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<translate> The Wikimedia Forum is a central place for questions, announcements and other discussions about the [[<tvar|wmf>Special:MyLanguage/Wikimedia Foundation</>|Wikimedia Foundation]] and its projects. (For discussion about the Meta wiki, see [[<tvar|meta-babel>Special:MyLanguage/Meta:Babel</>|Meta:Babel]].)
This is not the place to make technical queries regarding the [[<tvar|mediawiki>Special:MyLanguage/MediaWiki</>|MediaWiki software]]; please ask such questions at the [[<tvar|mw-support-desk>mw:Project:Support desk</>|MediaWiki support desk]]; technical questions about Wikimedia wikis, however, can be placed on [[<tvar|tech>Special:MyLanguage/Tech</>|Tech]] page.</translate>

<translate> You can reply to a topic by clicking the "<tvar|editsection>[edit]</>" link beside that section, or you can [<tvar|newsection>//meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Forum&action=edit&section=new</> start a new discussion].</translate>

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Wikimedia Meta-Wiki

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This page experimentally allows language localisation.

Global userpage

I was thinking today that a global userpage function would be really handy for global users. Based here on Meta, one could design a "global" userpage that would appear as a kind of default userpage on every project that a given global user has not specifically logged in to, has edited, or has previously created a userpage on. For instance, if I were to create a global userpage, I'd make mine a redirect to my meta userpage:

"[[m:User:Anonymous Dissident]]"

I think this could be very handy; personally, I'd make all of my user pages on projects I don't edit on much be simply a redirect to my meta userpage anyway, but I'd have to do it manually, so this would be a very useful functionality for anyone in the same state of mind. Thoughts? --Anonymous Dissident^Talk 10:35, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Support, if it is a default page, which appears on accounts that are merged (auto or manual, not on all 745 ones), and that I can simly change them. For redirecting it would be great (I am sure, many users would use them for 50 KB selfpromotion, but you can not avoid this...), -jkb- (cs.source) 11:13, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

This is interesting. I have userpages on something like three dozen projects and they are mostly very similar.; I'd have more if creating them were a bit less tedious. I use subpages for different chunks of the page and pull them all together with with transclusion in the userpage proper. I think what this proposal basically entails is cross-wiki transclusion. Enabling that would be a truly great feature. I can think of several possible issues, so limits may be appropriate. Please, please, please, allow user-subpages, too. Cheers, Jack Merridew 12:24, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I strongly support this idea, although how about the choice to choose what page is mirrored? I have some different content on my enwiki and meta userpages but would definitely create one in a meta user subpage e.g. a box in Preferences which says 'Mirrored userpage: User:E/mirroruser'. It's worth looking into and would be very helpful. — E ^talk 12:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is an appropriate use of resources, though I agree that user pages should by default have a soft-redirect to the home wiki of the global editor (as that is what most people do). Though that would require the ability to choose one's home wiki I suppose. Conrad.Irwin 22:42, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

"appropriate use of resources"? Care to expound on that? --Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:08, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, and good idea. Support: Assuming it is, as said above, only the default, which can be changed simply by editing the local userpage. - Rjd0060 23:13, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I have similar thoughts. I think this is quite easy as long as the function of global redirection is enabled. People can choose which wikis they like to host their usepages. Most wikipedians contribute on the wikipedia by default. --Phlyming 02:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Be warned that MANY user pages uses a lot of templates that are speciic to one site and will not work on another; don't forget also the case of links that don't work identically (different namlespaces, collisions and disambiguation pages); in addition, they also use interwikis to another project where the same user page will not make the interwiki link work as expected (due to something I consider a bug, e.g. "w:en:apple" would work on French wikipedia to link to the English fruit, but not on English WP, and "w:apple" on EN.WP would not work correctly on FR.WP where it would give the page for the computer manufacturer. Having common pages and templates is really too much tricky.

Some more ideas:

• On the opposite, having common preferences set automatically from the global account would allow reimporting automatically a few things like the user preferences, until the user starts creating content, where the preferences will be set locally and registered, then modifiable locally on each project.
• In addition, there could exist an option in the User preferences that will explicitly reimport and overwrite these items.
• Finally, user preferences are currently edited using only the configuration panel in the special page. However these preferences should have an history that can be ret by the user itself, to possibly revert a temporary change.
• Another thing to add in the user preferences profile: the babel wikicodes and levels (that are sharable). When using {{#babel:...}} the list would be prefilled with items from the global user preferences, and will appear at the top, then other items can be used only to override some levels when they are of the form "<recognized-language-code>-<number>", or to add other items specific to the local wiki.
• Note another related bug: the <languageslist/> is currently not sorted at all! This combobox is almost unusable: too hard to find any language in it!!! See for example the home page of Betawiki...

90.45.93.218 06:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I think a page managed from meta as a default (and modifiable) userpage for a global userpage is a good idea. seresin (¡?) 06:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

 Support This is a good idea. User pages may use some specific models which must be available on Meta. We also may have global monobook personnal scripts --DavidL 14:43, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree with DavidL, if a global userpage is activated, I think that a global .css/.js-userfile would be a very good idea. //Moralist 13:16, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

 Support - Another great idea brought to you by Anonymous Dissident (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 13:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

• Please look at bugzilla:14759 "Make pages in User: namespace transparent to meta:User:". guillom 13:37, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the link guillom (talk · contribs), this would be quite useful IMO if this actually goes through and it looks like there is some progress. Perhaps we should post a note about this with a link to bugzilla:14759 at community locations on other wikis? Cirt (talk) 14:24, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Alternative: The WikiEditors Wiki

(Or some such name)

Personally, (and especially with all the new global permissions and such), I think that it would be far better to have all userpages on a separate wiki.

This would deal with quite a few issues.

Consider Wikipedia: en:wp:Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. (Or Wiktionary, or any of the other sister projects)

Any page that doesn't directly serve each project can thus be removed/transwikied from each project. (This also deals with the google question concerning userpages and all other "non-project-specific" pages.)

And on the converse, this removes the need to have to keep an eye on over a dozen user talk pages. (user and user talk namespaces would be disabled on all wikimedia projects)

And implementation for linking? No problem, just set the wiki shortcut to be User: - thus, no need to change any pages to update links, they'd still automatically point to the users' page or talk page. (And User talk: to point to user:talk:).

And it also removes the "appearance" or "feeling" of separate projects. I would presume editors would be more likely to help out at other projects if this seeming wall which highlights too concretely the differences between them. When in truth, they are all wikis.

One thing this would likely eventually cause (however) is global behavioral guidelines/policies.

Content inclusion/disinclusion and naming and other style guidelines may be determined "locally", but editor behavior (such as civility and socking) will likely need to be drawn up globally. (And in some ways it has already I believe?)

And note, just to dispel any possible confusion, this proposal is not suggesting a change to anyone's wiki preferences, edits, watchlists, contrib history, or anything else tied to the user's username. This is merely proposing moving pages to this proposed wiki.

All-in-all, I think that having an editor wiki would be not just a "good thing", but a great thing.

(And for all I know, they may be working towards this already.)

Thoughts and/or concerns are welcome. - Jc37 02:37, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't like this idea. For example I've written an English language page on en:User:Alpertron but w:es:Usuario:Alpertron is in Spanish for obvious reasons. Which would be the language used on that editor wiki? Notice that most people do not understand English. Best regards, Alpertron 14:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I supp00ort this, presuming that <div class="multilingual"> and such can be used to make it simpler for different languages. Also, would the new messages bar appear on say, en.wikinews, when someone sends me a message on the editors wiki?Anonymous101 08:20, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Cross-wiki new talk notification has been on my to-do list for quite some time. Werdna 01:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Special talk: namespace?

I think that it'd be useful if we had a Special talk: namespace. It seems fitting, because discussion about the special: pages and proposed improvements/changes therein may be warranted. --Anonymous Dissident^Talk 08:41, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

On EnWP these discussions generally take place in the Wikipedia talk: namespace (talk page of a page describing the special page) which works well enough. —Giggy 09:44, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know they do. But it is namespatially (lol) incorrect, akin to the whole Portal:Main page vs. Main page problem. There is no reason for there not to be a Special talk:. --Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Do we need a bug to get that namespace turned on? Is it even doable? Do you have an example of a wiki that has one? Special isn't like other namespaces... ++Lar: t/c 10:26, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

No, I agree, it isn't. All I am saying is that discussion of special: pages may sometime be needed. Anything is doable, and I'd guess that this would be a relatively simple task from a developer's point of view. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:16, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

At the moment there's not a super-convenient way to just enable a 'Special talk' namespace (Special NS is a pseudo-namespace with a magical negative ID number, and all our subject/talk pairing is dependent on even-odd pairs >= 0), but a fake talk tab can be added that points to, say, 'Project talk:Recentchanges' or 'Project talk:Special:Recentchanges'. You could mock this up with site JavaScript and if people are happy with it we could make it an extension or part of MediaWiki core. --brion 20:01, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

What I thought... it's special!! :) As for a fake #2 tab that goes to pages in the project namespace, that seems a nifty idea. Someone want to try making a gadget to do this? The thing is, once you follow the tab there, THAT page's first tab theoretically ought to go back to the special (rather than to Project:Recentchanges, or to Project:Special:Recentchanges) , so some mockup-ery there too maybe??? That argues for using 'Project talk:Special:Recentchanges' I would think, so the script could key off the middle :Special: easily. (I suppose giving "Special talk:" namespace -2 is right out? :) )++Lar: t/c 00:57, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

This sounds like a great idea which could be very useful - especially for newer users that might not know where to go to discuss something related to a Special page. Cirt 01:04, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, brion. I think you've got a great idea. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 07:41, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Brion, I would also like to thank you for the suggestion. I think that woudl be a great thing to help new users. Anonymous101 08:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Enable mw:Extension:Nuke on WMF wikis by default

This would help stewards mass-delete pages when necessary on small wikis, and gives local sysops that ability as well. This extension doesn't allow administrators or sysops to do anything they can't already, but simply makes it faster. I suspect enwiki and other large wikis will want to opt-out; would users from those wikis please note that we are not trying to force this upon you. Any wiki which wishes to have this disabled, can do so.

List of wikis not included in this proposal

chrwiki (already has it)

commonswiki (already has it)

dewiki (should decide for themselves)

enwiki (should decide for themselves)

frwiki (should decide for themselves)

mediawikiwiki (already has it)

metawiki (already has it)

pdcwiki (already has it)

...?

Arguments in favor

• This would ease the work of SWMT members/stewards/sysops cleaning up newpage vandalism/copyvios very much.
• More server friendly than doing these deletions manually or per script.

Arguments against

• Sysops going nuts can delete hundreds of pages very soon and these had to be restored manually or with a script.

Support

•  Support  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 17:52, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support Yesterday i was deleting one of newbies copyvios i was remembering this extension ! I think it would be useful for admin in all projects meanwhile helping steward serving as SWMT --Mardetanha ^talk 18:21, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support I think this is an excellent idea and will prove quite helpful to deal with page-creation vandalism from vandals with sleeper registered accounts. (Not to mention obvious copyvios as noted by Mardetanha). Cirt 19:07, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
• + that sounds reasonable, best regards, --birdy geimfyglið _(:> )=| ∇ 19:12, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
• Support - Good idea, could be useful for Incubator as well. SPQRobin ^(inc!) 19:13, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support, by all means. --EivindJ 07:53, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support, very useful — vvv 13:14, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support, A good idea, plus being more server friendly than Twinkle's batch delete function. Soxred93 15:11, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support Laaknor 18:52, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support very good idea. Majorly ^talk 13:02, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
• Please do, but advertise it widely so that big and middle-size wikis can opt-out before it's enabled. guillom 13:38, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support - Very good idea againt vandalism. I now use a homemade bot to so such mass-delete actions and this could be superb. Mwpnl 23:55, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support --Pietrodn · talk with me 06:52, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
• Would be very useful. --Erwin(85) 09:02, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support Though I'm inclined to agree with guillom's assertion that we should advertise it so decent-sized wikis (other than those outlined) can still opt out. EVula // talk // ☯ // 18:25, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support →Christian.И 20:18, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
•  Support This extension is required in large wiki for deleting copyvios.--Kwj2772 08:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
•  Support I concur.--Kul 00:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
• support —DerHexer (Talk) 10:40, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
•  Support - I don't see the problem with having it on large wiki's. On a large wiki your are more liekly to get mass page creation vandalism. Admins are meant to bre trusted sp they are unlikely to go mad.
•  Support- I'd trust the sysops with a possibly useful tool, they are the most trusted community members after all. RedThunder 01:08, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
•  Support We can already do this with pywikipedia, but such an extension greatly simplifies such a task. Annabel 10:43, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

 Oppose I STRONGLY disagree here, much damage can be caused with this script. A rogue sysop could easily delete thousands of pages in a very short time and at this time they would have to be manually restored as to my knowlege no script exists to mass restore pages. We have already seen that many vandals are patient enough build up a good reputation and get sysop rights. Just to reek havoch. I would only trust this power to 'crats and stewards. Prom3th3an 07:20, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

That is an argument against wikis, not an argument against this proposal. Further, you may misunderstand what this feature does - it allows deletion of page creations by a single user which are still in recentchanges. That is, you cannot delete old pages, nor a list of arbitrary pages - this doesn't allow anything sysops cannot already do, it only saves them time and effort.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:05, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Neutral/Comments

• Neutral I like the idea having Nuke on small wikis without active local sysops. But on the other projects it should be up to the community to decide that. I don't know why enwiki may decide it for themselves but the others not. --Thogo (talk) 19:20, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

  Mostly because I cannot list them all. The "...?" meant "Please help me out by listing other large wikis which should decide for themselves"  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:02, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

  I should also point out that it is a really low-impact change - it only affects the ease with which sysops may delete bad page creations by a single user.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:05, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

  I would rather like it as an opt-in. With auto-opt-in for wikis without own sysops. --Thogo (talk) 19:20, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

  Agreed. --MZMcBride 19:36, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

  Btw., I asked on dewiki (without linking this discussion), what they think about having it there. Let's see what kind of arguments they give. One is that a going-mad sysop could delete thousands of pages and one had to restore them manually... --Thogo (talk) 20:07, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

• In a sense, it currently is an opt-in in that you just make a bugzilla request after showing a bit of consensus onwiki (that's what we did on Commons). I think it would be a good idea to get this on some small wikis, but I don't think enabling it almost globally is the best idea. Maybe enable it for wikis covered by SWMT or something like that? —Giggy 13:25, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
• In general, can someone please explain mass deletion. How is it done and how can you check which pages to delete. I don't get it from the extension page. Pjetter 19:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

  You enter a username, which gives you a list of their recent page creations (including media uploads) with checkboxes. Specify a deletion reason, specify the pages to delete, press the button and they're gone. This can already be done with scripts, but using the extension is easier (especially for stewards, who would otherwise have to import the script to any wiki where they need to do many deletions after a spambot, vandal etc.)  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 18:10, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Closed wikis

It has came to my attention that closed wikis can be the source of problems particularly for IW links.

When a wiki is locked down (generally for inactivity) edits to the site are completely blocked.

This is a problem because IW links can no longer be fixed meaning there is a permanent invalid IW linkage which may mislead bots and humans (visitors reading articles) alike.

In addition it creates a backlog as the wikis in question will be unlocked eventually. Admittedly the locked wikis are small so backlog isn't exactly too big of a deal.

In addition locked wikis also need to be edited for SUL unifications, username renames (can relate to SUL), leftover spam deletions and etc.

I really think certain usergroups and/or global usergroups should be allowed to edit such wikis.

-- Cat ^chi? 01:37, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

It would be good to give the Stewards (at least) the ability to edit a closed wiki. —Giggy 09:10, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I never understood why wikis are "closed" in the first place. I am willing to bet it is to save time on maintenance of wikis that only get spam or vandalism edits. Blocking edits from regular users and anons would do just that. -- Cat ^chi? 09:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The wikis are not closed, they are moved to Incubator. Everybody can edit them over there. The only exceptions are Siberian (non-existing language) and Moldovan (political reasons) project, both closed more than a year ago.--Yaroslav Blanter 16:21, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

That may be, but I do have a database in place which is permanently locked from edits. That is the problem. -- Cat ^chi? 17:35, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I see that VasilievVV added a new MediaWiki extension CloseWikis (see rev:40246) which gives an interface for stewards to close and reopen wikis. SPQRobin ^(inc!) 11:42, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion that extension would give stewards too much power. If an account was compromised they could cause a ton of trouble. Anonymous101 08:26, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Stewards are supposed to have full access to everything. Werdna 01:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Referencing

I noticed various project put various weight in referencing. Smaller Wikipedias (like CS) almost do not source anything. Featured articles in German Wikipedia have very very few refs in comparison to EN featured articles. EN Wikibooks do not source almost at all, German Wikibooks do really source well.--Kozuch 23:23, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The dutch wikipedia also has only a few references, while it is not a small project. Probably a bit comparable to the German one.Cumulus 22:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I am asking - is Wikimedia (or someone else) going to do something about it???--Kozuch 08:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Merging importers and transwiki importers

Importers and transwiki importers are similar group permission. I can't understand why these permission should be seperated. I suggest merging Importers and transwiki importer to Importer. Thanks.--Kwj2772 06:53, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

• I  Support this, although they are slightly different, they are very similar so it makes sense to make them the same user class. If someone can be trusted to imp0ort from other wm wikis I don't see the problem with them importing from other wikis. Anonymous101 08:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

New project proposal: "Wikigames"

All,

Thought I'd highlight a new (and currently very brief) wiki proposal, Wikigames. Apart from anything else, it needs some attention. :-)

James F. (talk) 10:57, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

It does nothing to explain why games require a separate wiki when Wikipedia already encompasses such informations. Perhaps you could shed light on this? Additionally, this seems more Wikia-centred, because WMF projects tend to be more (and I say this politely) seriously and broadly scoped. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 11:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Articles on tv episodes, computer games, and other fictional topic that "noone knows about" are constantly been redirectified on English wikipedia. If that problematic behaviour stops, there will not be a need for the said proposal. Just like wikispecies I do not believe this would work well. -- Cat ^chi? 11:45, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Uhh, what? How exactly has Wikispecies not worked well? With close to 150,000 pages, it is a much broader taxonomic reference than Wikipedia could ever be, and it is a very useful directory in those respects. Oh well, I guess that's getting side-tracked. I guess I concur with the above, excluding the 'Species bit. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 12:00, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Has not worked well in the sense that, that information shouldn't have been chipped off of wikipedia in the first place (IMHO) -- Cat ^chi? 15:46, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

...how is your opinion a gauge that a project has been unsuccessful? EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

AD, not entirely clear why you think I'd have any idea how the proposer's concept would work. I don't, FWIW. :-)

James F. (talk) 15:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as a "Wikigames" project goes, this would be best documented on Wikipedia itself, or perhaps as a Wikia project. A full Wikimedia Foundation project is overkill. EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I for one like this idea. I would suggest the project to do more than just being an encyclopedia though. Adding gaming experiences, and reviews (not promotional reviews for new games, but expert analysis of existing ones), for instance, might make it more attractive. Guido den Broeder 14:49, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

As long as it does not describe computer games this might be a good idea.Cumulus 11:21, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with EVula (talk · contribs) that this is overkill and not necessary as its own WMF project. Cirt (talk) 12:04, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Metawiki logo poll

Please participate in the Metawiki logo poll. Thanks. -- Cat ^chi? 15:30, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

community is requesting langcom to change current language proposal policy

hi, metapub members.

Many people strongly disagree with current language proposal policy and request langcom for a change.

Community has made a draft, that you can check here. this is our suggestion for a change. Community guess langcom have made a mistake.

Crazymadlover 01:41, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Blacklist and GFDL

If a Wikipedia project copies an article from another GFDL site, providing a link as required, and then puts that site on their blacklist, and manually breaks the link, is that considered a violation of the license? Regards, Guido den Broeder 20:51, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

IANAL but I think it depends on what type of attirubtion is required. for example, if atribution to the author and not the website is required, that should not be a problem. If attribution to the website is required it may not be a problem if the url is displayed, as offline copies of GFDL things (obviously) dont have a clickable link. Anonymous101 08:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem that is being brought to attention is a mix of several issues. Guido is blocked on the Dutch wikipedia and created another encyclopedia site. The problem is that his site is not conforming to the GFDL (copying wikipedia's articles, while not mention its source and contributors properly). Many other articles have other, but dubious sources, and, hence, the articles on that site can not be used on wikipedia. This was one of the reasons for temporarily, or permanently, blacklisting wikisage. As a results, some links had to be unlinked, while retaining the link to the original page in text. Hence, there is no violation on wikipedia, because everything is visible in the history and also on the page itself. In addition, no pages from his site are copied, and if so, other more neutral references are or have been sought. Annabel 20:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Annabel, for yet another attempt at defamation. Annabel is the user that had me blocked in 2007 by falsely accusing me of sockpuppetry. He has done the same to other good-faith users as well.

We are following the GFDL, thanks, we are not nl:Wikipedia. It has been confirmed by GNU experts that our interpretation is correct and yours isn't. You are basing your pov on the nl:Wikipedia article about the license, but that article, which deviates from e.g. the en:Wikipedia article, is wrong.

I would not know what you mean by 'other, but dubious sources'. I suggest you leave that to our users to decide. Personally, I often find nl:Wikipedia a dubious source.

Your blacklisting of Wikisage is pure malice, from the same user Oscar who has incessantly been defaming me for almost a year now and whose contributions these days consist mainly of blocking other good-faith users on fake grounds and thrashing user pages. Please, continue in this manner, your are at a point that whatever brings closing nl:Wikipedia down nearer is a good thing. Links to us not being found on nl:Wikipedia can only boost our reputation.

Finally,note that you are at Wikimedia, which is the wrong place for filing complaints: Wikisage is not part of the foundation.

@Anonymous101: you are probably correct. Paper copies not being clickable is a good point. Guido den Broeder 21:12, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Ignoring the above back-and-forth comments for a moment, regarding the issue itself I agree with Anonymous101 (talk · contribs). There should be no difference as far as licensing, if the information is indeed taken from a GFDL site and attribution is given, if the link provided for informational purposes is a live link or a text link, IMO. Cirt (talk) 01:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

The articles on wikisage.org doesn't has a link to the wikipedia article. Or source info how is it possible that you think it's oké so Guido? Sterkebaktalk 08:04, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, can we leave Wikisage's issues to Wikisage and the Dutch Wikipedia's issues to the Dutch Wikipedia? Thanks. --Erwin(85) 08:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. If articles at Wikisage don't have a permalink to Wikipedia in the edit summary, then that probably is because they were not copied from Wikipedia. We are not a mirror site, thanks. Guido den Broeder 09:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

The blacklist has to do with the prevention of adding external links that can be clicked on in an article or other pages. These links are inserted by putting the complete URL including the "http://" at the start and adding brackets. The GFDL is designed for papers so a clickable link cannot be mandatory. As long as the information about the source is available it should be OK. Therefor this whole item is a non-issue. - Robotje 09:52, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Robotje (talk · contribs) and Erwin (talk · contribs). I think this particular matter is done with, hopefully. Cirt (talk) 23:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Another project idea... I know

I saw the WikiGames proposal above, and thought of a project that had a HUGE potential. One time, I was looking through WikiBooks, and saw the "Cookbook" section. I thought "this would make a great separate Wikimedia project", and started to brainstorm. It would be a database of recipes and ingredients (called WikiChef or something of the sort, just a possible name), with potential to grow into 100,00+ pages, multiple languages, and develop a strong community due to the target size (cooking interests, old recipes people want to share, etc.). So I propose we create something like this. I'd kind of be buliding upon the cookbook idea. And ANYONE could contribute a recipe. That's just what the whole project is about, right? I know this is a pretty big thing to be talking about, but, if examined, I believe it would show a huge potential. RedThunder 00:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

You can write cookbooks on Wikibooks; why would you want a separate project for it? John Vandenberg 03:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

On disbanding Wikiquote

I think it is time that we (Wikimedia) disband the Wikiquote project. It is currently (in various languages) a hotbed of copyright violations and other non-free content. Pages like q:Pick-up lines or q:The West Wing or q:The Simpsons are in direct contradiction to basic fair use policies and Wikimedia's mission of providing free content.

Any public domain material can and should be moved to Wikisource. All other material can be incorporated into Wikipedia (if appropriate under fair use) or simply removed from our sites altogether.

Disbanding a Wikimedia project is a bit of an odd task and so I'm posting here to hear reactions and to see what the next steps would be. --MZMcBride 00:59, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• This sounds like an okay idea at first impressions with the copivios and etc, but I'll look into it some more. This may be a tough task to just disband a website with a lot of members spread across many languages. This obviously needs some more input also, maybe we should ask someone at WikiQuote?. RedThunder 01:06, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• My larger problem is that this is just a lousy thing for a wiki to do. It seems like the main advantage Wikiquote has over other quotation resources is that other quotation resources limit themselves to things the subject actually said. Phil Sandifer 01:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• I'm in agreement with MZ's sentiment, however, what about the legitimate uses of quotations: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and other long-dead people (and so forth)? I'm not really sure they were meant for Wikisource. That said, input from Wikisource as well might be helpful.
  Perhaps, of course, disbanding is not the key here, but rather, a tightening of the rules at Wikiquote should be had. No doubt that the project there has allowed these things because it has been rather ignored, even in comparison to Wikinews or another of the non-pedia projects. Or because the contributors do not understand the goal of Wikimedia is to host free things rather than non-free things, which they similarly and possibly do not understand that stuff that is said on TV and such is not free... --Izno 01:49, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• Just a note that there is past-precedent for disbanding a Wiki for excessive copyvio issues at Communications subcommittees/Press/2006/03/28 fr.Wikiquote brief MBisanz ^talk 01:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

It wouldnt fit into wikisource to well since it is meant to hold entire works. Copyright issues can be sorted although generaly you need a very robust definition of the problem.Geni 01:59, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• Wikisource could easily have a quotes page attached to our Author pages. i.e. Author:Benjamin Franklin/Quotes (the Quotes page hasnt been created on Wikisource; this is just an illustration on how it could work). I just now have created s:Category:Author subpages to illustrate other lists that have been created in the Author namespace. s:Author:Thomas Jefferson/Letters and s:Author:Barack Obama/Floor Statements are good examples.
  Wikisource would of course be more rigorous in removing unattributed quotes, and by the nature of Wikisource being primarily about sources, newcomers would be encouraged to find the full source for every quote. I dont understand why anyone would want to use a quote without the entire source, as it is likely to be used out of context.
  I am not a fan of Wikiquote, as the only content that is there which isnt suitable for Wikisource is the material that is covered by copyright, which means it is a fair-use playground (I have played there too). John Vandenberg 03:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Frankly said: this is an insult. (This is also the wrong venue, but let's not even get into that.) How about we try to fix the problem before determining the the project should be disbanded? Actually, there is no problem. Quoting is allowed due to fair use and we are very careful on Wikiquote with regards to how much quoting is allowed. I often see other admins hacking down at page content because it is too much and breaches copyright. Do not make such rude and outrageous suggestions when you don't know the situation. Furthermore, how could you even consider closing a project because of one user? *sigh* The logic of certain people really baffles me sometimes. Cbrown1023 talk 03:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Erm... have you had the opportunity to read q:Pick-up lines lately? Some of the content is grossly, grossly offensive. And the page for q:The Simpsons can't possibly be construed in any sense to fall under fair use. All of the quotes listed there are copyrighted material that were "released" under the GFDL when submitted to Wikiquote. But there's no critical commentary, no outside sources, just a horrible amount of copyright violations. The same can be said for q:The West Wing. And your comment about one user makes no sense to me. I assume you're referring to me.... I posted this thread to look at possible future options for exploring disbanding Wikiquote. "Testing the water", if you will. It's not as though we were going to lock all the databases tomorrow morning based on this thread. And this is the wrong venue? This is the board to go to for Wikimedia matters, no? --MZMcBride 04:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The "one user" bit was in response to what brought this discussion up, the recent controversy on Wikiquote. With regards to wrong venue, the polite thing to do is to go to the project and either discuss solutions there or actually do some cleanup like Risker did (see, was that so hard?). Then if there was still a problem, you'd bring it here and this would still not be anything to do with closing it. You would need to advertise a discussion and discuss on mailing lists and with the board. Cbrown1023 talk 16:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with Cbrown1023 (talk · contribs) on this. This doesn't seem to be the correct venue, but even if it were, the issue of quoting is clearly fair use - especially if admins are on top of removing portions that are too extensive as Cbrown1023 says. Cirt (talk) 04:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• My view is rather that the project clearly requires some cleanup, but that it should not be closed, and that such a preposition is quite premature. The idea has potential, but the platform might need some tweaking. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 04:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• Projects were started for their legitimate reasons; without a review of whether they are endeavouring to fulfill their missions towards their goals, this proposal amounts to an attempt to solve temporary, local problems with long term, drastic and global means, i.e. 用牛刀殺雞 。 If you want to pursue this idea, I would suggest that you go around all active wikiquotes and check with the communities. Hillgentleman 05:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Completely agree. I'd like to add that fair use is nice to have, but does not work in all countries. Several years ago, the French Wikiquote was discovered to be a huge copyright violation, not so much of the quotes themselves but rather of the database structure of another (commercial) company. We chose to entirely start from scratch. Following this rather drastic event, the French wikiquote was started again, but with clearer and stronger guidelines. Since then, situation seems much better. I am not saying that deleting the english wikiquote is the solution, however, better working on the mission and the rules of wikiquote might be helpful. I would start by thinking of what "educational" mean. The huge page about the Simpsons fails to appear to me "educational". Nor even informational actually. But recreational. I do not think our mission is to provide recreational activity for bored internet users :-) Anthere
• Thankfully, that crappy pick-up lines page has been cleaned up (thanks Risker). That said, I agree with Phil Sandifer and MZMcBride. Pages devoted to holding quotes just fly in the face of free content by nature, which is what I thought we're about. Free content can be moved to Wikisource; either as a full work, or as a quotes page (I agree fully with Jayvdb about that and would be equally happy to have some PD quotes there). I think moving towards closing Wikiquotes is a good idea. Giggy 10:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
• I agree with the above. I've never seen much potential of Wikiquote, and agree that the free content could easily be moved to Wikisource (or even Wikipedia). I also think this page is the best place for such discussion. Majorly ^talk 12:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
• I support this motion. Quotations arn't free, unless explicitly licenced as such by the person (or the copyright has expired). Wikiquote would be a giant fair-use project (except for some really old people) and it's hard to draw the legal line at which we start to get into copyright infringement. Firefoxman 14:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
• Question: So, this is a request to close all WikiQuotes even though only CopyVio evidence with the English one was provided. According to Anthere, a lot of work was done cleaning up the French WikiQuote. You want to close the French WikiQuote down, too? --MarsRover 16:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
  • The relevant quotes could easily be moved to French Wikisource. Majorly ^talk 16:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikiquote shouldn't be locked, closed or disbanded. But in my opinion it should not be a Wikimedia project. Move it to Wikia or another place.

Wikimedia projects are intended to provide free knowledge and information. An encyclopedia (Wikipedia), a dictionary (Wiktionary), and a bookshelf (Wikisource) are things which can be found in the households of most people who have aquired formal knowledge or want to aquire more formal knowledge. Every erudite will have these three things on or besides his or her desktop. A newspaper (Wikinews) is another typical thing found in every scholar household. These four things are key competences in information and knowledge provision. Wikiversity is like taking courses at the adult education center or like organizing a private study group. Wikibooks is like an additional bookshelf with how-to-books, manuals, guides etc. Both are useful supportive ways of information and knowledge provision.

But Wikiquote is like a single book about, well, quotes. Its some kind of useful information which enjoys popular interest, but there are dozens of possible projects which contain useful information enjoying popular interest. Think about projects about genealogy or about collecting stamps. Useful information, but Wikimedia cannot cover all useful information. It has to focus on the basic things. Quotes are not basic. It's a relatively narrow niche. Too special.

(By the way, if we have a second look at the typical accessoires of our erudite household, we may notice, that one of them is missing from the Wikimedia project list: The atlas or globus. We have no project dedicated to collecting free maps and geoinformation [well, Commons has maps, but only static and not in a coordinated system].) --::Slomox:: >< 17:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• I tend to agree with MZMcBride and Giggy. Even if the content does fall under fair use, Wikimedia is supposed to be about free content, how does having a project based around fair use fit into that goal? Do any of the Wikiqote projects comply with Resolution:Licensing policy? The closest thing to an EDP I could find on the English Wikiquote is q:Wikiquote:Copyrights, which would seem to go against "Such EDPs must be minimal." The resolution is unclear though, in some cases it refers to "files" suggesting it only applies to uploaded media, but in other places it refers to "content," which would presumably mean all content. Mr.Z-man 19:06, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree do shut down wikiquoutes. We had a similar problem on the german language wikiquote, but we solved ist, the projekt ist no on good standards. I don't think it is a good job when some subprojects mad mistakes to shut all down. It is a better job to reform them and bring the the single projects to good standards or shut one single projekt down - but if all other attemps failed. --Joergens.mi 19:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

• • Bartlett's Quotations and similar works are common household ornaments, which is precisely why Wikiquote is an appropriate Wikimedia project. We can organize things in ways that go beyond the provenance of Wikisource. I agree that there is much police work to be done, but if we are to shut down projects over the potential for copyrights to be violated, then we will have to shut down Wikipedia as well. It is beyond question that there must be vast swaths of information on Wikipedia that have been copied from printed works for which a simple internet search will not reveal the copying.
    
    For my part, I have been spending considerable time at Wikiquote adding quotes from a variety of books of quotations which are themselves in the public domain. It would be an absolute travesty if all of that work were wiped out. BD2412 T 23:22, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    • If this proposal gains traction, no free content would be lost. I agree that Wikiquote is better at quotes than Wikisource could be, and the topical pages like q:Education, q:Knowledge and q:Happiness are the better part of Wikiquote: those pages wouldnt naturally fit within Wikisource, however we do have s:Wikisource:Education; we could add notable quotes onto that page. So, I can see limited value in Wikiquote as a distinct resource/project, and the potential is there, and is being realised by several users such as yourself who work very hard in creating well sourced quotes. However, for the large part the contributions to the project would be better to be either: 1) not accepted, 2) on Wikisource, 3) on Wikipedia, or 4) a "Quotations Wikibook" could be created. BD2412 it would be helpful for you to show us some of the pages that you think make the project worth keeping as a distinct project. John Vandenberg 23:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I also tend to agree to the proposal. There seems to be a big copyright problem with most of these projects. But if Wikiquote is shut down, I think it is necessary to keep all non-copyvio content and move it to the respective Wikisources. --Thogo (talk) 19:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

As administrator of the German Wikiquote project I agree with the impression that en Wikiquote is full of copyvios (without any fair use rationale). I have suggested serveral times changes but without success. If you will shut down a Wikiquote project please choose en Wikiquote. I strongly disagree with the opinion that all Wikiquote projects doesn't have educational content worth to keep. Attaching WQ to WS would'nt be a good idea. German Wikiquote has now strict rules: from authors who are not 70 years dead we only accept 5-10 quotes. We don't accept any new quote without a serious source. There is a lot of quotation collections in the web but most of them doesn't have sources like German Wikiquote. In this direction I see the future of all Wikiquote projects. We cannot tolerate the massive copyvios in en Wikiquote anymore but shutting also down the German project which has high quality standards would be nonsense --Histo 19:47, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

@Thogo: If you are able to keep all non-copyvio content and move it to Wikisources, then you are also able to simply keep the non-copyvio content in Wikiquote. Guido den Broeder 20:30, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Some of these issues have already been raised very recently on en Wikiquote.[1][2] It is a small project which tends to move slowly, but a responsible one and I'm sure admins and editors will take the necessary steps to fix problems. I agree it needs to be stricter and cleaned up, but there's no reason why this can't be done to make it viable. Tyrenius 21:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Seit Anfang des Jahres werden auf de-wq sämtliche Urheberrechtsverletzungen entfernt, über 1000 Artikel wurden gelöscht, fehlende Quellenangaben werden nachrecherchiert. Bei Autoren, deren Werken geschützt sind werden maximal 5-10 kurze Zitate mit genauer Quellenangabe zugelassen, letzteres gilt auch für jedes neueingestellte Zitat. Ich halte es für unerlässlich, sich die einzelnen Projekte anzusehen und nicht diejenigen mitzubestrafen, die sich an die Gesetze halten. --Paulis 21:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC) (admin de-wq)

ACK. Paulis says: One has to check each project and not to punish projects which are according the law. Since begin of 2008 all copyvios in de.WQ were removed, 1000+ pages were deleted. --Histo 22:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

A concerted effort should be made to fix the project before a proposal for shutting it down is discussed. Wikipedia contains many of these same fair-use quotations, so if absolute adherence to free content is the standard we'd have to shut down that project as well. It would be a simple thing to go through WQ and delete unsourced content. Decisions on what sourced content to keep will be harder but no harder than similar decisions made every day on other projects. Will Beback 23:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Quoting from English Wikiquote Village pump

“ Bear in mind that we have much greater leeway with quotes than does the author of a commercial product being sold for profit. ” — 17 August 2008 - BD2412

This is not correct; free content (which Wikiquote is by way of being hosted by the WMF) should be able to be published commercially in book format without any copyright lawyers beating down the doors of the publisher. At the very least, English Wikiquote needs to put in place an EDP that is approved by the WMF. John Vandenberg 00:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Servers

Is there some trouble with the servers/databases at the moment? Most of the toolserver tools appear to have stopped working or their edit counts have stopped. Also found this. Can someone explain please? Thanks - tholly ^--Talk-- 16:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, yarrow, the server which hosts s1 and s3 is down currently due to a hardware malfunction. Details are available on toolserver-l.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 19:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh right, thanks. - tholly ^--Talk-- 20:11, 7 September 2008 (UTC)