Wikipedia talk:Goings-on/Archive 1

message: ===Browser issues===
There are problems with this page (and last weeks) for, at least, IE5.5 users. You have to scroll to the right to see the right-hand side of the text. This is one of very few pages that this is the case for, and is probably the fault of the fairly elaborate HTML rather than wiki markup used to create the page. NB. I am viewing this with the cologne blue skin. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:56, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: MSIE 5.5 bug. Upgrade to MSIE 6 or a real browser fixes it. Specifically MSIE 5.5 doesn't know what to do with table percentages when combined with padding on individual cells. — Jor (Darkelf) 10:07, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't upgrade - work computer. There are millions like me. Your proposal is not a solution. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:27, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems it was, as removing the percentage width—according to your edit summary—fixes MSIE 5.5 without breaking proper browsers. — Jor (Darkelf) 11:15, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to clarify: Yep, removing the width was a solution, but me upgrading wasn't. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction re the width thing. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:39, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: Whoops! now I get it - that was just a form. OK, reverted. SV(talk) 04:35, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: March 14, 2004

message: There are problems with this page (and last weeks) for, at least, IE5.5 users. You have to scroll to the right to see the right-hand side of the text. This is one of very few pages that this is the case for, and is probably the fault of the fairly elaborate HTML rather than wiki markup used to create the page. NB. I am viewing this with the cologne blue skin. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:56, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: MSIE 5.5 bug. Upgrade to MSIE 6 or a real browser fixes it. Specifically MSIE 5.5 doesn't know what to do with table percentages when combined with padding on individual cells. — Jor (Darkelf) 10:07, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't upgrade - work computer. There are millions like me. Your proposal is not a solution. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:27, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems it was, as removing the percentage width—according to your edit summary—fixes MSIE 5.5 without breaking proper browsers. — Jor (Darkelf) 11:15, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to clarify: Yep, removing the width was a solution, but me upgrading wasn't. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction re the width thing. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:39, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: Whoops! now I get it - that was just a form. OK, reverted. SV(talk) 04:35, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Browser issues

message: ===Meta===
Anthere has created a Goings-on at Meta. Starting from next week, I will put the information from Wikipedia-l, Intlwiki-l, Wikitech-l , and Wikilegal-l there. Should it also be duplicated here, or would a link to Meta be ok? As far as I know, Wikien-l will only appear here, not at Meta. Similarly, other language-specific emails would only be recorded on the Wikipedia they relate to. Angela. 19:42, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)
:I would like to see it duplicated here. Meta is so seldomly used I never think of checking it. — Jor (Talk) 21:03, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agree with Jor. The creation of meta Goings-on is a bit annoying, because with this Goings-on I thought we had finally had a central place to feel the pulse of Wikipedia. So please make sure that we copy the stuff here if at all possible. Fuzheado 00:49, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Please at least copy the stuff here. This has been really useful for keeping track of things - don't break it up again. Ambivalenthysteria 06:54, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

text: Someone must have changed the parsing behavior recently because it was working for a while until one day, blammo. Fuzheado 08:28, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: March 28, 2004

message: Anthere has created a Goings-on at Meta. Starting from next week, I will put the information from Wikipedia-l, Intlwiki-l, Wikitech-l , and Wikilegal-l there. Should it also be duplicated here, or would a link to Meta be ok? As far as I know, Wikien-l will only appear here, not at Meta. Similarly, other language-specific emails would only be recorded on the Wikipedia they relate to. Angela. 19:42, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)
:I would like to see it duplicated here. Meta is so seldomly used I never think of checking it. — Jor (Talk) 21:03, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agree with Jor. The creation of meta Goings-on is a bit annoying, because with this Goings-on I thought we had finally had a central place to feel the pulse of Wikipedia. So please make sure that we copy the stuff here if at all possible. Fuzheado 00:49, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Please at least copy the stuff here. This has been really useful for keeping track of things - don't break it up again. Ambivalenthysteria 06:54, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Meta

message: There's something very wrong with the link to the Meta page: has the transclusion system thrown a wobbly? --Phil | Talk 08:19, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)
:Someone must have changed the parsing behavior recently because it was working for a while until one day, blammo. Fuzheado 08:28, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken link 

message: === Merge proposal ===
Please see Wikipedia talk:Community Portal and reply there.—Eloquence
=== Another merge idea ===
How would people feel about merging Wikipedia:Announcements into Goings-on, possibly as a sidebar? As it is right now, Wikipedia:Announcements is primarily a place to post statistics about the other Wikipedias. While this is interesting, I am sure it could be shortened, and there's no need to maintain a visible backlog of a month of these instances. Another box could hold ongoing project announcements of the month, which would be carried from one digest to the next.--Eloquence* 20:58, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)
:I thought Wikipedia:Announcements was more for urgent things, as it can be bolded in recent changes. Goings-on only needs to be read once a week, so anything needing to be read sooner than that should be somewhere else really. Angela. 20:48, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)
:There's talk on Announcements of cutting down the number of "the ____ wikipedia just passed 300 articles" type entries.  This page is supposed to be more community orientated, you wouldn't want to direct people to this page every time it's updated.  As Angela says it's supposed to act like a digest.  We'd dilute the usefulness of the announcements page if people stopped checking it because they thought the updates were things like what articles were featured on the main page, or something like that.  Why do you want to merge this page with any other?  If you feel like it's awkward to have to check this page, or you forget to, how about we post an announcement once a week on wikipedia announcements to say that the week's digest has been completed?  That way you'd only need to have announcements on your watchlist.  fabiform | talk 21:19, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: April 4, 2004

message: How would people feel about merging Wikipedia:Announcements into Goings-on, possibly as a sidebar? As it is right now, Wikipedia:Announcements is primarily a place to post statistics about the other Wikipedias. While this is interesting, I am sure it could be shortened, and there's no need to maintain a visible backlog of a month of these instances. Another box could hold ongoing project announcements of the month, which would be carried from one digest to the next.--Eloquence* 20:58, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)
:I thought Wikipedia:Announcements was more for urgent things, as it can be bolded in recent changes. Goings-on only needs to be read once a week, so anything needing to be read sooner than that should be somewhere else really. Angela. 20:48, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)
:There's talk on Announcements of cutting down the number of "the ____ wikipedia just passed 300 articles" type entries.  This page is supposed to be more community orientated, you wouldn't want to direct people to this page every time it's updated.  As Angela says it's supposed to act like a digest.  We'd dilute the usefulness of the announcements page if people stopped checking it because they thought the updates were things like what articles were featured on the main page, or something like that.  Why do you want to merge this page with any other?  If you feel like it's awkward to have to check this page, or you forget to, how about we post an announcement once a week on wikipedia announcements to say that the week's digest has been completed?  That way you'd only need to have announcements on your watchlist.  fabiform | talk 21:19, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another merge idea 

message: ===Don't move talk each week===
Since the talk on goings-on is very little, I did not archive talk together with the project page today. It's more sensible to keep the little discussion there is on one page. ✏ Sverdrup 10:30, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok. I've merged the older pages back here too to keep it all in one place. It seemed pointless to archive the old ones if the newer ones won't be done in the same way. Angela. 00:18, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: June 6, 2004

message: Since the talk on goings-on is very little, I did not archive talk together with the project page today. It's more sensible to keep the little discussion there is on one page. ✏ Sverdrup 10:30, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok. I've merged the older pages back here too to keep it all in one place. It seemed pointless to archive the old ones if the newer ones won't be done in the same way. Angela. 00:18, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Don't move talk each week

message: I think it would be best to reformat this page into a column and then  that at Wikipedia:Announcements - serving a role not-unlike the ongoing events box at current events. Its rather odd to separate the two and thus have to check both. What does everybody else think? --mav 21:03, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the idea of making this into a template. This way the goings-on could be shown at the Community Portal or/and at other pages (user-pages for example). --Conti|✉ 14:06, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Output page content to [[Wikipedia:Announcements]] proposal 

message: Is there any particular reason why there should be a separate Archive page for each week: could we consolidate the Archives onto a single page, say Wikipedia:Goings-on/Archive? This would allow the progression of news to be followed. It would possibly make it easier to do the archiving. --Phil | Talk 11:50, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)
:That would quickly exceed 32kb and need to be archived anyway. I think it makes it a lot clearer to keep each week separate, and keeps the page history short enough to be useful. Angela. 23:11, Jul 30, 2004 (UTC)
:I agree with Angela-- eventually, such a page would get too large and would have to be broken up anyway.  Also, it would actually be more work to merge the content each week, instead of just moving the page. --bdesham 02:22, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Keep Archives together 

message: Not sure if this is new, but I think it should be pointed out to the Wiki community that a teacher User:Weaponofmassinstruction is using Wikipedia as a place to coordinate online research/lessons for his students. Perhaps something that could be encouraged and formalized? - RoyBoy [∞] 00:33, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feb. 8th: Teachers using Wiki 

message: The infamous :Image:Autofellatio.jpg is on IfD again. This time, I want the poll to be widely advertised to get a true reflection of the community's opinion. Would it be appropriate to announce it on this page? See also WP:AN/I#Image_talk:Autofellatio.jpg, . dab (ᛏ) 09:03, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: autofellatio.jpg

message: I think the Canadian and UK COTWs should be taken off here, as they are inactive. See the listing on Wikipedia:COTWs-defunct. Didn't want to do it myself without consensus because it might upset some. --Dmcdevit 04:59, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:UKCOTW is not defunct - it is just taking things a little easier of late. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:42, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh, my mistake. I wasn't passing judgment, but it isn't listed on :Template:COTWs, so I assumed. What about Canada? --Dmcdevit 16:52, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Defunct COTWs

message: Shouldn't the section heading "Current live Collaborations of the Week" be changed to "Current live Collaborations" since many of the former COTWs have now switched to the more reasonable schedule of Collaborations of the Fortnight? BlankVerse ∅ 06:40, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes Phoenix2 22:47, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Collaborations

message: Is it just me, or has the Goings-on page gotten far too cluttered?  I'm removing the VfD and Place to Help Out templates. Places To Help Out is a never-changing template, making it totally pointless for what's supposed to be a dynamic page with the latest Wikipedia happenings.  The VfD template is also unneeded;  just go to VfD itself to find the same thing. Isomorphic 2 July 2005 23:23 (UTC)
:This is ridiculous. Who made this page into such an awful mess?  Stand forward, so I can flog you with a wet noodle!  This is supposed to be a wiki, and the page is so damn full of formatting that I can't edit it without screwing stuff up.  Could someone PLEASE remove the Place to Help Out and VfD templates?  Isomorphic 2 July 2005 23:31 (UTC)
:I'd like to make a suggestoin -- there's no need to list the main page FAs here anymore since we got the archive last august. Might I suggest a layout like this:
:.............news...........
:----------------------
:collaborations |  FAs/PPs/FLs
I think that such a setup would reduce clutter and maintence while keeping this page useful. And yes, I agree that the recently removed stuff was horribly cluttering. →Raul654 July 3, 2005 02:31 (UTC)
:I agree with Isomorphic. The VfD listing hadn't been updated since June 27, so I've removed that. The admins list was already tried at Wikipedia:Nooks (which now redirects here) and was rarely updated. The most recent version of that page shows the admins list wasn't updated between 6 and 22 June. The "places to help out" is useful, but not the primary purpose of this page, so I've moved it right to the end. I've added section headers and re-enabled section editing which makes editing this a lot easier. Angela. July 3, 2005 02:36 (UTC)
:Thinking of merges, it might be useful to have Current surveys, Announcements, and Watch (or some of it) on the same page. Angela. July 3, 2005 02:40 (UTC)
I've just found the new special page includes feature, and it's tempting me to add more clutter. If the FA section is going, would either of the following sections be useful? Angela. July 3, 2005 03:40 (UTC)
5 new pages
5 latest edits
:I think of this page as a mini-version of the Signpost: a place to get a quick read on what's going on lately. The most recent few edits and most recent few articles are a bit too dynamic for my tastes.  They tell you what's been going on in the last few minutes, not in the last few days. If others feel differently, of course, it's not a big deal.  I'm just happy to see the page smaller. Thanks much to both of you, Angela and Raul. Isomorphic 3 July 2005 05:22 (UTC)
:I agree with Isomorphic -- lists bad, prose good. →Raul654 July 3, 2005 05:26 (UTC)
I've switched back to the "classic" less-cluttered goings-on look, with one change -- I replaced the main page FAs with the collaborations of the week. What do you guys think of the look? →Raul654 July 4, 2005 01:20 (UTC)
:I like.  This version requires people to be good about adding non-routine events in order to make it useful, but that shouldn't be a problem. Isomorphic 4 July 2005 01:28 (UTC)
VfD was supposed to have been updated by bot. I merged most of this stuff in as a way of ending the poorly-updated, impossibly-named "Nooks and corners of Wikipedia that should be frequented", but have no particular attachment to it. If it's not useful and still not being updated, remove it. --Michael Snow 03:15, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Clutter

message: Hi all.  I've jumped in and created the Sep 18th Archive because I am promoting featured pics this morning and I didn't want to keep adding them to last week... What I haven't done though is remove the article collaberations and News items.  I see that some / all of them they weren't removed last week either and I confess I didn't know what to do with them.
Could someone please attend to that part? I hope I haven't created more work for anyone.
Thanks ~ Veledan • Talk + new 10:39, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive Sep 25 

message: WP:GO, WP:A, and WP:SIGN all basically serve to keep us informed. Anyone that regularly visits one of those pages is likely to be interested in the other two. Having them separate is resulting in duplicated effort. Examples:
*The featured pictures/articles/lists are duplicated in the Signpost's weekly "Features and admins" article.
*Anything significant in the Announcements page is duplicated in the Signpost's articles (and if it's not covered, it probably should be!)
*Here, the goings-on bit about servers in Seoul was duplicated at Announcements
*Every week on Goings-on we have the line "Issue X of the Wikipedia Signpost published"
It would be nice if they all in one place that could tell us everything that's really going on. Coffee 14:02, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad someone is interested in this idea. I've suggested a proposal to improve these 3 pages, or at least the Goings-on and the Announcement: The Announcement page would be for news about Wikipedia as a site, or about the wikimedia foundations, and the goings-on is a more liberal page where every user could post news about the community (see Template:WP:A header and Template:GO header for details). But this propsal never got implemented because it didn't have much discussion. As for your idea, I might approve to merge the Annoucement and Goings-on, but the Signpost is unique, it's like a newspaper with a detailed description about the event. CG 16:59, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please Ambi, stop criticising every suggestion I make. I admit being guilty of wrecking the Goings-on page, but stop your attacks. I'm not anymore free to give my ideas because I've made one mistake before? CG 15:27, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Okay, I agree about the Signpost being distinct enough to be separate. But IMO, the level of activity at WP:A and WP:GO is so low that there's no need to have them seperate pages. Coffee 06:59, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree with Ambi, Mamawrites, and Jguk - I think all three should remain seperate. →Raul654 15:38, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I like Goings-on as is - "information at a glance". It's precisely because of this that it's the only one I look at regularly; I never look at Announcements, and don't read Signpost as often as I should.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 15:44, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Goings-on, Announcements, and The Signpost should be merged 

message: Where did the list of these disappear to? It used to have its own box on this page with the articles that had appeared on the main page in that particular week. Ambi 14:37, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The last I can find is Wikipedia:Goings-on/June 26, 2005, when IIRC there was a feeling what WP:GO was covering too many topics and was getting a bit too large - it seems to be one of the boxes that was deleted when the page format was revised the following week (see Wikipedia:Goings-on/July 3, 2005).  There is always Wikipedia:Tomorrow's featured article and its monthly subpages.  -- ALoan (Talk) 16:13, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Main page articles

message: This Talk page really ought to stay at Wikipedia talk:Goings-on, at least until it is long enough to be archived.  Right now this page has double- and triple-redirects pointing to it every week because of all the unnecessary moves.  --Russ Blau (talk) 13:38, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Don't move Talk every week 

message: Community Portal is supposed to be a hub of activity, but it is pretty static compared to Goings-on which covers the same major topic: collaborations.  The two could be combined for great effect since Community Portal is on the navigation menu of every page, yet it usually takes a user awhile to initially find Wikipedia:Goings-on, which is the real center of community activity and information.  Another compelling reason to merge them is that they are largely replicative of each other.  --Go for it!
I would support this merger --Donar Reiskoffer 13:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree.  I see the community portal as more of a central point for items of permanent interest to the community, whereas this page is for more ephemeral items that come and go each week.  I'm not sure it makes sense to merge the two functions together.  I don't watch or read the community portal, but I do look at this. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Due to the steady stream of support from this talk page and the Community Portal's talk page, I've started adding the content from here to there.  Much of this page was already there (the collaborations list and this page's See Also section for instance were entirely redundant).  The information fits together quite well.  --Go for it! 16:05, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Goings-on should be merged into Community Portal 

message: Yeesh, wait a minute! I have this page on my watchlist and didn't see the above discussion until now. Please do not merge two important, widely used pages without bringing it up for a wider venue, preferably at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). No harm can come from waiting. Do not do that again.--Sean Black (talk) 22:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jumped the gun

message: To me this is a very important page, but for the most part it seems to be hidden. The majority of what links here seems to be User pages (which is how I ended up finding it). I think this is also part of the reason multiple people have suggested mergers, because this is a crucial page that really needs to be advertised more. While a very prominent link at the Community portal might work, my preferred idea is putting a link to Goings-on in the main navigation section, just under Community Portal. Any thoughts? EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 17:08, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, addition of links to the navigation panel should be extremely limited, so that they all remain usable even on small screens and lower resolutions. Goings-on doesn't nearly rate that level of importance, especially in its current state. Much of what it does is often done better elsewhere, which is why there's a push to merge it. Spamming links to a lame page all over will not make the page any better. Figuring out what niche (if any) the page can fill, making sure that it does so, and then making it visible in the places people look for that niche, is what actually needs to happen. --Michael Snow 00:43, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow.  I guess someone already merged this.  In my opinion, putting a link on the community portal sounds good to me, but I don't think that merging this page with the Community Portal is a good idea.  The Community Portal is already pretty full and I like having a separate page for happenings, etc.  I think that merging was a bad idea because the Community Portal is getting too big to be effective.  When something reaches a certain size, people just ignore most of it.  --Think Fast 01:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Precisely - I do not watch the Community Portal because it contains all sorts of stuff that I don't want to read.  I do watch this because it is very focused.  I am slightly surprised that Michael Snow thinks it is "lame" and "[m]uch of what it does is often done better elsewhere".  I agree that there are other places that do similar things (the Signpost catches up, a week in arrears, and there are announcements pages and news pages on the Pump, for example) but I think this pages has its own niche already.  Perhaps we need to debate exactly what this page ought to be doing, as Michael suggests? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What I was getting at was that the page has lost a lot of the elements it once had that made it useful, and acquired others like the list of collaborations that I find less so, since those are on the Community Portal. If it can be ahead of The Signpost on things, great. But The Signpost may eventually mature enough to go off its weekly cycle and publish on a steadier, more constant basis. Perhaps at that point it will be time to definitively retire this page. --Michael Snow 20:10, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Making it easier to get here

message: Expanding the Community Portal doesn't mean this page has to disappear.  Several users stated they liked the compact format.  So if we can make everyone happy, there's no reason not to.  --Go for it! 06:51, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge suggestion withdrawn