Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)

 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 

• Table of contents
• First discussion
• End of page
• New post

The idea lab section of the village pump is a place where new ideas or suggestions on general Wikipedia issues can be incubated, for later submission for consensus discussion at Village pump (proposals). Try to be creative and positive when commenting on ideas.
Before creating a new section, please note:

• Discussions of technical issues belong at Village pump (technical).
• Discussions of policy belong at Village pump (policy).
• If you're ready to make a concrete proposal and determine whether it has consensus, go to the Village pump (proposals). Proposals worked out here can be brought there.

Before commenting, note:

• This page is not for consensus polling. Stalwart "Oppose" and "Support" comments generally have no place here. Instead, discuss ideas and suggest variations on them.
• Wondering whether someone already had this idea? Search the archives below, and look through Wikipedia:Perennial proposals.

Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for two weeks.

« Archives, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39

New: Template:Introductory pages for pages helpful as introduction

Hi. We have a lot of introductory pages, and a lot of guides and central pages to help newcomers to find introductory pages. I felt that instead of adding another page to list the links, perhaps a nav box might be helpful to some newcomers.

Below is what I came up with so far. Please feel free to comment, provide feedback, etc. this is Template:Introductory pages. thanks!

Thanks! ---Sm8900 (talk) 🌍 03:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

I would appreciate if anyone here could please offer a reply; anything, even something very brief, would be greatly appreciated. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 10:50, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

comments on original nomination

@Sm8900: It's presently at TfD, where it's getting plenty of feedback. To avoid a discussion fork, people should either comment there, or wait for that to conclude - and if it survives, the place to discuss improvements will then be its own talk page, not here. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:20, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

@Redrose64: ok, noted. so in that case, if this navigational box is indeed deleted, which seems very likely, then would it be ok if we could please then proceed to discuss this item's content and ideas here, but obviously as an idea for a nav box, rather than as an existing nav box, of course?? I have saved a copy of this item on a page in my own user space.

Please bear in mind, I have simply been asking for feedback all along; if someone wanted to provide some feedback that was negative but constructive, I would be totally fine with that. I do appreciate your helpful reply. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 13:32, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

If it's deleted, there is nothing to discuss. If iit's not deleted, this is the wrong venue. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:55, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@Redrose64:, if it is deleted, then I will greatly revise the idea, and come back to Village Pump, to discuss the new revised version, taking account fully of all the valid and helpful feedback that I received on this, elsewhere. However, since I did initially ask for constructive feedback right here in this section, and have not (still!) received any actual feedback here on this page, I will retain this section here, simply to document and reflect that I did in fact make a full good-faith effort to discuss my initial nav box idea, very much in advance and previously before I tried to insert the navbox for use on any actual page. I do appreciate your helpful reply. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 01:07, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

@Sm8900: Here's a few thoughts on the template as it stands, hopefully you'll find some of them useful:

• It's way too big for an introductory template, the number of links is overwhelming. If I was given that as an "introduction" when I was getting started I would have just given up.
• There's a lot of duplication. You have multiples of some things (tutorials for example) and listing out both the main and sub-pages for various policies is unnessasary. Do we really need "Help Contents", "Help:Directory" and "Site map for help pages"? do we need both "Essays in a nutshell" and "Essay directory"?
• You have way too many sections. Some of these (like "categories" and "Text formats") essentially only list one page. Some categories are broken into sub-categories for reasons I don't understand, what's the point of the "By topic" subsection in the article tips box that only lists one page?
• You have a lot of pages here for things that I would consider to be either extremely niche or rather advanced. How many people are going to be interested in "The Bugle for military history"? Are database reports something that a brand new editor needs to know about? Is WikiProject Democracy really a page that newbies should be getting directed to?
• I don't understand some of the categorisation here, "Article tips" seems to be entirely stuff that would be better placed elsewhere.
• I can see a few omissions, e.g. you don't really seem to have anything related to reliable sources here. I would expect a template aimed at beginners to include something like Help:Referencing for beginners.
• Some of this does give the impression that pages have been selected based on your personal interests, rather than pages that would be of use to everybody getting started. E.g. why do the wikiprojects for science, cities and military history get specifically called out and linked, while all the others you have to navigate to through a list? Why does "The Bugle for military history" get a link but there's no sign of the other newsletters for wikiprojects?

I agree with the general feeling in the TFD that it would be better to focus on improving Template:Basic information, we already have a load of introductory help pages (probably to the point that it's a bit overwhelming) and I don't think it's really worth the effort of maintaining duplicates. I hope this doesn't come across too harshly. 192.76.8.70 (talk) 18:19, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

@User talk:192.76.8.70, your points are actually indeed helpful. I will indeed either act upon those points, or else seek some way to implement them with an existing template. I appreciate your points, and will give them some thought. your last sentence is very considerate and thoughtful, and is appreciated as well. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 02:54, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Deletion of template

Okay, this template has now been deleted. I am fully open to and respect the community consensus on this. however, I want to simply note that, since I was fully willing to have a positive discussion here, before I started using this template on any page, I hope that some editors who commented at the deletion discussion will be willing to be helpful and to add their comments here. the whole point of this section, when I first posted it, was precisely to openly discuss this template, and any possible problems.

I will wait a bit, just to give the participants in the deletion discussion a chance to come here on their own and to comment. If they do not do so, then I may ask them individually. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:13, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

I would like to note that the editors at the deletion discussion made some highly important points; the best proof of that is that the template in fact was deleted. On that basis, I would like to specifically invite some of the participants in that discussion to add their specific comments and points, if they wish to do so.

My goal in requesting this is simple; since I opened this Village Pump section for discussion, well in advance before I made any effort to actually use this template, I feel it is reasonable to ask if the people who deleted it could please add some of their points here for the record. I fully accept, acknowledge, and yield to each and every one of their points made. I will simply note the following:

• since I hope to propose a new template sometime in the future, taking all of their points and objections into account, it would be helpful if this section could please incldue some of their points for the record, before it gets archived.
• since this is in fact the Idea Lab, any discussion here is supposed to be an open-ended colloborative exchange anyway. so any points that are made against the original template above, can simply also become some positive points, in the subsequent discussion which potentially could discuss a future proposed template.
• lastly, let me just fully reiterate that I am making this request with the utmost respect for those who called for the template's deletion; and in fact, as I stated above, I fully intend to accept each and every one of their points, in seeking to formulate a revised template which might hopefully be more acceptable.

so, on that note, I would like to invite the following users, if they wish to do so, to either quote, copy, or summarize the comments and points which they expressed at the deletion discussion.

I am pinging @Sdkb and Nigej:, to request their comments. I have created a new subsection below for their comments, in order to avoid pinging them repeatedly when this subsection is revised. Lastly, I will note that I fully respect their right to decline to comment, if that is their preference. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 03:25, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

since I hope to propose a new template sometime in the future One of the main reasons the template was deleted was that it is redundant to templates that already exist. Given that Wikipedia is 21 years old, there's quite a limited set of things that need to be created new from scratch. I don't think we need any more welcome templates or navboxes listing out PAG pages. If you'd like to make improvements in this area, I'd instead encourage you to focus on trimming and merging introductory pages that already exist. Having fewer and shorter pages to go through will help out newcomers more than having an overwhelming list of all the ones that currently exist. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:52, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Sdkb, your comment is very helpful, informative, and much appreciated. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 05:34, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Idea for new template: Explore Wikipedia

Ok, below is a new template which I have come up with, based on the important ideas and points above. I have greatly shortened this template, shortened the lists, and consolidated several areas to make this more compact and condensed.

the purpose of this template is to be helpful as a hub and a guide to help people who wish to explore wikipedia, in the myriad resources, areas, group efforts, and guides and tutorials, etc.

Just to answer SKDB's important point above, yes, we have numerous nav boxes which are designed and structured to provide information around a central topic, or a central set of topics and resources. However, we currently have no template which serves as a helpful guide to explore wikipedia itself; in other words, to get an overview of all the utterly distinct and diverse areas, types of resources, forums here, as well as the more well-known pages for central policies. that is why my draft template below, includes resources like the library, links to group editing efforts, links to some fundamental tutorials, and also a brief snapshot of more traditional and well-known items such as the five pillars, etc.

feel free to comment on this item. all comments welcome. Please note, one purpose of this template might be to place it at important pages that are highly visible to newcomers. one page I have in mind is Community Portal. Thanks.

Also, to clarify one important point; I will gladly add links to all active newsletters, as well as all monthly collaborations, if that makes this nav box seem less arbitrary. the items below were meant as a cross-section or sample set. if people wish, I can add a complete set of links, if that would improve this nav box.

--Sm8900 (talk) 13:38, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Comments on template idea

This really isn't the place to discuss such templates. Are you aware of WT:WC? They have put together a number of templates used to welcome new users, and have worked on many more that were created by other people. WT:WC is where general matters concerning welcoming messages may be discussed. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:52, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Redrose64, that is a valid response. However, I prefer to discuss this idea with the Wikipedia community in general, rather than Welcoming Committee. I agree that their work is immense;y valuable.

However, the whole point of this template is that it is not intended solely for or focused upon beginners; rather, this is meant as a resource to assist and to enable all editors who wish to further explore, understand, and to utilize a wide range of resources at Wikipedia. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:29, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@Sdkb:, If it is okay for me to do so, then I would like to ask if you could please kindly provide some input. Are there any conditions under which I could please ask you to support the template above? Please note, I will gladly make any, and all changes and revisions to this template above that you may request, seriously. I simply want to get the basic concept and idea behind this template into a working form, namely, to approach the goals below.

• We need a template which serves as a navigational aid to point editors towards common community resources that serve as hubs for information, editing, and collaborative efforts; i.e. rather than simply grouping topics together, no matter how beneficial those topics may be.
• Currently, we do not have any such template. namely, we do not have a template which points editors to specific research resources such as the library, and which also serve as a helpful gateway generally, for any editors needing basic guidance on how to find various hubs, forums, and group resources at wikipedia.
• I will gladly agree to any editing, or shortening of this template that you may request. to wit, I only request that the template contain some of the items below, in some form or fashion:
  • A link to one or more working hubs for research, i.e. the reference desk, and the library.
  • A link to one or active hubs for assisting editors, i.e. the Help Desk, and the Teahouse
  • A link to one or more pages that list tutorials for the use of new editors.
  • a link to one or more pages that serve as general community hubs or town squares, eg Admin noticeboard, and Village Pump.

Do you see where I am going with this? Just as an aside, my own edits and contributions to Wikipedia articles are not of any great major significance. I enjoy editing, but I am not a scientist, mathematician, or scholar, whose edits will change Wikipedia in any earth-shaking way. The one real contribution that I would like to make as a long-lasting benefit to the community, is to make Wikipedia more approachable, more easy to use, more accessible and more useful for all editors, users, and visitors who may come after me.

The idea behind this template is therefore very important to me. I am willing to edit it and condense it into any shortened version that you may prefer.

Please, I would like us to really try to reach some positive consensus on this. I will welcome any revisions that you may request. Is it possible for us to please have a collaborative dialogue on this, where we might work through any possible issues and problems,. and arrive at a mutually beneficial consensus, that allows us to add this as a positive community resource?

I would welcome any input you may have. Please feel free to reply. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:48, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm afraid my input is that we already have too many such templates. Adding another would make Wikipedia less approachable, less easy to use, less accessible and less useful for all editors, users, and visitors who may come after you. I would only entertain your idea if you could identify several templates that this one would replace. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:57, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

A slight correction to that is that the same concern is addressed by things other than templates. I would suggest that the OP stops trying to create things from scratch, and concentrates on Wikipedia:Community portal, which is linked from the sidebar that is displayed on every page. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:07, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger: I appreciate your thoguhtful reply. As you said, we already have too many such templates. if we have a multiple number of such templates, then could you please list at least some of them? I will be glad to take a look at some of them, and to see if they are indeed somewhat duplicates of my idea above, as you suggest. I am open to any input on this. could you please feel free to indicate a few of them? thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 05:15, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Ok, based on the specific and useful feedback offered here by several helpful editors above, I am working on some proposed changes to Template:Basic information. you are welcome to view the changes at User:Sm8900/templates/changes basic information, and to comment there using the talk page, if you wish.

I hope to present these proposals at the talk page at some point, at Template:Basic information, once they are fully ready. If anyone wishes to comment further in this Village Pump section, then of course you are welcome to do so.

I expect to conclude the discussion now with this comment. I hope to present these proposed changes later to the community, using the talk page for Template: Basic information. I welcome any comments, feedback, ideas, suggestions, or other messages that anyone might wish to express. For now, I would like to thank everyone who offered their helpful ideas, insights, and comments above. thanks for your help. cheers! --Sm8900 (talk) 15:35, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Below is my proposed draft so far. This is not posted as a formal proposal yet; I am still revising this. If you wish to discuss this, I would welcome your comment. However, I would suggest that any further comments and discussions should take place at the page below in my user space, and not here at Village Pump. I think it might be helpful to allow this discussion at Village Pump to conclude for now.

thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 15:43, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Clarifying the number of sources required by GNG

WP:GNG states There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected. In theory, this nuanced rationale is useful, but in practice it is rarely applied; editors find their preferred definition of "multiple" (I believe it is typically three, in line with the essay by RoySmith and with most of the remainder defining it as two) and so long as the editor believes each source meet WP:SIGCOV they consider it sufficient.

As such, I believe this nuance doesn't benefit the project, instead making it more difficult for new editors to understand what is required for their article to survive, harder to determine a consensus at AFD, and complicating the work of AFC and NPP. To resolve this, I believe it would be useful to provide a fixed number; as a first thought, I would propose the above quoted text be replaced with At least three sources are required.

Raising this here, to develop the idea and because if an RFC is opened broad input would be desirable due to the significance of GNG. BilledMammal (talk) 16:27, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

We have never spelled out the number because this is far too game-able. We are looking for what is sufficient to show that significant coverage exists. That could come from one really strong comprehensive source like an in-depth biography, or it might require six or more sources that each only have a paragraph or three but combined provide good coverage. Just saying N sources means that editors at AFD will only focus on the number of sources with no consideration of what significant coverage there is. We know this happens. --Masem (t) 16:33, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I would agree, except editors already focus on finding N sources that individually meet the other requirements of GNG; the only difference is that they use their own definition of N. This idea won't fix the issue, but it won't make it worse and it will fix other issues. BilledMammal (talk) 16:40, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@BilledMammal, it happens that @SmokeyJoe and I have been discussing this for the better part of the year. I can't say that we've made much progress towards an answer, but we might be getting better about asking the questions.

On the one hand, you have editors like @Masem, who will take a paragraph here and a paragraph there, and so long as the total combination of all independent sources results in being able to write an actual encyclopedia article in the end, then they all count towards notability. One excellent source might demonstrate notability on its own; for another subject, six small sources might be needed.

On the other hand, you have editors, many of whom are focused on (perceived) self-promotionalism, who prefer the WP:SIRS approach, and declare that no source counts towards notability at all unless that single source, evaluated in isolation, would basically be enough to write a whole encyclopedia article on its own. These editors usually require a minimum of two or three excellent sources, and they will not consider less-than-excellent sources at all. A mere paragraph (or three) in a news article is immediately and completely discarded as having no bearing on the question of notability at all; they never reach a point at which one could consider whether the combination of a couple of paragraphs here plus a couple of paragraphs there could produce enough sourced content to make it possible to write an article.

I've never been impressed with the "game-able" claim. We should write down what the actual answer is, because that's consistent with our value of transparency. If we write down "three sources" and people produce three sources containing a single sentence each, then that proves that we wrote down the wrong answer – not that the answer should be kept secret. IMO the actual answer probably sounds more like (a) two different authors writing for two different publishers plus (b) a minimum of 500 words directly about the topic, across all [financially] independent sources, including at least 10 severable facts about the subject and at least one indication of analysis (e.g., comparison to a similar subject or classification as an instance of some larger notable subject). But I'd also ban editors from rejecting sources just because they personally feel that the source's linguistic style is insufficiently scholarly or because the newspaper reporter directly interviewed the subject (and therefore allegedly is no longer "independent"), so you can take my view with an appropriately large grain of salt. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:01, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

@BilledMammal please read the notes that go along with that essay. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:42, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you; I originally had both yours and WP:3REFS, but for concision I shortened it to just yours, as the more influential essay in establishing or maintaining the position that N is three, not two or four, even though that wasn't your intent. BilledMammal (talk) 16:50, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

That's still the point: the GNG is 100% centered on showing significant coverage and that can come from 1 high quality source or may require many where the topic itself is not the central topic of each source. Counting sources is not a replacement for reviewing significant coverage, and editors that continue to equate GNG to number of sources using those essays are fundamentally wrong. --Masem (t) 16:59, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, counting sources (that meet the other criteria of GNG) is what happens, and the fact that there should be more nuance doesn't change that.

On a side note, I disagree that one high quality source is enough, as I don't believe we can comply with NPOV when we only have a single perspective, but that isn't relevant to this discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 17:38, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

What I mean is if I have a book-length biography, high quality, it will likely have its own set of references about that same person. The initial WP article about that person would not need to include those references but that they exist with the biography means more sources exist out there. This doesn't apply to, say, a single long-form obit that is not going to have that type of feature. --Masem (t) 18:05, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Masem here. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 18:18, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

With this clarification, so do I, although I would interpret it as having multiple uncited sources, rather than just one. BilledMammal (talk) 18:22, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The GNG (and pages related to retaining/deletion of articles due to notability) should be viewed as the potential for articles to be developed further from the likelihood of additional sourcing to be found in the future or that can be added that has been identified but not yet added. EG: if an article goes to AFD and 10 new sources are found and agreed to be sufficient to give that topic significant coverage, then the only thing that should be done is getting those 10 articles added to the article, but we don't have a deadline for that; if years later those 10 sources have yet to be added, it would still be inappropriate to AFD the article because we know those sources exist. Same concept with the "one great source that has a known bibliography/reference section to work from" situation. This comes back again to why we try not to judge just on the number of sources since one source could be a link to potentially multiple additional sources that could build more significant coverage in time. Of course, what more commonly happens today is that editors are just using web-based sourcing that rarely include references to other source, so we judge each source on its own and not what it can led to. --Masem (t) 19:11, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

• Umm, how about 1? A new stub could be one line, sourced, and be GNG OK. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:55, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

42. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 18:15, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

• Just went to newpages, Glaucium calycinum is a brand new article, I see no reason it would be a good deletion candidate for lack of another source yet. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:57, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  That would fall under WP:OUTCOMES eg WP:NSPECIES. Not so much a GNG issue. --Masem (t) 18:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  I think it would actually fall under WP:COPYVIO; the only difference is that some connecting words have been added, and some technical words have been replaced. BilledMammal (talk) 18:16, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  Possibly, I'm not saying it was "good" - just that the lack of 2(+) sources are not enough to say it should be deleted for failing GNG. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:06, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  I think most plants would be better as subsections within their Genus; for example, Aa (plant); all the articles listed there should be merged into it. BilledMammal (talk) 20:13, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  This is the "notability doesn't depend on what's already cited in the article" problem. It's likely for any species that you could find multiple sources; the fact that there is only {{one source}} indicates a failure of effort, not the non-existence of sources in the real world. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

  @BilledMammal, there are only a few standard ways of describing plant species, looking at the same parts in the same order. I wouldn't characterize the article as close paraphrasing, and certainly not of the reference you list as being copied from. That's a very harsh way to treat an editor whose article just came up as an example. A non-templated note about close paraphrasing on the talk page would be enough and have it discussed there. I'm removing the copyvio notice. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:18, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  I've responded on your talk page. BilledMammal (talk) 23:32, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  Aforementioned editor here, could we discuss this on the talk page of the relevant article instead of on half a dozen different user pages? If this is an issue, I'd like to be involved and for there to be a central point of public discussion. Thanks y'all. Fritzmann (message me) 23:49, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The GNG requires two, minimally. This does not mean two is sufficient, but in practice two are sufficient if they are both very good sources.

WP:THREE is about countering WP:Reference bombing. If it’s already been deleted, and you think sources support reversing the decision, then show us your best three, and we will review them very seriously; but DO NOT give us twenty and ask us to spend hours analysis in them all. Also, a rule of thumb that stands up to experience is that if the best few sources are GNG non-compliant, no number of worse sources will be sufficient.

The GNG is just a guideline, and the real decision gets made at AfD. However, when push comes to shove, and we are talking about for-profit company, it’s CEO, or it’s products, the Wikipedia:SIRS approach is the consistent winner. WAID and I have talked at length, without agreement. I believe the crux is that for promotional topics, product reviews are to be presumed non-independent and GNG non-compliant.

Exceptions are traditional encyclopedic topics, like the natural sciences, and distant history. For these, WP:V is enough.

—- SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:50, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

• 5 sources is always sufficient; 4 almost always; 3 usually, 2 often, and 1 never meets GNG but may be sufficient if paired with a notability guideline for special circumstances. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:38, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

  I can view one source as meeting GNG if it's very extensive - most commonly, this is a book dedicated to the article. This is one aspect where NCORP is de jure different and not merely an "enforce more vigorously" Nosebagbear (talk) 13:13, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (biology)

Hello all. There was recently a discussion at WT:WikiProject_Molecular_Biology#Notability_guidelines_for_science/database_topics? about notability in cases where there are large classes of possible items in databases (e.g. genes, species, proteins and RNA families). I summarised the results of that discussion at Wikipedia:Notability (biology) and listed it at WP:MOLBIO#Resources. I'm wary of policy creep, but in this case, I think it's reasonable since the topics have come up multiple times, most similar to geographic_features, astronomical_objects, and numbers. I'd be interested in people's suggestions or direct edits. The starting questions I listed at WT:MOLBIO are below, but feel free to approach from a more generalist perspective!

1. Are there classes of molbio (or other) topics with inherent/De facto notability?
2. What are the principles / common features for which classes are notable?
3. If a database is a sufficient secondary source to support notability, what are the features of such a database?
4. Does the number of items of that class matter? Would the call on RNA motifs have differed if there were 100,000 observed motifs?
5. Does it make a difference if the class is naturally occurring vs man-made? (e.g. observed microbial species vs created cell lines)
6. Does it make a difference if the class is stable vs changes rapidly?

T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:08, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

• I would oppose assigning inherent notability to anything; I would suggest that the guideline instead grants the presumption of notability, but that GNG needs to be met if the presumption is challenged. I would also note that a database is typically a primary source, as it usually doesn't contain an author's analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources. Beyond that, I need to consider further. BilledMammal (talk) 23:16, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

  For #2, the practically-always-notable subjects are things that "the world at large" pays a lot of attention to, e.g., heads of state or professional athletes. Individual molecules are not something that "the world at large" normally pays a lot of attention to, so they're unlikely to fall into this category.

  For #3, I'm not sure that a database is a secondary source. (I suspect that most of them aren't.)

  More generally, I think that you should consider WP:WHYN: could you actually write a decent, non-stub encyclopedia article with those sources, preferably including some directly sourced statement of why I should care about that gene/protein/molecule and a sentence about history (e.g., first described by Alice Expert in 19XX)? If not, then I'd suggest you contemplate whether your goal is better suited to species: and/or wikidata:. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

• I think people fundamentally misunderstand the notion of notability; notability means "Is there enough good resources out there in the world to allow me to write a good encyclopedia article about this". It is not a mark of damnatio memoriae to lack the notability to create an article. We can mention and discuss such topics in the context of other articles, but there is not a need to have a stand-alone article about it. If we are destined to have only two sentences of text about some species of beetle, then there's no need to have an entire page for that species. Those two sentences could go into a different article. We're not refusing to cover a topic by not having a stand-alone article on it; it's just the recognition that for some topics, a stand-alone article is not the best way to cover the information. --Jayron32 13:57, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Protection idea

I got a random idea:

- Protected pages appear normally to anyone who can't edit it.

- Edits to a protected page by editors who didn't have the rights to do so are logged, for purposes of determining if an article can be unprotected.

- When attempting to publish the edit, the editor will instead be offered an option to automatically make an edit request. – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 01:44, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

What advantages would this have over WP:Pending changes? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:29, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

The advantages that I can see are two: you won't need to switch over all semi-protected pages to pending changes, and you don't get the page history polluted by long series of reverted edits. – Uanfala (talk) 16:34, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

It's a fine idea to be implemented as a user script (see WP:US/R), which in fact can be written quite easily. – SD0001 (talk) 19:19, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I actually like this idea. I feel that making it not a user script would be beneficial, however i understand that there may be some challenges in doing so. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 04:16, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

This was suggested by me at the 2022 CWS. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:58, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

@EpicPupper: I actually really like your idea. It would probably lower the amount of blank and complete gibberish edit requests, and lower the amount of times we have to respond with "It's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please suggest your changes in a "change X to Y" format" ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 04:01, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Create a new page

Guys I need help, I was asked to create a page for a social networking and book sharing site (feraahub). I do have a information and feraahub owner gave me it's logo but I need a link to create a page not a user page — Preceding unsigned comment added by B.matias brown (talk • contribs) 13:15, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

@B.matias brown: It sounds like you have a conflict of interest with feraahub. As such, you will need to create the article in WP:DRAFT space and it will be reviewed by the volunteers at article for creation. Please note that if the company does not meet the requirements of WP:NCORP the article will be rejected. BilledMammal (talk) 13:39, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I blocked the originator of this thread as an unresponsive spam/advertising-only account. Graham87 05:01, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Add "Did you find what you were looking for?" feature to the end of any article.

At the end of any article, there would be a box asking whether the reader had found the information they were looking for. They could either click a green tick or a red cross. In the latter case, they could be asked to indicate the question they were hoping to find an answer to (the simplest implementation would just be a text-field, but adding the option to select among previously suggested topics would reduce friction and make it easier to see which questions most commonly go unanswered).

Example: Recently, I was researching Proton-Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells, a topic to which I'm fairly new. I was hoping to find some information about polarization curves, which are a very common way to characterize the behavior of a fuel cell, but the article didn't contain any. Suppose for the sake of argument that my experience here was relatively common. If the system laid out above were in place, it would now be much easier to improve the article; editors would know that adding information about the polarization curve specifically was going to be especially helpful to many users.

I expect the above is one of the most straightforward ways to implement this. However, coming up with variations and iterations is generally valuable and there might be other ways of gathering more user feedback.

Disclaimer: I'm new to this community. I hope I've tried to obey all the norms, but it's possible I did something wrong, in which case I apologize. I want to emphasize that I don't feel "entitled" to someone else doing my research for me or anything; Wikipedia has been of immense value to me and I'm really thankful to this community for that!

- Matt — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.135.82.55 (talk) 13:50, 20 February 2022 (UTC) (just found my old (not very active) account, so figured I could try signing the right way) MathieuPutz (talk) 20:01, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I like this idea. It would give editors ideas for improving/expanding articles based on questions asked, and it would help readers feel like participants. The text entry could auto-create a section on the Talk page. I have no idea how technically feasible any of this is, but I think it's a useful suggestion. (Granted, there will probably be plenty of "questions" that aren't appropriate for answering in the article, but those can just be disregarded.) Schazjmd (talk) 16:14, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

I like the idea too. Wikipedians are self-directing volunteers so there's limited scope for influencing the ways they choose to contribute, but there's probably enough of us that could be spurred on when gaps are pointed out. The suggested question for readers seems focussed enough, so it will be less likely to repeat the results of the discontinued article feedback tool. – Uanfala (talk) 16:29, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

This sounds like an improvement on the old article feedback tool, in that it is more focused on what the reader wants. One possible drawback of this is that it could raise people's expectation that a volunteer editor will add the information requested pretty soon. That expectation is likely to be dashed. Maybe there could be an additional request that the reader should add the information if it is found somewhere else in a reliable source? Phil Bridger (talk) 17:36, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

We're not a Q&A site, although WP:RD does go some way to doing that. If the feature proposed at the top of this section is implemented, who is going to monitor the inevitable flood of questions? Some may be relevant, but might duplicate the purpose of the article talk page; but I foresee plenty of off-topic questions like "where's the best place to rent a house" or "why can't I have access to my children?". Mind you, we get plenty of that already; so do we need more? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:47, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Version 5 of the article feedback tool worked exactly that way: it asked "Did you find what you were looking for?", and if you selected no, you could enter freeform text into an edit box to submit your feedback. isaacl (talk) 02:54, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

WP:Reference desk is a place to ask questions about content. WP:Edit requests can already be made on the talk page. I don't see a need for the feature. Sungodtemple (talk) 01:22, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

To be fair, I don't think the average reader is (very) aware of them. Maybe they could be made more prominent instead? Dege31 (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

@Dege31:, that is an excellent idea. that is precisely what I am trying to do, in my proposal above. could you please comment there? thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 03:48, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

An edit request making a general suggestion will be rejected for not being specific enough and then ignored, so that doesn't address what the OP is talking about. Mlb96 (talk) 03:38, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia:Article feedback tool all over again. There's no reason to think the problems that lead to the 2013 iteration being disabled won't recur. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:59, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

What I would like it to be temporary enable a question like that for articles I'm actively working on. I often wonder if my editing is too technical (or whether I'm removing too many technical details in my attempt not to write too technical). I do think the benefits may outweigh the disadvantages if the question is asked by an editor actively editing the article. Femke (talk) 18:47, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

What Pppery said. In theory, this a good idea. In practice, you'll be picking out the helpful suggestions from between "lol this is all fake" and "dude looks like a f__" and so on. This is what always happens when you leave an obvious "comment" box and the end of a page. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:03, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

arbitrary section break

• A free-form text box isn't a workable idea, as has already been said, it would lead (and has led) to a lot of nonsense questions and spam, and articles already have talk pages for productive on-topic commentary. What about a multiple-choice response instead? The first round would just be "Yes/No" ("Did you find what you were looking for?"), which would then lead to a short survey with <10 questions about the most common issues readers notice in articles. Then the results of those surveys could be collected and displayed as a visual on the talk page. Articles change over time; we can monitor how the responses to the survey change, and use that feedback to guide article development (at least with respect to reader experience). Unlike a text box, this could be fully automated to minimize the amount of volunteer time needed to attend to the responses, while still providing some amount of useful feedback to those editors who already happen to be working on the articles receiving the feedback. Mysterious Whisper (talk) 20:38, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

A multiple choicw question "Did you find any errors yes/no" with a freeform edit box to explain what errors were found is a workable idea, in my view. Per in Sweden (talk) 22:34, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

As explained above, that's what we tried in 2013. The result was a huge volume of text with a very bad signal-to-noise ratio, and I believe the consensus was that whatever useful feedback we got from it it wasn't worth all the extra work it made. Readers can already leave feedback in the form of text on the article talk page; this survey thing I'm suggesting would supplement that feedback without risking another flood of YouTube-like comments. Mysterious Whisper (talk) 23:06, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Surely if you have a question that guides you into explaining what type of error one has found, you will not get a flood of messages; then the talk page would be flooded the same way, but it isn't. People who are illiterate or afraid of/about editing the main or talk pages could contribute in an a way that is not too complicated. Most people are respectable, and if you find abusers, they can be blocked by IP-numbers, the same way abusers are blocked from editing wikipedia articles as seen.Per in Sweden (talk) 23:25, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Whether it was functional depended on the article's subject. If you put it on a rare disease article, the feedback was largely helpful. If you put it on a Boy band article, the feedback was largely useless (or worse). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Have you met the human race? You have way more faith in their good behavior than I do. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:20, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

• This feels like the same old Article Feedback Tool wearing a different colored shirt. It was a bad idea last time, and is not likely to be any better this time. --Jayron32 13:53, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
• Perhaps some way to make talk pages more visible? A discreet button or link at the end of the article that says, "For discussion about this article use the talk page" that automatically opens a new section on the talk page? Something not quite the article feedback tool, but that tells people where to go with their comments and questions. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:42, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

I've always wondered why the tabs aren't at the bottom of the page as well as the top.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 02:54, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

• What about a message at the bottom of every page that says something like "Think that something should be added to this article?/Think that something is missing from this article?/Have any suggestions to improve this article? Consider/Feel free to/Please leave a message on the [[Talk:Article|talk page]]." This language should let people know that it's specifically to suggest improvements to the article, not for asking questions. Mlb96 (talk) 03:36, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't see a lot of use for this feature. if it generates lots of discussion, then it will mainly be from people who add well-meaning comments which are entirely not specific enough to generate meaningful change. and if it doesn't then there is little point to this feature anyway. --Sm8900 (talk) 03:45, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

• See also User:Enterprisey/Edit Wizard design doc. Enterprisey (talk!) 02:35, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Tooltip brief description and image for links pointing to Heading and Sub-heading sections should be different from the total articles'

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T102280

Hi, the tooltip text and image that opens when mouse is hovered on links like [[Engineering]] generates Engineering and is the same as the text and image for this link [[Engineering#History|History]] that produces History. The second link tooltip's text and image is wrong, it should represent a text like "Engineering has existed since ancient times, when humans devised inventions such as the wedge, lever, wheel and pulley, etc." and an image like File:Grondplan citadel Lille.JPG that is the text for "Engineering#History" Heading section of this article. So in my opinion we should change tooltip text and image selection policy for links pointing to sub-heading sections of articles. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 12:52, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

phab:T102280. This is rather difficult to implement. --Yair rand (talk) 06:23, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

@Yair rand: In my opinion it is not hard to implement, i.e., tooltip should read some data from a Sub-Heading instead of lead of article. Is hard or not, current policy is clearly wrong. In the above example, History data is not shown, and data shown (definition of engineering) is roughly unrelevant to the history of engineering. Note that some articles is a merged item of 2 or 3 concepts, and each concept is defined in a different Sub-Heading section. Then tooltip data is completely unrelevant to the intended concept and totally wrong data is rendered to users. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 06:57, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

@Hooman Mallahzadeh: So submit a patch? The task is blocked by the fact that no one has written the code, so if you can figure out a way to make this work, please go right ahead. --Yair rand (talk) 07:43, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

• Agreed that this would be a very nice improvement. Perhaps add it to the wishlist next year and hope that there's a small chance it'll be taken up? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:15, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Use an edit filter to warn about placing wikilinks next to each other

Hello, I'm new to the whole proposal thing. So, almost all of us has placed wikilinks next to each other, shown in this example. This is to ensure the compliance of MOS:SEAOFBLUE, so the edit filter would most likely have a "warn" setting. I am aware of the pop-up if you link common words like in the example, but it does not address the aforementioned issue. Thoughts? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:03, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

The benefits are fairly clear (warn would indeed the logical setting), but two potential points jump out (and I imagine they did to CSC as well) - the big one being that this could do a lot of undesired warnings. It might be worth running a month of log-only to see what the rate would be. Secondly, would be good to get a specialist saying it'd be fine on a computational front - run-time could be expensive (in comparative terms) for a filter like this. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:48, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I think maybe placing them client-side would be a better idea then. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:52, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Help with discussion participation

I propose in the talk page we have an area where users can sign their name to show they are major supporter of an article. This could be beneficial so people in disputes can have editors too easily ping for discussion regarding the article. This will help with participation in the consensus making process. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 04:09, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Don't we have the article's page history for that? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:32, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

• Meh… Any “major supporter” of an article will probably have it on their watchlist. Thus, it is likely that they already know about any disputes that have arisen. Blueboar (talk) 14:32, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

A list of people to WP:CANVAS? CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 19:09, 7 March 2022 (UTC)