RationalWiki talk:To do list/Suggestions/Archive1

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Is this helpful at all?

Is this helpful at all? it just says, "hey, write this article for me." Perhaps if people want an article they should write it themselves. Sophie^{because liberals} 18:02, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

And what is with the pointless voting? Тy^{Serious Business Guy} 18:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It is not doing any harm, Wiki is not paper and all that. And if it can help spark something for someone, why not? Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:05, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I think it does do harm, cause i think it sparks stubs. People see the suggestions and write one hit wonders "Chai is a tea from india with milk" and never return to it. redlinks should be sufficient, right? and yes, i'm whiny today, so ignore me if you want.GodotGrow a vagina 18:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Why is a stub worse than no article? Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Ohh, my pet peeve, stubs. Why are they worse than no article? 1) the look lazy and bad. You click on "tea" to find what you already knew. nothing more and probably less. 2) They almost universally require more work on the part of people cleaning them up, than if the person just started from scratch - if only cause most editors respect the voices of prior editors and try to keep some of their voice intact. 3)they remove red links, so we think the article is done, and no one goes and fixes it. I spent the first 2 months of my return, just fixing stubs in the abortion section. There were some stubs that were actually perfectly fine starts, cause they were more than one liners. but the majority really are just I know one or two facts about X so I'll write that down and not look into anything else. That's my two cents, or given inflation, 20 bucks worth. GodotGrow a vagina 18:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree with the above. I'm not sure if the claimed effect of this page exists, though - the only people who seem to read this page and blueify the links are the ones who add links to it in the first place. Perhaps we can add a warning, "A stub is not enough" or "This is for wanted articles, not wanted stubs" or something? --ZooGuard (talk) 18:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Or, "if you're not sure if a topic is article-worthy, ask about it at the saloon bar." That's how that sheriffs' association thing happened yesterday. Sophie^{because liberals} 18:21, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I guess part of it comes down to what a stub means, uh just pulling from some of the stub articles I have written look something like Scientific validity (minus some formatting done after the fact). Compare to some of Ed Poor's work. Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:23, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

"not as bad as Ed Poor" doesn't do it for me. Sophie^{because liberals} 18:24, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Then yeah, we have a definition problem. Those were "stubs" i found useful when redoing the abortion stuff. they had a good place to spin from. But the last 2 days have been a constant battle over somepeople writing something with one or two sentences, and others saying "that should be deleted". I think there have been 5 created in the last few days, that all generate (as sophie said) "more information than the article". Howard Stern for example. GodotGrow a vagina 18:26, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that that was the only one that was linked from here. I've seen a few others (e.g. History woo), but they seem to be drive-bys from BONs.--ZooGuard (talk) 18:29, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

That stuff falls more into the category I was calling "very short articles" back when I was running stubbot. When the VSA category was created it was encouraged to expand the articles or if no one was willing or able to delete them. We even had a precedent policy of not needing voting/discussion to deal with VSA articles. This was a while ago though. Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

(this is mostly a joke, mostly). I"m for a new rule, we have a rule that if your article is less than 2 sentences, it gets dumped and you get blocked for a day. ;-) (Zoo, i'm not really thinking of a BON, but this is not about one particular editor, just how we are addressing topics that should be written).

Ultimately, part of this problem is that we don't have any real way of knowing what's out there, what should be written, etc., and having a real way to address it. I'm sure this is what the suggestion list was for, but it's not really doing it's purpose. The highest voted articles are things we all say "oh, that needs to be written", but know is too daunting or complex to actually want to write, so we ignore it. As I said elsewhere, most editors feel they are good at a few topics (religion and women's issues, for example) and that's where we focus. we write about things we want to see here, and have our opinions about those topics in our articles or our edits. Something no oen wants to write, no matter how important, won't get written. I'm just not convinced that this is working as an answer. as zoo said, only people using it, aren't necessarily giving us useful places to start. GodotGrow a vagina 18:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I didn't say that. Also, note that I'm one of the people using it (adding links, writing stuff, mainly doing maintenance work). I think that the list is useful in some cases:

• People who are bored and don't mind learning something new. "Hey, this sounds interesting, I can research it."
• Newcomers that may have some specialized interests or knowledge but don't know where to begin. "They don't have an article on X? Really?"
• As a centralized bookmark repository. "I'm going to write an article on X, but I don't have time right now. Someone else may have, though." (And this is the original meaning of a "to do" list.)--ZooGuard (talk) 18:47, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a very useful page, I keep an eye on it, and stubs are great. A stub is a vast improvement over no article. If you want RationalWiki to look like a finished product, you can't have it be a live site as well. You just can't have a polished and finished-looking wiki that's alive. That just isn't how wikis work. - David Gerard (talk) 19:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I have an idea. when someone clicks on a redlink, there are links offered to Help:New Article and RationalWiki:What is a RationalWiki article? these don't seem to get followed much. Is there a way of saying a brief version of those pages on the new page screen? Sophie^{because liberals} 19:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

You need to edit MediaWiki:Newarticletext.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Which requires a Mod or Tech, though I like that idea. Тy^rannis 19:42, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I've got to say that this page doesn't seem to be particularly useful. If somebody wants to write something why don't they just create a stub? I've got nothing against stubs - I created many in my more productive phase many of which are now big articles.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 21:46, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

As you can see above, we have people who think their mission in life is to cull the fresh shoots because they look untidy - David Gerard (talk) 22:19, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I would like to make a suggestion

But I can't, because the page is protected from editing. I think there should be an article on John Willke, a pro-life activist who was apparently responsible for the "can't get pregnant from rape" myth.--Tanis (talk) 05:20, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

It's a mediaeval myth, but he is the most prominent current vector for it - David Gerard (talk) 07:40, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

What to do with nuked suggestions?

Do we leave them on the list, remove them, or archive them?--"Shut up, Brx." 17:08, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion: Computer science woo

Hi. I can't seem to figure out how to edit the list directly (I assume I'm lacking some sort of privilege) and the various guides are of no help, so I thought I'd put this here. Basically, although there's some mention of this in Engineers and woo, there seems to be no article about the sort of woo that shows up in CS or IT from time to time, although the field certainly doesn't lack its rattlesnake oil salesmen (cloud computing will solve all your problems, HURD as a historical example, whatever the hell this is) or its entertaining obscure cranks (e. g. SpectateSwamp). Think it might be worth a try? --Yukabacera (talk) 16:13, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone actually use this?

Does anyone actually use this page to start potentially popular articles? Daylight Saving Time has an upvote of over 20, Causality over 10, but they're still redlinks despite being on the list for months. Sophie^Wilder 08:11, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but very slowly. I deleted the original archive because all the suggestions were already completed. Osaka Sun (talk) 08:20, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant do you write article that somebody else suggested? I also wonder if it might be more helpful to have our own list of things to do that you know about (but don't have time to do right now), and ask someone else who we think knows (eg Tweenk on nuclear energy, or me on...er...um... ooh isn't it a nice day?) Sophie^Wilder 08:27, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Ervin László

What happened to the poll about Ervin László? I could have sworn I added it to the list...--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 18:20, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Susan G. Komen for the Cure

I'm sitting here pondering it. Since we have the ribbon thing up, is there enough dirt on how a charity feels like an industry? Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 01:50, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

"Non-binary identities"

Please don't make a separate article on this until sexual identity is actually worth reading. FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 00:23, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Sexuality and gender are two different things. How does one article have any bearing on the other? Abed Nadir (talk) 00:59, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Whoops, misread the suggestion as being about sex. Instead, the article gender identity should be made and what would be in that article should be incorporate into it. FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 01:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

It may be worthwhile to merge gender dysphoria into gender identity, if it ever gets made. FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 01:37, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Vatican II

I made a Vatican II page, but all this poll/poll id mumbo jumbo is confusing hell out of me, especially with the ominous "DON'T MESS THIS UP" warnings, so... could someone move that entry for me? PacWalker 00:33, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Done. Frederick^♠♣♥♦ 05:52, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much. PacWalker 06:08, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

recent cull -> Archive 2

Fastzander culled ancient shit nobody cares about enough to have written since 2011; I duly moved it to Archive 2 for the bored - David Gerard (talk) 18:17, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Given that Fastzander's edit left a sentence cut in half, it is very likely that it was an accident, not a "cull". Such things happen when a page's code is not loaded completely when opened for exiting.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:07, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd call it "fortuitous" - David Gerard (talk) 21:39, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Identification abuse

Doesn't it also often happen with trafficked people (whether they work as prostitutes or elsewhere)?--Arisboch (talk) 15:31, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Don't overcull

It seems to take stuff a pile to cook. Some of the stuff that made it to "most wanted" was 18-24 months from suggestion to article. Currently it's stuff since Sep 2014, but cutting it to 6 months is way too short for this page to do its job - David Gerard (talk) 18:35, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Can we get a article of Gill Broussard and planet 7X?

http://www.planet7x.com/ http://www.counciloftimefraud.info/the-lie.html The end times pastors love this guy and mike from around the world. Research them both. Oh And make a page about September 23 it's is the new apocalypse day. The end times guys think these two are omniscient if you look at them. 68.148.171.6 (talk) 00:12, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

If you want to make a suggestion, add it to the suggestion list, not the talk page for the suggestion list. Frederick^♠♣♥♦ 18:00, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

How do I do that? I'm a newbie at wiki software. 68.148.171.6 (talk) 04:29, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

First you'll need to register an account. After that, you click the edit button on the suggestions page and follow the instructions at the top. Frederick^♠♣♥♦ 00:43, 16 September 2015

(UTC) ' Ok thanks.68.148.171.6 (talk) 03:54, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Most Wanted getting fat

We could up the threshold to (say) 75 ... but I'd like to leave this list to stew for a bit. I've posted calls for help to social media, fwiw - David Gerard (talk) 21:12, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Bit related: I looked at automating the entire thing and organizing things a bit better a few days ago. Unfortunately, the WIGO api doesn't offer enough information as I hoped (it doesn't tell me if a poll is "closed" or on which pages it's used) and the best thing I've been able to come up with is RationalWiki:Most_upvoted_to_do_entries. I would still like to do things better, though; my current idea is using a template in the form of {{todo|This is the page I want|This is why I want it}} inside the <todo> tag, which would give the required structure and information (we could also add a parameter for the category e.g. creationism, altmed, etc.). Writing the bot isn't that hard, but this unfortunately requires a bit of work in converting the existing todo entries :-/ Carpetsmoker (talk) 13:50, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I wondered if it makes sense to categorise suggestions (although it would encourage the lists to grow, it would make them more managable and make it easier for people to find ideas in the area they like). Anything from 2-6 categories would reduce the bloat. For example, dividing into politics/media, science, cranks/nuts/extremists, religion. Annquin (talk) 11:21, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

You wanna do the sorting, and keep doing the sorting? - David Gerard (talk) 18:41, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Going to up threshold to 75 unless anyone strongly objects. 60 or 75? - David Gerard (talk) 07:21, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

I've no objection. I do wonder if there's anything on the list that could be deleted: flavor of the month things that are now forgotten. No way of seeing when the last vote for something was? Also, I started writing an article on Satanic Temple a while ago but found there's already a lot of material scattered through RW about it; that may be the case for other articles too. Annquin (talk) 09:18, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with a fat list. Every year or so stuff gets dumped across to Archive2 - David Gerard (talk) 14:05, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea to up the threshold a bit. The "most wanted" is indeed getting waaaaay too full.--JorisEnter (talk) 10:09, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

I see you put 50-75 separately ... personally I'd merge 'em back into the list - David Gerard (talk) 14:06, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

The Recent Suggestions list is in horrible need of an archiving. The text is lagging really bad when I tried to type in a new one.Blitz (Complaints Box) 19:11, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

It's just you, and likely a weird extension you've installed. Try a different browser - David Gerard (talk) 12:49, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

I want to add a suggestion but my PC is shit

If I try to add a suggestion the formatting is klutzed up because my PC is a piece of dreck. Please add the following with the appropriate poll number:

MEMRI they translate videos from the Middle East with subtitles. Some argue their translations are inaccurate, others consider them a great source on what actually goes on. Either way, squarely in our ballpark.

Thank you. 149.210.131.21 (talk) 23:01, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Previously deleted articles

There's some on here that were already deleted as articles. J. Warner Wallace, Howard Stern, Elon Musk. Wallace (who at one time I considered writing on) was deleted more because stubs make baby Jesus cry than because he's non-missional, and the Stern article was apparently so shit it was deleted without prejudice of recreation, but Musk was more a grey area where people argued he's off-mission. Anyway, I'm not really sure I have a point other than that it might be considered a little confusing or discouraging to would-be editors. I'm not suggesting we have a policy or anything crazy like that, but maybe a note on the TODO list? Annquin (talk) 14:26, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Musk is a highly-desired article, but the shitty stub was deleted after weeks at AFD with no improvement or interest. It really wasn't worth having the article. So given the many expressions of interest, I chucked it back in the pool. What would you suggest we do? - David Gerard (talk) 14:47, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Hobby Lobby

I created this as a redirect to Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and deleted from here. I don't know anything about the company apart from the court case, but is there something else missional about it? Even if there is I don't think it needs two articles. There was no explanation in the TODO list as to why it needs an article. Annquin (talk) 14:35, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Removed from list what should have gone long ago

I removed a couple which were made into articles ages ago (the latter not all). Not sure if you want to add them to the new article list:

58

Red heifer seems to be the religious equivalent of Kobe beef, a rather rare and overrated breed of cattle. Given that Evangelical and other nutcases are trying to breed one to bring about the end of time, it appears to be squarely on mission

59

Not all X - a common derailment in argument, particularly with MRAs. Usually seen as "not all men," but it generalises well beyond that (e.g. "not all libertarians"). May or may not be fallacious depending on usage (usually is, though). Not quite No true Scotsman in use ... I think.

Not all X isn't a redirect because it was deleted because somebody doesn't like redirects? Annquin (talk) 16:39, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion

Set up a 'RW Cures for Insomnia, Writer's Block and similar inconveniences' - as dealing with the items referred to here. Either you 'cure' the problem articles or your brain gets sufficient distraction from 'staring at the problem' be able to deal with insomnia/writers block/other problem, or it decides that doing what is wanted is preferable. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:47, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Removal of Trynkiewicz

Mariusz Trynkiewicz, a notorious pedophile from Poland arrested in the 80s for murdering children, released 20 years later under an insanity plea, and recently for cybercrimes on unnamed victims. The lack of info people know of his case, or him of general outside Poland, is a strong indicator of how truly corrupt the CBA and the FBI are, refusing to investigate possible accomplices in the Americas, with many of his victims outside Poland who have outspoken accused of being liars, making the whole story up out of pity. Remind you of anything?

This section was added on November 1st, 2016 by IP address. Trynkiewicz was a murderer and a pedophile from Poland, I wrote a short draft on him on my user page. I have found exactly 0 relation to CBA, FBI, accomplices in the Americas and victims outside Poland. Actually those things are unlikely because to the best of my knowledge he never even been outside Poland so it's all bullshit that some random IP added that has no basis in reality. Or had it?

I want to remove that point from the todo list. There isn't really much that would fit RW's mission anyway, except maybe a comment about how dumb it is to replace death sentence with 25 years in prison (though it was probably meant to solve political death sentences), and how governments only solve problems when they are knocking at their door (I think it was only a few months before the people who got the amnesty were to leave the prison that government started to seek solutions). Neither of which seems to warrant a full article on the guy, at best he could be incorporated into some other big page on serial murderers.

So unless someone can shed some light on the mystical FBI cover ups or point out to me how he relates to the mission of RW I'll go ahead and remove it from todo soonish.

As a side note, if you know Polish I've found a contemporary newspaper which talks about him and has some interesting details, especially people's suggestions on what to do with the guy. NoJohYouAreTheDemons (talk) 10:47, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

A conspiracy theory about the FBI or CIA is on mission. —ClickerClock (talk) 08:57, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Right, except there is no conspiracy and no one, except that one IP address, claims there is one. At least I can't find anything on the Polish internet that would even vaguely link Trynkiewicz with USA, CIA or FBI. For all I know he never been outside Poland. Found nothing on the English internet about Trynkiewicz and USA, CIA or FBI either. All that is left is a psychopath-pedophile, and the only vaguely on-topic thing is incompetence of the Polish law in the 80s. NoJohYouAreTheDemons (talk) 13:02, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

most wanted way too long - up threshold to 100

This was way too long, so I upped the threshold. I expect it'll grow again. (I remember when it was 50 ...) - David Gerard (talk) 17:04, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Toynbee tiles

I started the article - some development necessary: or there could be an article on 'unofficial art and commentary in the urban environment' in general. Anna Livia (talk) 09:45, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Archive 2, 3 and 4 - why are these separate?

Any reason not to make these just one big page? It's all the old stuff after all. Is there any functional reason for the series? - David Gerard (talk) 21:42, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

I split them because the content is so big as a single page that it's somewhat slow to load. And, mediawiki was complaining "Warning: This page contains too many expensive parser function calls. It should have less than 100 calls, there are now nnn calls." Regards, Cosmikdebris (talk) 23:12, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

ah, that makes sense ... though the voting extension shouldn't be that expensive ... - David Gerard (talk) 00:07, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

most wanted threshold - up to 125 or 150?

getting a bit long, this section - David Gerard (talk) 21:59, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

I combed through archives 2, 3, and 4, and found a metric buttload of entries that had scores of 100 or more. All of these have now been moved into the Most Wanted list. To paraphrase the current U.S. President, the list is now yuge. An increase in the minimum score threshold for the Most Wanted list is badly needed. Only question is, if we do raise the threshold, do all the articles that no longer make the cut go into the "recent additions" section, or do they have to go back to the archive they came from? -- Tracer (talk) 21:45, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

I'll make it 150. They can stay on the current page, since they are quite popular - David Gerard (talk) 15:30, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

most wanted threshold - up to 175 or 200?

A little over a year ago, the Most Wanted list had grown so enormous that the threshold score was raised from 100 to 150.

Now, even with a minimum score of 150, the Most Wanted list has grown overly large yet again.

Should the threshold be raised to 175, or should it be raised to 200?

--Tracer (talk) 16:17, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Seems like it’s needed. I’d go for 200, 175 seems a bit messy. Christopher (talk) 16:22, 16 February 2021 (UTC)