Wikipedia talk:Avoid imitating MediaWiki user interface elements

It seems like there is already consensus against such elements, but not consensus for enforcing prohibiting them. See also this and this thread.

Feel free to expand or add reasons for both sides of the issue in the page, and clarify on the issue itself in prose. It's a bit rougher than I'd like, but I thought that I wanted merely to create a central page, and to channel discussion into this, its talk page. This is a policy and not a guideline, for reasons discussed at the Village Pump. Feel free to change the title if you don't like it, but I purposefully picked "Avoid" instead of "Do not". Gracenotes^T § 20:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Before I could comment on this, can a link to a category or list of actual MediaWiki user interface elements be provided on the project page? I would like to know the expected reach since this seems to be abstracted from the "new messages" practical joke to a broader purview. Thanks. ju66l3r 21:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Special:Allmessages. Picaroon 00:16, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

See User:Gracenotes/GUI for another example. Other example include fake new message boxes, preview messages, and the like. Some are more harmful than others, obviously. Instead of delineating what specific elements are harmful, perhaps it might be best to give a definition for what is generally a bad idea. Gracenotes^T § 01:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Bots

Why do bots get confused by joke "new messages" banners? It should be trivial to check whether the new message box has a link to the bot's own talk page (if it doesn't, it is not a real new message banner). Kusma (討論) 22:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

That's just extra work for bots that check for messages (which serve as a temporary off-button for them) via "screen-scraping," as I believe its called. Sure, the operators could go reprogram them. Or, people could stop doing things which have no purpose save confusing fellow users, living and mechanical. Now which of those two choices sounds like a better idea? Picaroon 00:16, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

If a bots can't even bother checking that the link in the box goes to their talk page before shutting off, it's not well-written. It's not even like that requires an additional transfer - just a different pattern to match. --Random832(tc) 04:13, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

By that logic, cars that can't even bother avoiding spikes in the road aren't well-built. Picaroon 23:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

What would this apply to?

Which of the following would this apply to?

1. Boxes not at the top of the page.

Self-explanatory - the real box doesn't appear in the middle of the page, therefore a box in the middle of a page cannot reasonably be mistaken for it

2. Boxes containing internal links.

Some of the hysteria was regarding external links to possible phishing/etc site - the sane solution, if that is the problem, is to ban only those.

3. Boxes linking to the user's talk page

You have new messages (last change).

Or is that worse because the joke's not immediately obvious?

4. Boxes not containing links.

You have new messages (last change).

The argument about wasting time and a transfer is weaker when there is no transfer to take up time.

5. Boxes not matching the wording of the actual UI.

Here's the current one from User:Certified.Gangsta's page.

You have new massages (last change).

--Random832(tc) 12:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

All of them are confusing and spoof the UI. All should go, because they cannot help the project, and only confuse new users. -- nae'blis 16:24, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

What if the text doesn't look anything like the real UI? Are we going to ban the color orange? How does something that's not at the top of the page confuse anyone? --Random832(tc) 17:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

There is currently 0 consensus about banning any particular iteration of these things. (→Netscott) 17:21, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Let me clarify. A link not at the top of the page, that doesn't contain any links or any homonym of the words "You have new messages", would be acceptable to me. But that's not very good at tricking people by that point, is it? And that's the point of these messages; to trick people and play a joke on them. Anything that will confuse new users or irritate any user is suspect in my book, and these definitely qualify. -- nae'blis 19:46, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Support concept

The current wording could be improved a fair degree, but I support this in principle. —Doug Bell ^talk 23:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

This page is a bit redundant now

A fair number of editors hashed out an addition to Wikipedia:User page that essentially covers this concept. Two of the significant concerns in hashing out that new section was that it was wiser to avoid teaching users about spoofing WikiMedia content and that it was also wiser to avoid instruction creep. (→Netscott) 00:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

All right, I suppose I'll mark this as such (redundant, historical), if anyone else seconds it. I set up the page as the latent location of a policy or guideline about it, but now that it seems to have been integrated into WP:UP, its purpose has been served (unless anyone wants to convert it into an essay going into further detail about it). Gracenotes^T § 01:19, 19 February 2007 (UTC)