live demonstration, see http://test.wikipedia.org/ .

Is there any objection to such a trial on this wiki?

Thanks, all! Werdna 19:23, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Since there were no objections, I went ahead and did a restricted deployment of the Abuse Filter on this wiki. Let me know if there are any questions or problems! Werdna 22:47, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I missed this. Probably raising it on the admin noticeboard too might have been good but hey, we should all watch here, fair enough. Anyway, good deal. ++Lar: t/c 17:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

This is quite neat. 24.61.14.99 23:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Editors can login to all their Wikimedia accounts at once... but most people I talk about Wikipedia with know not of the other sites. Those are listed--at the bottom of the page. Perhaps integration could be done so people can see all that is available and more easily go to to links in different wikis.

Meta: Namespace guidelines

Should pages such as Identification noticeboard be in the Meta: namespace? There are a number of project-level pages that are partly about meta, but also about all other projects. Since part of the Meta: project is coordination across others, perhaps the main namespace suffices for almost everything (except those pages that are only about Meta policy and administration). But I'd like to see a styleguide page with more examples one way or another. -- sj | help translate |+ 00:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

In answer to your first question, no, it shouldn't. Any pages that are about more than just one project should be in the main space. Pages such as this one (Meta:Babel) are for discussing this (the Meta-wiki) project. So therefore, Meta:RFA, Meta:RFD, and Meta:Deletion policy are all about this project, but pages like Metapub, Stewards, OTRS, IRC etc are about every project, so therefore belong in the mainspace. (Think of it like this: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so articles are the most important thing, and are therefore in the mainspace. Meta-wiki is a co-ordination project of other projects, so things relating to other projects are the most important things, therefore they belong in the mainspace.) Anything with the Meta: namespace should specifically, and only, relate to Meta-wiki, and nowhere else. Majorly ^talk 01:22, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense, thanks. It gets confusing on Meta since every page here is about coordination of some sort of project somewhere, and you could just as readily consider 'Meta' to be one of the other projects. We need the equivalent of fundamental set theory definitions... -- sj | help translate |+ 01:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Meta isn't a content project though, and only exists to compliment the other projects. Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks etc could all work on their own. Meta-wiki couldn't - it's about the projects and their co-ordination. Majorly ^talk 12:43, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Embassy

What's the purpose of an ideal Wikimedia Embassy these days? How can we revitalize the concept? How can we improve communication in languages other than English, particularly when communicationg /about/ wiki principles or wikimedia policies on wikis in the dominant language there?

When I have a question or idea that I'd like to share with a local project, what's the canonical way to send that message so that it is recorded (in its original language and formulation O), translated (into intermediate major languages M, or the dominant language on the target project T), and responded to (in the preferred language of the target project contributor; usually in T or M)?

There is a role here for both a distributed translation network and an embassy of dedicated wiki-culture ambassadors who can help bridge gaps in protocol, timing, and style and explain social context in both directions.

This came to mind most rently when I was wondering why there aren't more requests of Stewards in languages other than English, and noted that much of the documentation about how to engage with Stewards or Wikimedia infrastructure is only in English... -- sj | help translate |+ 01:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

OpenID Logins

Hey Wikimedia, I'm an avid user of your site and know that you like to be on the leading edge when it comes to innovative technologies. I'd like to see you support OpenID (http://openid.net) as it allows me to use your site more easily. With OpenID I'm able to come to your site and sign-in with my OpenID, removing the need to create yet another username and password which means that you're able to sign-up more people.

OpenID is really easy to integrate and allows users from many large sites such as AOL, LiveJournal, and WordPress to login with just a few clicks. I encourage you to check out http://openid.net/ or join the mailing list general@openid.net.

Thanks, agomulka 19:12, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

See mw:Extension:OpenID.--Kwj2772 (論) 08:52, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, but is the rest of Wikimedia in general using it?--Dchmelik 10:53, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

That extension is one of the ones being considered in the Usability Extension Survey. — Jake Wartenberg 19:37, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Traffic for general interest

Does anyone know if a pageview tracker for Meta exists? I'd personally be quite curious to find out about the traffic for some of Meta's pages and would appreciate any information about a counter. Thanks, —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 11:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this any good? Majorly ^talk 12:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It's certainly something, but it's from August 2008. I was also wanting to be able to type in a pagename and get a result, not just see the top. Thanks anyway. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 21:09, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Try looking at the main page of the site. Cbrown1023 talk 21:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Perfect; thanks. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 04:28, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Ethnio

Central Notice Ethnio_recruitment I noticed this on top of Wikipedia pages, searched for it, and found the page linked above. I asked at the Village Pump, but nobody seemed to know about it. i don't quite know what (if any) this has to do with wikipedia, and why it pops up on pages, and who authorised it, as there seems to be NO discussion nowhere. at least i was unable to find any. Could someone please explain what this is all about ? Thank you.--ExplicitImplicity 21:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe this is done by the Wikimedia Foundation as part of the Wikipedia Usability Initiative. Cbrown1023 talk 22:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Please see the details here.--Shuhari 05:09, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I wish there was some link in the announcement explaining that. But thanks a lot.--ExplicitImplicity 11:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I've now added the following text to all the MediaWiki_talk pages that mention ethnio; hopefully that'll help explain to folks what's going on. 75.215.92.75 21:02, 10 March 2009 (UTC) (really, w:en:User:JesseW/not logged in) 21:02, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

See [[Meta:Babel#Ethnio]], and [http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-
l/2009-March/050767.html Foundation-l: Heads up: Usability test recruiting underway Naoko Komura 
/ Fri Mar 6 07:51:35 UTC 2009], and [[Wikipedia Usability Initiative]] for explanation of 
this.

Return of rights?

Hopefully I will be familiar to a few folk here :). I dropped my rights last Autumn when, by my standards, I was not able to spend anytime worth talking about on Meta. I do not consider myself particularly active but others seem to and I've tagged a few things recently & would have placed a block or two had I been able. I certainly think it likely I would be more active than some Meta admins. If no one objects I would be happy to have admin rights granted me.

However I would also like to request the return of my CheckUser rights. I've always seen CU rights as being a frontline tool for those active in placing blocks on any wiki (en wp excepted!). Prior to dropping the rights my block log on here was probably one of the top 5 & I regularly used CU both to assist Meta & on cross wiki issues. I am still pretty active in that area on Commons & so would be able to cross check requests made on the CU list. Anyone on the CU list will know that I am still fairly active. For those who may be less familiar with me I have had CUs rights on various projects for over two years now & I was originally granted the rights here in the Autumn of 2007.

I realise this is a somewhat unusual request so I would ask that it stands for a week at least. In the event of any real objections I will happily take it to an RfCU. By way of assurance to the community I have restated my views on rights & activity and so I can be removed without any fuss should I become inactive again & not relinquish the rights myself (which I've done in the past & would intend to do in the future). Thanks for your consideration. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

•  Support, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 12:26, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

 Support there are three users on Wikimedia that have my complete trust, one of them is herby. Abigor talk 12:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

 Support, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 21:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

• Oh, give it all back to Herby, pronto. One of the most efficient and capable people we've had, ever. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

 Support Finn Rindahl 14:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

• I have set the admin rights. A steward will be needed to set checkuser back on. Welcome back! Majorly ^talk 18:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Majorly - I think the community should be given a little time for the CU one in case others object. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

added back cu-rights, :) --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| 21:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

•  Support This is good news for Meta and bad news for vandals. ++Lar: t/c 10:55, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Good ..--Warpath 00:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

•  Support So this explains your causing a huge increase in the checkuser-l inbox. :) -- Avi 14:18, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Chinese spam

Can somebody fix the English Wikiversity link at List of largest wikis? Ottre 20:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. But it was not spam, it was just a copy&paste error by the updater. --::Slomox:: >< 01:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)