Wikipedia talk:Suggestion box

This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference.
Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump.

Firstly, are you sure that you want to discuss the operation of the General_complaints page, rather than Wikipedia in general? If not, you should be using the General_complaints page proper.

Litefantastic Confesses

Okay, I really didn't know where else to go with this, but I just have all these complaints (nothing REALLY serious, but important enough) that I decided to make this page.

My complaints are:

The search engine has worked properly for about ONE week since I joined in November of '03. What's wrong with it?
The site moves like a turtle at times. I'm using broadband and yet it still takes an almost unrealistic amount of time to save changes I've made to pages. Why is this, and can it be fixed?
The capital letters issue. If it isn't already a pain to try and correctly type out exact punctuation and spelling in the Search (O Brother, Where Art Thou? haunts me), we must also get the captialization exactly right. I'm in college and this gives me trouble, I feel real pity for grade-schoolers who have to try and find things.

This is a list of complaints. I'm not saying I'm mad at Wikipedia or anything, it's just that I think we might be able to improve some things and I think we ought to have an open forum (this page) for doing it. Don't hate me. -Litefantastic 00:39, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I added "This page is not for complaining about other users" to the intro. There are already many pages for user disputes, so it seemed a bad idea to allow this page to degenerate into yet another one of them. Angela . 19:44, May 10, 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good. This page hasn't really got a focus just yet (hence the name) but I think we need a GC page here on the Wikipedia. -Litefantastic 20:13, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Merger

This page seems to be a less-trafficked version of Wikipedia:Village pump. I would seem advisable to reunify the two forums, so that more people get their questions answered. -- Beland 06:28, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Freedom

Dear Robchurch:

1. I would suggest that when in doubt, leave new edits in.

2. The most useful sites I have come across on the web are not very picky about their material. They present it all and let the user decide.

3. As the saying goes, there is no accounting for taste, and no matter what gets put on a page, some will like it and some will not.

Thank you!

William Wallace Apex, North Carolina — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.57.59.59 (talk • contribs) 05:14, 29 August 2005‎ (UTC)[reply]

Heritage

I would like to know if there is a Wiki policy on Heritage? I have noticed on many articles that there are edit wars about peoples heritage. How far back constitutes that someone is from that descent. If we go too far back then everyone is from the Nile River region, no? example: Scarlett Johansson keeps getting switched in and out of the category Polish-Americans because the article says her mother has Polish ancestors. --None-of-the-Above 10:10, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation

No complaint ... just a suggestion to improve Wikipedia ... please include an icon to hear the correct pronunciation of words used in Wikipedia to explain topics. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ageofmachines (talk • contribs) 01:00, 3 October 2005‎ (UTC)[reply]

Plagiarism

HEY JUST WANTED TO ADD SOMETHING..... The majority of several of the articles in this "encyclopedia" are merely plagarized from other legitimate encyclopedias. Honestly--if you're going to steal it, at least change it a LITTLE bit....

~~disappointed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.255.218 (talk • contribs) 05:07, 28 October 2005‎ (UTC)[reply]

Q&A

Another suggestion: What would be cool is if you had a Q&A tab.. which I guess is like the discussion page in a sense.. but, I think it would be pretty rad for someone to be able to pose a question about the topic of the page with the expectation of getting an answer from someone who maybe maintains the information or perhaps knows more about it. This would be helpful in the sense that obscure information could be located within Wikipedia but perhaps this would help to avoid filling up the main page with lots of little obscure details, which are annoying for those who just want the gist. On the other side of that, it would be useful to be able to have access *to* the more obscure facts.. (so I'm tired, sorry if this is not completely intelligible) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdu22 (talk • contribs) 02:38, 4 November 2005‎ (UTC)[reply]

Which articles? Which encyclopedias? Are you sure they're not mirrors of us? —Cryptic (talk) 09:28, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

New warning banner for this page

To me, "how to improve this Wikipedia" needs rewording. It seems that a new user may well consider that the removal of specific vandalism, errors, and, to them, politically incorrect content, was improving this Wikipedia, and would not read the small print underneath!

Also, the terminology in the banner is wrong. The first Wikipedia is I think really WIkimedia and the "this Wikipedia" is either "this use of Wikimedia", or simply Wikipedia. If you want to avoid confusing people who don't understand the distinction, simply drop the "this".

In the small print, errors might not be seen by people to include bias and vandalism.

I'll see if I can think of better wording, later.

--David Woolley 08:49, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

MFD

This page was nominated for deletion, but the result was to keep it. R adiant _>|< 23:11, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, the history for Wikipedia:General complaints shows its first edit was the Revision as of 00:43, 7 May 2004. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ancheta Wis (talk • contribs) 00:25, 21 November 2005‎ (UTC)[reply]

Archiving

As the page had grown to over 300K and no-one was archiving it, I've created a new, simpler archive for all complaints, which avoids having to decide in each case whether it has been resolved or not. Warofdreams talk 16:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

ethnicity

I was trying to add a user box to my page about my ethnicity. i am a mexican and very proud. your site had ethnicities that i had never heard of. Can you please add mexican as ethnicity becauce you are leaving out a very large and proud group of people!

thank you xoxo SugaShake — Preceding unsigned comment added by SugaShake (talk • contribs) 02:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion for alternate meaning of Wikipedia

Since Wiki is not a word that gives immediate meaning to most people, an alternate explanation for it might be: "What I know is"... K Levin — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.252.173.11 (talk • contribs) 19:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I assume that the idea is to allow any problem to take care of itself. A couple of years ago, nobody knew what 'podcasting' meant—Apple didn't create an acronym (or a backronym) to 'explain' the term. Rather, they just let people learn for themselves. Wikipedia is in the top twenty sites in the world for web traffic; I suspect that the meaning of 'Wikipedia' and the whole wiki concept is very rapidly diffusing without creating a novel acronym. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions

I hope this is the section that I need to get this across (I'm sorry if I had written anything in an article that is not supposed to go there) I am the person who thinks that generation y should be the MTV generation (in it's entirity, 1975-1978). Nonethe less, I have a suggestion. could you have a contact/comments tab at the bottom of the computer, so you can easily comment on things in the article. And, also, can you have a "help button" going on there too? I would greatly appreciate that. Could you also tell the sociologists, media people, ect that it would be nice if they could figure out a year for generation y to start before the generation zers graduate from high school. I think that the oldest members if 1991 (the beginning of the Gulf War) is thought of as generation z to graduate in 2009 and if you think that those born in 1996 are the members of generation y, then they would graduate in 2013. It is 2006 now, I would like for them to come up with something fesible. I would like to put in something now that is not a comment. I would like for those who are figuring out when generation z should start to consider the year 1991 as a start, as this is the beginning of the Gulf War and sets up the stage I think to the War in Iraq and looks like a good year to start generation z to me. Also, when figuring out what year to begin generation y, Let's look at some of the T.V.shows back in the late 1980's early 1990's. Full Houses D.J. Tanner was probably born in 1977 (or so) as she graduated from college the same year I did, 1995. D.J.'s sisters are also born in the 1980's. The show "Family Matters" had a daughter that was also from the same cohert as me (1976/1977). Her other sister is younger (probably born in 1982, 1983) or so. I just thought I might throw that in there too :-) :-) tlh102000@yahoo.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.227.123.253 (talk • contribs) 22:06, 22 February 2006‎ (UTC)[reply]

User pages

OK, I'm sorry if this doesn't apply here, but should users be allowed to forge country flags and call recognized countries "so called"? I'm referring to -Inanna- who was banned repeatedly for 3RRs. But user pages are visible to virtually anyone who clicks on their nickname/username from the signature. I don't believe anyone would like his country being called "so called" since it's a globally recognized country, therefore it should be treated with some respect, even in user pages.--www.doc 02:52, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to rename this page

General Complaints seems like the wrong name for a page for "discussing problems you may have with the way Wikipedia is designed or suggestions on how to improve this Wikipedia." How about "Wikipedia:Suggestion Box"? -- Mwanner | Talk 22:02, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wholeheartedly agree - "complaints" is just way too negative for Wikipedia, which has always emphasized the positive with respect to participation in Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Suggestion box is much more upbeat. The Transhumanist 09:25, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Emerging Bands

A new band, Nine Months Later, just made themselves an article. Wikipedia wants to delete it. I think Wikipedia should allow small bands to make articles and keep them for the publicity and so people can find out about them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abcxyz912912004 (talk • contribs) 17:57, 9 April 2006‎ (UTC)[reply]

wikipedia does not exist to advertise things.Geni 01:43, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merge proposal

I don't see how this "Suggestion box" page differs much from the various subsections of the Village Pump, most of which also discuss "suggestions on how to improve Wikipedia, and problems you may have with the way Wikipedia is designed". Should the two be merged (in practice, I guess this would just mean redirecting this page to the Village Pump)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.111.77 (talk • contribs) 20:51, 30 October 2006‎ (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't, never has, even when it was called "General complaints". People have been trying to get rid of or merge this page for a long time. I'm all for the merge (Village Pump Proposals seems like the best match). The Transhumanist 23:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since no-one has objected I have directed to Village Pump. There don't seem to be any discussions in progress here, so hopefully I'm not cutting anyone off in mid-flow. I couldn't get an auto-redirect to work for some reason, and then I also remembered we should keep links to the archives anyway, so some brief text remains on this page. Matt 20:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC).

Historical interest

Since this page is now tagged as being of purely historical interest, I feel it would be appropriate to move it back to Wikipedia:General complaints - the location at which it gained most of its historical interest. Any thoughts? --Cherry blossom tree 22:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I think that people who type in "general complaints" should be redirected to a place where they can voice those complaints, not some historical document. >Radiant< 16:23, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I take your point, but it would only be one click away and couldn't you make the same argument for those who type in "suggestion box"? --Cherry blossom tree 23:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The editor size is more than needed?

I am not sure if I can suggest anything here, though I would like to put forth a suggestion. This is about editor that opens up when someone clicks 'Edit' button on top of the page or otherwise at sections on a page.(for signed users only)

I would like to suggest that the size of the editor should be reduced such that the text formatting, linking and other options above the editor & edit summary/save-preview-change-buttons below the editor are visible at all times, unless the need to have the edit space open for the whole page is needed for reasons. (In Mozilla Firefox, the editor can be re-sized too manually).

An editor would probably use the options available without having to scroll up/down is my suggestion in summary. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 08:34, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]