No Index - Needs more liberal use, Project needed to clear the backlog Options

[Milton Roe]

That project ended when someone pointed out that the software specifically forbids the tag from having any effect in the mainspace.

So someone at the Foundation made that decision? I think I knew that already, but is there a page that explains the reasoning, if any?

Yes. See WP:ILIKEEVIL

[Random832]

For background, I believe the decision (as far the "community" was concerned) regarding "non-content" pages was made on this Village pump (policy) page. But does anyone know if this is a software-enforced policy, or a community-enforced policy? It looks to me like there's no software-based restriction at all, just more of the usual revenge-above-all-other-considerations kinda thing.

Early on, I remember someone on WR complained that their attempt to add it to an article didn't work due to the software not allowing it. The discussion you are linking is on the merits of having noindex on _all_ non-article pages across the board, not on allowing/not allowing __NOINDEX__ to be tagged on any particular page in any group.

[jayvdb]

I've created a hidden category Category:Wikipedia_noindex_pages for all pages which are tagged with Template:NOINDEX.

It is slowly being populated, and I definitely saw mainspace page Drift tuners (now deleted) appear in the category briefly.

[jayvdb]

I've created a hidden category Category:Wikipedia_noindex_pages for all pages which are tagged with Template:NOINDEX.

It is slowly being populated, and I definitely saw mainspace page Drift tuners (now deleted) appear in the category briefly.

Template:Db-g10 (a.k.a "db-attack") has added NOINDEX to mainspace pages since October 2, 2008 , and I have just now seen Casey stroud appear in the category as well.

So the developers are not part of the conspiracy...

[LessHorrid vanU]

I started to write;

I do AIV and have started recent changes patrolling - from now on every BLP article that gets attacked will have a no-index template placed on it, simply to spoil the fun for the vandal...

When it occured to me that it may be that the vandalised version will be the last trawled article, and while it may quickly dropped from the rankings it will still be the one least conversant with WP BLP policy. So, what to do? Remove vandalism, then go back 24 hours later when the clean version has been juiced and then add the template? (Do-able, as BLP's are a small percentage of my anti-vandalism work)

Anyone familiar with how it works got any suggestions?

[One]

I've created a hidden category Category:Wikipedia_noindex_pages for all pages which are tagged with Template:NOINDEX.

It is slowly being populated, and I definitely saw mainspace page Drift tuners (now deleted) appear in the category briefly.

Template:Db-g10 (a.k.a "db-attack") has added NOINDEX to mainspace pages since October 2, 2008 , and I have just now seen Casey stroud appear in the category as well.

So the developers are not part of the conspiracy...

I didn't claim conspiracy, but as far as I can tell, this was the developer's decision. To wit: pages in the mainspace are not unindexed by the tag.

Tagging mainspace articles with the magic word has no effect whatsoever. Try it for yourself. View source. Noindexed pages like Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard serve up the code meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow", but the magic word does nothing in the mainspace. Compare any of the mainspace pages at WhatLinksHere:Template:NOINDEX.

This post has been edited by One: Sun 22nd February 2009, 11:20pm

[jayvdb]

I've created a hidden category Category:Wikipedia_noindex_pages for all pages which are tagged with Template:NOINDEX.

It is slowly being populated, and I definitely saw mainspace page Drift tuners (now deleted) appear in the category briefly.

Template:Db-g10 (a.k.a "db-attack") has added NOINDEX to mainspace pages since October 2, 2008 , and I have just now seen Casey stroud appear in the category as well.

So the developers are not part of the conspiracy...

I didn't claim conspiracy, but as far as I can tell, this was the developer's decision. To wit: pages in the mainspace are not unindexed by the tag.

Tagging mainspace articles with the magic word has no effect whatsoever. Try it for yourself. View source. Noindexed pages like Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard serve up the code meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow", but the magic word does nothing in the mainspace. Compare any of the mainspace pages at WhatLinksHere:Template:NOINDEX.

Gosh. You are right. I didnt check the output.

OutputPage.php:

if( is_null( $wgExemptFromUserRobotsControl ) ) {
$bannedNamespaces = $wgContentNamespaces;
} else {
$bannedNamespaces = $wgExemptFromUserRobotsControl;
}

The relevant settings from InitialiseSettings.php are:

'wgContentNamespaces' => array(
'default' => array( 0 ),
...
),

$wgExemptFromUserRobotsControl is not defined. Theoretically, we could ask the devs to add

'wgExemptFromUserRobotsControl' => array( 'enwiki' => array () )

That would effectively mean there no namespace is exempt from user control, and the NOINDEX in db-spam and db-attack would start working.

[One]

'wgExemptFromUserRobotsControl' => array( 'enwiki' => array () )

That would effectively mean there no namespace is exempt from user control, and the NOINDEX in db-spam and db-attack would start working.

Those sound like the yella-bellied, two-facin', object-orientin' words of a dastardly developer. Let's get 'im, fellas!

But that sounds like a good plan. I assumed that this didn't occur in August because it would have been controversial. (But then again, __NOINDEX__ for any page space would have been controversial and probably failed to garner "consensus" had anyone asked the community.) Hopefully the developers will make the change you suggest.

[MBisanz]

There were two attempts to start wikiprojects on this, outside of my three attempts to NOINDEX none-content pages, but all failed for lack consensus, and one of my attempts in particular showed a resounding consensus to INDEX everything we had.

Wikiprojects
Wikipedia:Search_engine_indexing

Wikipedia:NOINDEX_of_noticeboards

My attempts
Namespaces_in_Robot.txt

Adding_NOINDEX

WPBiography template

Other attempts
Administrators%27_noticeboard_navbox_all

Re-enable_searches_in_the_user_talk_space

NOINDEX_of_all_non-content_namespaces

[One]

There were two attempts to start wikiprojects on this, outside of my three attempts to NOINDEX none-content pages, but all failed for lack consensus, and one of my attempts in particular showed a resounding consensus to INDEX everything we had.

Wikiprojects
Wikipedia:Search_engine_indexing

Wikipedia:NOINDEX_of_noticeboards

My attempts
Namespaces_in_Robot.txt

Adding_NOINDEX

WPBiography template

Other attempts
Administrators%27_noticeboard_navbox_all

Re-enable_searches_in_the_user_talk_space

NOINDEX_of_all_non-content_namespaces

Thank you for assembling these links and for trying to get this rolling in the first place.

Huh? I can't recall ever having seen "attack pages" left in any of the talk spaces you mention (though I have seen them in User talk). I don't spend much time with Help talk or Portal talk, but I've seen all of the rest used for legitimate encyclopedia-fostering purposes. By extension that implies it is potentially useful for editors to search them. Before we put an end to major search engines being used for that purpose, I'd like to see some evidence that there is a problem here. Could you provide evidence of actual harm (rather than speculation) and some idea of how frequent the problem is? In general I don't think the "free encyclopedia" should be hiding our back rooms without concrete evidence of need. Dragons flight (talk) 21:52, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

From today in the image talk: space alone: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Is the 'pedia actually improved by any of those pages showing up on google? MBisanz talk 22:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Your rhetorical question here has an obvious answer.


It seems the most common objection is that editors use google to find things on Wikipedia. Maybe this has changed now that (1) Wikipedia's internal search engine has improved and (2) __NOINDEX__ has been applied to many archives that people might otherwise want to search--rather forcing them to use the internal engine.

But I suspect that a lot of the opposition is not pragmatic--I see a lot of "anyone can edit!" usernames on those pages.

This post has been edited by One: Mon 23rd February 2009, 2:00am

[Proabivouac]

Isn't it a statement in itself that Wikipedia's next step upon the path to responsibility is to try to make sure no one can find it? If something shouldn't be indexed, doesn't this beg the question of why it should be published at all?

[One]

Isn't it a statement in itself that Wikipedia's next step upon the path to responsibility is to try to make sure no one can find it? If something shouldn't be indexed, doesn't this beg the question of why it should be published at all?

It isn't worthwhile (or even possible) to scrub every bathroom wall in the world every day.

Thanks to google, every wikiscrawling becomes a billboard capable of harming any named individual. Even if we can't scrub the wikibathroom walls, it's a very good idea to take down the billboards. That's what NOINDEX is meant to do.

This post has been edited by One: Mon 23rd February 2009, 2:22am

[MBisanz]

Isn't it a statement in itself that Wikipedia's next step upon the path to responsibility is to try to make sure no one can find it? If something shouldn't be indexed, doesn't this beg the question of why it should be published at all?

I have personally deleted over 3,000 nonsense File talk pages, but I'm one admin with one mouse, I have a list of 5,000 pages that are averaging 50% deletion right now, but without more help, it cannot be done right this instant. NOINDEX at least gives some time to get more pages deleted.

[GlassBeadGame]

... but I'm one admin with one mouse

I understand that mice can be breed prodigiously and with dependable results. They can be trained to perform many useful tasks and hardly ever resort to cannibalism. This argues strongly I think for more mice and less admins.

[Kato]

It seems the most common objection is that editors use google to find things on Wikipedia.

I'm not so sure. The first link I opened had a few opposes to NOINDEX, the opposers were the usual anti-BLP-nutjobs, JoshuaZ and Prontok.

This tells me that perhaps the objections have the traditional hue to them, and are related to certain people's bizarre need to use an encyclopedia to show how much they hate the world?

[EricBarbour]

I have personally deleted over 3,000 nonsense File talk pages, but I'm one admin with one mouse, I have a list of 5,000 pages that are averaging 50% deletion right now, but without more help, it cannot be done right this instant. NOINDEX at least gives some time to get more pages deleted.

Still trying to bail out the ocean with a teaspoon, eh?

You really think that tag will "help", when thousands of people are adding to
those talk pages every day? Why aren't you asking for more admins to help you,
or maybe even a salary?

Just admit it, you're deeply masochistic.
Set your mind free, admit you're fucked up.

You're just one fool with one mouse.

[One]

It seems the most common objection is that editors use google to find things on Wikipedia.

I'm not so sure. The first link I opened had a few opposes to NOINDEX, the opposers were the usual anti-BLP-nutjobs, ...

Yeah, that's what I mean by "anyone can edit" fundamentalists.

I'm not sure either, but I think the finding-stuff-on-talk-pages argument has been rendered obsolete.

[Alison]

So I started adding {{NOINDEX}} tags to the more crucial areas, one of which I deemed to be mentions of Daniel Brandt in the Wikipedia: namespace, as well as on talk subpages, etc. As noted before, Wikipedia's own internal search engine is up to scratch now so there should be little excuse for reliance upon Google for WP's own in-site searching. I've also courtesy-blanked a number of the Brandt DRVs while I was in there.

So far so good, right?

Well, no actually Some anon editors have been hard at work reverting all my edits. Now, why is that??

EDIT: And now this anon! This is just so petty. Anon tag-teaming to keep Daniel Brandt's name indexed by google. I'm at 3R now on some of those, and need to stop.

[gomi]

NOINDEX and Semi-protect. You have the power. Anything less shows half-heartedness.

[Alison]

NOINDEX and Semi-protect. You have the power. Anything less shows half-heartedness.

Well, yeah. There's an argument to be made for fully-protecting old archived pages like those, but admins are not supposed to protect pages they're actively editing, and worse - those they're in dispute over. I'd be hauled up in front of ArbCom for a prompt de-sysopping/dramafest and would be thus of little use to anyone anymore