Hi all, I was helping my girlfriend's little sister with a school project last night. Like all high school students, when asked to "research" a topic, she gets on google and pretty soon ends up at Wikipedia. For some reason that I don't understand, she wound up on a copy of [[Paris]] stored in someone's user space. She had no idea - not the faintest. I noticed because the URL wasn't quite right, and tried to explain to her, getting questions like "So, what's wrong? The information is so good!"
So, is there anything we can do to make REALLY REALLY CLEAR to visitors that User space is *not* article space? For that matter, perhaps we should have one colour for article space, and another colour for *everything else*?
Steve
Umm, what skin are you using, in the defaul skin (monobook) Article space is a white background, everything else is light blue last I checked.
en:User:xaosflux ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Bennett" stevagewp@gmail.com To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 11:40 PM Subject: [WikiEN-l] User space needs to be more clearly marked
Hi all, I was helping my girlfriend's little sister with a school project last night. Like all high school students, when asked to "research" a topic, she gets on google and pretty soon ends up at Wikipedia. For some reason that I don't understand, she wound up on a copy of [[Paris]] stored in someone's user space. She had no idea - not the faintest. I noticed because the URL wasn't quite right, and tried to explain to her, getting questions like "So, what's wrong? The information is so good!"
So, is there anything we can do to make REALLY REALLY CLEAR to visitors that User space is *not* article space? For that matter, perhaps we should have one colour for article space, and another colour for *everything else*?
Steve
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On 3/18/07, xaosflux xaosflux@gmail.com wrote:
Umm, what skin are you using, in the defaul skin (monobook) Article space is a white background, everything else is light blue last I checked.
en:User:xaosflux
I prefer the Classic skin over Monobook due to this difference.
--Ryan
On 3/19/07, xaosflux xaosflux@gmail.com wrote:
Umm, what skin are you using, in the defaul skin (monobook) Article space is a white background, everything else is light blue last I checked.
White vs light blue? I was thinking more along the lines of dark rd vs light blue. Also, she was obviously using the default skin is: monobook. Asking the random public to change their skin would, um, not work.
Steve
On 3/18/07, xaosflux xaosflux@gmail.com wrote:
Umm, what skin are you using, in the defaul skin (monobook) Article space is a white background, everything else is light blue last I checked.
A difference, sure, but not all that great - and certainly not a difference obvious to the casual reader.
-Matt
Matthew Brown wrote:
On 3/18/07, xaosflux xaosflux@gmail.com wrote:
Umm, what skin are you using, in the defaul skin (monobook) Article space is a white background, everything else is light blue last I checked.
A difference, sure, but not all that great - and certainly not a difference obvious to the casual reader.
A more noticeable difference would be to auto-play annoying background music and/or multiple videos on all user pages. MySpace has it down.
-Ben
On 3/18/07, Ben P. benp87@gmail.com wrote:
Matthew Brown wrote:
On 3/18/07, xaosflux xaosflux@gmail.com wrote:
Umm, what skin are you using, in the defaul skin (monobook) Article space is a white background, everything else is light blue last I checked.
A difference, sure, but not all that great - and certainly not a difference obvious to the casual reader.
A more noticeable difference would be to auto-play annoying background music and/or multiple videos on all user pages. MySpace has it down.
Heh!
I think my point still stands - the subtle background color difference between namespaces in Wikipedia's monobook skin is functionally meaningless for anyone except those quite familiar with our site.
-Matt
On 19/03/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
A more noticeable difference would be to auto-play annoying background music and/or multiple videos on all user pages. MySpace has it down.
Heh!
I think my point still stands - the subtle background color difference between namespaces in Wikipedia's monobook skin is functionally meaningless for anyone except those quite familiar with our site.
It's certainly indistinguishable from "the same but the screen is playing up"... I don't think I've ever explicitly noticed it. A red bar around the edges of the 'article' and a boxed note at the top or the bottom? It would certainly annoy all the OMG THIS IS MY PRETTY USERPAGE people, but one can argue if that's a bug or a feature!
On 3/19/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I think my point still stands - the subtle background color difference between namespaces in Wikipedia's monobook skin is functionally meaningless for anyone except those quite familiar with our site.
Hell, it's functionally meaningless to *me*. I sure didn't notice.
In fact, if you'd asked me what colour the background of Wikipedia is, I probably would have said "oh, a very pale light blue". Now that I go and look, yes, I see there is a difference, but it's ridiculously subtle. #F8FCFF - a grand total of 3% less red and 1% less green than pure white.
Eep.
Steve
On 19/03/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/19/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I think my point still stands - the subtle background color difference between namespaces in Wikipedia's monobook skin is functionally meaningless for anyone except those quite familiar with our site.
Hell, it's functionally meaningless to *me*. I sure didn't notice.
In fact, if you'd asked me what colour the background of Wikipedia is, I probably would have said "oh, a very pale light blue". Now that I go and look, yes, I see there is a difference, but it's ridiculously subtle. #F8FCFF - a grand total of 3% less red and 1% less green than pure white.
Eep.
I see no difference on my laptop, even looking for it.
Steve Bennett schreef:
On 3/19/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I think my point still stands - the subtle background color difference between namespaces in Wikipedia's monobook skin is functionally meaningless for anyone except those quite familiar with our site.
Hell, it's functionally meaningless to *me*. I sure didn't notice.
I think, but am not sure, that I have noticed it.
The German wikipedia also has a blue background for non-main namespaces, but it is a bit darker, and noticable; but not enough that people who are not familiar with wikipedia will know they are outside the encyclopedia proper.
The French and Dutch wikipedias have an even more noticable yellow background. Enough to make someone wonder why the page is different from other pages.
It's worth checking out the interwiki links on [[Wikipedia:Village pump]] to look for alternative colour schemes.
Eugene
On 3/20/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
The French and Dutch wikipedias have an even more noticable yellow background. Enough to make someone wonder why the page is different from other pages.
The French wikipedia seems to have made many improvements to their interface that I'm quite jealous of. I particularly like their "see also" templates. But I digress...
I've just put this code in my user monobook.css: #content { background: #e0F0FF; /* not a light blue */ }
It's much more noticeable. However, I see that the downside of tweaking the background colour is that it interferes with images. Mostly a problem for the Image: namespace, and pages like WP:FPC.
However, I really feel that we need to go further than just a background colour. From many points of view, it would be really desirable to clearly distinguish between the encyclopaedia (which probably includes the Image namespace) and the project. Having a single search box that searches both the encyclopaedia and the project is also wrong, imho. Could we somehow fix all these problems in one hit?
Steve
On 3/20/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Having a single search box that searches both the encyclopaedia and the project is also wrong, imho.
Unless you know they names of namespaceds you are unlikely to find your way out of the article namespace useing that.
On Mar 19, 2007, at 20:17, Steve Bennett wrote:
It's much more noticeable. However, I see that the downside of tweaking the background colour is that it interferes with images. Mostly a problem for the Image: namespace, and pages like WP:FPC.
At Uncyclopedia where putting images in colored boxes is more common than at Wikipedia, there's a css modification which gets rid of the whitespace that's normally created; the site (uncyclopedia) is down right now, but I'm sure it'd be small fries to implement at Wikipedia if we were to change the background color.
--keitei
On 3/20/07, Keitei nihthraefn@gmail.com wrote:
At Uncyclopedia where putting images in colored boxes is more common than at Wikipedia, there's a css modification which gets rid of the whitespace that's normally created; the site (uncyclopedia) is down right now, but I'm sure it'd be small fries to implement at Wikipedia if we were to change the background color.
Cool, good to know.
Steve
Umm, what skin are you using, in the defaul skin (monobook) Article space is a white background, everything else is light blue last I checked.
I can't see any difference at all, even when I'm looking for it. I'm using monobook and don't seem to have any custom css at all (I thought I did, but it must all be js instead), so if it's there, I would expect to see it...
On 3/19/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I can't see any difference at all, even when I'm looking for it. I'm using monobook and don't seem to have any custom css at all (I thought I did, but it must all be js instead), so if it's there, I would expect to see it...
It's a fairly small color change, on some monitors depending on your gamma settings and contrast it is near impossible to discern. It is *quite* pale.
I would be in favor of not having things that look like articles in user space at all, but then I have never understood why people need to "stage" articles in the first place.
Is the problem really that userspace doesn't have a big red border, or that userspace has an article on Paris?
Judson enwiki:cohesion
On 19/03/07, cohesion cohesion@sleepyhead.org wrote:
Is the problem really that userspace doesn't have a big red border, or that userspace has an article on Paris?
The problem is that it's no longer safe to draft an article in article space, unless you like getting CSD A7 mid-drafting.
- d.
On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:16:40 +0000, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is that it's no longer safe to draft an article in article space, unless you like getting CSD A7 mid-drafting.
Disagree. You just have to make it clear right from the outset that the subject is important - or at least include some sources.
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:16:40 +0000, "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is that it's no longer safe to draft an article in article space, unless you like getting CSD A7 mid-drafting.
Disagree. You just have to make it clear right from the outset that the subject is important - or at least include some sources.
Wikipedia is a work in progress, its articles are not necessarily complete. Lack of sources is just one of several possible types of incompleteness.
I can recall on several occasions starting a quick stub article on something based off of general information I already knew and then later on came back with more detailed information and sources after I'd researched a little. I guess I've just been lucky so far that CSD fundamentalists haven't caught me at it.
I can recall on several occasions starting a quick stub article on something based off of general information I already knew and then later on came back with more detailed information and sources after I'd researched a little. I guess I've just been lucky so far that CSD fundamentalists haven't caught me at it.
What's the point of that? It would be better to wait until you've found the sources before you start writing, otherwise you may be adding incorrect information.
Citing sources should be easy because they should be the actual source of the information, which you will already know since it's whatever you just finished reading.
On 3/20/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I can recall on several occasions starting a quick stub article on something based off of general information I already knew and then later on came back with more detailed information and sources after I'd researched a little. I guess I've just been lucky so far that CSD fundamentalists haven't caught me at it.
What's the point of that? It would be better to wait until you've found the sources before you start writing, otherwise you may be adding incorrect information.
Citing sources should be easy because they should be the actual source of the information, which you will already know since it's whatever you just finished reading.
This strikes me as a rather inconvenient process. Perhaps other people work at things differently, but I rarely directly refer to sources when starting an article unless I know little about it. The only exception is when I have sources and am not sure what articles could use them, in which case I hunt through the book/whatever for things I could write about. Otherwise, when I want to write about something in general (especially when it's on impulse, normally after "what? this is a redlink?"), it's often inefficient and frustrating to hunt down a source.
Call me an eventualist, but from experience, things work out fine in the end. The article doesn't stay like that forever - it improves.
(Disclaimer: I don't exactly start articles very often these days without sources, mainly because it's all but impossible for me to find a redlink where I have the requisite general information for a stub stuffed in my head, so my "experience" is actually a couple of years old. If this is an instance of old fartery, feel free to disregard this email.)
Johnleemk
Thomas Dalton wrote:
I can recall on several occasions starting a quick stub article on something based off of general information I already knew and then later on came back with more detailed information and sources after I'd researched a little. I guess I've just been lucky so far that CSD fundamentalists haven't caught me at it.
What's the point of that? It would be better to wait until you've found the sources before you start writing, otherwise you may be adding incorrect information.
Maybe for you, but my approach works just fine for me thanks. I find it convenient to have an existing structure on which to hang new information. If some of the information I thought I knew turns out to be incorrect I can fix it later, and I'll also know at that point that perhaps I should mention that it's a common misconception.
If the end result is still the same article, what's the problem? You write articles however you like and I'll write them however I like.
Citing sources should be easy because they should be the actual source of the information, which you will already know since it's whatever you just finished reading.
As I said, in some cases (usually where I already know a lot about the subject) I start the stub _before_ I go reading stuff. So that would be impossible.
As I said, in some cases (usually where I already know a lot about the subject) I start the stub _before_ I go reading stuff. So that would be impossible.
That's exactly what people are meant to be not doing. You shouldn't be writing based on your own knowledge, you should be writing based on reliable sources. What's the points of writing from your own knowledge if you have to go and check a reliable source anyway? Just check the source first...
Thomas Dalton wrote:
As I said, in some cases (usually where I already know a lot about the subject) I start the stub _before_ I go reading stuff. So that would be impossible.
That's exactly what people are meant to be not doing. You shouldn't be writing based on your own knowledge, you should be writing based on reliable sources. What's the points of writing from your own knowledge if you have to go and check a reliable source anyway? Just check the source first...
I've already explained what the point is, sometimes I find it convenient to throw down a framework before I start digging into sources. If I'm "not supposed to do it" and yet it still results in good articles being written, perhaps there's something wrong with having a rule against it (assuming we actually do)? And I certainly have no intention of changing my approach just because you personally don't prefer to do it that way.
I've already explained what the point is, sometimes I find it convenient to throw down a framework before I start digging into sources. If I'm "not supposed to do it" and yet it still results in good articles being written, perhaps there's something wrong with having a rule against it (assuming we actually do)? And I certainly have no intention of changing my approach just because you personally don't prefer to do it that way.
What do you mean by framework? A framework shouldn't contain anything that needs sourcing - to me a framework of an article would be just a list of section headings.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
I've already explained what the point is, sometimes I find it convenient to throw down a framework before I start digging into sources. If I'm "not supposed to do it" and yet it still results in good articles being written, perhaps there's something wrong with having a rule against it (assuming we actually do)? And I certainly have no intention of changing my approach just because you personally don't prefer to do it that way.
What do you mean by framework? A framework shouldn't contain anything that needs sourcing - to me a framework of an article would be just a list of section headings.
Being "not supposed to do it" is not a strong enough excuse for not doing it. One shouldn't become doctrinnaire about sources when an article is just started; that only quashes the inspiration to do something. Articles develop over time; we shouldn't expect them to be perfect right from the beginning.
Ec
On 3/21/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I've already explained what the point is, sometimes I find it convenient to throw down a framework before I start digging into sources. If I'm "not supposed to do it" and yet it still results in good articles being written, perhaps there's something wrong with having a rule against it (assuming we actually do)? And I certainly have no intention of changing my approach just because you personally don't prefer to do it that way.
What do you mean by framework? A framework shouldn't contain anything that needs sourcing - to me a framework of an article would be just a list of section headings.
A framework is a general summary of facts, perhaps akin to the lead section of a full-fledged article. The details can come in at a later point, and these details obviously require sources (unless the editor has somehow memorised an inhuman amount of information).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying that (assuming [[Britney Spears]] was a redlink), I'd have to write "Britney Spears is a famous singer.<ref>some pop culture magazine just to prove I'm not making up a commonly-known fact</ref>" rather than "Britney Spears is a famous singer. {{stub}}"
There is absolutely nothing wrong with starting a stub-class article without directly referring to sources. It obviously shouldn't be encouraged, but it shouldn't be discouraged either. That's how we got the beginnings of most of our articles - very few of us, I'm sure, ever actually dug up half a dozen books to write a short stub. The referencing work should be saved for the meat of the article, not for a stub summarising the general facts about the article's subject.
Johnleemk
On 3/21/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying that (assuming [[Britney Spears]] was a redlink), I'd have to write "Britney Spears is a famous singer.<ref>some pop culture magazine just to prove I'm not making up a commonly-known fact</ref>" rather than "Britney Spears is a famous singer. {{stub}}"
I think you have to write "Britney Spears is an American singer who had several number one hits between 1996 and 2002" or whatever. Else you're not asserting notability. References aren't strictly required.
our articles - very few of us, I'm sure, ever actually dug up half a dozen books to write a short stub. The referencing work should be saved for the
I virtually always start a stub with a web reference. At the very least, it gives other editors a starting point to continue from. And it takes two seconds.
Steve
On 3/21/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
I've already explained what the point is, sometimes I find it convenient to throw down a framework before I start digging into sources. If I'm "not supposed to do it" and yet it still results in good articles being written, perhaps there's something wrong with having a rule against it (assuming we actually do)? And I certainly have no intention of changing my approach just because you personally don't prefer to do it that way.
There are various reasons why it's preferable to put a source down first (mostly to reduce the effort for subsequent editors attempting to determine whether to nominate your stub for deletion). But there's no "rule" as such that I'm aware of, other than WP:AFC.
Steve
On 3/21/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
That's exactly what people are meant to be not doing. You shouldn't be writing based on your own knowledge, you should be writing based on reliable sources. What's the points of writing from your own knowledge if you have to go and check a reliable source anyway? Just check the source first...
No, read up on [[WP:ATT]]. In general, it's ok to state any fact which has already been published. If you're 95%+ sure that a relevant fact has been published, you might as well just add it, especially if you're creating a stub. If we survived 5 years without the stub, we can probably survive a few weeks or months with an unsourced but generally accurate stub.
Steve
On 3/19/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 19/03/07, cohesion cohesion@sleepyhead.org wrote:
Is the problem really that userspace doesn't have a big red border, or that userspace has an article on Paris?
The problem is that it's no longer safe to draft an article in article space, unless you like getting CSD A7 mid-drafting.
Then when you draft on userspace, unstead of..
user:Mr_Bozo/Paris
Name it
user:Mr_Bozo/Article_Draft_1
On 3/19/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
Then when you draft on userspace, unstead of..
user:Mr_Bozo/Paris
Name it
user:Mr_Bozo/Article_Draft_1
Follow up, Perhaps a "this article is a rough draft" tag might help as well.
Someone before suggested using an altered logo for the meta namespace - why not user namespace.
-Stevertigo
On 3/20/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/19/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
Then when you draft on userspace, unstead of..
user:Mr_Bozo/Paris
Name it
user:Mr_Bozo/Article_Draft_1
Follow up, Perhaps a "this article is a rough draft" tag might help as well.
Well, let's take this a bit further. Make a tag and *insist* that people use it when creating anything that could be mistaken for encyclopaedia content in their user page.
Steve
On 3/20/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/20/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/19/07, Ron Ritzman ritzman@gmail.com wrote:
Then when you draft on userspace, unstead of..
user:Mr_Bozo/Paris
Name it
user:Mr_Bozo/Article_Draft_1
Follow up, Perhaps a "this article is a rough draft" tag might help as
well.
Well, let's take this a bit further. Make a tag and *insist* that people use it when creating anything that could be mistaken for encyclopaedia content in their user page.
Steve
This sounds impractical to me. Most people will forget to do that. Rather than making this opt-in, let's make it opt-out. Apply the tag to all user subpages by default. People who don't like the tag appearing at the top of the subpage can opt out by applying another tag that would hide the default "THIS IS NOT AN ARTICLE" tag.
Johnleemk
On 3/20/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
This sounds impractical to me. Most people will forget to do that. Rather than making this opt-in, let's make it opt-out. Apply the tag to all user subpages by default. People who don't like the tag appearing at the top of the subpage can opt out by applying another tag that would hide the default "THIS IS NOT AN ARTICLE" tag.
I agree, but to avoid community revolt, shouldn't we start opt-in? I mean, while the confusion is bad, it's obviously not critical.
A stern rule that all user subpages which could be mistaken for wikipedia pages must have this tag is actually fairly enforceable. It's easy to scan for such pages by looking in non-Wikipedia categories, seeing what links to templates etc.
Who would like to volunteer to create a template that says that A) this is a rough draft of {{{1}}} and that B) this is *not* Wikipedia content, and must not be confused as such?
Steve
On 3/18/07, xaosflux xaosflux@gmail.com wrote:
Umm, what skin are you using, in the defaul skin (monobook) Article space is a white background, everything else is light blue last I checked.
Thanks for pointing that out - I never noticed before, because on an LCD monitor, the two colors are almost indistinguishable.
This whole discussion is why I'm particularly fond of the {{Userpage}} template... perhaps it should be applied automatically at the top of user-space?
Philippe ----- Original Message ----- From: Mark Wagner To: English Wikipedia Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User space needs to be more clearly marked
On 3/18/07, xaosflux xaosflux@gmail.com wrote:
Umm, what skin are you using, in the defaul skin (monobook) Article space is a white background, everything else is light blue last I checked.
Thanks for pointing that out - I never noticed before, because on an LCD monitor, the two colors are almost indistinguishable.
-- Mark [[User:Carnildo]]
_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Maybe I'm just being ignorant, but isn't the large title "User:ExampleUsername/Paris" a BIG hint it's not actually an article? I'd like to know from the original poster how his girlfriend's sister determined the information was 'good'.
Mgm
On 3/19/07, Philippe Beaudette philippebeaudette@gmail.com wrote:
This whole discussion is why I'm particularly fond of the {{Userpage}} template... perhaps it should be applied automatically at the top of user-space?
Philippe ----- Original Message ----- From: Mark Wagner To: English Wikipedia Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 4:09 PM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] User space needs to be more clearly marked
On 3/18/07, xaosflux xaosflux@gmail.com wrote:
Umm, what skin are you using, in the defaul skin (monobook) Article
space is
a white background, everything else is light blue last I checked.
Thanks for pointing that out - I never noticed before, because on an LCD monitor, the two colors are almost indistinguishable.
-- Mark [[User:Carnildo]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l