Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)

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The idea lab section of the village pump is a place where new ideas or suggestions on general Wikipedia issues can be incubated, for later submission for consensus discussion at Village pump (proposals). Try to be creative and positive when commenting on ideas.
Before creating a new section, please note:

Before commenting, note:

  • This page is not for consensus polling. Stalwart "Oppose" and "Support" comments generally have no place here. Instead, discuss ideas and suggest variations on them.
  • Wondering whether someone already had this idea? Search the archives below, and look through Wikipedia:Perennial proposals.
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Note: inactive discussions, closed or not, should be archived.


The personal pronoun problem[edit]

Hey all, I brought this up at the Gender Gap Task Force a while back, and thought I'd bring the issue here for more brainstorming and possible solutions. User:Sue Gardner wrote a very interesting blog post by , where she discusses how being referred to by the incorrect personal pronouns can put women off of editing and give examples. So I thought it would be a good idea to try and figure out some possible solutions to this problem. I brought it here instead of coming up with a proposal, because I don't really have any experience in Mediawiki technology or being a woman on the internet. In the GGTF discussion I suggested adding template:gender to the editing toolbar so that editors would be more likely to use it. User:SlimVirgin came up with the idea of having a hovercard feature for usernames, which would show some personal information about an editor if enabled in preferences. Do these seem like things which could help? Would they actually be possible to implement? Brustopher (talk) 22:07, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea and worthy of exploration and comment here. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 22:14, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
A number of the concerns raised by Sue Gardner can also be issues for male editors as well. For example, I now tend to avoid VA-type pages because they seem especially conflict ridden. That perceived adversity may be why so many VA articles are in poor shape. Praemonitus (talk) 20:56, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
In the basic issuse of referring to other editors by a preferred pronoun, one can use {{pronoun}}, {{he or she}} or any of several other similar templates. These all trigger off the preference item where an editor can indicate a choice of male, female, or non-gendered pronouns. I now always use one of these when referring to another editor with a pronoun, unless I already know that editor's preference clearly. DES (talk) 11:00, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
Hi Brustopher, I think it's a good idea. Perhaps you could contact someone from the Foundation who works on these issues, or who worked on the hovercards. Sarah (talk) 18:36, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
This feature idea might be suitable for WP:NAVPOP, but isn't really suitable for Hovercards in its current form. The current version of Hovercards is purposefully restricted to only work on links to mainspace pages, and it is intended to be purely a quick preview of mainspace pages. (The very long-term plan, is to overhaul Navpopups and integrate it with Hovercards, as "advanced/basic" versions of the same idea (whilst retaining the advanced functionality and info-dense appearance of Navpopups in the advanced version, and avoiding the problem of slowly turning the "basic" form of Hovercards into a duplicate of Navpopups)).
For example: Navpopups already has a line at the bottom, on links to userpages, for details about editors including their usergroup flags and first-edit date (e.g. http://i.imgur.com/WAfHAbm.png) This is similar to the details that the userscript User:PleaseStand/User info adds (screenshots there), except that script also adds the "mars/venus" symbol (see the Jimbo example screenshot) if the userpreference for gender has been set - Perhaps the code that is doing that (?) could be re-used in Navpopups? Hope that helps. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:23, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
@Quiddity (WMF): Thanks for the detailed response. Who would you recommend going to, to see if the code from userinfo script can be integrated into navpopups?Brustopher (talk) 23:46, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
@Brustopher: I'd suggest adding a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Tools/Navigation popups, along with a link to User:PleaseStand/userinfo.js (which seems to be well-documented, and the "gender" keyword appears in a few places) so that the javascript wranglers of that gadget can easily glance at the existing code to see if it is indeed re-usable. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:10, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
@Quiddity (WMF):I brought the issue to Wikipedia talk:Tools/Navigation popups a while back. However, it only just hit me that the tools is not longer being developed by the intial developer. Any suggestions of who would be able to make this change and whose support I'd need. Would there have to be an RfC or something? Brustopher (talk) 21:58, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Whenever I need to refer to an editor by a pronoun, I always check the user's User: page for an indication of gender; and assuming it's specified, that's the gender I use. (Or occasionally their gender is obvious by their choice of user name (such is the case with me)). Otherwise I feel the "generic he" is quite adequate. I feel if someone is really sensitive about being referred to by the correct pronoun, then they should indicate their gender on their User: page. Perhaps the routine that handles the creation of new accounts should encourage the soon-to-become-an-official-Wikipedian to provide that piece of information.
Richard27182 (talk) 09:04, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

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Ideas for slowing down vandalism[edit]

I have some ideas for eliminating at least 15% of all vandalism as predicted, and I have a good reason to share them with you. Vandalism is like bombs which were set to destroy Wikipedia, which is usually repaired by non-vandals, but that is not just why because we all know that Wikipedia is not meant to be vandalized. I have some suggestions here:

For logged-out users

It is a good thing that we can keep track of registered users very easily, but people from anywhere can make edits, including vandalized ones, which is harder for us to keep track of, and they can always use another computer or change their IP addresses to keep vandalizing, which makes things even harder for us to keep track of, so, so that we could better take a peek at what people had done and therefore keep track of their attitudes, logged-out users would be allowed to edit up to 20 times per day but still allowed to revert their own edits anytime.

For recently unblocked users

It is usually expected that Wikipedians whose blocks have been naturally lifted be better contributors than they were in the past. However, it is not always known as to whether they will continue to act inappropriately, so, just to reduce taking chances, the users would be allowed to edit up to 20 times per day for one week, still being able to revert their own edits, until one week has passed since their being unblocked unnaturally.

Your opinions

So, after having said my ideas, I would love to hear some of your views about my ideas. If you do not like them just enough, do not be afraid to tell me why, for I may be able to fix my ideas. Your opinions start now. Gamingforfun365 (talk) 07:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I think any kind of rate-limiting is a really bad idea. It would unduly affect good IP editors. There is a long-standing fixed IP editor (whose number I cannot at the moment recall) who is so productive that many users have failed to persuade them to get an account. Also IP use is a way into editing: before registering, I did anti-vandal work as an IP and would have been miserably hampered by your proposals. As for recently unblocked users, some users do things (like repetitive typo fixing) which use up lots of edits so rate-limiting would effectively be an extra week's block. It might be helpful in some cases but not as a blanket proposal.
I'm sure also that many will cite meta:Founding principles and say that this goes against principles 2 and 4. BethNaught (talk) 09:33, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
For recently unblocked editors, why not treat them like a new user and revoke their autopatrolled and autoconfirmed status? Praemonitus (talk) 16:48, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
I'm thinking that rate limiting could be a good idea. I don't think it would be hard at all to white list any IP who chooses to continue contributing as an IP and is productive. I consider something well short of 20 edits. Limit an IP to five edits per day. On the sixth edit, they get a message explaining the limitation but also explaining that they can ask for the limit to be removed. This should be done as a very very low hurdle request. If their first few edits are not vandalistic, up the limit. Someone, sometime, will try to gain the system but they can only get away with it once.--S Philbrick(Talk) 02:42, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
I think that rate limiting would be good but I agree with Sphilbrick in the idea that they should be able to contest it so that way it would have minimal effects on the good faith editors. Tortle (talk) 03:01, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
The Rate limiting idea seems to assume that we have no more than one editor per IP address. But we know that one entire country funnels its internet through one IP. ϢereSpielChequers 07:42, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Article for deletion patrolling[edit]

I think there's shouldn't just be a way to patrol proposed deletion as described in Wikipedia:WikiProject Proposed deletion patrolling but also a way to patrol nomination for deletion. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Registry Dr. failed to get a lot of attention even after it got added to 2 deletion sorting pages and sometimes people go straight into nominating an article for deletion without proposing its deletion first. Blackbombchu (talk) 18:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

What exactly would patrolling deletion nominations entail, or are you just proposing we encourage more users to vote in AfDs? Sam Walton (talk) 18:34, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
It would draw more attention to those article deletion discussions that otherwise would have gotten so little attention, some of which didn't draw attention to patrollers because they weren't proposed for deletion first. Blackbombchu (talk) 18:40, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
So essentially a drive to point out discussions which aren't receiving enough input? There's definitely an interesting idea here, perhaps similar to the way editors are messaged to vote in RfCs, but with a focus on AfDs with low participation? Sam Walton (talk) 20:44, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
That's not a bad idea. Maybe something like Suggestbot that puts lists of low participation AFDs on talk pages? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:35, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
I guess this could work like this; users opt-in to a messaging service (in the same way that Suggestbot or the RfC bot work), and receive some amount of notifications per period of time regarding AfDs which have reached their 4th or 5th day with less than one or two votes. Sam Walton (talk) 21:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
  • I would support a bot that physically moves AfD transclusions (e.g. move some AfD nominations higher up in the log), based on something like Reddit's hot algorithm, but in reverse. Esquivalience t 23:26, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
An "opt-in notification service" of some kind to solicit input in AFD discussions lacking participation would be fine; @Esquivalience: I would be opposed to a bot moving transclusions up and down a page, unless it was given a separate page of its own or implemented as a "sort function" to allow users to affect only their view of the page. I quite often check discussions (listed by date and time added) that I have commented in or have interest in, or I'll get through a few on the list and come back later; the order plays some role in my memory of them. If the discussions shift positions on occasion, while it's an interesting idea, I think it would have undesirable effects. Whether or not the benefits would outweigh them I'm not sure, but I would definitely have to adjust my methods considerably. I would support a page that lists discussions lacking input in the manner you suggest separate from the current system (perhaps broken down by day as well or simply the last seven days combined).—Godsy(TALKCONT) 08:08, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I think that we ought to scrap AFD entirely, and re-create it as a purpose-built system that actually handles the whole workflow from start to finish.

Imagine an AFD tool that has simple forms to fill out for the nominator, that never sees nominations get "lost" due to transclusion problems, and that automatically counts !votes and tracks how many separate individuals participated. Imagine one that notices when a page is ready for closing (i.e., because it meets our standard criteria, such as having ≥3 participants and being 7 days old, or whatever we decide), and that puts the page into a list or category for action. Imagine one that could sort or filter by any criteria that you care about: the most attention (maybe it's SNOWing?), the least attention, only BLPs, only articles tagged by my favorite WikiProject, etc. Imagine one that can be withdrawn or closed by clicking a few buttons with a built-in script (including direct access to page deletion for admins and maybe a scripted blank-and-redirect button for everyone), rather than having to type special codes into a template and separately processing the page.

Wouldn't that be a lot better than what we have now? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that would be an improvement. Currently, there are regular complaints about the process being overly complicated. Maybe a gadget or a gadget-bot combination might serve to create such a system. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:39, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
I think the process of nominating articles for deletion and having well researched deletion discussion pages can be made better by Wikipedians collaborating in a complex way, and I think the only way that's going to happen is if Wikipedia accepts help from Harvard Catalyst which will do a lot of participating in deletion discussions. Blackbombchu (talk) 20:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
  • No, WhatamIdoing, it would be a whole lot worse. Perhaps you have forgotten over the years of not particpating on that area that AfC is a discussion not a vote. It should be kept as complicated as possible to deter newbie NAC from experimenting with it. We also already have the fully automatic AfD tool, but that's also embedded in NPP which you told me years ago is a superfluous process.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:57, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
    • I believe that you meant that it's supposed to be a consensus-finding process rather a numeric vote, but (a) both admins and NACs are actually closing these as votes, and (b) keeping a tally of the votes doesn't force an admin to delete on that basis.
      My bigger concern is about getting people to nominate suitable articles, and to let interested users know about the nomination. If you still want to close manually, then that's okay with me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:28, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Talk page patrol[edit]

I think there should also be a creation of a talk page section patrol. I think that might be technically possible after a change gets made in the way talk pages work as described in Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 139#Change the way discussion pages work. Blackbombchu (talk) 02:19, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

A Proposition[edit]

I recently made a proposition for a redesign of the community portal that would fix bugs and give a more modern less cluttered look. I would like more people to participate in the discussion. Heres the link- Wikipedia talk:Community portal#A Proposition Thanks Tortle (talk) 17:21, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Come see the New WikiProject Wikipedia![edit]

{{WPW Referral}}

I think Wikipedia will improve even more if we find a way to convince the public that Harvard Catalyst could do a really great job of collaborating to improve Wikipedia, and that Wikipedia information is so useful that it will be better for society in the long run if Harvard Catalyst is funded by the government to do so than if it isn't, instead of us just participating in Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia. Blackbombchu (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Four Two points:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia isn't new. It was started in 2007, and currently moribund.
You are in no position to award 'charter member' status to anyone - as far as I can tell, you haven't even participated in the project.
Harvard Catalyst is already funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program. [1]
The objective of Harvard Catalyst is to increase collaboration in the field of human health. As such, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the objectives of WikiProject Wikipedia. It may possibly be of relevance to Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine.
I suggest that before making further proposals, you do a little elementary research. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:32, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
For the record, Blackbombchu's post starts at "I think Wikipedia ...". Above that Tortle posted {{WPW Referral}} when it had this content. Tortle moved the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia to Wikipedia:WikiProject Improving Wikipedia without discussion, and reused the name for his own new WikiProject which had not been discussed anywhere. Due to this and other issues, Tortle's project has since been deleted and the original Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia has been moved back. See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia/Members#Project creation. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:47, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Ah - that explains the apparent disconnect between the initial notice and Blackbombchu's post - I've struck the no-longer-relevant comments. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:00, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Ideas for dealing with paid promotional editing[edit]

Are being discussed here [2]

Following the recent issues as discussed at WP:AN Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:32, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Limit patrolling to reviewers (and possibly an extra patroller group)[edit]

As has been brought to light in the Orangemoody case, but as was already known and discussed before that, allowing any autoconfirmed user to patrol articles makes it somewhat easy to bypass new page patrolling (see the sock Akashtyi (talk · contribs) for example). The system could be made more robust by restricting 'patrol' and page curation to (pending changes) reviewers (admins implicitly included), and possibly a new 'patroller' group with lower requirements than reviewer (there are some active patrollers who aren't reviewers). On the other hand, there are regular complaints against 'over-zealous' new page patrollers, so moving this userright from 'autoconfirmed' to usergroups that can be added and removed from a user would provide an incentive to behave in this area. It might also become a technical requisite for accepting AFCs. Cenarium (talk) 18:41, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like a reasonable idea. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:11, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Good idea, including the new patroller group ϢereSpielChequers 23:37, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Sure, this sounds good. (Note that I'm a reviewer myself, though I wouldn't oppose if I weren't.) Patroller group is a good idea too. Eman235/talk 04:13, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
This has all been pre-empted (before Orangemoody) and a major RfC is currently being drafted to be launched soon (not by me, for once) that coincidentally almost perfectly addresses the points made here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:26, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
@Kudpung: Thanks for the info. Do you have a link to the draft RFC ? Cenarium (talk) 16:41, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
It's a fine idea as long as it doesn't result in a growing backlog of pages to be reviewed. It's time-consuming and takes knowledge and skill. There's going to be an interesting trade off if we go this route: quality vs. quantity. NPP is our first line of defense, obviously, and a good review can save hours of editor time down the road. Jusdafax the 09:52, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
It won't create a backlog. If anything, it would reduce it, because having a nice pointy piece of headwear to go with it will be a magnet to the hat collectors. But they'd have to jump through some much tougher hoops than mere PC reviewers, most of whom were granted by a bot several years ago. My empirical experience from chasing wannabe page patrollers round the site for the last 5 years tells me that good reviewers need almost as much clue as admins if they are going to detect Orangemoody kind of stuff. Even AfC with the 500/90 bar that I introduced can't get its job done without constantly having to ask each other what to do and constantly trying to invent new bots to do it for them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:46, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree it takes a clue to do NPP properly (I have been hit by the clue-bat a few times and I hope each time it has made me a better editor) it is, however, one of the better ways to get a clue about what is and is not a good article. What I think is needed is some sort of feedback mechanism to let good faith NPP know what they do right and what they do wrong. Most of the feedback we get is in the form of complaints from promotional and COI editors when their article is tagged with CSD. This new feedback mechanism need to strike some compromise between inclusionist/deletionist views as well as fix it vs tag it. That is if we want to use it to grow good NPP editors. In simplest form it can be more people doing what Kudpung does and review the reviewers. If we want to prevent sock self patrolling that is going to be a bit harder.

Whatever regime we set up a dedicated commercial enterprise can find a way around it. It would take some time to work up an account with whatever "NPP reviewer" user-right but it is trivial when there is money on the table. At that point our best option is tying the user right to the Terms of Use by saying anyone with the 'NPP user right' may not receive compensation for their editing (with the usual carve outs for GLAM, WiR, employees of the Foundation etc.). As to detecting Orangemoody type things that requires either mentoring or a lot of experience. AGF ties our hands because we are suposed to deal with each new editor as a naive but well-intentioned person who just needs some proper guidance and each NPP must figure out how to manage that. I have never seen anything that tells us how to spot and deal with bad-faith paid editors etc. If we try to figure it out we are called 'deletionist' and 'over-zealous' which sooner or later leads to people giving up or becoming ass-holes with a smaller number figuring out how to manage on their own. Of course giving guidance on recognizing articles being pushed by puppet-farms will become useless almost as soon as they are posted. It would be so much easier if we just had a WP:CABAL controlling NPP :) JbhTalk 13:02, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Creating an algorithm for determining dead sources[edit]

Hi guys.

In an ongoing effort to improving Cyberbot II's newest feature which is, placing archives on dead sources, detecting if untagged sources are dead, and archiving those that are still alive, the bolded feature still needs much work before I can enable it.

I am looking for users here who can propose different checks that can be put in an algorithm to accurately determine a dead link.

When proposing, create a new level 3 header and propose the algorithm to be discussed. Users may support or oppose, but remember we are simply compiling ideas at the moment.—cyberpowerChat:Online 19:53, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I think this idea belongs in Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Blackbombchu (talk) 20:56, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
Why? I'm not making a technical or report. I'm asking for ideas on creating an effective algorithm.—cyberpowerChat:Online 23:11, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
How about the bot finds the latest archived edition that's different, in the case of dead links? For example, here I substituted an older edition of the (second) page because the latest archive was broken too. Eman235/talk 04:29, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

N-grams[edit]

If I understand you correctly, one way to do this would be to collect a large sample of dead link responses, then use some sort of AI to check if the response you get is enough "like" the sample to be considered a hit. N-grams (character-level trigrams probably) and approximate string matching may be helpful for this.  —SMALLJIM  09:54, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Existing bots and tools[edit]

There may be algorithms, or code, that are useful, on the following pages, particularly the first:

-- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:03, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Auto sign on talkpages[edit]

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Auto sign on talkpages: Mz7 (talk) 22:35, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Warning template for narrow categories[edit]

Would it make sense to have a {{Category too narrow}} warning template for categories that have less than five entries and are (currently) impossible to expand further? Examples include Category:Sirius and Category:Aldebaran. Thank you. Praemonitus (talk) 14:37, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

What purpose would such a template serve? People adding or removing categories with hotchat are not going to see it. ϢereSpielChequers 18:33, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
If the category is too narrow then you're implicitly saying that we should get rid of it. Sure, that can happen and have CfD for that. If the category is narrow but otherwise completely fine, why would you want to tag it? Pichpich (talk) 01:42, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Motion: AUSC Extension[edit]

The Arbitration Committee is currently examining several reforms of the Audit Subcommittee and asks for community input on how they would like to see the Subcommittee function in the future. Because of this, the current Audit Subcommittee (AUSC) members' terms are hereby extended to 23:59, 30 September 2015 (UTC).

Supporting: AGK, Doug Weller, GorillaWarfare, Guerillero, LFaraone, NativeForeigner, Salvio giuliano, Thryduulf, Yunshui
Opposing: Courcelles

For the Arbitration Committee, --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 02:10, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Discuss this and the future of the AUSC at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Motion: AUSC Extension

Articles for Deletion: Use a bot to notify signed-up editors[edit]

A concern has been expressed at the Help Desk talk page that too many Articles for Deletion discussions have very few participants, and therefore do not represent consensus of the community. One possible way to increase participation in deletion discussions would be similar to how participation in Requests for Comments discussions is increased. That would be to invite editors to sign up to receive notifications of deletion discussions from a bot. Does anyone have any comments? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:09, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

If an editor could easily sign up for (and resign from) notifications of AfDs in areas in which they are currently interested, similar to how WikiProjects can subscribe to Wikipedia:Article alerts, then I think that's a good idea.  —SMALLJIM  16:19, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
See #Article for deletion patrolling on basically this topic above. Sam Walton (talk) 16:21, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Error for refname collision[edit]

When an article contains a refname collision (same refname defined multiple times, with like or unlike definitions), (1) the software uses the first definition and ignores the rest, (2) there is no indication of any problem given in the reflist, and (3) the article is not added to any tracking category. All are evident in the test in this revision, using the refname "Blinder-Lewin".
Apparently this is being treated as a minor, innocuous problem, but it is not one in my opinion. It can create issues with WP:V among other things. If the collision is ever detected, it's often some time later (years?), and by a different editor who is not well familiar with the article or the sources used. Yesterday, I spent over an hour untangling a particularly hairy case involving one refname, two unlike definitions, and four cites, and it was the toughest thing I've done in quite awhile (granted, it didn't help that the ref title was incorrect in one of the definitions).
It is a less serious problem if the definitions are identical, and I wouldn't necessarily ask the software to compare the definitions, but I think the downside of no error in the serious case (WP:V issues, more editor effort to fix) is greater than the downside of an error in the minor case (big red error in the reflist, which might be seen by some readers until the problem is fixed). I think an error message should be generated in the reflist, and that the article should be added to an appropriate tracking category. But I wanted to get some feedback on this here before taking this to WP:VPR. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:20, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

This does sound like a software bug (or omission). It seems obvious that a refname should occur with content once only, so multiple occurrences with content should generate an error. Agree that it would be neat if the software could detect repetition of the same content and flag that less loudly. Stanning (talk) 16:33, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
@Stanning: (or anyone) Thanks. You used "content" where I said "definition". I don't know, is "content" a widely used term for that? If so, I'll use that if I go to VPR, for maximum clarity. I also invented the term "refname collision" here, and the same goes for that. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:11, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
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