Requests for comment/Enable sandbox for all Wikipedias

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The following request for comments is closed. No consensus among participants, and insufficient participation to consider a change of this size. Sandbox links should remain a local opt-in feature. Regards, Vermont 🐿️ (talk) 04:00, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal[edit]

Many projects including the English Wikipedia show a Sandbox link for each and every user between the Talk and Preferences links at the top of all pages. For example, see en:User:4nn1l2/sandbox. Users can use it as a draft page for themselves or they can play with Wikipedia there without the fear of breaking anything. Currently, 70 out of 325 language editions of Wikipedia have it enabled. I propose to make it available by default for all Wikiepdias to avoid tasks such as phab:T296073 (The idea is actually from User:Martin Urbanec who told me this at IRC). Many small Wikipedias don't have a clue what Phabricator is or how they can have this sandbox link enabled. It seems a harmless feature to me. This proposal only involves Wikipedia, not sister projects such as Wikibooks.

Discussion[edit]

  • Support Support as the proposer. 4nn1l2 (talk) 07:39, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support Per proposer. SCP-2000 08:52, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Partial support It's a good concept in theory. However, I've noticed that a sizable number of users who come from Wikipedia to another WMF project (such as Wikivoyage) tend to think that the only place where you can draft mainspace pages has to be User:YOURUSERNAME/sandbox. So yea, it may benefit Wikipedia, but maybe not the entire Wikimedia. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 11:11, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @SHB2000: There may have been a misunderstanding. I don't get it which part of the proposal you don't support. I have clearly stated in the proposal (last line) that this proposal involves only Wikipedia, not other projects such as Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikivoyage, etc. 4nn1l2 (talk) 11:41, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Did read that, point was that users coming from Wikipedia editing other WMF projects think that that's the only way to draft pages, which in general, is not the case. However, in general, I'm well leaning towards support though. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs) 11:47, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose in its current version. As it is currently written, the proposal seems to assume that sandbox links are obviously and indisputably a good thing, and if any Wikipedia doesn’t have them, that must be because they “don't have a clue what Phabricator is”. I think this characterization is inaccurate: several “large” Wikipedias – cebwiki, dewiki, fiwiki, idwiki, shwiki, warwiki, zhwiki – currently don’t have these links enabled, and I assume at least some of them have consciously decided against them, for valid reasons. I’d like to see some indication in this proposal what’s going to happen to such wikis: are they going to get the feature enabled and will then have to file a request if they don’t want it? will the feature only be enabled for new wikis going forward, but disabled for all current wikis that don’t have it enabled? something else? --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 12:40, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I will consult these large wikis and ask them if they want sandbox link enabled or not. If they don't want it, I will exclude them. Is this approach acceptable to you? 4nn1l2 (talk) 13:18, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Please note that I notified all the above-mentioned projects, except for zhwiki where Sandbox link is already enabled and cebwiki and warwiki which are not organic projects, but mostly bot-created projects. I don't consider them large, regardless of their number of articles; there are few actual users active there. 4nn1l2 (talk) 00:48, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support Mehediabedin (talk) 14:39, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support --Novak Watchmen (talk) 13:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support -jkb- 20:16, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support. They should all be enabled by default. Neocorelight (talk) 00:21, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support It is good addition --Zache (talk) 08:32, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support a positive addition to Wikipedias. —Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 21:54, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Support As a beginner I found it very useful at enwiki, and was surprised it didn't exist at hrwiki (Croatian). I do have a few pages in my user space for the same purpose but they're somehow always hard to find. ponor (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:34, 21 February 2022 (UTC).[reply]
  • Oppose, this just encourages people to clutter their userspace with useless pages, which is even worse on smaller wikis where there are few admins who might have an eye on it. --MF-W 14:58, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    This is so pessimistic. In that case, one might think it's better to revoke the ability of editing userspaces from new users completely, because undoubtedly they can insert the same useless content on their userpage, rather than sandbox, in the first place. But that runs counter to the free editing philosophy of Wikipedia, I believe. 4nn1l2 (talk) 20:32, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Crosswiki spam is a very major issue and you can find this just by looking at the unconnected pages on some wikis. This is not pessimistic. Adding the sandbox link will just give spammers another place to spam and trust me, they will use it. --Ferien (talk) 16:22, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose per MF-W. * Pppery * it has begun 19:47, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose While I certainly agree with MF-W my bigger problem is assuming every wiki would want this. I don't believe that to be the case. -Djsasso (talk) 14:49, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Please see the talk page: Talk:Requests for comment/Enable sandbox for all Wikipedias. I have identified 60 "critical" projects with more than 199 active users and reached out to about 20 projects and asked them if they want this or not. So far, no projects has spoken against it. It's very unlikely that a small project with less than 200 active users would oppose such a proposal. 4nn1l2 (talk) 20:55, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I know at least one of the ones you contacted hasn't spoken for it, its why I am here opposing. -Djsasso (talk) 00:36, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The status of simplewiki will be determined by its admins who will close that discussion locally (simple:Special:Permalink/8062039#Sandbox link). There is no reason to generalize your opposition for one project to the entire wikiverse. I'm going to exclude dewiki and idwiki (German and Indonesian Wikipedias respectively) from this proposal as indicated at Talk:Requests for comment/Enable sandbox for all Wikipedias. Simplewiki can be the third project which chooses to opt out. If you think more projects (for example, any project with more than 99 active users) should be reached out, please let me know and I'll be glad to do that. But a blanket oppose vote is not constructive, I think. 4nn1l2 (talk) 00:48, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it is constructive, very rarely should something be enabled for all wikis. As mentioned above there are reasons why this isn't a good idea. They encourage clutter, the are a prime target for hidding spam away from mainspace so its not as easily caught etc etc. There are far more negatives to enabling it than there are positives. -Djsasso (talk) 20:17, 1 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Oppose per Djsasso and MF-W. I can only see one positive out of this situation: that newer editors will be able to find the sandbox easier. However, there's not much more. Userspace is definitely less monitored than other areas. Cross-wiki spam is already a major issue and there are so many spam pages we haven't found out there, this addition will only accelerate that issue. --Ferien (talk) 16:34, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

List[edit]

List of Wikipedia projects which show a sandbox link now:

List of Wikipedia projects which have it enabled now per InitialiseSettings.php, Ctrl+F: wmgUseSandboxLink 
	'arwiki' => true,
	'atjwiki' => true, // T182798
	'azwiki' => true, // T282954
	'bhwiki' => true,
	'bnwiki' => true,
	'cawiki' => true,
	'ckbwiki' => true,
	'cswiki' => true, // T100513
	'cywiki' => true, // T173054
	'dawiki' => true,
	'dtywiki' => true, // T168038
	'elwiki' => true,
	'enwiki' => true,
	'eowiki' => true,
	'eswiki' => true,
	'euwiki' => true, // T166553
	'fawiki' => true,
	'frwiki' => true, // T95604
	'gawiki' => true, // T177775
	'gdwiki' => true, // T156281
	'hewiki' => true,
	'hifwiki' => true,
	'hiwiki' => true,
	'huwiki' => true,
	'hywiki' => true,
	'hywwiki' => true, // T239387
	'ilowiki' => true,
	'iswiki' => true,
	'itwiki' => true, // T103643
	'jawiki' => true,
	'jvwiki' => true, // T176308
	'kkwiki' => true,
	'knwiki' => true,
	'kowiki' => true,
	'lawiki' => true, // T296073
	'ladwiki' => true, // T121524
	'ltwiki' => true, // T273957
	'lvwiki' => true,
	'maiwiki' => true,
	'minwiki' => true,
	'mwlwiki' => true, // T180052
	'newiki' => true,
	'nlwiki' => true,
	'nowiki' => true, // T210325
	'orwiki' => true, // T124614
	'papwiki' => true, // T223166
	'plwiki' => true,
	'pswiki' => true,
	'ptwiki' => true,
	'rowiki' => true, // T219855
	'ruwiki' => true, // T153855
	'sawiki' => true,
	'sdwiki' => true, // T152609
	'skwiki' => true,
	'sowiki' => true,
	'sqwiki' => true, // T227970
	'srwiki' => true, // T129485
	'svwiki' => true,
	'tawiki' => true,
	'tcywiki' => true, // T144925
	'tewiki' => true,
	'tgwiki' => true, // T156473
	'thwiki' => true,
	'tlwiki' => true,
	'trwiki' => true, // T256782
	'ukwiki' => true,
	'urwiki' => true,
	'viwiki' => true, // T272796
	'zhwiki' => true,
	'zuwiki' => true,
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