Discussion Reports And Miscellaneous Articulations

The following is a brief overview of new discussions taking place on the English Wikipedia. For older, yet possibly active, discussions please see last week's edition.

• Bot to auto-resize oversized non-free images

A Request for bot approval was opened by Neurolysis on 14 February requesting that his bot NeuRobot be granted approval to automatically resize non-free images that are too large. Per the Non-free content criteria an oversize non-free image should be replaced with a smaller version to comply with Wikipedia's non-free content policy and United States copyright law. According to Wikipedia's policy for non-free content, the amount of copyrighted work used under fair use should be as little as possible. In particular, non-free media on Wikipedia should not be usable as substitutes for the original work. This bot will resize images in Category:Non-free image size reduction request to 400px on their longest side. The bot will only modify PNGs and JPG/JPEGs using PS, OptiPNG, and ADVPNG. As the request has been met with general approval, the bot is approved for a 1 week trial or 500 image modifications, whichever comes first.

• Discussion over whether Wikipedia is a bureaucracy

Questions were raised at WP:NOT regarding whether or not Wikipedia is a bureaucracy. Aseld started the conversation by stating:

We have a codified system of formal guidelines and a clear authoritarian heirachy, [sic] as well as formal dispute resolution processes. We even have bureaucrats!

The policy section WP:BURO was tagged with {{Policycontroversy}} while discussions continue. Current comments have shown a consensus that having some bureaucratic processes does not make Wikipedia a bureaucracy.

• Restoration of [[Wikipedia:Build the web]] to state prior to being merged

Following multiple discussions beginning in October 2008 Wikipedia:Build the web was merged and redirected to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links). After the move was made it was disputed by a few editors who are currently outweighed by others who agree with the move. A set of proposed actions was laid out as a compromise that would:

1. Restore WP:Build the web as a historical page
2. Place a prominent message on that page directing people to the current guideline on that subject, which is this page [MOSLINK]
3. Rename this page [MOSLINK to] Wikipedia:Linking

The actions have been met with general objection from the parties involved.

• Straw poll on granting bureaucrats the technical ability to desysop

A proposal has been made to allow bureaucrats the ability to desysop accounts. According to the proposal:

Currently, all desysoppings are carried out by members of the Steward user group. Questions have been raised whether or not "outsourcing" all of our desysoppings to Meta, rather than keeping them in en.wikipedia, is such a good idea.

Support for the proposal outweighs the opposition by approximately a 2:1 margin, with WilyD noting, "From the 'this is a wiki' argument - what can be done should be able to be undone." Opponents say that such a move would create a mess in the desysopping logs, since some desysoppings would take place locally on the English Wikipedia, and some would still be done by stewards on Meta. Additionally, opponents expressed a desire for a "second set of eyes" (namely, that of an uninvolved steward) on potentially controversial desysoppings.

• IRC discussion on various A-Class proposals

A meeting was held on IRC channel #wikipedia-1.0 on 21 February at 1900h UTC to discuss a good mechanism for getting WikiProjects engaged in A-Class peer review; how to clarify the difference between community reviews from WikiProject reviews; whether it should be allowed for an article to be both A and FA, or A and GA, or B and GA. After conclusions they were to discuss if the assessment team should try out the proposed courses of action, should they abandon A-Class reviews, or whether they should leave community and WikiProject reviews merged together as they are now. The discussion was to last no longer than 2100h UTC, setting another date to meet if they had not yet come to a consensus. The discussion resulted in consensus that GA and FA assessments should be separated from the rest on WikiProject banners (an incremental step towards the goal of having separate scales for project-wide and site-wide assessments), so that, for example, Dungeons & Dragons would be a Featured A-Class article. Secondly, there is going to be a work group dedicated to better organization between WikiProjects, with its first goal being to help coordinate A-Class reviews and assessments for each interested project. A summary is available here and the complete discussion has been archived here.

• Proposition to make Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing a guideline

Close paraphrasing is currently an essay, but Dcoetzee proposed making it a guideline. The page is currently linked on {{Close paraphrase}}, and the idea is to make it more enforceable. Little discussion has taken place, but the main issue that opponents of the proposal have pointed out is that the page, as it is written, is too ambiguous to be a guideline.

• Using italics in page titles

It was proposed to standardize the italicization of titles through parameters in infoboxes. This is being done at some pages (example), and it was argued that its use should be encouraged in such cases as film and book titles. The discussion was archived before reaching a clear consensus, though there was significant support for the proposal.

• Proposed removal of LyricWiki interwiki links

On 16 February, a proposal was brought to the technical village pump regarding the removal of the LyricWiki interwiki link. It was brought to attention that the correct forum to discuss the removal was Meta. A request was filed at Meta on 30 December to remove the interwiki link. It has been assumed that the interwiki will be removed when the global Interwiki map is updated.

• Proposal to replace FAC

A draft proposal has been setup to replace the current system of selecting featured articles (the system at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, better known as WP:FAC) with a new system based around the assessment work already done by WikiProjects. The proposal has eight points stating:

1. Every three months, the WikiProjects should be invited to submit proposals for articles to be featured on the Main Page.
2. The proposals should be made publicly, and at least one month before any of the proposed articles actually appears. To give an example, proposals for articles to appear on the Main Page between 1 July and 30 September should be made by 23:59 UTC 31 May at the latest.
3. An article which has already appeared on the Main Page may not be proposed. However, WikiProjects may keep the same Proposed Article through several quarters, if they so wish and if it has not yet appeared on the Main Page.
4. WikiProjects are invited to bear in mind the existing featured article criteria when proposing articles. However, the overriding criterion in their choice should be that the article represents the best work in their field.
5. The proposals should be made on a dedicated page, for example Wikipedia:Proposed featured articles/2009, 3rd quarter. WikiProjects could include a brief gloss with the article name, to indicate (for example) that a given article is particularly appropriate for a given day.
6. The system should aim to have 150–200 Proposed Articles per quarter, from fields which reflect the general distribution of articles on English Wikipedia. In the case of the smaller WikiProjects, who may not have an article they feel is good enough to represent their subject area on the Main Page, they are still invited to have a "Best Article" system with which they can advertise the article(s) which they think are their best, and so not leave any decision or improvement until the last minute.
7. Editors who feel that an article is "not good enough" to appear on the Main Page are strongly invited to improve it, while respecting the work and opinions of other editors.
8. The article which appears on the Main Page on any given day will be chosen by WP:TFA, as occurs at present.

Current discussions involve the ability of WikiProjects to be trusted to do this work, especially the smaller ones. As the proposal is a draft a final Rfc has not yet been opened.

• Giving BAG members the technical ability to grant and revoke bot flags

A proposition to give BAG members the technical ability to grant and revoke bot flags is currently underway. While there is almost no support for the proposal, it has been stated that users would agree to give BAG members the ability to remove bot flags. Many of the opposers add to their comments that this proposal is "a solution looking for a problem". As it stands only bureaucrats who have the technical ability to flag and deflag bots.

• Use of team colors in infoboxes and WP:Color compliance

An Rfc was opened to decide if sports infoboxes should use team colors, and if used, whether those colors should conform to WP:Color. There is general opposition to removing team colors from infoboxes and marginally equal support for making the colors compliant to WP:COLOR. The request arose from concerns that the use of colors could possibly cause accessibility problems.

• Proposal to make WP:MAINSTREAM a policy or guideline

It has been proposed to make Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia a policy or guideline. The proposed text states that:

While articles should not endorse any perspective, fringe or orthodox, the perspective of a consensus of experts will be presented most prominently.

Current comments have been to mark the proposal as an essay; citing that it contradicts WP:NPOV or that it is a simplified version of WP:UNDUE. Proponents of the proposal state that it is supplementary to or parallels NPOV and would finally state that Wikipedia is a serious encyclopedia.

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23 February 2009 (all comments)

Philosophers analyze Wikipedia

Article Alerts

News and notes

In the news

Dispatches

WikiProject report

Discussion report

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== "Proposal to replace FAC" ==

This section is very confusing. It seems to slide between two different issues - FAC, the process of choosing which articles are given the designation "Featured" and TFA, the process of choosing the FA to appear on the Main Page. Of course, the debate may be about both, but that's not clear from the text. --Dweller (talk) 11:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm being unfair. It seems it's the Proposal that's confusing, not your report. Ignore me. --Dweller (talk) 12:52, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Build the web

"A group of editors"? Please work on your neutral phrasing a little more. Also, copy-and-pasting one side of a disagreement - "historical seems more appropriate" - is a really poor show at fairly representing a discussion. — Hex (❝?!❞) 04:29, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1) How else should I describe a handful of editors? Cabal work better for you? 2) I copied a proposal. I tried to keep neutral by using other's comments from both sides. I felt the proposal was linked to enough that it could be included instead of using an interpretation on what the proposer was doing. I didn't say "The best part of the discussion was when an awesome proposal came into play. All those cabally editors who always whine about what other people do think it's stoooopid." Did I? You're always free to contribute to the Post, but please don't just come in stomping your feet about what everybody else did "wrong". It does nobody any good. This comment does not reflect the opinion of any other editor or entity of the Wikipedia Signpost, this editor claims full responsibility for their contributions. §hep^Talk 05:01, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A blockquote signifies just that, a quote. It isn't my position to modify the text of a proposal, that would present an unfair bias. §hep^Talk 05:03, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Basically, "a group" of editors can be read as implying something like a gang. "Several", "some" or even "a few" editors are unambiguous. Regarding the proposal, the parenthetical part of the first quoted point is editorializing on its author's part, and could have been left out without affecting the factual content of the article at all. I would elide it myself, but jumping into your work and editing it doesn't feel right. I hope you'll do so.

I'm not "stomping my feet". Just pointing out that when you're writing news articles destined to be read by hundreds or thousands of people, you need to be extremely careful about how you represent disputes, even more so when quoting parts of one. I hope you can accept this as suggestions made in good faith. — Hex (❝?!❞) 12:37, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's a wiki, feel free to fix anything you see that could be upgraded. I hope my changes are sufficient? §hep^Talk 16:51, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - that's great. The Signpost feels a bit more personal than encyclopedia articles, so I was being cautious. :) Best wishes. — Hex (❝?!❞) 18:04, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]