Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2008-05

Logo overlapping text on "wiki does not exist" page.

If you look at the page for a wiki that does not exist, e.g. http://cv.wiktionary.org in Firefox 2.0.0.14 in Linux (not tested in other browsers/platforms) you see the following at the start of the page:

Obviously this is an error. I'm not certain if this is the right place to report it, but the page claims to be from Meta and this appears to be the general comments page for Meta. Thryduulf (en,commons) 11:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, the page still links to holopedia (now Min Nan Wikipedia). -- Prince Kassad 14:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The page is pretty old and kinda ugly in general, it could use a revamp. :-) I suggest you open up a bug on Bugzilla for them to fix this error (we can't change it from here on Meta). Cbrown1023 talk 21:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Modification of the official board election page

The Election Committee would like to ask the community of administrator on Meta to refrain from editing the English version of the Board election page Board elections/2008/en.

The page was protected by the committee as it contain the official rules for the election, and is the source for translations. Its current wording and formatting is what's agreed by the committee.

Of course, if you spot anything which you think may be an error, any ambiguity, or any points which you feel should be modified, feel free to suggest it to the election committee either on the talk page, on foundation-l, or straight to the election committee. However, please take into account any changes to the page requires all the translations to be updated and hence it is unlikely the page will be modify simply for small grammatical changes.

For the election committee,

Kwan Ting Chan (KTC) -- 13:01, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

With all this talk about globalization...

...just how exactly impossible would it be to implement global templates? I think it would be great to transclude pages from other projects, but I'm also totally ignorant of the performance costs in this. I know Wikia does this, but that was a "from the start" sort of thing, if I recall correctly.

Perhaps maybe not completely global, but I can see a certain value in being able to transclude Meta pages directly onto any project. We already force duplicates of content on en.wp; it would be great if we could simply transclude Help:Edit summary at w:Help:Edit summary, rather than fork it. It would also allow us to fully standardize all the Babel boxes; just create a local copy here at Meta, and voila, it's instantly available on any project. I'll admit that my initial thinking on this was changing all my userpages to transclude a local "generic" version; dunno if any other wide-editing admins would find that useful as well, but with SUL already here for admins and around the corner for everyone else, it might be an even more valid reason.

How feasible is this? EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course it is. But it will require huge amount of coding and possible database restructuring — VasilievVV 16:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

This would also be nice for having local wikis fetch Help: pages which do not exist on that wiki from (Meta|MediaWiki wiki|Commons|elsewhere). Many/most wikis have enough of a struggle writing content without having to worry also about writing complete help pages. While language will be an issue, this would at least reduce duplication of effort by sharing help files between wikis (dynamically, rather than forking) while still allowing customization on a per-wiki basis. See bugzilla:12306 and bugzilla:4547. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 16:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Language would indeed be an issue at the beginning, but for smaller wikis (where English can run rampant anyway), there could be at least some content, and the translations that happen here could be spread out over all the other wikis in each language. I think this could be a very, very beneficial feature. EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Why not a "global:" namespace to implement this cleanly? Note that all articles and templates will need the namespace prefix for links to work correctly... Also, for links to other namespaces to work correctly, the language or sitename prefix MUST be recognized correctly without exception, even if they are pointing to the local wiki (so "w:en:" would be valid also on English wikipedia, where the prefix would be silently ignored, instead of generating a red link for an inexistant namespace or interwiki...). 90.45.93.218 07:04, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Steward requests/SUL requests/Usurpation policy

Everyone is welcome to comment it on the talk page — VasilievVV 17:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Illegitimate arbitrators elections in Russian Wikipedia?

The following discussion is closed: Dispute was resolved locally

---

There is upcoming 6th Arbitration Committee staff elections campaign in Russian Wikipedia (see Википедия:Выборы_арбитров/Весна_2008).

But bureaucrats (ru:User:Maximaximax and ru:User:Obersachse) without ANY discussion with the community of ru-wiki decided that elections will be hold on third-party site ( http://tools.wikimedia.de/~kalan/arb6/ ).

Many of the russian Wikipeida considers that this bureaucrats individual decision is the violation of Wikipedia Policies (see talk at Обсуждение_Википедии:Выборы_арбитров/Весна_2008):

• any voter must have e-mail address, but according to Wikimedia Policy, there is no need for it; hence there is no equal rights for any Wikipedia user;
• ru:User:Kalan (author of script-based elections on tool-server) theoretically can view (and log) voters' IP-addresses, but he is not a checkuser of Russian Wikipedia; hence there is violation of Wikimedia privacy policy;
• there was a delay of beginning of election campaign on 12,5 hours because of Kalan's mistakes in script (probably); by the way, elections campaign started over a half of day later than it had to start;

Can stewards of Wikimedia STOP this election campaign because of its illegibility and bureaucrats' tyranny? --Jaroslavleff 07:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Nope. Internal community conflicts aren't subject of stewards activity — VasilievVV 07:28, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

But what we can do if bureaucrats say that elections anyway will be hold on third-party server, and community in most of users says that it is illegal? Will elected Arbcom be legal or illegal? --Jaroslavleff 07:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Open an arbitration case on Russian Wikipedia. But don't bring your own wiki issues on Meta, please. We don't override local decisions on Meta. P.S. Arbitration Committee elections on some Wikipedia aren't subject of Foundation's policies — VasilievVV 07:37, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

There is an election campaign, case will be listen by future arbcom staff, which will be elected via third-party site, and results of the elections can be wrong due to juggling or anything, which we (community) cannot verify. So, arbitrators (theoretically) will be bureaucrats' proteges... --Jaroslavleff 07:50, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Khristos voskrese, if you are whoever listen to it with a delight.

Back to the topic, VasilieVV is quite right here. Stewards use their technical abilities only per request based on community consensus. And the entire course described on the above has no relation to technical abilities entrusted to stewards. I have no idea why you thought stewards was involved. --Aphaia 07:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

But can we hear here stewards' opinion on this situation? --Jaroslavleff 07:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not steward, just a meta admin, but have to say that such procedure doesn't break any Foundation policy and was used on Commons:Picture of the Year elections — VasilievVV 07:51, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Bureaucrat ru:User:Obersachse BLOCKED a poll about this situation: ru:Википедия:Голосования/Выборы_арбитражного_комитета_на_стороннем_сервере! What we can do now? --Jaroslavleff 08:29, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

It is completely the internal affair of Russian Wikipedia and no related to the other community whose members stewards are and the Foundation. It should be solved at first on your own community, not meta. You are however welcome to open a request for comment on our RFC, but if you did not do the appropriate on your wiki before opening inter-wiki RFC, you would be rather criticized and taste more bitterness than at your home. --Aphaia 08:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

What we can do? Bureaucrats block all our initiatives! Thanks for the link to RFC, I didn't know about it. Later we asked there if we could not do anything... --Jaroslavleff 08:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I told you, open an arbitration case — VasilievVV 12:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

You should still at least make the attempt. Keep in mind that, for every legitimate effort to rectify the situation that they shut down, the better your argument looks. :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 13:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I understand your postion, Aphaia. But would like to make couple comments to show your the situation and existing concerns under different angle. If you analyze changes in administration approach in Russian section, you will be able to make a conclusion, that there are obviuos attempts to establish total information control on this power independent resource (implicitly or explicitly - who knows). Analogy between changes and methods of establishing such control in Russian society in recent years and this information project are obvious. It's not future, right now we have one very power administration control on not only technical aspects of the project (whhich I agree is very important) but also on information content of the project. And this administrative resource continues to strength this control through the steps similar to one described above, by ignoring community opinion. The whole Wikipedia community should take this seriously if freedom of speach and rights for individual to express his/her own opinion are the values. --Poa 14:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I again wonder why there is no arbitration case yet. Just bringing it here without using last chance to resolve the dispute within Russian Wikipedia community confuses me — VasilievVV 14:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you open an RFC case suggesting to desysop all administrators of Russian Wikipedia. It would be fun to read the reasoning. --Yaroslav Blanter 17:29, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• I wonder is this according to WMF policy to give access to IP of every voters to some guy who is not a checkuser?91.145.207.60 16:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

  Toolserver isn't subject of any WMF policy. You use it on your own risk — VasilievVV 16:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

  And that's exactly the problem: a site that's not subject to the WMF policies would be the host of supposedly policy-regulated election. --BeautifulFlying 18:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

  Well, as I said, it's not problem of Meta-wiki or whole Wikimedia foundation, it's a problem of Russian Wikipedia community and should be found out there — VasilievVV 18:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• The conflict was resolved. Elections will be taken by standart procedure without any tool-server. Thank you all for your comments. User:dima io22:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I am very glad to hear that! However, just as a note for future reference, I want to echo what VasilievVV and Aphaia said... this matter is not one that stewards would get involved in as it is an internal matter to the ruwiki. Stewards don't arbitrate disputes or judge policy matters. They only evaluate whether consensus exists or process is followed, before deciding about flipping a bit. That's as far as judgement takes them. That's my view, speaking as one particular steward. ++Lar: t/c 02:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Technical wishlist

Everybody is welcome to add their wishlist there — VasilievVV 18:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Chocolate

In replying to a suggestion at wikt:Wiktionary:Feedback, I have discovered that every multilingual and English language Wikimedia project has some content related to chocolate (although this is tenuous in Wikiversity's case), I have not investigated projects in other languages. I've saved the list at wikt:User:Thryduulf/chocolate, if anyone here is interested/bored enough to expand it to other languages, or indeed do anything else with it, feel free. Thryduulf (en,commons) 01:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Global rollback group

I suggest to introduce a global group, called "rollback".

Rollbackers' privileges: rollback

Requirements for rollbackers: to have rollback privilege on some Wikimedia project.

— VasilievV ² 12:18, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm only aware of the "rollback" group on the English Wikipedia myself at the moment, are there any others which have implemented this? From my knowledge of the process to gain rollback on enwikip, I'm not sure I'd be confident in granting rollback globally on the basis of rollback there. Perhaps it might be more appropriate to grant this those with admin rights on any WMF project. Adambro 12:25, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I think the requirements need to be rather tighter than that. Taking an example - because someone has "rollback" on en wp does not mean I think they should be able to do the same here or on Commons. I think they should be cross wiki admins/Small Wiki Monitoring Team folk personally --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:27, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Adam and Herby, in that the English Wikipedia rollback system and selection is not sufficiently high for global rollback, and indeed to define global rollback as such would simply raise the bar at individual wikis and hence cause more consternation. I support the suggestion of "any administrator on any Wikimedia Foundation wiki" (excluding testwiki and other assorted similar projects) upon their request at Meta. Daniel (talk) 12:39, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I just wonder what does "assorted similar projects" mean — VasilievV ² 12:44, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, projects similar to Test Wiki in that they aren't exactly mainstream Wikimedia projects. You could include, for example, internalwiki, otrswiki, Wikimania wikis, Incubatorwiki etc. as those which the administrators don't de facto qualify under the "Adminship on a Wikimedia Foundation wiki = rollback" rule. Daniel (talk) 13:07, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Incubator is a content project, and we have test-admins there — VasilievV ² 13:13, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Whoops, confused Incubator with Betawiki. But the point is still the same in effect. Daniel (talk) 13:42, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Just something else to consider, since I understand that SUL hasn't been rolled out beyond administrators yet, wouldn't it be impossible to grant this to anyone who doesn't have admin rights somewhere from a technical point of view? Adambro 12:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

At the moment yes (under the false assumption that only sysops have SULed accounts). But other users are going to get SULed sooner or later and making a policy now that covers that case as well is wiser, IMHO. --FiLiP ¤ 13:12, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was just noting that SUL being more widely available would be a prerequisite to anyone other than admins having any global rights so would rule out giving global rollback to anyone who isn't an admin at the present time. Adambro 14:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Global rollback would definitely be useful for fighting cross wiki vandalism, spam etc. However, I'm not sure how it should be implemented. For instance on nlwiki there's no local rollback group, but would a global group be possible? I agree with Herby and Daniel about the requirements. I think it should be reserved to cross wiki admins and the SWMT and you'd have to be an admin somewhere. --Erwin(85) 15:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Admins for now is fine by me. It's not like rollback is a very high-power tool, so I'd want to see it expanded once SUL is rolled out for all.  – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 21:03, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, global rollback for admins is a great idea. The auto-summery being in the project's local language would also be a plus. Global rollback for non-admins would cause a lot issues, I think, if it's done like it is now. Let's say some admin somewhere thinks anyone who asks nicely should have it, while another admin somewhere else thinks no one but admins should have it. You have cross-project wheel-warring without a unified community to step in between. They may even support their respective admin's actions. You would need a global policy of who can get the right, who can remove it, what the criteria is, etc. I don't think it'd really be worth it for just rollback. Rocket000 06:27, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Already tested Global rollback, it was great, only had it for 12 minutes, the stewards are interested in introducing this soon, but they firstly need a guideline to govern it to prevent abuse, and they are discussing it on the stewards-l and they might just implement it soon, AZ1568 is the other person that had a slight preview of it, and I think it will be an excellent addition to our Global wikimedia family :) ..--Cometstyles 10:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

How will this be affected by the global sysop discussion below, or will it? -- Avi 04:45, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

actually this was the first idea brought about after the successful introduction of SUL, but some stewards decided to take it up a notch, and completely forgot about it, and since then there has been no discussion on it...--Cometstyles 10:27, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe that a case could be made that people who have demonstrated worthy of community trust (sysop+) on one wiki, or perhaps on at least two wikis, can be given global rollback, but I'm somewhat worried about handing it out based on one person's decision as is now done on enwiki. -- Avi 14:38, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

iu.wikt

Hola Piolinfax, please don't make this site blink so much (it makes me dizzy). I am quite surprised by this decision, in fact imho it is wrong. I have requested to reopen the wiki in Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Inuktitut Wiktionary and bugzilla:13967. Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| ∇ 19:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --Piolinfax ^(@es.wikt) 20:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Why is Wikipedia listing news on their Main Page?

I recently posted a comment on Wikipedia's Village Pump reagarding their news section on their main page. If Wikimedia projects are truly coming closer together (Unified Login, etc.) then why is Wikipedia (the largest of their projects) stealing territory from Wikinews? (Often, in typography, it is difficult to determine what kind of mood someone is in when typing, please know that I am not angry when typing this.)

You do not open the newspaper to find general knowledge and information, nor do you open the encyclopedia to find the latest in happenings. I am in complete favour of Wikipedia having the news section simply as links to the Wikinews project, but not to an encyclopedia article.

I am in complete and full favour of attempting to get all of the Wikimedia projects as large as Wikipedia, and am thrilled by movements towards this, such as Unified Login.

Thank you! Agomulka 12:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I, as someone who contributes frequently to both enwikip and enwikinews, don't see a problem. These aren't news articles, these are encyclopaedic articles which happen to be related to current events. I think this is of a great benefit to readers who will visit the homepage and then quickly find something interesting to read about which is current and in the news at the time. I don't really consider it encroaching onto the scope of Wikinews and I think it potentially benefits both projects. Adambro 17:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Adambro. Wikipedia is not trying to be WikiNews lite. Rather, this is part of the main page's purpose of showcasing various interesting articles. The "Did-You-Know"'s are showcasing bits from a human interest perspective, the main FA article is showcasing bits from our best work, the news section is showcasing bits from a current-events perspective, and the "On this day..." section is showcasing bits from a historical persepctive. -- Avi 14:45, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, the purpose of the newssection on frontpages should be to let visitors of the page give an opportunitie to enter Wikipedia-topics based on what is in the news. The in the news section thus should be a navigation-tool. But what I do think, is that it should be made more clear to visitors that there is a Wikinews. It should also be made more clear in Wikipedia that there are other projects and that there are other languages in what Wikipedia appears in. I have seen people reacting on some pages like Wikipedia exists only in English and that besides a "few" pages in other languages it is English were it is all about. Wikipedia in other languages are growing fast, and on almost every Wikipedia in every language it seems the case that many Wikipedians even do not know (or vaguely heard of) that there are other projects like Wiktionary, WikiNews, and others. Projects in the same language should be more connected to positive influence exchange of users and activity of users. Greetings from nl-wiki - Romaine 18:03, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

No more admins

Hi, I am a casual editor on multiple Wikimedia projects, especially Wikipedia and Wikisource (in English and Romanian), and on Commons. I want to ask a question about what happens if a project "runs out" of admins. For example, there were only three admins on the Romanian Wikisource, two of which aren't active anymore, and the third is barely active. I asked for adminship on the Romanian Wikisource, but since there was no other admin to discuss, well, nothing happened. The problem is that WS:ro is still being edited by people, even though there almost aren't any more admins there. The point is that I would like to become an admin there, so that I can also update WS, and other things. Is there any way to do that from here, if there are no more admins there? Note: As I said above there still is one more admin still showing some kind of activity, but very, very rarely. -- diego_pmc 19:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, this is no problem, if the community is too small to hold a voting just request temp-adminship at rfp. Admins are voted in by the local community, so if there are still people editing they could hold a voting. But if not I would recommend to ask for the temp - status, which is technically the same (same admin-functions), You just check back some time before the status expires to let us know everything is fine.

Best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| ∇ 20:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

K, thanks for the answer. -- diego_pmc