Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals sections when appropriate, or at the help desk for assistance. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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Template:Expert needed

{{Expert needed}} seems to be a very underused template.

So is there any proof that use of this template actually gets anything done? I've seen uses dating back to 2008 that have gone completely unanswered. FoxTrot used to have it for several years, without response from anyone anywhere despite multiple alerts. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 07:37, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised a template like this exists, as it seems to go against the principles of no original research. Aiken D 09:11, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How so? An expert is likely to know more about the sources that exist for a topic and to know which sources are high quality. Anomie ⚔ 11:54, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's useful in that it notifies other editors that there is information in the article that is vague, contradictory, or incomplete such that an editor without knowledge of the topic cannot further improve it without making dangerous assumptions that may be incorrect. I've frequently had this experience when copyediting articles about locations in India and Nigeria, as it's not always clear which terms are interchangeable, or even sufficiently translated. That having been said, I don't believe there's any system that attempts to inform potential experts about the article, so these templates often go unanswered.Rosguill (talk) 21:54, 16 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. In my opinion we as a community, ought to have a more aggressive program to identify and attract experts. Until we do that, those templates will largely fall on deaf ears but I would prefer to solve the real problem rather than address a symptom of the problem.--S Philbrick (Talk) 17:31, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In theory this sounds good. I agree with what Rosguill and S Philbrick have brought up. I'd say the talk page equivalent might be a better use in terms of visual appearance for readers, but that's a conversation for a TFD. Killiondude (talk) 20:46, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Could we consider renaming Expert needed to something less imposing (brainstorming: "double check", "advice needed")? "Expert needed" at first glance makes me think that we're looking for someone with a PhD or extensive experience in the relevant field, when for a lot of these cases even a passing familiarity with the topic (or languages and/or locations relevant to the topic) would suffice. Rosguill (talk) 21:57, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: Automatic mapframe maps in Infobox building

FYI

{{Infobox building}} now automatically displays dynamic <mapframe> maps by default, if available. If you are interested in any articles using this infobox, please review how the map displays in those articles: you can adjust the size, frame center point, initial zoom level, and marker icon using various optional parameters; the mapframe map may also be turned off using |mapframe=no.

See Template talk:Infobox building for further information and discussions. - Evad37 [talk] 05:12, 18 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: {{Infobox shopping mall}} now similarly displays automatic mapframe maps. - Evad37 [talk] 05:21, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

EU Copyright Reform Update

As you might already know, there is currently a copyright reform going on in the European Union, which will affect Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects. In July, the European Parliament debated a proposal that would have been harmful for freedom of expression and collaboration online. Many Wikimedia organisations and communities took action in June and July to oppose it and contributed to the rejection of this version of the proposal.

After its summer break, the European Parliament will vote on new amendments to the European Commission’s original proposal on 12 September. Members of the European Parliament can submit such new amendments by 5 September. The European Wikimedia organisations, members of the Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU, and the Wikimedia Foundation are working on making sure amendments that protect and grow free knowledge will be on the table. These include a new approach to Article 13, but also safeguarding the public domain, freedom of panorama and user generated content.

Over the coming weeks, it will be important for Wikimedia to promote our vision of a copyright framework that helps us share the sum of all knowledge online. Should your community wish to engage in further public policy actions around this we would greatly appreciate if you coordinate with us to make sure our message is coherent across countries. We want to promote sensible copyright rules that advance access to information and knowledge instead merely stopping a bad proposal.

You can help by translating and sharing information materials in your language, sending an opinion piece to media in your country, contacting MEPs from your region with suggestions to support positive amendments, or participating in events in Brussels and Strasbourg (on 6 and 11 September, tbc).

We will provide updates soon about the community activities. In addition, we will share information and guidance on important amendments to the copyright proposal in due time.--dimi_z (talk) 09:57, 21 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Experiment: Eliciting New Editor Interests [Update]

Hi all. An update about the experiment for eliciting new editor interests mentioned here earlier. The first phase of the experiment is completed. We have received 382 responses from new editors. We have applied the matching algorithm to the responses received and we are getting ready for the second stage. This means we have stopped emailing newly registered users. We continue to expect that the second and third stages of the experiment not have negative impact on active editor workflows. This being said, we are actively monitoring the space. If you have questions, please ping here or on the project's talk page. Thank you! --LZia (WMF) (talk) 14:45, 21 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Notice: User:Citation bot now expands select bareurl citations

For example, see [1].

This doesn't work with all bare urls, but it will work with urls to Google Books, arXiv, bibcode, JSTOR, doi, PMID and several other identifiers. If you see such bare urls in an article, you can activate Citation bot here or use the one-click citation expander gadget in your preferences. The Google Books output in particular will need to be reviewed, as sometimes Google Books links to magazine, rather than books proper. It shouldn't give anything egregiously wrong, but the citation might not have the full details, list a publisher for author, or might need to be converted to {{cite magazine}} or something.

Many thanks to User:AManWithNoPlan for this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:04, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Question about number of watchers

If one goes to the History section of an article, one can click on "Number of watchers" (in case any one is curious, I shall say that Wikipedia: Village pump had 954 viewers last time I looked). My question is this. How many days is this a record of the watchers that an article has had? Perhaps it might be an idea to change "Number of watchers" to "Number of watchers in past x days". Vorbee (talk) 19:27, 23 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Vorbee: Watchers are editors that have added the page to their Watchlist. It is a count of the current number of watchlists that contain the page, not views over a certain period. If you're interested in page views, see https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:47, 23 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rfc on the inclusion of the Erdős–Bacon number in biographies.

I have just opened an RFC on the above subject here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biography#Rfc_on_the_inclusion_of_the_Erdős–Bacon_number_in_biographies.. feel free to particpate. --Dom from Paris (talk) 16:55, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant context is here and here. --JBL (talk) 19:21, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Flickr images, Commons and Wikipedia

On behalf of (at least part of, I can't speak for all) the Commons community I apologize for this deletion of 117 Huntington images that were used here. Many, probably most (but that's a bit harder to check now..) are properly licensed.

It's not the first time this happens, nor will it be the last. Another DR with 90 images (49 used here, 23 on ruwiki, 12 or less on various others) is also about to be executed. I'm not linking it now because that might cause it to be deleted faster and I haven't saved all the pictures yet.

Undeletion is feasible for a few in case of The Huntington (the deletion was so careless even PD-old works have been deleted), but for most undeletion is probably not possible on the short term.

Now my question. Would enwiki appreciate it if I upload the images that are properly licensed locally? And is there a tool to upload Flickr images to enwiki? Alexis Jazz (talk) 22:12, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Editing of sitewide CSS/JS is only possible for interface administrators from now

(Please help translate to other languages.)

Hi all,

as announced previously, permission handling for CSS/JS pages has changed: only members of the interface-admin (Interface administrators) group, and a few highly privileged global groups such as stewards, can edit CSS/JS pages that they do not own (that is, any page ending with .css or .js that is either in the MediaWiki: namespace or is another user's user subpage). This is done to improve the security of readers and editors of Wikimedia projects. More information is available at Creation of separate user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS. If you encounter any unexpected problems, please contact me or file a bug.

Thanks!
Tgr (talk) 12:39, 27 August 2018 (UTC) (via global message delivery)[reply]

Feedback for User:Citation bot/use

I just gave this page a major revamp. It could look a fresh pair of eyes, especially from users that never used User:Citation bot before. Please give feedback at User talk:Citation bot/use. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:37, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]