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Policy

Rate-limiting new PRODs and AfDs?

Hi, I was recommended to post this at the village pump by a a comment here.

There has been a recent issue where dozens of PRODs and AfDs (about 80 of them last month) of pre-Internet-era track and field Olympians were all created in a short timespan. For comparison, the usual rate that these get created is one or two per week. The rate is of particular importance here because unlike most processes on Wikipedia, there is a one-week deadline for most PRODs and AfDs, so when many are created all at once it can be difficult to properly address them in time.

While it's true that some of these articles were created by User:Lugnuts without SIGCOV references, it's also true that significant coverage exists for most of them -- to quote User:WhatamIdoing at the above linked thread, At some level, we all know that there is local coverage on every modern Olympic athlete, because (a) local newspapers always run the 'local kid does well internationally' kinds of stories, because articles that combine national pride, local people, and good news sell well, and (b) every time someone has actually done the work of getting access to paper copies, they've found these sources.

A similar situation happened about four months ago, and the solution was just to procedurally revert all of the PRODs: User_talk:Seefooddiet/Archive_1#109 proposed deletions in a couple of hours?

Because finding pre-Internet newspaper sources for non-English speaking countries can be labor intensive, is there a policy solution to the above problem? --Habst (talk) 20:45, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't think this is something we can solve with more rules.

Making 109 PRODs in one hour is just silly, and there's no amount of regulation that will stop people from doing silly things. I do understand this kind of rate is frustrating, but I think creating and enforcing rules about the rate of nominations will create unforseen problems. You can't stop people from being silly, but you can trout them after the fact. Cremastra (talk) 21:56, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

You can also WP:TBAN them after the fact. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

109 PRODs in one hour sounds like a WP:MEATBOT issue. There is no way you can evaluate that many articles in that amount of time, so the first step would be to deprod with the summary that no WP:BEFORE was done and the article needs a full evaluation. Thryduulf (talk) 23:36, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Note it's possible, if unlikely, that the tagger spent significant time researching the 109 articles individually before tagging them all at once. A single rapid tagging session does not by itself indicate WP:MEATBOT. Anomie⚔ 13:23, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

For small groups of closely related articles that is possible, but it's not at all plausible that you'd research that many before nominating them - you'd tag them as you go. Especially if you are not doing a group nomination. Thryduulf (talk) 14:34, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

This is mostly something that can be dealt with informally through current P&G (disruptive editing applies to all sorts of things). For larger deletion projects, it would be preferable to either bundle them or start a community discussion, depending on the nature of the articles. With that said, note that per WP:NSPORTS2022 Proposal 5 there's already consensus to delete any sports bios that do not currently have significant coverage in the article, overriding WP:NEXIST and WP:BEFORE. These deletions aren't indefinite, they're just until someone gets around to finding significant coverage. I'd also ask about whether local coverage is "significant" as opposed to routine; if all athletes have local coverage regardless of notability, it's unlikely to be significant. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:23, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

I have a relevant discussion open at WT:NOT about the definition of 'routine'. We're just getting started, so things may change, but from early comments, it appears that 'routine' is frequently understood to have no particular relationship to 'significant coverage'. SIGCOV is how many (encyclopedically useful) words/facts were written. 'Routine' is that if every ____ automatically gets (e.g.,) one article printed about it the next morning, then that is the routine. ("____" is a relevant large category, like "film" or "sports game" or "election", not a small category like "films starring Joe Film" or "FIFA World Cup finals").

With these two models, it is possible for routine coverage to provide SIGCOV. And if you agree or disagree with that, then I invite you to join that discussion and tell us so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

This sort of thing in general is a matter of good old common sense, no ammount of policy will help here. If you need one, WP:BULLINACHINASHOP would be it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:37, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

• Absolutely not, not unless a similar rate limit is applied to article creation. At the moment an editor can mass-create a ton of articles very rapidly; to avoid a WP:FAIT situation, it is obviously necessary for another editor to be able to challenge those articles equally-rapidly. Regarding the evaluation of articles, above - often when people do this, it's in response to discovering such a mass-creation. In that case all the articles can reasonably contain the same crucial flaw that means they shouldn't have been created; I continue to assert that WP:BEFORE is advisory and optional (otherwise it would invert WP:BURDEN, which obviously places the burden to search for sources on the people who add or wish to retain material - you can't add something and then insist other people do that search before deleting it.) But even for people who try to insist that it is mandatory, it only requires "reasonable" searches, and when dealing with mass-created articles it is reasonable to simply evaluate the method they were created by and therefore examine them all at once before mass-prodding or mass-AFDing them. Obviously such mass actions are meant to be taken cautiously but we can't forbid them here, since they're sometimes clearly necessary. --Aquillion (talk) 12:36, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  Editors can't mass-create more than 25–50 articles per day without getting written permission (and nobody's actually done that for years). If the goal is to mirror creation limits, then that suggests a rate limit of 25–50 AFDs per day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:55, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  Years, huh. —Cryptic 15:39, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  Redirects aren't articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:57, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  That's a limitation of the data available. Manual inspection of the results reveals plenty of instances where the created pages are mostly non-redirects. Example. —Cryptic 16:29, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  Disambiguation pages aren't articles, either. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:32, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  Can Quarry filter by Special:Tags or edit summaries? Excluding any edit with "Tags: New redirect" or an edit summary containing words like redirect or disambiguation would help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:00, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  "Editors can't mass-create more than 25–50 articles per day without getting written permission (and nobody's actually done that for years). " ??? Where do you get that idea from? See e.g. User:Ponor, who created 235 articles between 02.27 yesterday and 06.10 today. Fram (talk) 12:32, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  From WP:MASSCREATE, which says "large-scale" creations require written permission in advance, and adds that "While no specific definition of "large-scale" was decided, a suggestion of "anything more than 25 or 50" was not opposed."

  If Ponor has not received permission under this policy provision, then any concerned editor can take the violation off to ANI, with the possible results including mass deletion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:47, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  I also note that Ponor appears to be using a script (PAWS) to facilitate the masscreation. Cremastra (talk) 20:23, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  So not "can't" but "aren't theoretically allowed to, but nothing's stopping them". There is no rate limit like there is with account creations and so on. Fram (talk) 11:07, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  100%, absolutely, this.

  People are like “Mass creation isn’t a problem because we blocked Lugnuts” and they forget that they either did nothing about Lugnuts or supported him, and that Lugnuts was only blocked in the end because of uncivil behaviour. FOARP (talk) 07:03, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  On the very rare occasions it is actually desirable (it's never "necessary") to mass-delete articles then we have processess for that - namely group AfDs and in extreme cases RFCs. PRODs should never be used en-mass because PRODs are explicitly only for uncontroversial deletions, and mass deletion is always controversial. And anyway it should never be easier to delete an article than create one - our goal is to build an encyclopaedia not to delete one. Thryduulf (talk) 15:02, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

  mass deletion is always controversial Is that a guideline or your opinion? I was reading this because in December I proded a bunch of articles a single editor had made in a short period of time and I think most of them were deleted. I do not recall anyone mentioning this to me at the time Czarking0 (talk) 04:29, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

  How many is "a bunch"? On 18 December 2024, I see five articles that you prod'd but that did not get deleted. They were by two different editors, writing about two unrelated subjects. Two or three articles per editor/subject is not "mass deletion". Something like 25–50 articles, all on the same subject, and especially if it were all of the articles on that subject or if the prod statement had a lousy rationale (such as "No ____ is ever notable" – something an experienced editor like you would never claim) would be mass prodding.

  Reasonable people could disagree on exactly where to draw the line between those two extremes, but I don't think that, say, five articles on the same subject would count. And if the article is unsourced and qualifies for WP:BLPPROD, then any editor who runs across it should either promptly make it ineligible (i.e., add a source) or prod it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:26, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

• I think there needs to be proportionality here, and specifically that the effort required to delete an article should be proportionate to the effort spent in its creation. Lugnuts stubs were created at extremely high rate, often several per minute, from databases. Therefore they should be proddable at an extremely high rate; but they aren't, because we have editors who insist on laborious and time-intensive processes that have the practical effect of making them ludicrously difficult to get rid of.

Per policy, we're expected to be very firm about the use of high quality sources for biographies of living people. Lugnuts' creations very largely consist of undersourced, unmaintained, unwatchlisted BLPs and in my view they represent the most ghastly risk to the project. I continue to feel that the best thing we could do with Lugnuts articles is purge them all. In due course, good faith editors who will actually curate and maintain them will be ready to bring the appropriate ones back.

Of course, on the day that happens, I'll be hitting the slopes with my good buddy Satan.—S Marshall T/C 23:08, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

• I think this is a fairly specific issue that is better addressed on a case by case basis

Czarking0 (talk) 04:32, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

• You'd like to address 93,000 extremely similar articles one by one because...?—S Marshall T/C 10:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  While the articles may be similar the subjects are not necessarily so. It is very significantly more important to get things right than to do them quickly, so we need to take the time to assess what the correct action for each article is. I'm not advocating individually in every case, but any grouping must be done carefully and thoughtfully. Thryduulf (talk) 12:18, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  I would agree with you if the subjects were similar, but they are from wildly different countries and time periods. Just because the article format or length is the same doesn't mean the subject matter is. --Habst (talk) 12:43, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  These would be the editors who insist on laborious and time-intensive processes to whom I referred. The time should have been taken at creation, because these are biographies. It was not. Lugnuts made these very rapidly from a database, and they read almost identically. I do feel that it is for those who advocate keeping them to review and watchlist them all.—S Marshall T/C 14:46, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  How much time should have taken at creation is irrelevant now they have been created. What matters now is that two wrongs don't make a right and those who wish to review articles before deletion be given the time to do so. Thryduulf (talk) 15:15, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  You've had years. How much more time will you need?—S Marshall T/C 16:30, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Assuming your figure of 93,000 articles is correct, and an average of 10 minutes to do a full and proper BEFORE and add make any relevant improvements to the article (I don't know how accurate this is) comes to 645 days, 20 hours. That's about 1¾ years of volunteer time assuming no duplication of effort, no time spent pushing back against proposals to just delete the lot without adequate review, no time spent on other articles, no time defending articles improved (but not sufficiently to someone) from PRODs/AfDs, no time discussing articles on talk pages (e.g. merge/split proposals), no time dealing with vandalism, no time improving articles to more than the bare minimum standard, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 16:43, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  There are exactly 93,187. Lugnuts' autopatrolled rights were removed in April 2021, so the community has been well aware of the magnitude of the problem with his creations for about four years. I would like to comply with policy by being very firm about the use of high-quality sources for these biographical articles. But I can't: no venue exists in which I'm allowed to be firm. If I tried to mass-PROD or mass-AFD them then I would be told off for being disruptive. The whole quagmire is unfixable in any rational or acceptable timescale, which is why I keep saying that the incredible number of unwatchlisted biographies represents the most ghastly risk to the project.—S Marshall T/C 16:56, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  The whole quagmire is unfixable in any rational or acceptable timescale that depends entirely on your definitions of "rational" and "acceptable". In the view of myself and many others, any way forward must allow time to properly review each article, search for high quality sources in the place they are most likely to be found (which may be offline and/or not in English) and (where applicable) add them to the article. Anything shorter than that is neither rational nor acceptable. Thryduulf (talk) 17:06, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  And that's why I say that "no venue exists in which I'm allowed to be firm."—S Marshall T/C 17:39, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Then create them after the sources are found. Would you still believe we should leave them be if someone used bots to create articles for all ~10 million people listed on IMDB? Also going to note (somewhat in response to S Marshall) that as I said above, this was addressed at WP:NSPORTS2022 where it was decided that sports biographies must have sigcov in the article. So any without already-existing sources in the article are fair game. This includes but is not limited to the articles in Category:Sports biographies lacking sources containing significant coverage. There's already consensus for this. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 18:45, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  @Fram @S Marshall @Thebiguglyalien, according to the OP, "NEXIST and NBASIC override NSPORTS2022" and "SPORTSCRIT #5 does not apply" to athletes who meet a subcriterion, which is why he has been deprodding every Lugstub and insisting editors have to have checked all local offline archives to prove no SIGCOV exists at AfD. This has been a problem in particular for non-English subjects, where he often dumps search results that he hasn't even translated as evidence of "coverage" and obliges others to translate them all, after which he will claim that various sentences and sentence fragments add up to BASIC. See also this ongoing headache, and this, and this. JoelleJay (talk) 02:14, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  He's not deprodding every Lugstub – its mainly only ones that have a high chance of being notable (I've seen hundreds of Olympian PRODs recently, many of which are probably notable, get deleted without anyone attempting to take a look into it) – nor is he insisting editors have to have checked all local offline archives to prove no SIGCOV exists at AfD. All we want is that some archives be searched – its very frustrating when we're having some of the all-time greatest African athletes deleted because no one is checking any relevant places. What's wrong with listing coverage of a subject that one can't translate themselves so that someone who can speak the language can hopefully see if its sufficient for notability? BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:35, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  If All we want is that some archives be searched then why wasn't searching all Czech newspaper archives available at Charles University, or all Al-Anwar and Al-Ahram and Akhbar Al-Usbo and Addustour newspaper archives, or any of the other archives in dozens of other AfDs enough? BEFORE does not even hint at recommending a local or even nation-specific archives search, so you are demanding WAY more than is expected at AfD ON TOP of ignoring a global consensus requirement. JoelleJay (talk) 03:09, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  I'm more talking about the many African and Asian subjects being deleted, rather than the one Czech athlete for which the argument was in part that the sources were sufficient (even if you disagreed). I'm going to go through the last few Olympian AFDs that have been deleted/redirected and note if a relevant archive was searched: Mohamed Al-Aswad? No. Bohumír Pokorný? Yes, but no one was willing to look at the coverage. Kamana Koji? No. Sami Beyroun? No. Alfredo Valentini? No. Artur Elezarov? No. Faisal Marzouk? No(?). Piero Ferracuti? No. For many of these, there's not even evidence that any search anywhere is being done. Suggesting that someone should look for sources from that subject's nation is not "demanding WAY more than is expected". BeanieFan11 (talk) 03:18, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  It absolutely is demanding way more when there is literally nothing in BEFORE that suggests anything close to what you are asking for. JoelleJay (talk) 03:51, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  However, as I've stated in other threads, I do think prods/noms should provide evidence that a search was done in the native language. But it's not editors' faults that potentially notability-demonstrating sources are not verifiable; we don't keep articles on other GNG-dependent topics just because no local resources are accessible. I've asked WMF numerous times, including in several on-wiki discussions, to put their considerable largesse into media digitization efforts in underrepresented countries, but they would rather spend it on ridiculous unvetted grants and on attempts at enshittifying the platform. JoelleJay (talk) 14:35, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  "I do think prods/noms should provide evidence that a search was done in the native language" - I genuinely think this is a "nice to have", not a total requirement. Take for example Indian subjects - the likelihood is that if there is any information available at all, then it's going to be in English-language sources. Often the local version of the athelete's name isn't clear from the Romanisation of it that was pulled off Olympedia so it's not even clear what you are supposed to be searching in the local language.

  I would say that if there's no non-procedurally-generated local-language Wiki article to look at for sourcing (recalling that there are some wikis that have simply machine-translated large numbers of EN-wiki articles), and the Google search is coming up empty, then this is sufficient BEFORE for a database-generated article. FOARP (talk) 18:16, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  This is why I support a requirement to search for sources in the place they are most likely to exist. Sometimes that will be in the local/native language of the subject, but not always. If you haven't looked where sources are most likely to exist then it is not reasonable to conclude that sources are unlikely to exist, let alone do not exist. Thryduulf (talk) 18:39, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Notability (sports) § Basic criteria (with one exception) describes how the individual bullet points at Wikipedia:Notability § General notability guideline are interpreted in the context of sports figures. Thus it serves as an overall framework for the sports-specific guidelines for presuming the existence of suitable sources which demonstrate that the general notability guideline is met. This framework is also suitable for sports without sports-specific guidelines. It's not a case of one overriding the other, but the two complementing each other.

  The one exception is the last bullet item in Wikipedia:Notability (sports) § Basic criteria, which is a documentation requirement that doesn't really belong in this section as it isn't a criterion for evaluating if the standards for having an article are met. Nominally, it does run counter to Wikipedia:Notability § Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article, but it's an exception that was created by consensus agreement, and is really a "document this when you create an article" requirement, rather than a way to determine if an article should theoretically exist by English Wikipedia's standards. For better or worse, Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators § Rough consensus doesn't require evaluators of consensus to discount opinions that run counter to guidelines, so it's up to participants in deletion discussions to convince each other of the more compelling argument. isaacl (talk) 22:38, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  As I explicitly stated earlier, what should be done before creation is irrelevant now they have been created. Every discussion about NSPORTS2022 and similar has found either no consensus for or explicit consensus against mass deletion or deletion without review, so no there isn't consensus for that. Thryduulf (talk) 19:37, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  what should be done before creation is irrelevant now they have been created – Not true. We could absolutely revert to the status quo ante, but people make a stink about it whenever the solution is raised. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 20:24, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  I agree with this. Cremastra (talk) 20:25, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Reverting to the status quo ante is a method of dealing with the situation we find ourselves in now, we could apply that regardless of what was or wasn't done before creation. I will continue to oppose that solution as deleting articles about notable subjects just because someone also created articles about non-notable subjects is very much cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Thryduulf (talk) 20:46, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Reverting to "status quo ante", aka mass deleting everything a Very Naughty Editor™ created, means deleting Muzamil Sherzad, which had 16 refs at the time of creation.

  I found this article by glancing through the first page of Special:Contribs for the pages he created (it's mostly redirects).

  The benefits of deleting this article would be:

  • We'd really show that already blocked Very Naughty Editor™ that we're so mad about his bad actions that we'll even delete his good ones.
  • Indiscriminate actions – unlike writing a 368-word-long article with 16 refs – don't require editors' time, effort, or thought.

  The cons are:

  • Readers won't have the information.
  • Removing good information is against the mission.
  • Indiscriminate actions are against the community's values.
  • We're Wikipedia:Here to build an encyclopedia, not to grandstand about how awful the Very Naughty Editor was and how just blocking him is not good enough.
  • It's illogical to say that we want to promote the creation of well-sourced articles, and then propose deleting some well-sourced articles. (By that "logic", if you miss any questions on your math test, the teacher should mark everything wrong, including the once you answered correctly.)

  I would like to prevent the creation of badly sourced articles. But since nobody's given me a working time machine, that can't be done for Lugnuts' articles. The options available to us are:

  • Review them one by one (cons: lots of work)
  • Mass delete them (cons: see above)
  • Stop caring about whether some usually unimportant, usually accurate, and usually low-traffic pages exist, and do something that you think is actually important with your time.

  This is fundamentally the "fast, cheap, good" problem. At most, you can get any two of those qualities. So if you say "I want to solve the Lugnuts problem quickly and with minimal effort", you are effectively saying "I want low-quality results from this process". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:20, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Or we could just delete the ones that don't currently have significant coverage, like I said above. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:01, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  Which requires manual review, which is the opposite of mass deletion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:01, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  Which is what the original Prods did, apparently. They manually reviewed the articles, saw they had only had non-significant coverage (sports-reference.com), and prodded them (e.g. [1][2][3]). And still they are accused of mass deletion. You can't have it both ways. Fram (talk) 11:15, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  ” properly review each article” - OK, and when are you planning to get started on doing that? Because as far as I can see it is *only* when deletion is proposed for these articles that anything is done at all. FOARP (talk) 07:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

• I think it's far worse than WAID makes out. Reviewing them one by one would be the least rotten option, if we could review them, find they're crap, prod them, and move on. But we can't. We're barred from prodding them at a rate that would get the job done in the next decade, because we'd overwhelm the self-appointed proposed deletion proposers.—S Marshall T/C 23:06, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  25 a day would cover every article Lugnuts created in almost exactly one decade. (I assume the ~90K article count does not include his 75K redirects.) The prod folks are unlikely to complain about 25 in a day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  The 77,502 redirects aren't included. For the 10 years without a day off that it will take to clear this backlog, who will watchlist and maintain these poorly sourced biographies?—S Marshall T/C 08:43, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

  Bear in mind that there are also all the articles that Carlossuarez46 created from databases. Those aren't biographies so they're less appallingly risky, but the volumes are extremely high. PROD can only cope with so much, and it's not reasonable to make PROD sclerotic for that long.

So even if I could, by working for ten years solidly without a day off, clean up Lugnuts' mess, he would still need his own personal CSD criterion. Something like "article that's sourced only to databases", so it covers Carlossuarez46 as well.—S Marshall T/C 10:20, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

That CSD criterion isn't viable, because it conflicts with WP:NEXIST and is therefore controversial. The notability of a subject isn't determined by whether someone has already added a suitable source. If "didn't add a good source yet" were a viable CSD criterion, then Category:Articles lacking sources could be emptied by bot. That might be no skin off my nose – WPMED's articles are all sourced now – but it would be controversial, and thus not a candidate for CSD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

"Who will watchlist and maintain these" – the same people who do now; the same people who would do so if they had better sources.

Also, keep in mind that it doesn't have to be you spending 10 minutes x 25 articles x 3650 days to either add a decent source or suggest a WP:PROD. A couple dozen editors could each do one a day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

If this is the path we choose to go down, we might as well update WP:MASSCREATE to clarify that your articles will be allowed to stay up if you violate it, no matter how many you make. I should have some fun with five-digit or six-digit mass creation. I know for a fact that it will be basically impossible to get rid of them once I create them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 19:55, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

I mean, it shouldn't be too hard to write a bot to scrape databases for new species articles, the majority of which are already written by lazy editors who can't be bothered to write beyond "a is a species of b described by c in d" and who should honestly be blocked at this point. Cremastra (talk) 20:05, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

As I have previously demonstrated, you can write a whole lot more than a single sentence from a species database – including the addition of non-database SIGCOV sources.

If someone would like to do this, then they need to follow the WP:MASSCREATE procedure. Also: We're missing quite a lot of insect articles, but we have almost all the mammals already. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Why should they be blocked if their creations are perfectly within the guidelines.... JoelleJay (talk) 14:38, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

MASSCREATE is a behavioral rule, which means you are more likely to get blocked for violating it than to have content deleted for violating it. You might have noticed that Lugnuts is blocked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

The reason why Wikipedia works is because of proportionality. Edits can be reverted with less effort than it took to make them. That's how it's possible to have an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit; we can fix things with a reasonable amount of labour.

This violates that principle. It's a free gift to griefers and bad actors. As soon as you've got an autopatrolled account, you can create two or three articles a minute, and they'll take (on Thryduulf's estimate above) 10 minutes' labour just to go through the WP:BEFORE.

BEFORE is the right principle when it protects people who care, and try. If you spend an hour researching and drafting an article then a ten minute BEFORE is perfectly fair.

It's not the right principle for people who splurge out thirty articles in thirty minutes.

The answer to Lugnuts and Carlossuarez46 is definitely fast and cheap, not good. They created fast and cheap so good's unviable.

They need reviewing individually but there's got to be a proportionate workflow. It has to be glance, see if there's a non-database source, draftify if there isn't, move on. It cannot possibly be prod-deprod-triptodramaboards-argue-tag-detag-argue-AFD-DRV-argue. And the people who advocate the long-winded process need to be the ones responsible for watchlisting and maintenance.—S Marshall T/C 23:52, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

In terms of preventing future such problems, I think the answer is that we need to stop people when they're in the "first hundred" range, and not wait until they're on the multi-ten-thousands.

Carlossuarez46 was yelled at in March 2021 because articles he created in ~2008–2009 (example) did not comply with a guideline that was adopted in December 2012. Yes, it would be nice if those articles were in better shape, but it's also unfair to tell people that they've done a bad thing because they didn't predict how the rules would change in the future.

I just added two sources to that article, BTW. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Okay, but now that we've shut the stable door, the horse still needs to be caught and returned. We still need to agree a reasonable and proportionate workflow for dealing with the lugstubs we have, and "do a full before for each one" isn't it.—S Marshall T/C 08:12, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Oh, did we only have a guideline or policy from 2012 on that articles had to be verifiable and truthful? E.g. not creating articles claiming to be about villages when they weren't about villages at all? Carlossuarez was "yelled at" because "we have one-sentence articles hanging around for years where that one sentence is an outright falsehood."[4] Please don't write alternative truths to support your position. That there were occasionally correct articles among the thousands of dubious or outright wrong ones is hardly an excuse. Fram (talk) 08:52, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Specifically, I was paying attention to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive332#Suggested block for Carlossuarez46, where editors say things like "One of the worst periods for Carlos's article creation activities appears to have been in July 2009". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

... nothing there supports your previous claims. The very next post beneath your quote here says " As far back as 2009 Carlossuarez46 has been completely dismissive of anyone who suggested that his article creations were questionable, consistently refusing to acknowledge that his mass-productions include errors or fail to demonstrate verifiability and/or notability. " This was the kind of reaction they gave back in 2009. But sure, Carlossuarez is the one being yelled at unfairly, and somehow this spin means that these current ProDs are unacceptable. Fram (talk) 12:28, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Well, I think that when multiple people in a 2021 discussion mention article creations in 2009, then they (i.e., those editors, but not necessarily all editors) are probably talking about edits made in 2009. You are not, however, required to agree with me about that or anything else.

My point is this: The community finally intervened in 2021. We wouldn't have had these problems if the community had taken this action in 2009. What can we do now to avoid future problems?

Or: Do you want, in 2030, to be talking about how User:NewBadJob started producing badly sourced articles about possibly non-notable subjects in 2025, but we ignored it at the time, so now there are not only thousands of Lugnuts stubs and thousands of Carlossuarez46 stubs to deal with, but there are also now thousands of NewBadJob stubs to deal with? I don't. I'd bet "dollars to doughnuts" that you don't either.

So what can we do now to stop that? For example, should someone who noticed an editor regularly creating 50+ non-redirect articles in a single day maybe inquire at ANI about enforcing WP:MASSCREATE on that editor's creations? Should there even be someone regularly checking for that behavior? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:41, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

...How is any of this relevant to the post you are responding to?

You said (emph mine) Carlossuarez46 was yelled at in March 2021 because articles he created in ~2008–2009 (example) did not comply with a guideline that was adopted in December 2012. Yes, it would be nice if those articles were in better shape, but it's also unfair to tell people that they've done a bad thing because they didn't predict how the rules would change in the future. @Fram refuted this with the fact that editors in both 2021 and 2009 were complaining about the CS articles failing V and N, PAGs which far predate 2012. JoelleJay (talk) 21:08, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Subazama, California, as he wrote it in 2009, appears to have complied with both WP:N and WP:V. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:34, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't think a link to a listing that can't be found on GNIS would have complied with anything. and let's be clear: that "article" still isn't about anything notable and can just be covered in a list of Salinan place-names: the only sources are brief mentions, no WP:GNG pass needed for something without legal recognition.

And C46 "wrote" at least 135 articles that day (the ones that have since been deleted won't show up in this search) and simply flipped off anyone who tried to stop him. But hey, at least he left us with great articles like Guayusta, California and Tecolom, California before he got desysoped for incivility and retired under a cloud after reacting badly to people from the Persian wiki article pointing out that he his misguided mass-production of articles based on a total misunderstanding of the Iranian census was trashing their information space. FOARP (talk) 22:21, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

”you might have noticed that Lugnuts is blocked” - but not for mass creation, and only over the indifference/opposition of the defenders of his articles.FOARP (talk) 07:11, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

• Just saw this mess, which I was completely unaware of. I'm not really into sports; therefore, I don't closely follow WP articles on Olympics athletes. As a lawyer who occasionally deals with document review issues, it seems to me the best solution would be to cut the Gordian knot by sampling a few dozen Lugnuts articles to identify threshold criteria to establish where such an article is almost certainly bot-created, have a bot scan all of Lugnuts's contributions to identify all such articles, and then get approval to run another bot to delete all of them. For example, if an article was (1) created by Lugnuts and is (2) still currently supported by one or two citations to sources known to be of poor quality (that is, no one coming across that stub has bothered to write a decent article), then delete it. That would likely reduce the article stubs to just the articles that were later edited to add more content about the subject but are still of poor quality. I agree with the editors who argued above the burden was on Lugnuts to establish significant coverage of the subject matter in the first place before creating those articles. I strongly disagree with the editors arguing in favor of keeping the bulk of the articles thus created, the vast majority of which are unlikely to be fixed. As an experienced WP editor, I can tell you that things only get fixed on subjects which people really care about. For example, it took me over five years to research and rewrite Product liability into a decent article about the subject. That's just one article. Lugnuts created tens of thousands. --Coolcaesar (talk) 02:36, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

  @Coolcaesar, see WP:LUGSTUBS. That very approach encountered a LOT of resistance from people who insisted that losing a few stubs that might be on notable athletes is much worse than clearing out dozens of permastubs... JoelleJay (talk) 15:06, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  It was demonstrated that dozens and dozens of them were notable despite having barely any access to archives of the time! BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:36, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  While the vast, vast majority were not salvageable and ended up deleted or redirected. 33/924 is 3.6%. JoelleJay (talk) 16:14, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  Of Lugstubs? They're all sitting in draftspace because no one wants to work on them, no matter how notable they may be. There's actually a number of them that I've identified as very obviously notable but have never got around to improving. There's like two other people who have even attempted to improve any of them in draftspace. That very few have attempted to work on them does not at all mean they're not notable. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:18, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  It's been over 2 years since LUGSTUBS was started, and 4–15 years since any of the stubs were created, and only 33 of them have become bluelinks. There are two global consensuses that SIGCOV cannot be presumed to exist for any of them. Both the evidence and our PAGs strongly suggest these subjects do not warrant standalone articles. JoelleJay (talk) 17:04, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  I agree that SIGCOV cannot be presumed to exist just because they were Olympians. But that isn't relevant. What is relevant is that many, many, many of them have SIGCOV, but due to no editors being interested they are not restored to mainspace even though they absolutely should be. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:12, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  You, personally, presume that many, many, many of them have SIGCOV, against the consensus on that presumption... JoelleJay (talk) 17:21, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  No, I've found SIGCOV for many, many of them... BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:23, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  @JoelleJay - Last I checked, which admittedly was some time ago, only a handful of those 33 were actually non-redirect articles brought back to main space after the draftification of these articles, and none of them had been done within the last 6 months. Basically, for all the protestation of the opponents that these were all GA-candidates-in-waiting, no-body cared once they were gone. FOARP (talk) 18:06, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  And even then, these notable subjects are better off not having articles until someone is willing to come around and actually put a modicum of effort into them, instead of trying to protect mass-produced 1–2 sentence garbage. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 16:22, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  What benefits a reader more: learning two sentences about a subject they want to know about, or absolutely nothing? BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:27, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  If this is the metric, then we shouldn't have any minimum in terms of notability or quality. We might as well create a one sentence stub for everything in the world that could feasibly be notable and then remove them one at a time. The fact is that these articles never should have been created as they are in the first place, and the only reason they exist right now is WP:FAITACCOMPLI. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 16:34, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  Of course there still needs to be notability criteria – maybe I should have clarified: what benefits a reader more: learning two sentences about a notable subject they want to know about, or absolutely nothing? You seem to be saying to delete notable subjects on the basis that having nothing at all is better than something, since there's 'the possibility' that at some point in the future, someone will decide to write a longer article on them; of course, the longer article could be written just the same with the short article already being here... BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:39, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  Which is missing the point. The fact that longer article could be written says nothing about whether it will ever be written. In the long run, we are all dead and that long article will never be written because most people who care about dead athletes (as distinguished from the currently alive ones on their local major league team) want to write about the winners, not the losers. Not everyone gets to go home with a medal. Not everyone is notable enough to justify a WP article.

  My guess is that the only time people care enough about less prominent athletes to write WP articles about them is that either they are family relatives (which presents WP:COI issues) or out of schadenfreude.

  For example, I recently expanded the short article on John B. Frisbie because I noticed an interesting contrast. Today, Vallejo is among the poorest, polluted, economically depressed and crime-ridden cities in Northern California. I thought it was fascinating that the man who founded and developed that city lived a very full life as a lawyer, politician, military officer, and businessman. Unfortunately, most current residents of Vallejo do not live up to the example of the city's founder.

  If someone really cares about the article subject, they will do the research, then create the WP article again and actually write the article. In the meantime, there's no point keeping empty stubs around. --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:04, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  There absolutely is a point to having stubs. A third of this entire website is stubs – and substantial portion of the notable stubs, if deleted, will not be recreated because we don't have enough interested editors. That doesn't mean there aren't interested people. We should do what benefits our readers. Getting rid of notable articles en masse in hopes of some editor deciding to recreate some of them in the future is both a substantial waste of editor time and a disservice to our readers who lose all the information about the notable subjects that they could previously find. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:12, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  You're assuming the existence of some benefit. You're assuming that a one or two-line article with bare-bones biographical information that can be easily obtained elsewhere (and was in fact scraped from other web sites) is somehow beneficial to readers. But the WP community has already had that discussion many times, and the consensus is found in WP:NOT: Wikipedia is not a directory. Specifically, Wikipedia should not have "Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit." Stubs that fail to provide meaningful information provide no benefit and merely irritate readers.

  The point is that it takes a lot of valuable time, money, and energy to write decent biographical articles which touch upon all the key highlights of a person's education and career, like what I did for Roger J. Traynor. (For example, I majored as an undergraduate in history in one of the highest-ranked departments in the world, which means I took a modern American history course taught by a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History.) Most people with the skills to do that well are already working on their doctorates or trying to get tenure (meaning they don't do it for free). So WP has to rely on the generosity of people like myself who have real jobs and volunteer in their spare time. And most volunteers prefer to write about winners, not losers. I never served in the U.S. military, but I always thought the Navy SEALs put it best: "It pays to be a winner". --Coolcaesar (talk) 01:32, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit – such as telephone books, if you keep reading to the very next sentence – but it's not relevant because a stub about (e.g.,) an individual athlete is not a Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists, which is what that part of NOT says it's about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  You're confusing whether an article is notable and whether an article has an editor ready to recreate it after it is already deleted. While its always nice when articles like this can be expanded to include more content, the Olympian bios always give contextual information showing encyclopedic merit -- it explains the athlete in question competed at the biggest sporting event in the world, which, although does not guarantee notability, is at least a reasonable claim to merit (i.e. not like, WP:A7 actionable). I agree that it takes a lot of valuable time, money, and energy to write decent biographical articles which touch upon all the key highlights of a person's education and career – and my point is, we should not be creating more work for our editors by deleting what we already have and hoping they can create it again, given that it either (a) results in a waste of editor time or (b) results in readers losing the information they could previously find. And most volunteers prefer to write about winners, not losers – remember that this is the Olympics we're talking about. For someone to qualify for the Olympics, especially in the modern era, they have to be a "winner" to begin with... BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:25, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  Two sentences that could be and much of the time are already stated in the encyclopedia elsewhere... JoelleJay (talk) 16:51, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  The Olympians are, usually, only mentioned on the results page in a massive list of competitors with their scores. By getting rid of the articles, we lose the two stats sources that give personal details and sometimes biographies, we lose their birth/death dates, measurements, hometown / place of death, etc., and we also lose links to other language Wikipedias that often give further details. I'd rather have the article than "Athlete - Country - finished 8th", or things like that. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:57, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  Plenty of verifiable details exist that do not belong on Wikipedia. Olympedia should be the top result for anyone interested in that information, just like WormBase should be the top result for details on C. elegans gene orthologs (most of which receive orders of magnitude more IRS SIGCOV than most athletes...). JoelleJay (talk) 17:11, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

  +1 to what JoelleJay said. Wikipedia cannot be everything to everyone. Cremastra _talk 19:42, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I have also been directed here after raising a couple of questions about the AfD process after a similar flood of 52 AfDs in an hour on a niche subject. My feeling is that as Wikipedia stands at present putting in a delete vote for an article should be a little more balanced. Someone should not be able to simply drop a template with minor tweaks into 52 articles in an hour and - by default or design - just leave the mess up to someone else - generally resulting in voter fatigue, and copy-and-paste votes winning the day. Even a checkbox-type form where someone ticks "I have checked the refs in the article", "I have checked GNews", "I have checked that this page cannot be merged to somewhere more suitable", etc. would stop it being so mechanical (with the Bundle Nomination function being a good call for situations where that sort of thing would be called for). I mean, IMHO it isn't actually that easy to create an article anymore, if they're not well-referenced they seem to be nipped in the bud very quickly by the excellent patrollers on that end. And if you really feel that a page does not belong on Wikipedia having to take 5 minutes to type out a more detailed rationale and verify that you've done BEFORE surely wouldn't be that much of a barrier?

It seems to me that a mechanism designed to curb spam, people making Wikipedia articles on girls they fancy and self-promotion now has the side effect of making it very, very easy for editors to quickly get rid of articles that through GF or BF they personally feel don't 'belong'. The above incident seems to have been done on Good Faith by a committed editor, with spotty Before seeming to be an innocent misunderstanding, but we've had users in the past who have blatantly been gaming the system. The former should be made aware of the work they are causing for other editors, and have to take some responsibility if they've not done it properly; the latter should be stemmed so they find something more constructive to do with their time.

I don't pretend to speak for anyone else, but participating in AfDs as they run has put me off actual constructive editing of Wikipedia as I could spent an afternoon sourcing up an article, and then if someone takes 60 seconds to slap a template on it without doing any basic checking first it can be deleted outright if I'm not on hand to provide additional sourcing. BoomboxTestarossa (talk) 16:14, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Break (Rate-limiting new PRODs and AfDs?)

Support - As we saw with the mass Lugnuts deletions, many of the articles had sources out there and were able to be fixed if you just looked. But despite there being WP:NORUSH, the articles just HAD to be drafted ASAP. It can take me hours to days to write various articles and if you are able to nominate dozens a day, you are probably not doing the proper research. Foreign articles also need extra care since you have to search in different languages and databases.

I also do think something needs to be done with Lugnuts being brought up time and time again. It's just harassment at this point and despite nobody being able to WP:OWN an article, it sure seems like many people think he does.KatoKungLee (talk) 13:13, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

I think that the complaints about Lugnuts show a breakdown in the community. We're no longer in this together. Instead, some of us see WP:IMPERFECT contributions as a burden being foisted on to us. He gets to make an article, and now I'm stuck watching to see whether anyone vandalizes it? (The article I expanded yesterday has averaged less than one edit per year. Most of them were bots/scripts, and zero touched the article's content.)

Perhaps we're feeling the strain more than we used to? We used to spend a huge amount of time – perhaps as much as a third of active registered editors – manually reverting blatant vandalism. The bots have taken over most of that, so perhaps that has given us enough space to start complaining about things that are at the Paper cut level rather than the serious injury level? When you spend your day reverting poop vandalism, then a new article that contains no vandalism at all might seem particularly good. When you almost never see blatant vandalism, maybe the problem of a single-sentence stub seems more burdensome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Mass-creation has always been controversial, going all the way back to Rambot in fact and directly led to the creation of the bot policy. See e.g. [5] starting with Dachshund's inquiry. Many of the same arguments presented there are still being made today; nothing new under the sun. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 02:10, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

• Strongest possible oppose - Articles should be as deletable as they are creatable. Otherwise we are giving carte blanche to mass creators to flood the encyclopaedia with low quality stubs. FOARP (talk) 07:50, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose unless and until we have similar rate-limiting for mass creation, and articles that were demonstrably mass-created at a high rate have been substantively reviewed. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:56, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
• Strong oppose until there are equal rules for mass article creation. Let'srun (talk) 18:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

  @Let'srun, the policy on mass article creation says:

  • Any large-scale automated or semi-automated content page creation task must be approved by the community. Community input may be solicited at WP:Village pump (proposals) and the talk pages of any relevant WikiProjects. Creators must ensure that all creations are strictly within the terms of their approval. All mass-created articles (except those not required to meet WP:GNG) must cite at least one source which would plausibly contribute to GNG, that is, which constitutes significant coverage in an independent, reliable, secondary source.

This requirement initially applied to articles but has since been expanded to include all "content pages", broadly meaning pages designed to be viewed by readers through the mainspace. These include articles, most visible categories, files hosted on Wikipedia, mainspace editnotices, and portals.

While no specific definition of "large-scale" was decided, a suggestion of "anything more than 25 or 50" was not opposed.

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale/Closing statement § Question 2: Should we require (a) source(s) that plausibly contribute(s) to WP:GNG?

• Would you support a rule that says something similar? Maybe instead of "Any large-scale automated or semi-automated content page creation task must be approved by the community", it could say "Any large-scale automated or semi-automated nomination of articles for deletion must be approved by the community". Maybe instead of "While no specific definition of "large-scale" was decided, a suggestion of "anything more than 25 or 50" was not opposed", it would say "This means anything more than 25 or 50 AFDs" (possibly adding "per day" to both of them). Perhaps instead of "All mass-created articles...must cite at least one source which would plausibly contribute to GNG, that is, which constitutes significant coverage in an independent, reliable, secondary source", it would say "All mass-nominated articles must include a description of the nominator's WP:BEFORE search, including for subjects associated with a particular place or culture, a description of a search in the relevant language or national newspapers".

  I think that a parallel set of rules would be fine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:57, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  No, because article-creation and AFDs/PRODing are not equivalent. Once articles have been mass-created, they are on the encyclopaedia without any further consensus being required, and only a laborious process can remove them. In contrast each PROD is subject to being removed by any editor for any reason and can still be declined by the admin, similarly AFDs still require a consensus to go ahead after having been brought.

  Additionally, it has to be noted that MASSCREATE simply hasn't been enforced 95%+ of the time, and instead only ever serves (if it serves at all) to be a retrospective behaviour rule. FOARP (talk) 08:24, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  Let'srun said they opposed limiting mass AFDs until there are equal rules for mass article creation. I'm trying to understand whether they would support limits on mass AFDs that parallel the existing limits on mass article creation, using (as close as seemed to make sense) the same words as the limits on mass article creation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:23, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  As for the lack of enforcement... Earlier, an editor said they thought someone was violating mass create right now, but my direct suggestion that they take that complaint to ANI for enforcement of MASSCREATE rules appears to have not interested them. Perhaps we don't agree with Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Enforcement? Perhaps it felt like a minor or technical violation, rather than a serious problem? Perhaps we like whingeing? I don't know, but I do know that there's nothing stopping you from monitoring for MASSCREATE violations and reporting all of them, whenever you want to. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  I would have to see a concrete proposal, but I think that the issues resulting from mass article creation are different than the issues resulting from mass AfDs and PRODs and as such a equalivant policy dealing with them isn't what is needed. With mass article creation, they are on the encyclopedia permanently save for a user bringing forth a PROD or AfD, which takes up valuable community time. Part of the issue is that the policy on mass article-creation did not address the articles which had been mass created previously, and they have effectively been grandfathered into place with a utter lack of WP:SIGCOV. Let'srun (talk) 23:39, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  Any limit on PRODs/AfDs needs to be based on the number of concurrent nominations not a per day figure, and 50 concurrent nominations would make it impossible to give most of them a proper review if they are at all complicated. 50 articles about contemporary American pop culture, likely no problem as if sourcing exists it will be trivially findable. Even doing a proper BEFORE for 50 articles about Brazilian scholars active in the 19th century, Kazakh bandy players active in the 1980s or railway stations in India built in the 1910s would take more than a week. Thryduulf (talk) 10:21, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  So if the goal is equal rules for mass article creation, then you'd suggest limiting both AFD noms and article creations to 50 per week for a given (narrow) subject area (e.g., "Brazilian scholars active in the 19th century", not "biographies"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  "Equal rules" isn't my phrasing, and I'm not sure its a particularly helpful one. As noted, I believe deletion limits should be set in terms of concurrent nominations (not every nomination lasts exactly one week), but this is not a concept that is meaningful for article creation. Thryduulf (talk) 23:21, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  If limits were to be put into place, that would be the way to do it, considering that with the lack of activity at AfD many nominations are relisted for multiple weeks. Let'srun (talk) 23:41, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  I think AFD might have less of a "lack of activity" and more of a "spirit of timidity". Someone checked a while ago, and AFD has gone from (if memory serves) an average of three editors up to an average four editors in recent years. But we seem to be more likely to re-list nominations that "only" have two or three responses now than we used to. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  "Equal rules" was a direct quotation from Let'srun's comment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  And while I probably could have phrased that better, my point was more that a rate-limit would allow for low-quality stubs (which may not be entirely accurate in some cases) to remain even when there is no evidence that whoever created them checked the same sources that certain editors insist much be checked before we considering deleting them or redirecting to another article. Let'srun (talk) 03:02, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think I've seen anyone demanding a WP:BEFORE search prior to a redirect. IMO it wouldn't hurt Wikipedia or its readers if quite a lot of (e.g.,) two-sentence 20th-century Olympian stubs got redirected to a nice little table in a List of 1952 Olympic athletes from Ruritania.

  Strictly speaking, it doesn't even require a discussion, as boldly Wikipedia:Merging articles is permitted, and there's already consensus in principle, as merging up apparent Wikipedia:Permastubs is WP:MERGEREASON #3. But anyone who wanted to do that could also start a discussion, wait a week, notice the (likely) absence of any responses, and then merge as "no opposition". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:33, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  Great! But then what happened when we actually tried to do this? *PLOT TWIST* The same people who obstruct every deletion and insist it be examined in exquisite detail obstruct that too. We had a consensus to redirect Lugnuts Turkish "village" articles, but the redirection has been steadily undone. FOARP (talk) 07:28, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  Systematically, by one or two editors, or just a case of every now and again, someone splits off a specific article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:07, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  Systematically, when this was pointed out they just pointed to GEOLAND as permitting what they were doing. FOARP (talk) 09:58, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  Did anyone follow up with a re-merge proposal, or attempt to address it as a possible behavioral issue? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  The answer is just GEOLAND GEOLAND GEOLAND, which is a catch-all, no-explanations-needed excuse for mass-creation from databases. I gave up. FOARP (talk) 07:43, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

  It sounds like you concluded that, for better or (mostly) worse, the consensus was not likely to agree with you, so there was no point in pursuing it. That seems logical to me (on your part), but it kind of undercuts the idea that the de-merging editors were actually doing anything wrong, since the real rules are what the community agrees to do, not what we think they should do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:07, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

  When it comes to GEOLAND, I'm sorry, but I do like to see a Wikipedia page about a thousand year old Italian village linked from an article I'm reading, even if it's a stub with a map showing its surrounding region, the number of people living there, and a nice picture of the village. And that page is perfectly fine for Wikipedia (has been for over 20 years, given the hundreds of thousands of such stubs), which is not only an encyclopedia but also a gazeteer, as appropriately summarized in its Five pillars. Attract more people here, do try to keep them, and give them enough time. 63.127.180.130 (talk) 13:45, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  Why have global consensus discussions at all if when individual editors just completely ignore them that becomes "what the community agrees to"...? JoelleJay (talk) 16:47, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  If the community isn't willing to show up at a second discussion and say "No, we actually decided ____, and that applies here, too", then the first discussion may not have fully represented the community's views. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  We're in a second discussion right now. We've showed up, and we've told you that no, we actually decided this. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 18:32, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  Sure, but this is in the "global consensus discussions" category. We need the community to show up at "individual" discussions, saying the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  I'm sympathetic to the idea that community consensus on broad general principles is sometimes mistakenly claimed for very specific pieces of exegesis from those principles, but I doubt this is one of the cases. I suspect the lack of participation has more to do with the discoverability of individual Turkish villages as stubs or redirects. Was there an RfC or discussion about redirecting village stubs to lists? My cynical answer is that this is a good case for a little brigading (I've seen it work): if one editor keeps resurrecting them as stubs invoking GEOLAND and several others are redirecting them and pointing to a discussion stating that these villages, even if notable, should be redirected to a list unless they exceed some threshold of information, the lone editor will be compelled to show consensus for their position or desist. Choess (talk) 21:33, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  The community can't be endlessly expected to show up and waste time with what appears to be a behavioral issue not a genuine editorial dispute. Repeating a discussion until you get the desired result isn't changing consensus, its gaming the system. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:58, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  Not "endlessly". But we can expect the community to show up for a few rounds, until the individual(s) in question either get the message or discover how much fun WP:IDHT complaints at ANI aren't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  No, we expect the community to show up once and for consensus to be respected after that. Moving on to new forums or recreating pages without new sigcov is just disruptive. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:53, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  1. If we expect that the community only needs to "show up once", then we are implicitly expecting all editors to know about every decision, and that's unreasonable.
  2. If the community is given an opportunity to show up a second time, and it declines to repeat itself, then that suggests that consensus might have changed, or that the result might have been described poorly at the previous discussion. (For example: "Never do this in biographies", followed by "Oh, oops, we meant living people, not all biographies".)

  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  WP:CONLEVELS disagrees with you. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 23:41, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think so. Applying a global rule ("Thou shalt not spam") to specific circumstances ("But we've decided this specific thing isn't actually spam") is not a matter of a small group of editors trying to declare that the usual rules don't apply to "their" articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:06, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  Okay, that's local consensus and also wikilawyering. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 02:13, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  So... we should probably stop here and acknowledge that I wrote a good deal of LOCALCON, so I naturally feel I'm qualified to say what it means. You apparently have your own notion of what it means. That section is frequently cited incorrectly, to the point that it has earned its own entry in WP:UPPERCASE#WP:CONLEVEL.

  One of the things LOCALCON means is that if someone shows up at an AFD and says:

  • WP:COPYVIO demands that this article be deleted now, because this article is just a blatant copy of www.wikipedia-mirror.com.

  and the other editors show up and say:

  • Um, sure, COPYVIO is a real policy, and copyvios are bad, but this specific article isn't actually a copyvio; instead, it's someone else plagiarizing a Wikipedia article.

  then that response is neither "local consensus" nor is it "wikilawyering". Are we agreed on that much? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  A poorly attended non-consensus does not override a well attended consensus even at the same level of discussion. If the community does not show up then the discussion does not reflect the consenus of the community. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:47, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  I assume you meant "If the community does not show up and the discussion result is not what you expected, then the discussion does not reflect the consenus of the community". Because otherwise, almost none of our discussions reflect the community's consensus, because very few discussions have more than two or three people in them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:08, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  Is that mockery? I'm having a hard time parsing that first sentence as anything else Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:16, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  I mean that what you're calling "a poorly attended non-consensus" is probably when you vote to delete at AFD, and three other editors vote to keep, and the closing admin says there's a consensus to keep the article, but not when all four of you vote to delete and the admin says there's a consensus to delete the article.

  In both cases, four editors have participated in the discussion. (Four participants in an AFD discussion is a medium-to-good level of participation.) But I doubt that you would describe getting your preferred outcome as "a poorly attended non-consensus". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Did I miss where this became a formal RfC? In any case, I also oppose any rate limits on Prods and AfDs as long as there are so many sub-stubs with no reliable sourcing with little or no chance of being improved in the next few decades. - Donald Albury 20:07, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

The surest way to ensure that a stub is not improved is to delete it without giving people sufficient time to determine whether reliable sourcing exists or not. Coincidentally this is also the surest way to ensure that articles about notable topics which can be improved are not improved, thus harming the encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 20:11, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Hard disagree: it allows the article to be re-created by someone who is actually here to build an encyclopaedia rather than rack up article creation scores. FOARP (talk) 08:25, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence at all for that sweeping assumption of bad faith? Thryduulf (talk) 10:13, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I direct counsel's attention to the entire editing history of Lugnuts and Carlossuarez46. Particularly the way that Lugnuts posted a link to every thousandth "article" (half of which are now red-links or redirects) to his user page and clearly had the list of top article-creators on watch-list (he would quickly respond to anything posted on the talk page there).

I also have to ask why this is news to you: You were active on the AN and ANI pages on the days when Lugnuts came up there, sometimes being involved in the discussions directly above and below his. Did you just not notice him coming up there?

Negligent mass-creation is clear WP:NOTHERE behaviour. A small number of editors got away with it for years in large part because any time anyone tried to do anything about it they were flipped off and faced a wall of indifference and hostility from other editors happy to turn a blind eye to, for example, the entire Persian wiki information space being trashed by tens of thousands of fake "village" articles that we are still trying to clean up. FOARP (talk) 07:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

There's too much bad faith here, policies to be made based on a straw man fallacy: if one thing was wrong, all similar things can be assumed wrong without thinking. But many other things are usually very right! 63.127.180.130 (talk) 13:37, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support for both AFD and PROD for different reasons: in the case of AFD, if you have a group of related pages which should be deleted for the same reason, you should make a group nomination as opposed to a separate discussion for each. The number of pages per AFD should be unlimited. In the case of PROD, the process depends on the number of PROD articles at any given time being low en6such that they will all be reviewed by multiple users before the PROD expires. Animal lover |666| 19:04, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  AFD is just impossible to use for large-scale deletion. Every discussion is simply derailed. FOARP (talk) 09:56, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

A separate "kids version" of Wikipedia

I understand this is sort of a perennial proposal, but hear me out for this one:

Instead of censoring wikipedia, which goes against WP:NOTCENSORED, we should have a separate, kid-friendly version of wikipedia called "Wikipedia Kids"(bit like how mobile wikipedia is slightly different). This does not go against WP:NOTCENSORED, and protects children at the same time.

Many children use wikipedia for a variety of purposes(hell, I'm still a teenager) and i would rather not have people seeing some not so kid friendly stuff here.

Here is how i think it should work:

Normal version remains uncensored and has no changes

The Kids version is practically the normal version, but:

1. Sexually explicit articles cannot be accessed and are not available on the kids version(to what extent it should not be available can be debated, such as should we make them unavailable completely or just have a smaller, safe, educational version of the article that focuses on stuff the kids actually need to cover in say, biology).
2. Gory or violent pictures are unavailable. The pages are still available for reading, e.g. we still keep the nanjing massacre article up however the photos will be removed. This ensures we aren't doing stuff like Holocaust or Nanjing massacre denial while still protecting kids.

Overall this is similar in function to WP:CENSORMAIN

Would like to hear your opinion on this. Additionally, to what extent sexually explicit/violent articles is censored, and what counts as "sexually explicit" or "violent" can be debated. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 15:32, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Just noting that there are already a number of these in various languages. Sam Walton (talk) 15:35, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

maybe it could theoretically work on paper as an option that can be toggled (in which case i'd be against having it on by default), but it absolutely wouldn't work out as its own site (even if it was mostly a mirror) due to the sheer size of the wp-en

even then, i think it'd be way too hard to program, harder to enforce, and even harder to maintain, since how would those filters even work outside of trudging through the entirety of the wmf to filter things on what's effectively a case by case basis?

lastly, it also depends on conflicting definitions of "for kids", because you know one of those ankle-biters will have to study up on world war 2 at some point, or sex, or that one time the british colonized a place, or that one time the americans killed people and took over their land manifested their destiny, or literally anything even tangentially related to any religion that isn't satirical (nyarlathotep help them if they're in a jw or mormon environment), and keeping them out of it would only really cause easily avoidable headaches consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 17:18, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree on kids the "for kids" definition. That is why I would suggest for the kids version, sex-related articles with no connections to sex ed be unavailable, while sex-related articles related to sex ed only show diagrams and be reduced. As for violence, I would not suggest censoring anything other than some of the photos, or possibly even limiting it to a "Show photo-Disclaimer: may contain violence". Thehistorianisaac (talk) 17:33, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Why pick on sexually explicit articles? I don't mind my children or grandchildren (the latter of which are aged five, three, and a month) accessing details about sex, but would prefer that they didn't access some other material, such as graphic violence or material about suicide. I'm sure that there are many different views from parents and grandparents. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:03, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

it's just the easiest example to name, really consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 18:40, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

let's say that happens. how, then, do you know what will be taught in sex ed? how would you attempt to reduce what is shown in order to make it less explicit without touching the text? how wo- actually, having to choose to see the pictures is nice, no complaints there consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 18:45, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Did you do some thinking on how this can be implemented and how much workforce will be required and how much bitter squabbling will follow on whether a picture of a buttocks is permitted and whether sucking the dick properly is part of sex education. (You may think the latter was a joke, but I remember seeing on a Disney Channel an episode where two low-teen girls pressed a boy to explain them how to suck the dick properly.) --Altenmann >talk 18:04, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

i say this as a former child from a country best known for playstation 2 piracy (which is to say i knew about the hot coffee mod when i was 8): nearly anything we could do would at best do absolutely nothing to protect children lmao. if anything, it'd just fan the flames of their curiosity, because they wanna see the buttocks!! hell, even the idea of it working by censorship comes off more as pandering to overly sensitive parents than attempting to "protect" the leeches on their legs. even then, protect from what? from knowing what "fuck" means? from knowing what a peepee (that could potentially be the one in their own lower torso) looks like and does? from knowing about that angry mustache model who hated jews for existing?

for better or worse, children will find their way into whatever they want, regardless of whether or not they can handle it (though they usually can), and drawing an arbitrary line would only make them want to cross it more than their tiny, evil brains already instinctively urge them to consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 18:39, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

This is a great idea for a third-party service, as they can select for inclusion whatever materials they feel meets their own sense of restriction. The Wikipedia license gives them the freedom to do so, and there could even be various versions with different perspectives as to what is appropriate.

It makes a horrible project for Wikipedia itself to do, however, because then we have to establish an Official Standard for what is improper, and that will both lead to endless bickering and complaints from those who want to provide the censored version that we are not censoring the things that they wish to have censored. You can see how we would face massive complaints if we decided, say, that material on drag entertainment was suitable for kids, or if we said that it wasn't. The group control that Wikipedia projects have and our spot at the most visible source of data would just make this too fraught. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:10, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Completely agree ꧁Zanahary꧂ 05:07, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

"For kids" versions of reference materials are usually written for a specific audience based on age/intellectual ability. To meet the expectations set up by the name, the articles should be specifically organized and written at a less complex level, which can mean different ways of breaking down topic areas as well as a different language level. simple:Simple English Wikipedia currently exists to fill that niche, and would be a better starting point for a kids version. As you noted, though, there are a lot of objections from the community to embedding content filtering as a core function that requires altering the underlying base articles. So at present, any filtering would need to be entirely add-on and optional, and using categorization being stored elsewhere, such as on Wikidata. isaacl (talk) 18:14, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I was just about to note the existence of the Simple English Language Wikipedia. Isaacl beat me to it. Blueboar (talk) 18:23, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I could see something like this becoming its own project, similar to simple English wikipedia. I'd even contribute to it, I enjoy the mental challenge of simplifying a difficult concept into something a child could understand mgjertson (talk) (contribs) 19:26, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Since this discussion seems to be moving away from child-protective censorship and towards child-centred language simplification, I'll not the existence of b:Wikijunior, a worthy project. Cremastra _talk 19:53, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't trust anybody saying "but think of the children" to make any sort of rational decision about what is appropriate for kids. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:20, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

This is just censorship, with all the typical problems that come with the idea (the non-neutrality of determining what is and is not appropriate). ꧁Zanahary꧂ 05:06, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Points 1) and 2) skate over the perennial practical issues that confound such initiatives (putting aside philosophical ones), which are: who decides what is appropriate, and who tracks what is (in)appropriate. Saying these "can be debated" is putting the cart before the horse. CMD (talk) 07:39, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

New further idea:

Instead of what wikipedia deems "child appropriate", what is shown on the child version can be controlled by the user's parents/guardians or school. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 23:37, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

We don't need to do anything to enable that, any school or institution controlling their own internet systems can selectively block urls of their choice. CMD (talk) 00:40, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) How? This would require granular tagging of content by someone. For example say a parent doesn't want their child to see articles dealing with "sex". Sexual intercourse would obviously covered by that, but what about secondary sexual characteristics, animal reproduction, sexual reproduction in plants, virginity, sexual exploitation, rape, sexual selection, pregnancy, clitoris, sex reassignment, intersex, the birds and the bees, Mull of Kintyre test, OnlyFans, Story of O, Fifty Shades of Grey, etc, etc, etc? Thryduulf (talk) 00:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• I don't hate this idea. A separate version of Wikipedia along these lines could serve as an entry point for potential Wikipedians who would mature to engage in other aspects of the project, and could also serve as a place to which to point those who fret about illustrations of mature topics on the main Wikipedia. BD2412 T 00:20, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• I'm not really sure we should do this under Wikimedia (to start, what's considered generally appropriate for children in one culture may not be in another, and is our hypothetical "kid" 5 or 15?), but if anyone wants to do something like that, Wikipedia is CC-BY-SA for a reason. So if you think "The Children's Encyclopedia" or whatever you'd like to call it is a good idea, go do that, you don't need anyone's permission. (Just remember you can't call it Wikipedia or anything close to that due to it being trademarked.)Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:32, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
  • What if we started something from the opposite direction, beginning with building child-directed articles on things that virtually everyone would agree should be in such a resource (e.g., what is a Lion, what is an Alphabet, what is a Guitar, what is Multiplication, what is Pluto), with near-unanimity required to add or post a topic or image? BD2412 T 18:16, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

    Why should this be a Wikimedia project? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 18:25, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

    that'd still be a logistical nightmare from the start, because even the most banal topics could be a little much for some children, and as seraphimblade mentioned, the target audience could be 5 or 15, and we can't really target both, since their tastes and needs are guaranteed to clash. plus, wikipedia is right here, so anything beyond that borders on being a choosing beggar consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 18:54, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

    There's a sex photo on the lion article, as well as an evocative description of their penis spines. CMD (talk) 00:28, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

    @Chipmunkdavis: I'm not suggesting that we should copy-and-paste our current content, just that these are subjects that would be reasonably uncontroversial for inclusion as topics of coverage for a kid's encyclopedia. BD2412 T 18:27, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

• I have obtained a Herit*ge Found*tion document titled Our Real Strategy, which envisages surreptitiously encouraging the creation of Wi/kids, placing obnoxious material in it alongside contentious material that woke hostiles will defend, and the material's eventual discovery by the HF's grass-roots division. They seem confident of destroying all Wikipedia in the ensuing storm. NebY (talk) 18:00, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

  Is this actually true that that org is encouraging this? Deeply concerning if it is. Sounds up their alley. -1ctinus📝🗨 15:45, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

  A few years ago I would have taken NebY's comment as a joke, but these days I'm not so sure. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:44, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

  regardless of whether or not it's true, i really hope it's not an implication that the op could be trying something of the sort

  ...or that this kind of plan can work for that matter. sega didn't kill nintendo, so i don't imagine another wiki has much of a chance of killing wikipedia consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 17:52, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

  See reputational risk. NebY (talk) 18:28, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

  decentraland didn't destroy the concept of reality, if that's anything to go off of consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 18:46, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

  If this is a joke, please clarify that! 3df (talk) 18:25, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

  They are also selling a very nice bridge affiliate link. NebY (talk) 18:33, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

• Anyone is free to WP:FORK Wikipedia and censor it however they want. I for one won't be a part of that project, but if others want to be, have at it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:25, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• I like the idea of how Basque Wikipedia did this: having a second tab next to article. I'm not keen on making any type of censored version for kids, maybe except extreme violence, but see a use for explaining things in much easier terms. For medical content, the tone would be more akin to the NHS than to academic literature. We do lose a large audience on Wikipedia, which is a shame. In terms of culture, I hope that more people learn to write for an appropriately broad audience, and that our normal articles become easier to digest too. But perhaps it'll be used for the opposite ("if you don't understand the default article, go to the kids one"). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:17, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

  a use for explaining things in much easier terms this is why the Simple English Wikipedia exists. We should do a much better job of making its existence known - currently it's only linked in the other languages list, where most people wont think to look for it and because this is arranged alphabetically "Simple English" can be several screens down the list on articles that exist in many languages (for me it's right at the bottom of the second page down when starting from the top of the languages section at Aspirin for example). Thryduulf (talk) 11:45, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

• The OP started this discussion to be about having a censored version of Wikipedia, but many people have taken it in the direction of having a version which has language that can be understood by kids, whether targeted at 5-year-olds or 15-year-olds or something between, and commenters have said that that role is fulfilled by the Simple English Wikipedia. These are two very different topics, but any new WMF project should be discussed at Meta, not here. I think the only thing that belongs on this project is Femke's proposal of a separate tab. Maybe such a tab could point to the Simple English version of the article, if it exists. That would also address Thryduulf's point about making the Simple English Wikipedia more visible. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:35, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

  Exactly lol. Though now I sort of realize that a "censored kids version" is easier said than done. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 12:40, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Does !voting with simply the words "Support/oppose per user" violate WP:VOTE?

I'm coming to ask this question here because I've seen this interaction happen frequently enough that I now want to clarify with other more seasoned editors.

I would say that at least once or twice per week, across areas ranging from WP:CTOP talk pages to AfD to ITN, I will see an interaction which essentially goes like this:

Proposal to use X and not Y

Based on [insert here] reasons, I think that the article should say X and not Y, and am seeking consensus. Signed, UserNominator

• Oppose Based on the detailed rationale that the article should say Y, for policy reason WP:WIKIPEDIA, as opposed to saying X. DetailedWriter
• Oppose per Detailedwriter. Signed, PerUserGuy.
• Support For separate reasons than the nominator based on WP:ABOUT, I support this proposal. NotAVoter99
• Support per nom. AgreeingGal

AgreeinGgal, this is a consensus discussion, not a !vote. You need to explain your rationale and address the opposing arguments, or this comment will not be weighed when assessing the consensus. DetailedWriter

WP:VOTE states that "It serves as a little reminder of the communal norm that it is "not the vote" that matters, but the reasoning behind the !vote that is important [...] A "vote" that doesn't seem to be based on a reasonable rationale may be completely ignored or receive little consideration, and a discussion close may be escalated to wider attention if it appears to have been treated as a simple vote count. It is important therefore to also explain why you are voting the way you are. I'm curious how administrators assessing for consensus reconcile this with our widespread community practice of "Per User" rationales.

On the one hand, merely adding two words "per X" doesn't really seem to meet the spirit of WP:VOTE, which calls for users to provide explanation. I can also see how it might be difficult for the closer if there are 7 supporters and 3 opposers, but the 3 opposes wrote out detailed rationales while 6 of the 7 supporters only wrote "per nom".

On the other hand, if a prior user in the discussion applies policy correctly and explains themselves well, it seems a little silly to require a subsequent user to re-word and re-phrase the already well-stated rationale in order to have their opinion considered in the consensus assessment. Also, "per nom" is indeed a rationale: it is a more efficient way of saying "This user stated a strong argument for Y over X that I agree with it because of reasons 1, 2, and 3" (which is simply writing back out the full rationale of the prior user in your own words).

So, to put it succinctly: when I am contributing to a consensus discussion and agree with the rationale someone has already said, should I be restating what they said in my own words to meet WP:VOTE? Or does the community accept the two-word rationale "per User" an a valid rationale? Flip^andFlopped ㋡ 21:41, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

When closing I give "per x" responses the same weight as the response they're referencing. There's no need to repeat an argument or post. People cite essays in their !votes for the same reason. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:10, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I think the proposer is basing this on editirs at RFC who vote for Keep based on an argument that a previous editor put down, but doesn't meet rules or guidelines of wikipedia that someone had already challenged. For example footballers or cricketer stubs at AFD - with keep votes stating notable when clearly are not. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:07, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

The counter point there would be that editors may not agree with the challenge, and so still support the original argument. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:44, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

And then you have the issue with editors pointing out that their argument does not meet rules/guidelines and get accused of bludgeoning! Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:13, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

This is probably the least bad option. The alternative is each new !vote rewriting the same comment with different wording. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:40, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with DetailedWriter's !vote 100% and have nothing to add. Why should I find different words to say the same thing? Even if I agree 100% and have something to add, I can !vote "Oppose per DetailedWriter. [something to add]." ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 06:18, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

IMO the rationale is mostly not for the closer, it's for other participants in the discussion. The closer's job is to reflect what the discussion agreed on and so should generally not discard !votes for their rationale alone unless it's super clearly false (e.g. "no source says X" when the other side has several quotes from good sources that say X) or against policy.

If a lot of participants seem to think a given rationale is strong than for the purposes of the discussion it's strong, even if it's short and even if the closer personally thinks it's dubious. Loki (talk) 06:32, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

When a closer sees people !voting “per user:so-and-so” they know that these people found so-and-so’s comments persuasive. The closer should go back and read so-and-so’s comments again.

However, that does not mean so-and-so’s comments “win”. Consensus isn’t a vote. The closer should also pay attention to any comments that attempt to refute or rebut what so-and-so said (especially if the refutation/rebuttal is based on policy). Blueboar (talk) 15:12, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Strongly disagree with this, at least as written. It's a closers job to weight comments with regards to policy and no matter how many people make them, non policy based rationales can and should be disregarded when assessing the consensus (at least assuming there's not a complete absence of policy in the area). Scribolt (talk) 07:22, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

There are definitely cases where a closer should strongly deweight or ignore certain votes, but in those cases it's usually blindingly obvious that it's correct to do so. E.g. if there's a ton of new WP:SPAs on one side that seem to have been canvassed from off-wiki a closer should ignore them.

But consensus really does just mean "general agreement", and so absent that sort of concerted attempt to manipulate the consensus from outside, the job of the closer is to figure out if the discussion agreed on something, and if so what. I fear that the presence of a few lines designed to protect Wikipedia from outside attacks like "consensus is not a vote" and "consider the strength of the arguments" are starting to outweigh the basic facts of what consensus is in the minds of editors. A closer is not a WP:SUPERVOTEer and their job is not to decide which arguments are stronger based on some sort of view-from-nowhere, it's to decide which arguments in this specific discussion convinced the most people.

Which is to say, if a bunch of people familiar with Wikipedia policy thought one argument was stronger, the closer's opinion on that issue doesn't matter. Many content disputes originate from conflicting opinions on policy and the job of the closer is not to judge which arguments were policy-based based on their own personal opinion, it's to decide which interpretation of policy the discussion ended up agreeing on. Loki (talk) 21:34, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

• WP:VOTE is an essay, so it can't really be "violated". — xaosflux ^Talk 15:17, 13 April 2025 (UTC)
• I find it amusing that DetailedWriter pushes back on AgreeingGal's "Support per nom" but doesn't challenge PerUserGuy's "Oppose per Detailedwriter". Schazjmd (talk) 16:11, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

  Haha, yes, that was intentional. It made the interaction a little more realistic, LOL. Flip^andFlopped ㋡ 04:40, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

• eh? what's so bad about them? it only really means someone agree with someone else, and if this is addressed but votes of that nature keep coming in, it only really means they still agree with the editor they're voting per. this is something i don't think there's any need to change, since it's not even on the more incomprehensible side of wp lingo

of course, this doesn't necessarily mean any rationale automatically wins or loses because someone used the p word, nor does it automatically validate or invalidate any given vote. of course, there are the relatively common problematic votes, but that has nothing to do with them being per someone. in the end, i guess this means oppose, with the caveat that i'm not even entirely sure what the problem is supposed to be

unless it's about usernominator, who is a menace we should all run from as fast as we possibly can or, preferably, surrender to, knowing that our days are already over, then this is fair game consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 11:10, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

consarn, I've seen it happen multiple times where folks make either pointed comments, or post general warnings, when there are a lot of "per [user]" type !votes on the basis that they lack a proper rationale. This confused me, and it's helpful to have clarification that the community takes no issue with the "p word". Flip^andFlopped ㋡ 16:27, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

i blame usernominator, they might as well be wikipedia's thelegend27 consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 17:14, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

A support/oppose vote per user is basically a statement that said user has expressed the voter's rationale well enough. As such, it is a properly-reasoned vote. Animal lover |666| 19:09, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

• Per votes aren't a problem for WP:VOTE, per Animal lover and Blueboar and others No but really, if someone else has already articulated your position well, there is no reason to waste words reiterating. Consensus isn't a vote, neither is it a word count measuring contest. "Per User:X" is a great way to express that you found someone's reasoning compelling, which is an important part of the consensus process, since one of the ways you can tell an argument is well-reasoned is that others understand it and are persuaded by it. Even when your position is more nuanced, saying "per so-and-so, except/and also/despite..." simplifies the comprehension task for closers and other participants. -- LWG ^talk 23:20, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

@LWG: but it does not tell you that others understand it. They don't even need to have read the comment or all of it, they can just write "Keep per User L." You would need a longer comment to know whether they understood it or not. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:49, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

"need" is a strong word, because sometimes the simplest arguments are the best, and tacking more words into "i found no sources :(" is kind of unnecessary consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 20:00, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Need applies to the ability to establish understanding. A simple "I agree with argument Y" can not demonstrate that I understand argument Y. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:44, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

it also can't really demonstrate the lack of understanding, so i don't get the problem. are we not supposed to follow wp:agf and assume that anyone who isn't that wonk from rfd (corsan, i think it was) has at least some idea of what they're agreeing with? consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 10:53, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Nobody claimed that it demonstrated a lack of understanding. We can assume good faith but thats about it, we can't be assuming something that has nothing to do with good or bad faith. Someone can be completely wrong, completely misunderstand the arguments made, and cast the opposite vote to what they intended and still be operating in good faith. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:02, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

even then, that's not a problem caused by per votes, that's just editors being puny fleshbags with imperfect organic brains consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 16:33, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Who said it was a problem caused by per votes? The logic applies to all of wikipedia, we assume good faith but we do not assume computational perfection because we're dealing with puny fleshbags. Good faith editors can still be lazy, ignorant, mistaken, bigoted, under the influence, etc (heck some days I check all those boxes by myself). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:41, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

yes, hence this entire question being irrelevant to what per votes do. they can be used in problematic ways, sure, but are not themselves problems. if a student bullies another one during math class, you don't ban math from your school consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 16:56, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

You're tilting at a windmill, I never argued that per votes are "themselves problems." Perhaps you should not have commented so many times if you feel it irrelevant? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:59, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• per user is fine, you're expressing that you agree with their argument as stated and the weight the closer puts on your comment should be equivalent to the original (for better or worse). Scribolt (talk) 07:22, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• The purpose of Consensus is to find agreement, so various expressions of agreement (viz. 'I agree with Sara', or 'per Sara') should be expected. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:07, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• It all depends on context, in general I don't think its prohibited or anything like that but I also don't in general think its a very smart or helpful way to contribute. That being said closers really shouldn't be counting them for anything, the strength of an argument doesn't change no matter how many people offer simple agreement or disagreement. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:45, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  The strength of an argument is all about how many people agree or disagree with it. The goal is to figure out if there's a consensus, which is not a jargon word here: it really does just mean "general agreement" same as it always does. Obviously knowing how many people agree is crucial to knowing if there is general agreement. Loki (talk) 21:24, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  "The strength of an argument is all about how many people agree or disagree with it" what you are describing is a popular vote, not a consensus. In a consensus the argument that bears out may not be the one which most people agreed with, thats kind of the whole point. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:41, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  Consensus is indeed a jargon word on English Wikipedia, as in the real world, consensus decision-making means everyone is willing to go along with a decision. However I don't agree with the view that "In a consensus the argument that bears out may not be the one which most people agreed with." While on English Wikipedia, it can be true that arguments with majority support can be superseded, it's isn't due to English Wikipedia's consensus-based decision-making traditions, but because of arguments being counter to existing guidance that has stronger community support. isaacl (talk) 02:00, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• If you can't agree with someone who said exactly what you would have said, what's the point of a discussion at all? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:34, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• At RfD per X comments are very common for all four of the most common outcomes (keep, delete, retarget, disambiguate) and frequently nothing else needs to be said. Sometimes the editor who wrote the comment being endorsed has done a detailed analysis that needs no further explanation (e.g. Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 April 13#Hungarian Horntail), other times its a simple expression of opinion that can be fully endorsed without need for further explanation (e.g. Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 April 12#Fire in the hole!). There is no reason to treat these with lesser weight than if the editors had used more words. If you are not certain that someone has understood then you can ask them about it specifically. Thryduulf (talk) 20:51, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• It varies, from a load of new accounts saying "Keep per" at AfD to establishing that a proposed new policy has widespread endorsement. NebY (talk) 16:50, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• At Talk:Waipaoa River#Requested move 27 March 2025 a user wrote a well detailed response on why the move was not as simple as being a spelling variation. Rather than copy his post I simply wrote 'Oppose per Nurg'. Would it make a difference if I wrote 'Oppose as this is not a simple matter of spelling per the evidence of Nurg' or if I simply repeated the evidence the user had already provided? Traumnovelle (talk) 01:29, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

  Would it make a practical difference? Probably not. But occasionally, it might make an emotional difference to some editors. If you're going to !vote the Wrong™ way, they want to feel like you really put a lot of effort into it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:38, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• A "per X" statement shows me two things. First, that the person making it read and considered the discussion before they decided their own position on it. That's certainly good, and any participant in a consensus discussion should be doing that. Secondly, that they found X's argument convincing, and agree with it. Does typing "I read X's position, which is (insert copy-paste here), find that convincing, and agree with it" really a better argument than "per X", or is it just more verbose? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:42, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

  Agreed, these are equivalent. Most disputes coalesce around a few options. This person is indicating which position they agree with, in a less verbose but equally valid way. So per those who said "per" does not carry less weight. Andre🚐 01:56, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• The variant of this that I would discourage is the "per above" statement. If it's obvious which point they are supporting, fine, but it's common to see this below many comments/arguments, and the closer is left with no information about the reasoning. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:01, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• No, when I agree; yes, when I don't. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:21, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

  agree with phil per phil consarn _{(signed per phil)} 17:51, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Default thumbnail size changing from 220 to 250px

Hello! A bit over a year ago, this noticeboard hosted an RfC, and consensus held to increase the default thumbnail size on Wikipedia from 220 to 250 pixels. That became a Phabricator task. It took a while to implement, for various complicated technical reasons I don't really understand, but with the deployment of CodeMirror 6, this has been completed and is being rolled out! See the Phabricator task and the recent Tech News for more details. No action is required from us - just an update on a long-discussed change! —Ganesha811 (talk) 16:52, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

This actually requires changes to all the images that use |upright= as the scaling they use are all based on the old thumbnail size, and will need to be corrected. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:27, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Probably they won't - most are too small anyway, & I believe "upright" doesn't affect the majority of our readers on mobiles. Assuming all upright images need re-scaling would be a mistake. Johnbod (talk) 23:31, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Images should be no more 300px in the lead or 400px in the body of the article, MOS:IMAGESZ. That was 1.3 and 1.8, and is now 1.2 and 1.6 scaling. No discussion was had about changing those figures. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:53, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Um, are you sure those numbers are correct? The lead image is usually meant to be the biggest in an article... WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:39, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

It's from the link. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:07, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps we should update those guidelines as well, to allow for larger sizes. SnowFire (talk) 15:38, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Linking to dangerous content

I have no idea where the best place to ask this was. I'm relatively new here. If I've overstepped, feel free to delete this and if you have the patience you could address my question on my talk page. Anyway, my question is whether it is allowed to link to clearly dangerous content both in an article and in that article's talk page. I specifically looked at the Wikipedia pipe bomb talk page. In that page Talk:Pipe bomb in the first topic (labeled the informative "Comment") a user links to three webpage that explain exactly how to make a pipe bomb. Here is the start of their comment - "Information on pipe bombs is already available all over the net see,[1], [2],[3] and may more too numerous to mention" - The first link is depreciated, the other two are not and have detailed instructions on obtaining materials and assembling them. Is this allowed under Wikipedia guidelines? A cursory glance by me did not find anything explicitly saying no, like in WP:EL. Again though I'm pretty new so I thought I'd also ask here to be sure. Any insights appreciated :) Ezra Fox🦊 • (talk) 23:33, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

WP:ELNO point 3 includes content that is illegal to access in the United States. This is obviously framed in terms of digital content that is illegal to access (e.g. child pornography) but it would also include things like bomb-making instructions if that is illegal in the United States. I'm not at all well versed in US laws in this regard, but my gut feeling is that the US is more permissive than the UK in this regard. The major controlling policy though is probably Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not censored. Thryduulf (talk) 01:02, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

There are no restrictions on that sort of material in the US, you can even make your own bombs at home if you have the right permit or license (ones which I would bet money are less restrictive than the firearms regulations in whatever country you live in). No comment on whether thats a good thing or not, for our purposes it is what it is. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:45, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

this led me down a rabbit hole lol. Schumer said in 2015 it was legal to make a pipe bomb in the home without a license. He was wrong though. Unsurprisingly. Not a very honest guy. But it did take me a while analyzing the law to verify that. But you are correct it is legal if you have a license, I'm more skeptical on how easy that would be to get though Ezra Fox🦊 • (talk) 02:59, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Easy easy, if you aren't a person generally prohibited from owning explosives (felons and the like) and have a few hundred bucks its just paperwork, a routine background check, and a bit of waiting. You don't have to demonstrate a need or anything like that, it gets issued unless there is a good reason not to. More or less the same as getting a suppressor permit/license. Where it gets onerous is in state and local regulations on explosives, not in who can own them but where and how they can be stored etc. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:26, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! I don't know how I missed that line, I looked at that paragraph and I guess I just skimmed it and didn't see the end. It looks like it is illegal if posted with the intent to get others to commit crimes - https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/is-it-illegal-to-post-bomb-making-instructions-online/

This is obviously a very high bar, and it's easy to provide instructions in such a way as to claim you do not have that intent. Therefore, it appears that linking to those sites does not violate Wikipedia's guidelines. I agree this is not a good thing, per say, but I do think having an expansive view of free speech is good, so I'm okay with it. Thanks again for the feedback! Ezra Fox🦊 • (talk) 02:08, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

As said above this kind of material is legal in the US. However, piracy isn't, so I've always been curious why we freely link to notable piracy websites. Not "dangerous" - unless you are a corporation I guess. But the content of said sites is still plenty illegal. PARAKANYAA (talk) 10:34, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA: The policy at Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works states: However, if you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of copyright, do not link to that copy of the work without the permission of the copyright holder. If you are aware of violations of that policy, you can report them at Wikipedia:Copyright problems. Donald Albury 16:30, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

interesting. This seems to be a case where most people who edit piracy pages just don't like that rule and ignore it? Maybe they're implicitly using WP:IAR. Because basically every page I see on here mentioning a piracy site links to it. Anyway, I'm very pro that. But it's fascinating seeing how sustainable that has been, and I wonder if it will continue to be so. It would intuitively seem that as some point either the rule would need to be changed or the routine behavior. But perhaps not! Ezra Fox🦊 • (talk) 19:47, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

We link to something like The Pirate Bay as a link to the site in general on the page about that site (without directly linking to any page it might have with copyright infringement), but any other direct link to that site from any other page on WP would be flagged as an absolute ELNO and such links should be removed immediately. Masem (t) 19:54, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Linking to a site that hosts illegal content just not on its front page is not much better, I don't think that would hold up in court, the "just links" excuse has not worked for Annas's Archive. Hell, several of them do have links to links on their front pages. If there was a site that only had CP but had none on it's front page, I don't think we would be linking it!

I am not opposed to linking such sites but it's strange when we do occasionally censor home URLs of websites when they are deemed too offensive or dangerous to link, even if legal or if their front page is harmless, but not piracy sites? PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:33, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I suspect you're failing to distinguish "illegal content" from "illegally obtained content". I doubt much of the content on The Pirate Bay is actually illegal in the United States. It's just that they don't have the IP rights to it. --Trovatore (talk) 16:27, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

If content is illegally distributed it becomes illegal content for those instances. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:27, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

No, in fact, it does not. --Trovatore (talk) 02:14, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

This goes way over my head but you appear to be right, and it seems I was also wrong when I previously thought Wikipedia policy doesn't allow only linking to the site in general. Like usually with Wikipedia, there's always a reading where you can justify things. But anyway this topic has gotten out of hand, it might be time to close it, how is that done? And when/how can it be archived? Ezra Fox🦊 • (talk) 07:42, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

The bit about not linking illegal content is only part of one of the 19 points of WP:ELNO, which itself is just one of the sections of the relevant guideline. There are plenty of other reasons why external links are not encyclopedic. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:34, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Do we really need a long wikilegal debate to say "no, obviously we do not want to link to instructions for making a pipe bomb"? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:13, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm guessing that you will not be happy about the link to the Internet Archive in the External links section of The Anarchist's Cookbook. Donald Albury 18:22, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

lmao that's hilarious. That's such a vibe tho Ezra Fox🦊 • (talk) 19:17, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I just deleted that link; it was to the full text of an in-copright work without any sign of a license, so it's WP:ELNEVER. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:31, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

True, despite it evoking an odd nostalgia for BBS edgelord days of yore. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:50, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

There seem to be lots of people who interpret WP:NOTCENSORED as meaning that we must link any content that anyone has tried to censor. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:55, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Aye. For those with a long wiki-memory, there was the time that it was decided that Gropecunt Lane should be Today's Featured Article. Should that article exist? Of course it should, and it's a great article - go and read it now if you haven't seen it before! But regardless of the arguments about whether it should have been a TFA in the first place (there was clearly a lot of juvenile sniggering that we'd placed it there), there was a further problem that cunt itself was linked in the blurb. This had the effect of wiping out Wikipedia's front page for every education establishment that had a content filter (which, by law is every single one in the UK with students under 18, and I'm sure the same thing was true in other countries). The actual name of the article wasn't an issue, because content filters have to cope with the Scunthorpe problem and would allow the title. However, when I tried to persuade people "Could we just not change the blurb so that the secondary link isn't there?" we immediately got lots of people jumping up and down yelling NOTCENSORED! NOTCENSORED! and so it remained for the rest of the day. It was not a great day in Wikipedia history, frankly. Black Kite (talk) 10:24, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Technical

Gadget to hide decorative sticky elements

Per Special:GoToComment/c-AntiCompositeNumber-20250420003300-RfC:_allowing_editors_to_opt-out_of_seeing_floating_decorative_elements, we should have a gadget labeled "Hide decorative sticky elements" that consists of the following CSS file:

.sticky-decoration {display:none !important;}

Aaron Liu (talk) 01:49, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I had made a thingy at User:HouseBlaster/sandbox.css. I propose and support simply making that into a gadget. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 02:01, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

For reference, the line of CSS I gave is the same exact thing but with 200% the spaces. Though, I also just changed my line of CSS to say "sticky-decoration" instead of "floating-decoration". Aaron Liu (talk) 04:19, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

There was no opposition to the suggestions of creating a gadget to opt-out and for other editors to edit user pages to implement the class, but these issues did not have significant discussion. does not support the creation of a gadget, so I suppose you're taking up the suggestion? A one liner isn't really what we should support gadgets for, and it really is a one liner. Izno (talk) 04:36, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Normally I would agree with you. I think that telling people, in an official guideline, to go and check a box in their preferences is far superior to telling them to fiddle with their CSS. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 04:40, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree, especially since this is a matter of accessibility. jlwoodwa (talk) 07:21, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Just curious, but the RfC was about user pages, but are there any legitimate uses of these "position: <absolute|sticky|fixed>;" elements elsewhere? I know I have been meaning to get the up/down skip buttons used on WP:HD and WP:TEA adjusted so they don't obscure the mobile/desktop toggle. Commander Keane (talk) 07:31, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

The skip buttons you mention were brought up in the RfC statement as one example of legitimate use. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Support making that into a gadget as well. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Support, I guess. Though, this seems like a fool's errand, as editors can and will create new elements regularly, and these won't be with the class sticky-decoration (or whatever class name), so the gadget will do nothing. Gonnym (talk) 13:55, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

The new section (WP:DecoFloat) created by that RfC which thus is now a guideline says that such new elements should have that class, and another thing unopposed (though not really discussed) in the RfC is that editors should be able to drive by and add the class. I'm sure opt-outers would gnome every example of such stickies. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:46, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

That's all fine. As an editor who fixes lint and other errors, I doubt most people that add those annoying features are going to add the class, which then falls upon gnomes and other editors to fix those horrible features. So we require at least two steps for editors to not view these, and yet still non-registered users can't hide them. Gonnym (talk) 14:49, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I feel like most of this was already discussed in the RfC. There's no independent merits you've brought up that only apply to the gadget proposal and not the RfC. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:01, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Well then, you know what. I completely oppose on the ground that I think this will do nothing and is completely pointless. Hope that helps. Gonnym (talk) 18:29, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

If the usage on user pages is deemed a significant accessibility issue, then personally I think the elements in question should be hidden by default, and users can opt into seeing them. If there isn't enough usage to make it a significant accessibility issue, then I think the drawback of adding an additional gadget isn't warranted. isaacl (talk) 16:58, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. jlwoodwa (talk) 17:12, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Managing accessibility concerns is about managing tradeoffs. Neither approach is perfect. In my opinion, if the accessibility issue is significant, then the better tradeoff is to let people opt into the problem, rather than opt out of it. isaacl (talk) 18:00, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

We just had this discussion at the RfC... Elli (talk | contribs) 20:28, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Just raising a specific point regarding the relative tradeoffs for managing accessibility, which was not discussed during the previous RfC. (As noted in the summary, detailed discussion of a gadget did not take place.) isaacl (talk) 18:03, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

It's only a significant issue for a significant but small percentage of users; I think it's worth the drawback (I presume you just mean the preferences table and the in-this-case-tiny burden on intadmins). The significant drawbacks of having such elements be hidden by default have been discussed in the RfC. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:57, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Since we're apparently doing the bold-face thing, I support making this into a gadget. If anyone thinks it should be default-on, we can have an RFC about that later. In the meantime the gadget will help those who wouldn't know display: none; from background: url(https://fsb.ru/1x1.png) enable an accessibility feature without worrying. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:04, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Conditional highlighting in a table

This clever edit causes the most relevant line to be highlighted, e.g., in Butter#Nutritional information. However, in Shortening, to which Vegetable shortening redirects, the relevant line is not highlighted, because it's not at the "Vegetable shortening" page (not all shortenings are vegetable shortenings, but most of them are). Could someone please hard-code the page name "Shortening" into this template? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing:  Done All that was needed was this edit. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:06, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Eileen Kelly title italicised

The title for Eileen Kelly appears to be automatically italicised for me on my mobile device; this seems to have happened when the podcast infobox was added to the article. Can anyone help? GnocchiFan (talk) 13:12, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

The problem was that the podcast infobox ({{Infobox podcast}}) automatically italicizes the article’s title (since it assumes it’s on the article of a podcast). I’ve fixed this by adding | italic title = no to the template.

Hope this helps!
— Daℤyzzos (✉️ • 📤) _{Please do not ping on reply.} 13:45, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

The problem is having an infobox at the top of the page for a sub section two-sentence long. Gonnym (talk) 18:26, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you very much! GnocchiFan (talk) 11:11, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Layout screwed up

I have no idea how to fix this. Have tried muzzalaynees thangs, no go. SergeWoodzing (talk) 17:17, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

If you go to the "View history" page, you can see a list of the edits. Click on the previous version in the left column of dots and the latest version in the right column of dots, then click "Compare selected versions". From that screen, you can see the changes that you made and click the "undo" link to restore the previous version. I did it for you this time. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:35, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

The previous was even worse. SergeWoodzing (talk) 18:08, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

@SergeWoodzing: Regarding [6], {{stack}} should only be used around right-floating elements. If they are not consecutive in the source then move them. This works. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:50, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Unable to access Newspapers.com

As you see on this page, I've reported that I've lost access to Newspapers.com in the Wikipedia Library. As reported there, I originally lost access early last year when Newspapers.com made some sort of change and I was granted access that was to expire November 17 of this year. I've reapplied anyway, but I've heard nothing in about a week. What should I do to regain access? Oona Wikiwalker (talk) 20:55, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

XTools down?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T384711

Trying to reach edit statistics for another editor on XTools, and it timed out several times. Here's the url for my edit statistics, also timing out. Mathglot (talk) 06:41, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Yep. down Andre🚐 06:52, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Same thing for me - no edit stats. — Maile (talk) 11:06, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Everything is working now. — Maile (talk) 16:27, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

@Maile66: It still is not working for me, are you sure that it was fixed? Catfurball (talk) 17:24, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Well. mine is working. I was initially referring to the edit stats for individual articles as well as the overall stats for individual editors. — Maile (talk) 18:29, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

@Maile66: It gave me this message: Your access to XTools has been blocked due to apparent abuse or disruptive automation. I find this to be very weird, since I edited last week with no trouble. And I have no need to edit XTools, so I do not understand why I am being blocked. Also the village pump over their did not even talk about me. Catfurball (talk) 19:01, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Were I to guess, your IP is being used as a proxy (and you may not know it). Izno (talk) 19:08, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Update from the relevant task (phab:T384711): as the other times XTools went down, it was the fault of bot(s) making way too many queries and making the service run out of disk space.

The issue is that this bot is IP-hopping, so blocking only it was not straightforward.

I've reported the false positive. Maybe the blocking filter can be tweaked, who knows. — Alien  3
3 3 19:24, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

I have removed the block as the disruptive bots seem to have stopped for now. @Catfurball You shouldn't be seeing that message anymore. Sorry about that.

I'm not sure what to do long-term. A permanent solution is to always require login, then bad botz go bye-bye once and for all. But then everyone has to login, which I know is annoying, especially with known issues such as phab:T224382.

Apologies for the inconvenience, everyone. — MusikAnimal ^talk 19:35, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

OAUTH worked for the copyvio bot. Izno (talk) 19:38, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Alternatively, could require login just when you need to deflect the bad bots, or require login just when it appears someone is a bad bot (like what WMF is doing now I guess for login). Izno (talk) 19:39, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Blocked again, within the last 2-3 hours. Hushpuckena (talk) 03:32, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, sorry. The flood of bot(s) came back again and I had to do the quick fix. I'm afraid even adding an OAuth login wall won't fix the problem. The sheer volume of automated traffic coming in necessitates blocking traffic at the server level. I will work with some folks to get this sorted out as soon as possible. In the meantime, using a different browser might help. — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:20, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks; guess I will just sit on my hands till matters resolve themselves. Hushpuckena (talk) 07:21, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

@Hushpuckena Can you try again now? — MusikAnimal ^talk 20:20, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I put a proof-of-work CAPTCHA on my tools. Chances are the bot cannot execute JavaScript, and if it can you can slow them down quite a bit. MER-C 19:04, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Despite what I said above, it appears the main issue is the volume of requests (up to 300+ a second). XTools was actually doing its job of preventing the bots from running any queries, for those few requests that actually managed to make it to the application layer.

Anyway, I think I've got it mostly resolved now. — MusikAnimal ^talk 20:25, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Looking good; thanks! Hushpuckena (talk) 20:49, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Bug on Special:TopicSubscriptions?

What I'm talking about (please click on it to see it more clearly)

Please see the screenshot on the right. It appears that I subscribed to the same conversation twice (on WT:WPAFC). Justjourney (talk | contribs) 19:59, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

How it happened: so when I replied to that thread, it automatically subscribed me, but the [subscribe] link suggested that I wasn't subscribed to the conversation.

What I did after posting this: I unsubscribed to both topics, and then subscribed manually again, and that seemed to fix the issue. Justjourney (talk | contribs) 20:02, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

DiscussionTools subscriptions use a section's first comment username+timestamp as the key, rather than something like the section title. When subscribing to this section, did you hit subscribe, edit your comment's timestamp, then hit subscribe again? Or cut and paste it from somewhere? I think something like that is more likely than a bug. Anyway, you can click "Unsubscribe" on the row that has the wrong timestamp to get rid of it. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:29, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-17

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

• Wikifunctions is now integrated with Dagbani Wikipedia since April 15. It is the first project that will be able to call functions from Wikifunctions and integrate them in articles. A function is something that takes one or more inputs and transforms them into a desired output, such as adding up two numbers, converting miles into metres, calculating how much time has passed since an event, or declining a word into a case. Wikifunctions will allow users to do that through a simple call of a stable and global function, rather than via a local template. [7]
• A new type of lint error has been created: Empty headings (documentation). The Linter extension's purpose is to identify wikitext patterns that must or can be fixed in pages and provide some guidance about what the problems are with those patterns and how to fix them. [8]
• View all 37 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

• Following its publication on HuggingFace, the "Structured Contents" dataset, developed by Wikimedia Enterprise, is now also available on Kaggle. This Beta initiative is focused on making Wikimedia data more machine-readable for high-volume reusers. They are releasing this beta version in a location that open dataset communities already use, in order to seek feedback, to help improve the product for a future wider release. You can read more about the overall Structured Contents project, and about the first release that's freely usable.
• There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Meetings and events

• The Editing and Machine Learning Teams invite interested volunteers to a video meeting to discuss Peacock check, which is the latest Edit check that will detect "peacock" or "overly-promotional" or "non-neutral" language whilst an editor is typing. Editors who work with newcomers, or help to fix this kind of writing, or are interested in how we use artificial intelligence in our projects are encouraged to attend. The meeting will be on April 28, 2025 at 18:00–19:00 UTC and hosted on Zoom.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 20:57, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Issue using labeled section transclusion (LST)

At List of Vikings episodes, I have <section begin=Amazon6B />{{efn|The second half of the sixth season concluded on December 30, 2020, when it was released in its entirety on Amazon Prime Video in select countries, ahead of its standard broadcast on History in Canada from January 1 to March 3, 2021.}}<section end=Amazon6B />. At Vikings (TV series) (and other articles), I'm trying to use {{#lst:List of Vikings episodes|Amazon6B}} to use the same note without duplicating it through transclusion, but it is returning empty (see the source code for this post, I'm using that same code after the colon: ). What appears to be the issue? -- Alex_21 _TALK 23:46, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

@Alex 21: List of Vikings episodes#Series overview uses <onlyinclude>...</onlyinclude> to control transclusion at Vikings (TV series)#Broadcast. It means {{#lst:List of Vikings episodes|Amazon6B}} also only sees the part inside <onlyinclude>...</onlyinclude>. onlyinclude is the standard method used to transclude such a series overview from an episode list to the main article about the TV series. Article content is rarely transcluded so it doesn't usually cause a conflict. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:12, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Solved, thank you for that! -- Alex_21 _TALK 02:14, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

References

Collaboration or task tracker utility

In a wiki project, I need to ping many users to work on a new draft. One of them takes it. Others need to be unpinged somehow. (like in phabricator: tag a task with "foobar", all members of foobar group get a notofication, one of them marks it as assigned to themselves, and others know that it already taken. There is a board showing list of untaken tasks.) Is there some such mechanism on-wiki? Thanks. Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 10:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

The editors could just add the board to their watchlist. We use a related method at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests: each request is posted, and editors mark the request with {{Working}} and then {{Done}}. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:21, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 17:51, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello,

1) The main issue with just using article talk pages: no way for a group of users to subscribe to a new article. Is this fixable? I would like to subscribe to all articles created at my wiki, or perhaps to all articles created at my wiki which belong to a certain category.

2) Is there a way to automate transclusion/inclusion of multiple pages? Say, include all pages which belong to a certain category. Or something, IDK. Usually an article is discussed at its talk page, but if nobody looks there (if 1 is not solved), need a way to post from article talk to a 'Mega All Discussions Village Pump'. May work for a small wiki. Hm.

cc @Jonesey95 @Polygnotus Regards, -- Gryllida (talk, e-mail) 05:09, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Need ui scripting help

so I have been building an application to check suspicious links. I want it to list all external links on the page on a menu like twinkle but I don’t understand how to implement 00ui more than the alert menus. Any help would be appreciated •Cyberwolf•. talk? 14:20, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

@Cyberwolf You can take a look at User:Ahecht/Scripts/pageswap-core.js (starting at about line 1305) for an example of how I populate the psReasonList and psWatchExpiry and in an OOUI form, but honestly for drop-down lists I much prefer to use something like Select2, like I do in the showRcatDialog() function of that script, or jquery.chosen, like I do in User:Ahecht/Scripts/draft-sorter.js. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:39, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

An image not displaying properly

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T392435

Thumbnails of File:Prof.Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka.JPG are not rendering properly Pope John Paul II § Personal life or Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Could this be to do with the recent updates to thumbnail generation? EnronEvolved^{My Talk Page} 14:20, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I've filed a bug at phab:T392435. Thanks for reporting the bug. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:00, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

userbox

so I've been trying to use { {Userbox |border-c=#006666 |border-s=2 |id-c=#008080 |id-s=10 |id-fc=#99FFFF |info-c=#008080 |info-fc=#99FFFF |id=Teal |info=This user's favourite colour is teal}}. I've been trying to add a white line between the box and the text but I cant find the part on the wikicode that lets me do that. possible (talk page stalker) Willbill6272 (talk) 19:23, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

@Willbill6272:

TealThis user's favourite colour is teal

Do you mean between the id and info cells like this with |info-op=border-left:1px solid white? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:00, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

yes thanks

possible (talk page stalker) Willbill6272 (talk) 23:21, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Template:Authority control

Hi. Who can add the Chtyvo author ID (P13437) to Template:Authority control? Thank you! Максим Огородник (talk) 08:54, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Please propose it at Template talk:Authority control — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:48, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay never mind, I see you have already done that — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:49, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Translating module across wikis

Hi everyone,

Now that Module:European and national party data and its templates (EUPP data, Political party data, and EU institution seats) are working and starting to be deployed, I am interested in translating them across wikis. I have already created the relevant modules, config files and templates, but results differ widely from one wiki to the other (see the test pages listed on the roadmap).

For now, PT alone works, NL works except composition bars, and for all others Wikidata qIDs are returned instead of values and composition bars don't work (ES is entirely broken). I assume this is because the wikidata/wd and composition bar modules are called differently from one wiki to the next.

What is the best way to move forward with this? Should a function take arguments and give out the right wikidata/wd/composition_bar calls with an IF based on the language used? Should we use the config file? Any ideas? Julius Schwarz (talk) 12:28, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

After testing on Portuguese Wikipedia, where the calls to wikidata/wd and composition bar are the same as in English Wikipedia, I already made a few changes to base some checks on European parties' or member states' qID instead of on their name, which is now translation-proof.

However, there are a number of elements that are hard-coded into the module and that we should translate for users' input, but not in the module. For instance, the number of seats of the EPP in the European Parliament will be {{EUPP data|seats|EPP|EP}} in English Wikipedia (using the template as the structure is simpler), but {{EUPP data|seats|PPE|PE}}. The EPP -> PPE translation is now working. However, even we change EP -> PE in the config file, we still have checks on "EP" in the module's code. The same goes for other institutions, for special parameters ("none", "all", "thisparty", etc.), and for data_type ("seats", "seat share", "seat composition bar", "color", "individual members", etc.).

Any ideas? Taking the liberty to tag @Trappist the monk, @Ponor and @Ahecht who had been helpful in the past. Julius Schwarz (talk) 13:23, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

How do you handle countries with multiple official languages? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:01, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Hmm, I am not sure this applies. The issue at hand is not the recognition of countries' official languages but the languages used by Wikipedia. For instance, I am not trying to get this to work "for Spain", but on Spanish Wikipedia (Castillan) and not on Catalan Wikipedia -- at least at this point. Julius Schwarz (talk) 14:16, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

You can build language-specific translation tables. You can fetch the current wiki's content language tag with:

local this_project_language = mw.language.getContentLanguage():getCode();

Use this_project_language as an index into a table of translations.

Assume that the party/institution-maps-to-qid tables are the default and are associated with language tag en. For your EP → PE example, your language specific translation table for language tag xx might look like:

local xlate_institutions_t = {
	xx = {																		-- translations for <language name> (xx)
		PE = 'EP',																-- European Parliament; translated from xx language to default (en)
		},
	}

In main() you set institution from args_t[4]. Create a function that takes the current value of institution as an input. The function gets this_project_language and then looks in the appropriate translation table for a match. If found, replaces institution with the value from xlate_institutions_t[this_project_language][institution]. If not found, returns institution unchanged.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:08, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @Trappist the monk, this will be useful indeed, I will work on that. What about the calls to Wikidata/wd and to the composition bar template, any idea how to translate them from the module itself with ending up with one version per wiki language? Julius Schwarz (talk) 19:10, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

I think I am close, but I must have designed the table wrong, as return cfg.xlate_t['pt']['PE']; gives me attempt to index field 'xlate_t' (a nil value). (see table in Module:European and national party data/config) Julius Schwarz (talk) 11:04, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

ERRORTypeError: Load failed

I keep getting ERRORTypeError: Load failed after trying to retrieve data from virus total for my script I don’t know what to do to fix this •Cyberwolf•. talk? 16:45, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

It’s put a stick in my wheel I can’t understand what’s wrong •Cyberwolf•. talk? 18:01, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

@Cyberwolf First problem is that the API address should end with "urls", not "url". Beyond that, you may run into CORS errors since VirusTotal doesn't send CORS headers, so you may have to run the API calls through a CORS proxy hosted somewhere like toolforge. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:06, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

How can i set up a tool forge cors proxy? •Cyberwolf•. talk? 18:13, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

@Cyberwolf I'd start by reading the toolforge documentation. There are many possible implementations, but a quick google search shows that cors-anywhere is popular. You'd need to follow the instructions at wikitech:Help:Toolforge/Node.js to set up a Node.js webservice and then install cors-anywhere. There are third-party CORS proxies available, but it's a security risk to use them because they could theoretically rewrite any of the returned data, steal your API key, etc. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:52, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Eh I don’t understand/ don’t have a pc around so I’m postponing the project indefinitely •Cyberwolf•. talk? 20:29, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

I tried 3rd party stuff (security isn’t really a focus cause an api key is free, data isn’t really valuable yet or ever will be) but it either needs the POST format which none support or its simply not possible to send information via the proxy ie api key, application, url etc. I have contacted VirusTotal and I’m hoping to get a response tomorrow as I believe the best approach is to not focus on client/middleman solutions but solve it on server side so no one has to do this •Cyberwolf•. talk? 03:28, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

What process generates this type of Talk page heading: "Question from USERNAME (12:34, 5 June 2026)" ?

What process generated this discussion at a User talk page?

I have seen this format on User talk pages, from other users asking questions about Wikipedia. Is this coming from a mentorship program, or from the Talk page owner having signed up somewhere as a volunteer newbie-helper, or where exactly? There are many such queries at this User talk page, with ten appearing this month and destined never to be answered, most likely, as this user last contributed in March.

For the sake of other users needing answers to their questions, I would like to sever whatever connection this user has to some question-answering service, at least until the user comes back. But where is the connection? Just paging Sage (Wiki Ed) in case this is something from the Wikipedia Education program, but I don't think so. If not, then who? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:49, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

This is coming from w:WP:Growth team features#Help panel. Any admin can mark them as "away" via Special:ManageMentors, which I've now done and should cause questions to be directed to other more active users instead. There needs to be a more systematic process to handling this, though - I've been manually marking inactive users as away whenever I get around to it, but I'm using a way too loose definition of "away" and shouldn't be the only person doing essential tasks,. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:12, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This looks like it might be generated by the "Help panel" described at mw:Growth/Focus_on_help_desk. See also mw:Growth/FAQ#Help_panel, where this feature is described, and Special:CommunityConfiguration/HelpPanel, where en.WP is configured to send Help panel questions to mentors rather than to the Help desk or Teahouse. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:13, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for helping with this, @Pppery! I agree—it would be great if the Mentorship system automatically removed inactive Mentors. While the WMF Growth team has been focused on other priorities, I’m hoping to make time soon to work on some of the top mentorship-related tasks. Here are a few that come to mind:

• T321509: Provide a system to automatically suspend or remove mentors from the list of mentors
• T390933: Allocate new mentees only to an active mentor
• T389561: Mentorship: Provide context for replacement mentors when they receive a newcomer's message

Feel free to chime in if you have any thoughts on the top priorities for improving Mentorship. And thanks again for assisting with so much of the essential work behind the scenes! KStoller-WMF (talk) 21:06, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

The particular editor you pointed out here is still around and about, incidentally.

There may be an extension feature request to reassign mentees automatically after some arbitrary activity date, and/or mark as inactive, or whatever else you can do in the panel (as measured by things in Special:Contribs). I guess we could spin up an admin bot for it. Izno (talk) 20:28, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Note: Added mw:Talk:Growth#Dealing with help panel-generated questions to absent mentors, and linked this VPT discussion. Mathglot (talk) 22:16, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Satellite background for OSM maps

Hi, is there any way to show satellite background for OpenStreetMaps in Wikipedia? For example, if we want to change abstract background of this map

to a satellite background like this link: https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#map=11/29.6430/52.5342 what should we do? Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 12:37, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

OSM has a separate license for satellite data for the sole purpose of mapping locations. We do not have such a free license (nor would bing give it to us) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:36, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

@TheDJ You said that:

nor would bing give it to us

Why? I asked a question from Google here. Their answer was that the license is "from 3rd party providers". Why can't Wikipedia provide such license from "3rd party providers"?

Because, I think "satellite map" is not a highly modern technology nowadays. We use them very commonly for our everyday life.

Providing some satellite image is very vital, because it improves Wikipedia articles significantly.

Finally, I propose that Wikipedia pursue granting license from "3rd party providers". The same as Google, I think they grant permission to Wikipedia. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 08:32, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

How much funding do you think the Wikimedia Foundation should allocate towards this? It would be very expensive, and potentially disruptive to the satellite mapping industry. CMD (talk) 08:39, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

"How much funding" is a very good question. Please ask a third party map provider that how much Wikipedia should pay for satellite maps. If it is reasonable, I think it worth paying.

Satellite map technology is related to many decades ago and is not a blood edge one. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 08:45, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia would not just be paying for satellite maps, it would be paying to relicence said maps into one of our applicable licences. That is a vastly different proposition. CMD (talk) 09:14, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Notifications slow to load when new alert comes in

For several weeks (months, always, intermittently, I'm not sure), when a I get a new alert and click on the notifications bell it takes a really long time to load. I get the moving zebra stripes loading pattern for ages. Everything else on Wikimedia sites is snappy.

It takes so long that I open a new tab and guess which project/discussion caused the alert and visit it instead. When I come back, the notifications are loaded. Maybe visiting a new page resets the serving of the notifications?

If I click the bell with no new alerts, it loads fine. I can't really diagnose further as I don't get many alerts. I understand that notices and alerts now get displayed on minerva (I still call them alerts regardless), but this problem predates that.

Chrome/Android/Minerva (but it may happen on Vector 2010 too). Commander Keane (talk) 00:39, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

What about when you are on a different network, a different browser or even a different computer ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:34, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I will keep an eye out. Commander Keane (talk) 11:23, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Bulk page metadata tool

Is anyone aware of a Toolforge or WMCS tool that, given a list of pages (in my case especially templates), displays a table key metadata about each page (e.g. number of edits, date of creation, number of pages that transclude the page, etc)?

There are tools that can do this for one page at a time, but I'm not aware of any tools that can do it in bulk.

If none exist I'm inclined to write one myself. This, that and the other (talk) 01:35, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

"Disambiguation links added" false positive?

Hi! Why did this edit get tagged as "Disambiguation links added"? Switching the order of two rows shouldn't have added or edited any links. (Asking this here because it doesn't seem to have been caused by an edit filter.) 2A00:807:D3:B2CD:1D64:EE5:ECA4:CA80 (talk) 10:20, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

That seems to be added by an extension, mw:Extension:Disambiguator. This seems like a bug, which can be reported here. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:36, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! That link seems to require an account and I don't currently have time to make one, so someone else would have to report it. 2A00:807:D3:B2CD:1D64:EE5:ECA4:CA80 (talk) 10:40, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I suspect it was a disambiguation link added to a template: the links table for the article was up to date with a previous state of the article; then Special:Diff/1287207784 changed a link from Sarajevo Clock Tower to the dab page Clock Tower; and then, before the job queue had a chance to update the links table for the article, you made your edit, which caused the page to be reparsed and the links table to be updated, and so that update reflected not only your edit but also the changes to links due to the changed template. Anomie⚔ 11:42, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Problems in Visual Editor (TM:nbnd)

Section moved from Template talk:Non breaking en dash

This template appears to cause problems in the Visual Editor. After inserting the template, typing any new text after the template causes the text to not render, but section headers on the next line remain. Needlesballoon (talk) 23:00, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

To reproduce use Visual editor. Type any text, then insert {{nbnd}}, then type some more text. As soon as you type the second digit following the template, every text since {{nbnd}} disappears from the editor. But if you publish the edit or review before publish, the text is actually there. Don't know what's causing this. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 18:27, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

The template does not have a TemplateData section in its documentation. Adding one is a good first step toward making it more compatible with VE. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:26, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Proposals

"WP:PROPOSE" redirects here. For proposing article deletion, see Wikipedia:Proposed deletion and Wikipedia:Deletion requests.

RfC: work field and reflinks

RfC to determine how reflinks are linked or not in the |work= field as done by bot. -- GreenC 20:05, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

User:GreenC bot (WaybackMedic) fixes broken URLs semi-manually per request at WP:URLREQ on a per domain basis. The bot is uniquely programmed for a single domain.

One of the features is incidentally adding reflinks in the |work= field for example converting |work=theguardian.com --> |work=The Guardian. This is done per the MOS WP:REFLINK which states

"Citations stand alone in their usage, so there is no problem with repeating the same link in many citations within an article".

This is done mostly cosmetically, when making other changes within the citation or article. It is not the bot's primary purpose, but since I am making bespoke code specific to a domain, I can easily do this at the same time.

An editor recently requested this feature be disabled. So that I may continue fixing dead links, I complied and set to feature set 2A below. However I would like to see if there is preference from other editors, and to offer a set of features available.

There are 2 choices (bot or nobot), and if bot, 4 choices how:

1. Don't mess by bot

2. Acceptable by this bot, within certain rules.

A) Convert domain names to work name but don't wikilink - template documentation requires name of the work: |work=theguardian.com --> |work=The Guardian

B) Convert domain name to work name and wikilink it: |work=theguardian.com --> |work=The Guardian -- default for the past 5 years it is low volume

C) Wikilink existing work names: |work=The Guardian --> |work=The Guardian - can be high volume

D) Both B and C - recently done for thetimes.co.uk only, that triggered the complaint due to the high volume

E) No opinion

3. Other suggestion. I can not guarantee other suggestions could be programmed. Thus, please include one of the above in addition to any custom suggestions. Custom suggestions without one of the above will default to #2.E the closer will sort it out.

Note: |work= could also be: |website=, |magazine=, |newspaper=, |publisher=

The complainant User:SchroCat at User_talk:GreenC_bot#Stop_linking_newspapers. Others who may be interested based on their knowledge of this tool and CS1|2: @Οἶδα, MrLinkinPark333, Pppery, Chew, Sariel Xilo, Lyndaship, Nemo bis, Kailash29792, Random fixer upper, Headbomb, Trappist the monk, Redrose64, Izno, ActivelyDisinterested, and Lewisguile:

A !vote might look like Option 1 or Option 2B etc.. -- GreenC 20:05, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

• I don't see why we should stop linking newspapers, etc. Linking is extremely useful. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:08, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  I !vote 2B, fwiw. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2B, second choice 2D. Like Headbomb, I am a passionate supporter of linking reference works. In the current information environment, a top question every literate reader should be asking when they look at a reference is "Is this source reliable?" They should not have to blindly trust that it is, and a link to the article about it provides an easy way for them to investigate further. And there is extremely little downside, since references are out of the way at the bottom, and external links are marked as external with the icon, so the source links aren't distracting anyone (thus the guidance at MOS:REFLINK; WP:REFLINK goes elsewhere).
  That said, as much as I urge all editors to make linking the default in their articles, it is something where we allow variation per WP:CITEVAR, and linking only one/some source(s) could create discrepancy. For the situation in B, if an article has not had enough care put into its references to specify the publication name rather than just the URL, I see no issue with updating it to our best practice. (I make a similar call in the AWB task where I correct e.g. |work=New York Times → |work=The New York Times.) But I'm slightly more hesitant to do so for the situation in C. Sdkb ^talk 20:32, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2B - If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But when it is, may as well kill two birds with one stone. Adding wiki-links to citations is entirely unnecessary unless you are already fixing the citation. I would, at the very least, want it to change from the URL to the name, and if we're already updating it, why not also add a wiki-link? But forcing it to be linked without changing the contents (what is suggested in 2C) doesn't feel super necessary, unless you are already updating the citations.
  The bigger concern here is seeing what should be in the work param in the publisher param. I would, regardless of how it gets changed, make sure the publisher param is moved to work. E.g. changing |publisher=New York Times to become |work=New York Times . And, of course, you can add the wiki-link to this as well when doing so. This might end up being option 3, if the bot doesn't already do this, but I need to make sure I get this comment out. Chew^{(V • T • E)} 21:07, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2A. (Second choice option 1). It should be a decision by editor discretion at page level whether to link newspapers or not. It should not be decided by a few of people here or a bot. Having inconsistently formatted references, which is what this will lead to, is amateurish and second rate; it also clashes with the consistency requirements required for featured articles. The MOS does not require these links, and bots should not be forcing a change if editors have decided on following the MOS to keep them unlinked. - SchroCat (talk) 21:11, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2D or 2B. One complaint in 5 years does not override the clear and demonstrated usefulness of wikilinking reference names. If volume is a concern for 2D I would support rate limiting it (e.g. a maximum number of otherwise unchanged articles per day) Thryduulf (talk) 21:29, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• A - please, per SchroCat, or a lot of editors are in for a lot of work undoing well intentioned bot edits. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:34, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  Which they should not undo if there is a consensus per this discussion. Izno (talk) 21:50, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  There is no requirement in the MOS for them to be linked, so when editorial discretion follows the line of the MOS in not linking, people will (rightly) revert something that has forced inconsistency into an article. - SchroCat (talk) 01:44, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  Reverting a bot performing a job with consensus of a level that might be demonstrated in this discussion is simply disruptive behavior and would be worthy of a block. Izno (talk) 18:04, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  No it isn’t. It is editing within the confines of the MOS. If you think editing within the MOS is worthy of a block, that’s a little on the extreme side that wouldn’t stand up long at a review. - SchroCat (talk) 18:34, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  I'm not arguing about the MOS though. If a consensus is established here, you have to abide by this consensus also. Not doing so is what earns you the block. Izno (talk) 18:40, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  I think you’re misunderstanding what this is about. This discussion is about whether to allow a bot to undertake one single step: it is not a discussion that forces all those aspects of the articles to remain like that forever. If this proposal gets consensus I will not stop the bot from undertaking that task (pressing the stop button to stop it, for example, would be against the consensus, and yes, it would be disruptive and blockable). But I am allowed to edit the article afterwards in my way I wish: this discussion does not change the MOS which will continue to allow flexibility on the point that the linking is based on editorial discretion on individual articles. - SchroCat (talk) 18:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  In any way that you wish is in fact not the truth, because that leads to edit warring with the bot. Good luck with your interpretation if the bot's approach becomes consensus. Izno (talk) 16:09, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  Editing one part of something a bot does that is still within the MoS will not lead to a block, unless the admin rally wants to be dragged to ANI for overstepping any reasonable grounds of behaviour. There is nothing in the RfC that means titles can be unlinked or that all titles must be linked. The MoS says differently and there is nothing in the RfC that will change that. It’s certainly not edit warring either: it’s entirely within WP:BRD to delink the names. I’m not sure why you’re so keen to block people for editing within the bounds of the MoS and our existing editing guidelines, but I hope you try and look at this more rationally before you act. - SchroCat (talk) 16:49, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  As I said, good luck with your interpretation. Izno (talk) 19:59, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  My “interpretation” of the MoS and the project norms of editing are the commonly accepted ones. I’m not the one trying to stretch a possible consensus on one bot’s actions to cover an entirely different part of the MoS. - SchroCat (talk) 20:28, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

• At least 2A. I'm pretty ambivalent about whether something is linked in the work field and have personally disagreed with the practice in the past, mostly because people must eventually figure out what the Guardian is. Izno (talk) 21:54, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2B, or 2D; per Sdkb and Thryduulf. Also per Chew, I have also personally not witnessed the bot adding reflinks ONLY. It is an addition made alongside a different function the bot is already performing, for example the migration of URLs from thetimes.co.uk to thetimes.com. If the bot were "fixing" every article without reflinks then that would absolutely be excessive and would have been complained about already. Instead it is merely performing a useful addition, one which is supported by MOS:REFLINK, and one within and edit that is already being performed. This had certainly already been discussed, but I fail to see how reflinks are not helpful. Look at a recent page creation like If You Only Knew (Acetone album). Not a single reflink, and most sources being ones I am unfamiliar with. I agree with Sdkb. Every reader should be wondering, "Where is this information supported?", and upon hovering/clicking on an inline citation and seeing no reflink (made even worse in the absence of URLs) readers are not helped. On the aforementioned article, I would have to copy and paste 20 work titles to even somewhat determine that these are reliable sources. I also believe most references are now being auto-generated from URLs with tools like the one in visual editor, which does not add reflinks. Οἶδα (talk) 22:25, 3 April 2025 (UTC)
• 1 or 2A. MOS:REFLINK allows repetition of wikilinks within references, but does not require them. Until that changes (which would be a different discussion), linking or not is discretionary, and consistently not linking (or other consistent approaches, like linking only first appearance) shouldn't be changed without discussion. On top of that, changing it as this bot does - on a per domain basis - would introduce inconsistency in most articles, unless one happens to cite only sources from the domains the bot is working on. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2B or 2D; the links are useful, especially for sources that users may not know about. For instance, most people who actually read the sources will have some idea of what The Guardian is, but I've edited NZ-focused articles that link to The Post which readers may not be familiar with. I personally only add links to the first mention of a work in citations, but IMO a bot adding redundant links is better than there being no links because humans have better things to do than add them to all articles.  novov talk edits 01:08, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• I don't oppose links in work fields, although I haven't been using them myself much recently, but it does feel close to a cosmetic change. It may be preferable for 2C to happen only alongside other changes. CMD (talk) 02:50, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  I would add as well that I do not find the overlinking arguments convincing. Each reference should be fully functional as a standalone item, as that is how it will be interacted with. MOS designed for article prose will not apply in the same way. CMD (talk) 14:56, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• 2A. I don't think it's a big consistency problem if some instances of The Guardian in the citations are wikilinked and some are not, or if The Guardian is wikilinked but The New York Times is not, but I don't think a bot should be making that call. 2A is a useful clean up, though. I would be OK with 2B if an editor specifically invoked the bot for a given article, if there's any way to do that. An edit that just adds a wikilink is not cosmetic, but has the potential to flood watchlists so I would prefer not to see 2C. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 04:06, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2A I don't understand why we would wikilink the Newspaper if there is a URL linking the actual article that is being referenced, which shows where it comes from. It's also not part of MOS either.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:21, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  @Davidstewartharvey, as I argued in my !vote, the main reason is to help readers more easily evaluate the trustworthiness of a source. Why is an external link insufficient for that? Well, I'm sure The Daily Mail describes itself as a reliable source. Sdkb ^talk 14:32, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

• 2A, for the convincing reasons above. Tim riley talk 07:29, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B I tend to wiki-link from the work/newspaper/magazine/etc. field when I'm constructing citations, as I think it helps to establish reliability, as well as providing sometimes much-needed disambiguation when titles are similar, if not the same, for several publications. That The New York Times is often referred to as The Times is a good example of why such disambiguation is needed. Dhtwiki (talk) 10:05, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  But it you sctuslly link the article by URL, it takes you directly, so why would you need a wikilink to show who the works is? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 10:17, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  You may be assuming that the cited article remains live on the newspaper's main active site. Older newspaper articles are often to be found only on archive sites such as British Newspapers Online, Newspapers.com or Gale. The article is normally paywalled and most readers can't click through; even if they can, the link won't help them find the newspaper's main website. MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:17, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  For some publications, especially those that are less well known or are published in foreign languages and using non-Latin scripts, it's not easy to discern whether they are legitimate news sources or something less reliable. Dhtwiki (talk) 14:50, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  @MichaelMaggs and @Dhtwiki That may be the case, however, automatically linking the work of each reference, which in some cases may have been used more than once (I.e. two or three Times articles), would be overlinking. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  Not when it’s useful, namely in the references. MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:25, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  How can overlinking of, for example, The Times, been useful? If an article is linked to three different articles, a bit would link every single ref to it. That is overkill. Which is why it should be down to editors to link the article. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:44, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  To help to avoid overlinking is in large part why I voted for 2B, not 2C. Dhtwiki (talk) 15:58, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  Reflinks stand alone in their usage with regards to overlinking. Whether the bot should do it is another argument which is already being discussed here. But simply put, how many times a work is reflinked is not an instance of overlinking (MOS:REFLINK). Οἶδα (talk) 20:37, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  I fail to see how reflinks should ever be suppressed in the absence of URLs. Readers are not further directed anywhere for content or context. But as you alluded to, URLs correct that somewhat. However, in my view, readers are still lacking necessary context, as a URL is only a primary source for information about itself, without providing broader context for readers to discern whether the source they are reading is reliable. Unless a source is deprecated or blacklisted, any URL can be added. Also a lot of cited news sources have generic names (“Gazette”, “Herald”, “Star”, “Record”, “Mirror”), often cited without the added context needed to disambiguate, such as location. I understand the argument here is that the bot should not be making the decision to add reflinks, but this is what I find to be true at least with regards to best informing readers. Οἶδα (talk) 22:23, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  I also find it interesting that WP:CITEVAR states: "The data provided should be sufficient to uniquely identify the source, allow readers to find it, and allow readers to initially evaluate a source without retrieving it." How does one "evaluate a source without retrieving it" in the absence of further context or content? Οἶδα (talk) 05:18, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  If it were the case that a link is needed to uniquely identify a source or to evaluate it, then the MOS would already insist on the need for such links. It doesn’t and instead leaves the question down to editor discretion at the level of individual articles. If you wish to claim that this is the only was to identify or evaluate a source, then you’ll need to open an RfC to change the MoS to do just that. - SchroCat (talk) 05:56, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  I was not claming that MOS:REPEATLINK prescibes reflinks as mandatory. I was merely quoting a guideline whose choice of words I found interesting in the context of what I emphasized above. You are correct though, this would require an RfC. Οἶδα (talk) 08:19, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2B, or second choice 2D, per Headbomb, Sdkb, Thryduulf and Οἶδα. I’m particularly unconvinced by the argument that as MOS:REFLINK permits non-linking, the bot should never be allowed to do anything better, and that if it does “people will (rightly) revert”. The MOS no more says it's right to unlink than it does to link. Convenience links to newspapers and other works are extremely useful, and that utility is in my view far more important than trying to enforce essentially trivial internal consistency within a single article's source formatting. The difference, after all, is merely that the names of some works within sources may appear in blue, and some may not. So what? In the longer term, we'd serve our readers better by gradually moving towards linking all works where possible. MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:10, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  If you wish to rewrite the MOS to insist on links, then you will need to have the discussion there to change it. At present it does not require links to be linked or unlinked: it is down to the consensus of editors at each individual article. Trying to force the issue by having a bot do it is a form of back-door instruction creep by proxy. - SchroCat (talk) 11:17, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  Bots are permitted to do whatever the community authorises them to do, in discussions such as this. Their actions must be consistent with the MOS, yes, but few would be able to operate if they could do only what is specifically insisted upon by the MOS. We're not addressing here what individual editors must or can do; only what authorisation the bot should have to do something that is generally permitted by the MOS. MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  As I've said, it's a back-door instruction creep by proxy. If this rather disruptive measure passes, I don't look forward to reverting these when I see them, but will do so. - SchroCat (talk) 12:00, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  You have voiced your opinion and it is well-understood. To be clear though, you reverted the bot wholesale, which included the main edit it was performing (migrating The Times URLs). Such a reversion would be disruptive. Οἶδα (talk) 20:41, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  MichaelMaggs, you say that REFLINK doesn't imply that bots should not link; I'd like to ask you more about that. If one of two options is allowed by the MoS, but the community authorizes a bot to always apply one of those two options, that clearly doesn't contradict the MoS, but doesn't it effectively implement one of those two options to the exclusion of the other? I think the issue here is whether the assertion in the MoS that something is up to editor discretion implies that it should not be changed globally (that is, it should be decided at the individual article level). Do you see this differently? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:54, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, if what the bot is doing is authorised globally. The point of this discussion is to determine that. MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:31, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2A (second choice option 1). Linking works should not be automatic -- that is antithetical to MOS:REPEATLINK. If the work is referred to repeatedly in the article, it will create unhelpful overlinking. Instead, linking should be a decision made by the editors at each page. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:11, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  References are not the article. If I click on reference 3, I want a link in reference 3. If I click a link on reference 49, I want a link in reference 49. That it's linked in reference 3 is irrelevant. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:11, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  One could make the same strawman argument about wikilinks in general, but we don't link everything, everywhere. - SchroCat (talk) 15:36, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  Wholly concur with SchroCat. A modicum of common sense is wanted here. Tim riley talk 18:02, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  @Ssilvers: To be clear, what you said is not correct. As I stated above, and which is actually quoted in the OP, reflinks stand alone in their usage with regards to overlinking. Whether the bot should do it is another argument which is already being discussed here. But it is not correct to suggest this is antithetical to MOS:REPEATLINK. What you are referring to is the guideline for links within article sections, not for citations. Οἶδα (talk) 21:31, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  To be clear, what you are saying is not correct. It is not necessary or helpful for refs to link the names of works again and again, no matter how many times you repeat that you like it. -- Ssilvers (talk) 00:31, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  Okay I'm not sure what we're doing here. Yes, I have voiced support for reflinks in this discussion. It appears I misunderstood what you wrote here and for that I apologise. You stated rather forthrightly that repeat links constitute overlinking, but then stated that it is up to consensus. I understood "overlinking" not as a general reference to an article's "citation style", so I again apologise for misunderstanding. No need for snark. Οἶδα (talk) 04:19, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2A (second choice option 1). Linking publications/publishers should not be automatic. We have WP:CITEVAR for a reason; it's disruptive to force a certain citation style using a bot. I had a situation with an article several months ago where there was some controversy over the linking of publishers for book citations; I see no reason why |work= can be thought to be exempt from such differences in opinions. With citation formatting, it is much better to allow human flexibility than to force-format things a certain way with a bot. We should be deferring to human judgment here. This proposal honestly feels like a backdoor attempt to force a certain citation style across a wide range of articles, contrary to common sense. Hog Farm _talk 20:11, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  It is clear the issue is boiling down solely to WP:CITEVAR. So I must ask, to what extent are reflinks actually considered part of a specific "citation style", meaning that they can become part an article's established and consistent stylistic choice, one that must be deferred to and adhered to, with any addition/removal seen as an undue disruption warranting reversion? When I think of WP:CITEVAR, I think of everything outlined at Wikipedia:Citing sources: full citation, short citation (Harvard, MLA), general references, templates, no templates, citation order, etc. Not the "variation" of whether there are reflinks or not. Could an editor also be reverted for adding an author link to a citation because it is not "consistent" in the article or because the most significant contributor of the page decides it goes against their personal/established preference? This seems like a possibly misguided cross-application being that it is not unambiguously supported by WP:CITEVAR or consensus elsewhere. Otherwise, if they are considered a component of "citation style" or the ambiguity skews toward that interpretation, then I suppose 2A really would have to be the way to go. At least until the bot can account for an article's prevailing practice. Οἶδα (talk) 05:26, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  The broader MOS:VAR indicates: "Sometimes the MoS provides more than one acceptable style or gives no specific guidance. When either of two styles is acceptable it is generally considered inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change...Unjustified changes from one acceptable, consistently applied style in an article to a different style may generally be reverted. Seek opportunities for commonality to avoid disputes over style. If you believe an alternative style would be more appropriate for a particular article, seek consensus by discussing this at the article's talk page or – if it raises an issue of more general application or with the MoS itself – at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style." With regards to the matter of wikilinking works within references, MOS allows but does not require this be done, bringing VAR into play. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:58, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  @Οἶδα: Try running an article with inconsistent linkage through FAC and you'll probably see where this gets sticky. Hog Farm _talk 17:00, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  Then an RfC would be appropriate. I understand that the MOS leaves the door open to variety, but this does not appear to be a very common or contentious phenomenon on Wikipedia and as such this exact point does not seem to have been deliberated much before. If such a discussion exists, I cannot find it. In the absence of such discussions, it's hard to not bring these aspects up because CITEVAR is being cited as if a community consensus was determined to remand the issue of reflinks in citations to individual consensus. Rather than a general application of MOS:VAR. Was there ever a discussion to determine consensus for a large-scale disruption of established citation styles by the addition/removal of reflinks? I don't believe so. Again, it's not a very common or contentious phenomenon, nor have I seen bots performing these additions which would trigger such discussions until now. If this discussion indicates anything it is that the community would like a consensus on reflinks, and apparently we are not going to have it through a decision about this bot. There is enough ambiguity with WP:CITEVAR as it makes no prescriptions for reflinks (literally no mention whatsoever) nor does it confirm that reflinks are an established component of an article's "citation style", which is what I was referring to above. Οἶδα (talk) 23:18, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

• 1 or 2a: per above, and WP:CONLEVELS -- a discussion as to how to programme a bot shouldn't override the MoS, which is to leave this up to individual discretion. We already see good-natured but time-consuming bot edits from various bots which are, by their nature, unable to understand the citation practices established in an article (WP:CITEVAR), and end up acting in ways (such as repeatedly editing an article to change its established citation style) which would see a human editor criticised or sanctioned. 2B, 2C and 2D would all make this problem worse. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:21, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  So then if a bot was hypothetically able to determine the "citation practices established in an article" by assessing whether the citations fully or at least consistently (greater than 50%) included reflinks, you would endorse it? Οἶδα (talk) 22:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

  It would be easy for the bot to determine a prevailing practice of reflinks: parse all the templates and count how many have links. A bot could be more aware and consistent of prevailing practice than humans. BTW in all my years making millions of edits, not a single editor has ever complained of an edit war, it's not that kind of bot constantly running unattended across 6 million pages. It's targeted based on requests for certain domains only, and I don't usually repeat the same domain. -- GreenC 00:32, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  I suspect that's because 2B, as you note at the top, includes the conversion of the domain name to the work name, which is a useful thing to do, and because it's relatively low volume. If I had seen one of those edits on an article for which the link contradicted an established consensus, I would not have reverted; I'd have just unlinked. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:30, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2B or 2D: as other editors above have highlighted, linking within sources can be useful; I don't think whether or not something is linked is really an citation style issue so much as many editors use automated tools for creating citations to save time which may or may not include a link for them leading to inconsistency. The fundamentals of the citation format doesn't change (ie. WP:LDR vs in-line with the visual editor) by improving existing citations with links. I've mostly seen requests for consistency (ie. either all sources link or all sources don't link) in good/featured article reviews so having an option for the bot to convert one direction or the other on demand would be useful. Sariel Xilo (talk) 21:20, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
• GreenC, would it be possible for the bot to include an option for the requesting user to ask for all links, no links, or as you suggested above to follow the prevailing practice? That would ensure that the decision is always left to editor discretion rather than being a bot default. MichaelMaggs (talk) 04:01, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  eh? It wouldn’t be editor discretion, would it? That would be a single editor’s personal preference enforced across several hundred or thousand articles at any one time, regardless of the local consensus at each individual page. - SchroCat (talk) 04:11, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  With such an option, the editor has discretion to instruct a globally approved bot to follow existing prevailing practice on every page, in perfect compliance with the MOS. Though I’m not expecting that even that will be enough to change your mind, it does at least dispose of all the arguments you have enunciated thus far. MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:26, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  Sorry, but that's nonsense, and it disposes of absolutely nothing. If there is "an option for the requesting user to ask for all links", it enables a single editor to overrule the status quo on hundreds or thousands of individual pages. That's ridiculous. It would be akin to an editor ordering a bot to add (or remove) every serial comma to their own preference, or change language parameters - not just to one article but to thousands. And that's before you even think about what happens when Editor A asks for links to be added and Editor B comes along with the next request and exercises "an option for the requesting user to ask for ... no links" - ie, asking for them to be removed? This isn't a question that can be determined by this RfC - it would need a more fundamental change of the MOS before it even comes close to this. - SchroCat (talk) 08:37, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  If I understand correctly, you're not objecting to Option 3: the bot is changed so that it always follows existing prevailing practice on every page. MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:14, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  There is no option three at present. - SchroCat (talk) 09:26, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

• I propose the discussion of a new Option 3A: that the bot is changed so that it always follows the existing prevailing reflink practice on every page. GreenC has stated above that this would be easy to program, and it avoids the objection of some contibutors that the editor who instructs the bot could potentially be overriding local page consensus, where that exists. MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:11, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  I think we should have a clear definition of what the set of "existing prevailing reflink practices" are before this can be considered. Also, a problem I see is that if the practice is being consistently followed already at a given page, there's nothing for the bot to do; and if it's not being consistently followed, it can't determine what the prevailing practice is. It would not be OK to then assume there is no prevailing practice, since a recent edit might have rendered the page inconsistent and not yet been reverted. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:29, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

  I am a bit confused by the different uses of "prevailing practice" and "consistently followed" here. I believe you're saying local page consensus might not be reflected in the current revision of an article due to a recent edit. Yes, each article can have their own documented consensus for reflinks and the bot needs to account for that. But in reality, they typically do not. It hasn't exactly been a very common or contentious phenomenon from what I can find. An article's current makeup should be enough for the bot to run. If a revert is already needed then the bot can be reverted as well, at which point the bot will not perform that same edit. If anything, I was more wondering if the bot could account for pages where the reflink style is MOS:LINKONCE. Without mistakenly linking twice, for example. Οἶδα (talk) 05:27, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

• 2D Per Dhtwiki, when the work is wikilinked, I immediately know that the source is notable, and I can read its article to determine reliability before heading off-wiki. When the work is simply a URL, I am potentially left confused between sources with similar names or wary of heading to an unfamiliar site. When MOS:REPEATLINK exists to avoid a sea of blue in the article text, I agree with GreenC that the current guideline that "citations stand alone in their usage" justifies this new wikilinking function. While I can understand requesting the bot to not wikilink in citation templates that do not support it, the appeal to WP:FACRITERIA is maddening. WP:CITE's discussion of consistency in citation styles explicitly refers to the big choices over templates, not whether some works are wikilinked and some are not, even stating that "the data provided should be sufficient to uniquely identify the source, allow readers to find it, and allow readers to initially evaluate a source without retrieving it." Thanks for maintaining this useful bot work, GreenC! ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 16:05, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B My personal preference would be 2A, as I dislike the sea of blue that overlooking in references can cause. However other editors appear to find such linking useful, and my distaste of it is not enough to impede other editors. The flip side of that though is that high volume edits such as 2C/D also impact editors, so the lower volume of 2B seems like a sensible compromise. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:44, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2A per comments above. If someone prefers the "link each one" style, go for it, but the default bot-level option should be the safest option. If a reader is curious about a reference, we generally want them to click on a URL of the article itself, not an article about the work it was published in. There are times when adding such links is good, but let humans do that, not bots. SnowFire (talk) 04:11, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B In a multicultural English language encyclopedia, linking to the Wikipedia article for the publication is a benefit for users of this Wikipedia. I know it would be for me when I check a citation to an unfamiliar publication. — Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, they) 14:53, 8 April 2025 (UTC) —
• 2B Others have said it better, but I think having the publisher linked to its WP article is good for the encyclopedia, even it I personally don't do so consistently when creating citations. - Donald Albury 15:52, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

  There is no option to link to the publisher and no-one has suggested that would be a beneficial step. That is not what this RfC is about at all! - SchroCat (talk) 04:26, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

• 2B citevar is not an excuse for avoiding doing something that has a clear, tangible benefit to any reader. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:32, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

• 2D or 2B. Wikilinks are very useful in giving context to the citation. I've also found that when the values aren't linked, then there are often times typos in his field which are left uncaught because they aren't linked.

Gonnym (talk) 07:20, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

The issue you are complaining about won't be resolved by a bot adding wikilinks to correctly spelt titles. Traumnovelle (talk) 09:26, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes they would. Linked redirects that are tagged with {{R from misspelling}} appear on Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked misspellings, which then can be fixed. Gonnym (talk) 07:57, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

The bot wouldn't add wikilinks to misspelt names unless it was coded to recognise them, in which case it may as well just fix the spelling. Traumnovelle (talk) 23:07, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

• 2A definitely oppose 2C/2D. I've only ever once clicked on a wikilink to a work in a reference and it was an accidental click when I was aiming for the url. I have never found these useful, some readers may find them useful but I do not believe their usefulness justifies the the enormous amount of edits this bot would be undertaking to do so. Traumnovelle (talk) 09:23, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B – everything should be wikilinked. As Wikipedians, it should be obvious that wikilinks are useful – I use wikilinked source names all the time, for instance when trying to figure out the ownership and biases of the many Hong Kong newspapers. The easiest, most consistent, and only sustainable solution is to link every reference. Linking the only first instance means that whenever the reference order is changed (a very common occurrence) the link has to be moved, which is busywork that nobody should actually bother doing. Toadspike [Talk] 09:30, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2D with the exception of not converting |work=[url name] to a wikilink. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:28, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

2B - as a reader, my preference is for the work to be wikilinked whenever it can be. This link leads me to an article where I can learn more about the publication and its reliability, which is a crucial and core service of Wikipedia. Helping readers assess the reliability of a work helps readers assess the reliability of a citation and thus the accuracy of a Wikipedia article.

The URL to the work is not a substitute for information about the publication; more information about the publication will often be available in a Wikipedia article about the publication than on the publication's own website (which will inevitable have a pro-publication bias).

Wikilinking the work field in every reference is important, even though that results in repeated wikilinks in the reference section. To understand why, first remember that the vast majority of readers read on a mobile phone. Next, take out your phone and browse (in default mobile mode, not desktop-on-mobile mode) to any article and click on any reference. Note how it just shows you the one reference you clicked on--it doesn't take you to the references section the way desktop mode does. If that one reference you clicked on doesn't have the work wikilinked, you won't see another wikilink on your screen. Even on desktop mode, in articles that have hundreds of references (which most highly read articles do), if the one you clicked on doesn't have a wikilink to the work, it can be hard to find that link amongst the hundreds of other references listed. For both mobile and desktop users, it's important that the work field be linked in every citation. Levivich (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

• 2A would be preferable to prevent further fighting. I appreciate the attention to cleaning up citations, but it would be jarring to introduce linking inconsistency to an otherwise stable article, all at the hand of a bot without a human to sign off on every edit. SounderBruce 00:10, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B I find these links useful, especially for lesser known publications. Helps to click them into new tabs quickly especially when reviewing an article, rather than searching for each name individually. seefooddiet (talk) 03:14, 22 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2B weakly (as it's generally useful, but not all articles that the link might go to are of equal quality), but I do object to the idea that a reversion of the wikilink added by bot could be seen as disruptive based on this RfC outcome. There is a difference between developing a consensus that says it's fine for a bot to add a link in the reference as it's usually more useful than not, rather than having a consensus that states that references should have a link. We are discussing the former, as the RfC question isn't formulated to address the latter and I also don't see the necessary advertising of the RfC (i.e. notifications to relevant MOS pages). In practical terms, anyone who wants to revert the bot addition would merely need to make a reasonable case that the link doesn't benefit the article (BRD) rather than meeting the bar of being an exception to something that editors should "generally follow" as defined in a community endorsed guideline. Scribolt (talk) 07:57, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
• 2A to make the references more human readable, but do not indiscriminately add wikilinks by bot without general agreement on citation style. —Kusma (talk) 12:38, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

  It occurs to me that this would change |work=whitehouse.com and |work=whitehouse.gov to the same |work= parameter; they used to be very different. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:56, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

mass-creation of china township articles

hello i want to mass-create china township articles i have this brilliant python code^{link redacted — Tamzin} that i spent weeks creating that mass-creates the pages and then posts them like bam bam bam and it cites citypopulation.de which is a good source for its population and demographics and exact coordinates and area and even its chinese/pinyin text. its very robust and if there's a single bit with an error or if the formatting doesn't add up its like "nope" and skips onto the next article so it never posts buggy stuff and i could red-to-blue like 90% of the china township articles with it in all provinces. i already generated 90% of a-g hebei townships (until someone threatened me) like this one this one and this one and this one and even ethnic townships with no mistakes they're all 100% perfect can i do it thankyou. i can also reprogram it so that submits them all to the draftspace for review if you dont trust theyll be up to standard for publication. Mayeva8823 (talk) 12:42, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

and yes ill be around to look at them and make sure theyre ok before theyre published i wont just leave the script on while im at college or something Mayeva8823 (talk) 12:46, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Never heard of citypopulation.de but I can see it's popular around here:[9] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:44, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

It may be popular, but is it reliable? From a quick look it seems to be the work of one person. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:58, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Some hits at RSN [10], including Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_339#citypopulation.de. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:03, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Not reliable. Some of the UK tien and cities quote census results but they don't match. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:29, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Absolutely opposed. Mass geostub creation has wasted more cleanup time around here than almost anything else. How are you going to demonstrate that these are real settlements which really are at the locations given, and really have the names supplied? If you are willing to go over the output of this script and check it, one by one, then I might reconsider. But given that someone else is going to have to do just that, I have to object. We have spent several years cleaning up the US mass creation spree, and we're nowhere near finished. China is surely a much larger project, and verification is surely going to be more difficult considering the PRC's location falsification. Also, haven't we already agreed we aren't going to do this anymore? Mangoe (talk) 16:02, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Total agreement! Mass creation should be banned. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:30, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, we had bad experiences with GNIS, but that doesn't mean that every country has equivalently bad databases. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:17, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I also think we should keep in mind the systemic bias aspect. A stub is better than nothing, and often for non-Western countries, the choice is between having a mass-generated stub or having nothing. I'm not saying this alone is sufficient reason to let OP go forward, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth for us to say that we were willing to permit and then spend the effort to clean up mass stub creation for U.S. municipalities but that we're not willing to do likewise for China. Sdkb ^talk 19:29, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

An inaccurate or completely false stub is worse than nothing, and we've had too many problems to assume that any source is reliable enough. And I'm sorry, but even where the databases are relatively good, we still have to interpret them properly. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect some degree of human verification on everything we publish, and for geography that means checking to see that it's really there. The choice is never between having a mass-generated stub or nothing, and our experience here is that database dumps for third-world countries have been particularly bad precisely because of the poor quality of information about them. Mangoe (talk) 19:58, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Looking at what this now blocked editor has added today, he has just added stubs based upon an unreliable website which reportedly use census data, which probably do not meet WP:GEOLAND. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

What do you mean by "threat"? The closest I can find is User talk:Mayeva8823 § Rapid recreation of many articles, and Chaotic Enby was not threatening you there. jlwoodwa (talk) 16:41, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

If a bot could be coded to be consistent and accurate with decent facts using PRC sites it would actually be beneficial long term and reduce inconsistencies. We do need the articles on township divisions. But it needs to be done right and ideally a start class article or meaty stub. I would allow this editor to generate an example and we can survey it. But use direct government sources, not that website. If all you add is a population figure and create short stubs I oppose. They've got to be informative and accurate if using a bot.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:44, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Since I got a question on my talk assuming otherwise, just to clarify, I've blocked Mayeva for account security reasons ancillary to this thread, but this is not a for-cause block related to their editing. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 20:18, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Not advocating for or against, but one might look into Qbugbot, which created about 20k insect articles, and Lsjbot, which has created ~3M articles in Swedish, Dutch, Cebuano, and Waray Wikipedias.

• Dutch nl:Lsjbot stats – 132k edits; 126k articles created, nearly all deleted
• Swedish sv:Lsjbot stats – 10M edits by the bot; NUMBEROFARTICLES=2,608,203
• Waray war:Lsjbot stats – 3M edits; NUMBEROFARTICLES=1,266,654
• Cebuano ceb:Lsjbot stats – 29M edits; NUMBEROFARTICLES=6,116,748

Mathglot (talk) 05:50, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I think the Swedes decided to stop Lsjbot because problems. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:01, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it's terrible what has happened to Cebuano and Swedish Wikipedia, so many bot generated articles renders them soulless. But for missing places where there is generic data I think long term it works out better if started consistently with a bot. Spanish municipalities are a mess and some still without infoboxes, basic data and maps. They should have been generated consistently back in like 2006. Somebody competent with coding bots should sort out China.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:57, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't know about China in particular, but we've had issues with setting bots to work using official census data that turned out to include a lot of statistics tied to census dropoff locations that are not standalone places. In particular, this was a problem for Iran and Russia, with the former listing gas stations and convenience stores as census locations, and the latter assigning arbitrary geolocations in rural areas where there are no distinct populated settlements. I would be very hesitant to do any automated locality-article creation unless the datasets have first been vetted by editors fluent in the language and familiar with the country in question, and at that point the benefits of automation in terms of time saved would likely be marginal. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:57, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Lsjbot is possibly the worst thing that ever happened to Wikipedia. Because of it we have about 10 million out-of-date, rotting stubs that are full of bogus information from low-quality self-published databases and will never be updated or maintained. Even worse, the 10 million junk articles have polluted Wikidata and other projects due to efforts to synchronize content (e.g. Joopwikibot on Vietnamese Wikipedia). So now in Wikidata we have entries for places and taxa that never actually existed but are impossible to remove since they have articles in 3 or 4 different wikis (two of which are ghost towns), all created by Lsjbot. Please don't let this happen again. Nosferattus (talk) 18:26, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Agreed that Swedish wiki bot articles are hideous and that there are potential problems. The Demographics bloat in US place articles are also hideous due to the generic bot generation and 2010 and 2020 updates. But with a country like China, articles run the risk of being a mess and inconsistent without at least some sort of organized manual approach. Any thoughts Markussep ? For me I want to see consistency with data and infoboxes, but loathe seeing hundreds of articles in categories which all read the same. It makes us look soulless and like a database. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:43, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I think this would work if the articles were created in a liminal space such as draftspace, project space, or userspace, and then promoted to mainspace upon some minimal review. BD2412 T 18:55, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Yup, just said the same thing. Ideally a bot which can mass generate basic entries with consistent data in the WikiProject space and then an editor or two gradually manually working through them writing unique content for each and gradually creating in the mainspace would be better. At the very worst, meaty stubs which are consistently formatted and sourced with government data and sites and which are individually written on top of the raw data, no generic soulless articles allowed.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:59, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

For the interested, Wikipedia's largest non-English version was created by a bot. Generative AI poses new problems. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:46, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

a few standards

I have a system I would like to suggest. How about picking a few of the simplest and most frequently used templates or luas and designating them as something like "Standard Lua" or "Standard Templates"? These templates or luas would use the same scripts and syntax in all language versions and sister projects. Whatback11 (talk) 15:01, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I've left a note at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) about this discussion as folks there are likely to be interested/knowledgeable. 15:08, 12 April 2025 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thryduulf (talk • contribs)

That could be interesting (I'm thinking of templates connected to a Wikidata item), but the issue is that it might require a lot of standardization as each project might have its technical ecosystem already adapted to specific variants of these templates. In my opinion, the benefits of intercompatibility outweigh the cost of changing the syntax of frequently-used templates on many projects.

One point where this has already been done is citation templates, where foreign-language parameters are often interpreted correctly when copy-pasted from one language version to another. However, these are implemented as aliases for similar parameters, and don't imply that all the versions of the citation templates must function the same way "under the hood". Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:21, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

phab:T121470 is an old request. There are other connections there that you can look at. Izno (talk) 16:37, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

This is being implemented as WikiFunctions In the future: It will be possible to call Wikifunctions functions from other Wikimedia projects and integrate their results into the output of the page., which has... an interesting approach to things. The wiki-functions are already available on the Dagbani wiki. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:10, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

How can i use Wikifunctions function in (Dagbani)Wikipedia? Whatback11 (talk) 14:33, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Space tourists: "crew" or "passengers"

Our spaceflight articles seem to continue to call the paying passengers without duties on recent spaceflights "crew", despite the fact that this doesn't match the normal meaning of the word. While this glorifying of what these actually do (spend 1 minute in actual space, have no duties at all on board), is uncritically repeated by too many news reports, I don't think Wikipedia should contribute to such incorrect promotalk. We clearly use the distinction in every other type of article (e.g. for airline crashes, we list "crew" and "passengers" separately), and no one would dream of calling themselves crew simply for boarding a plane or train. Can we please bring back some accuracy to our spaceflight articles as well? Fram (talk) 16:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

• Personally I agree, but what matters is what terminology sources use and how. It's possible that "crew" in reference to a spaceflight means "anyone on board a spacecraft" while with aircraft it means "those tasked with operating the aircraft". 331dot (talk) 16:57, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• We could use quotes around crew, as did you. O3000, Ret. (talk) 17:05, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  WP:SCAREQUOTES might be a reason not to. Sdkb ^talk 17:45, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think that applies in a case where the word is used metaphorically. We're not making an accusation. O3000, Ret. (talk) 17:53, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

• I agree with Fram (which doesn't happen often!). Six people who take a boat on a pleasure cruise are no "crew" and nor are these people. In the same way that we don't uncritically repeat other neologisms from press releases, we shouldn't stretch the plain-English definition of a term here and there's nothing in policy that binds us to the exact wording used by the sources. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:28, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• I'm inclined to agree here, but I would like to know a little more about how much safety training etc. is involved for paying voyagers on spacecraft. Another way to look at the promotionalism concern is that these companies may want to minimize how much preparation is required to make the flights seem more routine than they actually are yet. Sdkb ^talk 17:49, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Might be worth using the NASA definition Mrfoogles (talk) 19:22, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Crew. Any human on board the space system during the mission that has been trained to monitor, operate, and control parts of, or the whole space system; same as flight crew.

Passenger. Any human on board the space system while in flight that has no responsibility to perform any mission task for that system. Often referred to as "Space Flight Participant."
— NASA Procedural Requirements 8705.2C, Appendix A: Definitions

I don't know if those are the right NASA definitions, but using NASA definitions or other scientific/academic expert definitions, rather than promotional media spin, seems to be the better choice for wikivoice. Levivich (talk) 20:03, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Have you got an example as to when this comes up? Can we not just say that eight people were "on-board" rather than give them a job. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:07, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Every article about a human spaceflight names the participants, currently called the "crew". Having passengers not involved in the operation of the craft is a relatively recent development. 331dot (talk) 20:11, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

First let me say that I know everyone working on these articles has been doing so with good intent and every effort at NPOV, it's just that language evolves very quickly sometimes and there may not be good models on how to write about very recent innovations, and thus Fram has identified a received weakness in existing published matter on this topic.

In any case: If you pay for a ride you are a passenger; if you get paid for going on a ride, you are crew.

I personally think we should use Fram's first phrase in his subhed and just should call them space tourists. Why? Because they're not even passengers on a journey to a destination in the sense that the spaceship is going from a port on Earth to a port on the Moon. They're going on a canned tourist cruise to see whales in the bay or look at that famous rock formation or view the reef by glass-bottom boat, and then return from whence they began. Similarly, people who pay for passage on submersible trips to shipwrecks should be referred to as deep-sea tourists.

FWIW, there is already sitcom-theme-song canon law on this issue:

The mate was a mighty sailing man,

The skipper brave and sure.

Five passengers set sail that day

For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

So yeah I vote passengers over crew (although I would personally prefer tourists over both although I'm simultaneously concerned it has a slightly disparaging connotation).

jengod (talk) 20:50, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

You mean Tina Louise and Jim Backus weren't crew members? O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:15, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

For those three hours, they were just passengers. But then the weather started getting rough... oknazevad (talk) 18:04, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

We call Dennis Tito a "space tourist", Donald Albury 22:59, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Did I mention that I'm an official part of the crew of planet Earth? O3000, Ret. (talk) 23:01, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Tito was a space tourist, who was a member of the 3-Man SM-24 mission crew*, people can be multiple things at the same time. (According to NASA NASA - NSSDCA - Spacecraft - Details JeffUK 17:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

You still call people on boats passengers though even if the route is a circular sightseeing one. Same goes for other forms of transport, cf. Mount Erebus disaster. In this case I think passengers is the best term  novov talk edits 00:52, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Wait, does this mean that the flight was "uncrewed"? We have been using that term for robotic missions. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:04, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

We could say the Blue Origin flight earlier today was "unmanned". (Duck and run.) Donald Albury 01:23, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I would just urge some caution here. I wouldn’t count the passengers of the New Glenn flight as crew. It’s a fully-automated capsule on a suborbital flight. They get basic training on “safety systems, zero-g protocols, and execute mission simulations”. They’re tourists/passengers.

However, the occupants of the recent Fram2 mission trained for months and while the Dragon is highly automated, it’s not fully automated. They still had a lot to learn. They’re definitely a crew.

The problem with the term spaceflight participant is that the Russians define pretty much everyone who’s paying them for a ride as a spaceflight participant… including those who undergo extensive professional training and for whom conducting scientific research is the primary reason for their spaceflight. RickyCourtney (talk) 07:03, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

They are as much made crew by the safety briefing as my going to muster drill on a cruise ship makes me a member of its crew. If they are a) not paid for their services aboard ship and b) take no real part in controlling the craft or operating onboard equipment, I don't see them as crew. That being said, there is always going to be a gray zone.Wehwalt (talk) 13:10, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spaceflight. Sdkb ^talk 17:50, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I dropped a note about this discussion at Talk:Blue Origin NS-31#"Crew" or "passengers", which has so far fewer participants but a quite different point of view... Fram (talk) 13:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Crew is clearly the common term. NASA refer to the 'participants' on a missions who's only purpose was tourism as 'crew' here The Soyuz MS-20 and Expedition 66 crews - NASA

The European Space Agency refer to the 'tourists' amongst the crew here too.

'Crew' is clearly just 'the people on board' when talking about spaceflight. Maybe that will shift if the distinction between 'crew' and 'passengers' continues but it hasn't yet. The recent 'all-female crew' aboard the latest Blue Origins flight are referred to in all reliable sources as 'A crew', as are the crew-members of all previous blue origins flights. JeffUK 17:11, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I am going to drop out of this convo now bc I realized I might reinforcing or enabling misogynist presumptions that "if a bunch of women can do it must not be hard work." And that's absolutely on me because I have long-standing bitter POV feelings about Lauren Sanchez dating to So You Think You Can Dance. ANYWAY, my take is that the bifurcation is very clear and has been so since humans first started offering to ferry other humans across the river on janky rafts:

If you pay for a ride, you're a passenger. If you get paid to give a ride, you're crew. Participation in tasks onboard is not the determinant.

If we have reliable sources stating that someone paid money or items of equivalent value (publicity valued at X?) to go on a space trip or were sponsored to go on a space trip, they are passengers (and space tourists).

If we have reliable sources stating that someone is getting paid money by any space agency or rocketship-owning private company to go on a space trip, they are crew.

If we have no reliable sources about the financial/funding arrangements that determined which people are getting onboard a rocket ship, it seems fine to fall back on the default and current practice of using crew. But also don't let marketing practices and publicity stunts fool you.

This debate is a legacy of the Space Age when all space flight was quasi-military, government-sponsored, and "exploration." The transition to commercial space flight and private exploitation of extra-atmospheric travel is obviously well underway and will require a transition in perspective, including perhaps additional skepticism about motive.

Good luck on your debate and I hope you all have a wonderful April!!

jengod (talk) 17:57, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Space tourists are barely one step up from luggage and are not crew, are not astronauts, are not exceptional except perhaps in the size of their bank accounts. Simonm223 (talk) 20:13, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Some might qualify as “experiments”… so “equipment”. :) Blueboar (talk) 20:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Participation in tasks onboard is absolutely a determinant.

I’d argue that if you have an active role in the operation of the craft, you’re part of the crew… even if you’re paying for the privilege.

If you’re paying to be there and you’re just along for the ride without any active operational duties (and knowing what to do in an emergency doesn’t count)… you’re a passenger. RickyCourtney (talk) 00:21, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

As Jengod says, choosing the moment that Blue Origin first send an all-female contingent into space to start referring to them as 'equipment' does not pass the smell test. All the relevant articles make it very clear that they are paid participants, and describes them as 'tourists' so I really don't see a reason to rush to change this immediately. JeffUK 08:58, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

We don't need specific rules for this, we should follow what the reliable sources say, regardless of what we think about what they say as we do in other situations. If reliable sources disagree, either just go with the majority or note and/or explain the disagreement as we usually do. Thryduulf (talk) 09:46, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• We should follow what reliable sources say, but perhaps we do need clarifying guidance that this doesn't mean we have to or should follow the particular wording they use. That's mimicry, not neutral point of view. It's not so unusual for otherwise reliable sources to use terminology in an incorrect or misleading way, especially in niche topics. This is a good example of that. If reliable sources say that a person did something that meets the commonly understood definition of a 'passenger', then we can and should call them a 'passenger', even if the source itself (for whatever reason) uses the word 'crew'. – Joe (talk) 10:15, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  I think what we do already is a perfect balance between those. We refer to the people on board as 'Crew' in aggregate, then describe the role of each crew member (Tourist, Space Participant, Payload Specialist) etc. JeffUK 08:52, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  The word crew implies assigned duties. A passenger has no assigned duty. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:57, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

  Some airline passengers are given assigned duties. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:50, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

  That sounds rather odd to me. Passengers on a ship, train, etc. aren't usually described as crew members or part of the crew in aggregate. – Joe (talk) 09:23, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

As a matter of convenience it can be useful to describe the humans on board a 'crewed spacecraft' as the crew of that spacecraft. We just don't have readily available terms like 'passenger spacecraft' or 'human-occupied spacecraft' in common use. (— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 — - talk) 03:03, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

How about 'autonomous spacecraft' or 'pilot-less spacecraft'? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:57, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

We already have autonomous spacecraft. Also known as uncrewed spacecraft or robotic spacecraft. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 00:30, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

• I support the principle of using "crew" for people who operate the spacecraft, and "passenger" for those who have paid for the privilege of going into or near space, or had it gifted to them, and who do not operate the spacecraft. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 10:43, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

  On commercial flights, stewards are considered crew but do not operate the aircraft. Similarly, on military aircraft there are important crew members who do not operate the aircraft. Isn't the situation with spacecraft analogous? There are people who operate the spacecraft, there are mission-critical people who do not operate the spacecraft, whom I would consider crew. I would use passenger for those who do not have any assigned support role. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:53, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

RfC: Date-fixing bots

I would like to formally understand what the community would think of a date-fixing bot. Such a bot would fix dates in articles to conform either {{Use dmy dates}} or {{Use mdy dates}}. To be clear, this bot would not revert any good faith changes that add content and dates of the wrong format; instead, it will just change the date format. In my opinion, there are a few different ways such a bot could be implemented (or not):

• Option 1: no bot, everything stays as is
• Option 2a: a supervised bot (so every edit is manually reviewed before publication) that would have to pass BRFA to be implemented. I think this would alleviate any concerns of the bot creating errors based on context (such as changing date formats in quotes, links, references, etc.)
• Option 2b: an automatic bot that does something similar in proposal 2a, but wouldn't actually have its edits be checked before implementation
• Option 3: some other solution; no guarantee that this is actually feasible

Thanks for your consideration – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 02:35, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm an extensive user of a script that automates date style fixes. My experience has been that it's crucial to spend time reviewing the edits both to fix errors and to ensure that I am not making a purely cosmetic edit (e.g. by only changing dates in citations which are automatically rendered in the preferred style identified by a "Use XXX dates" tag). I have some doubts that it would be possible to create a date-fixing bot that wouldn't have the same issues, so I I would be unlikely to support 2b. That said, I'm happy to hear from those with more techincal capability.

On a procedural note, is the goal here just to see if this effort is supported by the community? Any bot created would still need to go through BRFA, right? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:41, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the goal here is to see whether the community supports the creation of such a bot. A BRFA would still be necessary to ensure the technical competence of any bot. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 03:18, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 1: no bot, everything stays as is. Experience indicates that bot edits that are supposed to be manually reviewed don't actually get reviewed. Just look at the never-ending complaints at User talk:Citation bot. --Jc3s5h (talk) 02:44, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Strong oppose option 2b. There are many examples of contexts where dates should never be altered, articles about/discussing different date formats, including but not limited to direct quotations, version numbers, timestamps, and things that look like dates but aren't. Many, probably the vast majority, of these will not be able to be correctly identified by bot. If something supervised is desirable (and I am presently unconvinced it is) then adding to something like AWB would seem a more useful and safe option. Thryduulf (talk) 03:32, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• It's difficult to evaluate this in the abstract. I could theoretically be persuaded to support 2a or even 2b if the error rate is shown to be low enough, but we can't know the error rate until implementation gets farther along. If fixing dates to conform with an article's tag doesn't turn out to be feasible, I think there might be potential in having a bot assist with identifying articles to tag with formats based on their categories. Such a bot would have to be tuned to handle exceptions, but I think it could be tailored to an uncontroversial set that'd still be quite large. Sdkb ^talk 04:30, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  I guess you raise a chicken-and-egg type problem: you want to see the error rate, but to start a bot trial we need consensus first. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 06:42, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  A supervised bot working on a limited sample of pages, with human review, could be a good way to evaluate whether such a bot can actually be fit. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:59, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 1, because option 3 has already happened. The dmy and mdy templates already transform citation display. CMD (talk) 05:00, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• BAG note... 2B is a non-starter per WP:BOTPOL. All bots have to go through BRFA, and a bot like this would definitely need testing and review. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:21, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
  • This RFC is probably for Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PharyngealBOT, which is currently on hold pending a consensus discussion like this one. Anomie⚔ 11:34, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1 no bot. This proposal assumes that all {{Use dmy dates}} and {{Use mdy dates}} tags are correct and should be enforced throughout the article. It ain't so. Yesterday I spent too long checking and reverting a new editor's mass additions of these tags, almost all contrary to MOS:DATERET and/or MOS:DATETIES, seemingly made without having read Template:Use mdy dates/doc or Template:Use dmy dates/doc, and otherwise inappropriate. A bot of this sort would have made that a considerably more tedious task.
  Dates within quotations should never be changed. The technical difficulty of doing this, catching quotes between quotation marks as well as in {{blockquote}}, has defeated other autoformatting attempts and I see no suggestion here that a solution has been found. NebY (talk) 09:11, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  Would your concern be somewhat alleviated if the bot checked that the "use xxx dates" template was on the article at least 6 months prior to the revision it checks? – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 19:15, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  Not really. Many of the tags I corrected yesterday were on low-traffic articles; many of our articles are, and the tags are invisible to readers and to editors reviewing the article in reading mode or editing a specific section of the article; and even those editing the lead may have no reason to pay any attention to the tag. I was also reminded yesterday how long errors can survive, when I examined and corrected a factual error in the text of a high-traffic article (105,213 page views in 30 days); that one had survived over 3500 edits since 2011. NebY (talk) 19:39, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 3, have a supervised trial, similar to option 2a (with human review) but on a limited sample of pages, to evaluate the error rate and find out whether it is fit for deployment. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:02, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1 Uniformity is a vastly overrated condition. It's small value, if any, is not worth the downsides of having a bot mess with dates. North8000 (talk) 13:22, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1 Thanks for thinking about this but experience shows that automated edits lead to disruption. As outlined above, exceptions exist and many good editors become highly agitated when bots repeatedly fiddle with article style without an understanding of context. No significant benefit would result, for example, from protecting readers from the horror of encountering "April 1, 1725" in an article on a British monarch. Johnuniq (talk) 04:19, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1 As per Johnuniq, to many issues with bots, and would hate to see American dates on pages fir any article that should be DMY.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:30, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Superscript and subscript typography guideline

Is there support to upgrade Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Superscripts and subscripts to a guideline? 04:14, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Rationale of the proposer: The main effect would be to officially recommend using HTML superscripts and subscripts instead of Unicode subscripts and superscripts (e.g. ² instead of ². This has generally been done on a de facto basis, for example in widely used templates like {{convert}}, {{frac}}, and {{chem2}}. I estimate only about 20,000 out of about 7 million articles use the Unicode characters outside of templates, mostly for square units of measure or in linguistic notation that should be put into a template. A lot of articles have already been converted to the HTML method, either organically or systematically.

This would also bless the exceptions for linguistic notation, which have arisen after complaints from some editors of that topic, who say these Unicode characters are specifically intended for that purpose.

The other exceptions and sections are I think just summaries of other guidelines, put in one place to help editors who are working on typography or e.g. asking the on-site search engine "how do I write subscripts?" when they really want to know how to write chemical formulas specifically. -- Beland (talk) 04:14, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support upgrading to guideline. I don't see any reason not to and this looks like good advice. However, I am also no expert on HTML/Unicode, so if some compelling issue with this proposed guideline emerges, please ping me. Toadspike [Talk] 09:11, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support as someone who is reasonably knowledgable about HTML/Unicode.  novov talk edits 09:49, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support as good HTML/Unicode practice. However, it could be good to have input from editors who might be more directly affected by this (maybe editors who use screenreaders?) to make sure this will not cause any unforeseen accessibility issues. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:59, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  For context, the reason Unicode characters are allowed for only 1⁄2, 1⁄4, and 3⁄4 is that these are the only fractions in ISO/IEC 8859-1; others can cause problems, according to Graham87 comments at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Mathematics/Archive 4#Accessibility of precomposed fraction characters. The only superscript or subscript characters in ISO/IEC 8859-1 are superscript "2", "3", "a", and "o". I would expect using HTML superscripts and subscripts consistently should avoid screenreaders skipping unknown characters (certainly mine reads out footnote numbers). I use a screenreader for convenience and not necessity, though, and I welcome comments from others! -- Beland (talk) 17:41, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, exactly this. Graham87 (talk) 03:51, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. Wikipedia talk:Citing sources is currently having extensive discussions about which rules apply to citations and which do not. Beland (talk · contribs) is heavily involved in these discussions. I believe those discussions should be resolved before any new related guideline are created. Failing that, I notice the essay has no mention of citations. This means whoever wrote it wasn't giving any thought to citations. Therefore an prominent statement should be added that it does not apply to citations. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:24, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think anyone is proposing to use Unicode superscript characters for endnote indicators? It seems reasonable for endnote contents to follow the general guidance on the use of superscript and subscript markup. isaacl (talk) 17:09, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support with the obvious exceptions of references to characters themselves. I don't see why citations would have an exception here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:50, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Provisional Initiative: Improving Judy Garland Content on Wikipedia

Hello Wikipedia editors,

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve created a provisional project page aimed at organizing efforts to improve and expand coverage related to Judy Garland—her extraordinary career, her lasting cultural impact, and her place in classic Hollywood history.

This initiative invites passionate editors to collaborate on enhancing articles about Judy Garland and the broader context of musical cinema and classic film. Whether you’re a film buff, a musical theatre enthusiast, or someone interested in the nuances of biographical research, there’s room for your expertise in this project.

Why Join This Initiative?

• Judy Garland’s legacy deserves more thorough and systematic documentation.
• Articles related to her life and career can benefit from improved research, quality upgrades, and expansion.
• It’s a great opportunity to work together and foster collaboration within the Wikipedia community.

Explore the Project Page: Check out the provisional draft, where you can find goals, activities, and ways to contribute: User:Jorge906/WikiProject_Judy_Garland

Your participation, feedback, and suggestions are invaluable as we build this collaborative effort. Whether you’re interested in drafting new content, refining existing articles, or organizing edit-a-thons, every contribution matters.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the draft project page or reply to this post. Together, we can create a meaningful space to celebrate Judy Garland’s influence while enriching Wikipedia’s coverage of film history and musical performance.

Thank you for considering this opportunity to contribute—let’s make a difference together!

Best regards, Jorge Lobo Dos Santos (talk) 10:09, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide - proposals for new Wikiprojects should be made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

thanks. Jorge Lobo Dos Santos (talk) 10:29, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

It's good to have a goal to work on a particular set of articles collaboratively, even outside of a formal WikiProject, although there needs to be a list of articles for that to work. I would advise against relying on AI-generated text for such a project, as llms can easily misunderstand Wikipedia's goals, for example not being great at understanding aims such as WP:IMPARTIAL and other parts of WP:NPOV. CMD (talk) 10:31, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Jorge, I wish you luck, but fear that you will need a lot of it. The scope of your proposal seems very narrow. Please read carefully the advice given at the page Andy linked. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:35, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Proposal to clarify which MOS guidelines apply to citations

I have proposed to clarify which MOS guidelines apply to citations. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Proposal to clarify which MOS guidelines apply to citations. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:14, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Add the templates “More citations needed” and “More citations needed section” to the Suggested edit template list

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

At the page MediaWiki:GrowthExperimentsSuggestedEdits.json, for the “References” task, I’m noticing that the templates “More references” and “More references needed section” are listed there, instead of the far more widely-used templates they redirect to (“More citations needed” and “More citations needed section”). This has resulted in the vast majority of the articles/sections suggested on the “References” task being entirely unsourced, which would be more difficult for newcomers to fix. The “references” templates have around ~3000 transclusions combined, while the “citations” templates have hundreds of thousands of transclusions, resulting in a lot more suggestions. Simply adding the two more widely-used templates to the list would likely result in a lot more newcomers attempting to do the task, and greater newcomer retention on Wikipedia.

(I wasn’t sure where to post this, so sorry if this is the wrong topic for the village pump.) ApexParagon (talk) 21:12, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

WT:Growth Team features would probably the proper venue. Support doing this by the way. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:21, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Added there ApexParagon (talk) 21:29, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Grant move-subpages to template editor user group

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Grant move-subpages to template editor user group

 – To gain a wider consensus here before filing a phab ticket. – robertsky (talk) 14:21, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

At Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests, a request was made to move {{Myprefs}} to {{Preferences}}. While the requestor could move the template, the rationale for filing was because there are a number of subpages to move as well and moving a number of subpages can be error-prone.

Given that current practices for Template development oblige everyone to use at least 3 subpages, /docs, /sandbox, /testcases, if a template editor chooses to move a Template, they may run into similar situations more often than not.

In the request, @Pppery raised the idea of granting move-subpages right (Move pages with their subpages) to the template editors, and I find that it is a good idea and template editors are a group of trusted editors already. This would reduce the friction template editors who are not page movers face when moving templates on their own. – robertsky (talk) 18:43, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

If there is a way of restricting move-subpages to the template namespace then this is an absolute no-brainer. If there isn't then I still think on balance it will be a positive - the number of template editors who would abuse this in other ways is going to be extremely small. Thryduulf (talk) 18:54, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree. If really needed we could tag rapid bulk moves in mainspace with an edit filter, but as you say I doubt that's how rogue template editors would choose to disrupt a wiki. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:04, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think the namespace limitation is necessary or a good idea. Firstly template editor is a much higher trust position than page mover - if we trust people to make edits that could break millions of pages we should trust them to be able to move pages. Secondly a lot of templates are not located in the template namespace - lots of templates are in the user and wikipedia namespaces, for example. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 08:25, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Agree with this too, either limited to the template namespace if possible or in general. I don't think pagemove vandalism by template editors is really a concern, or that it would raise the bar for granting template editor. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:11, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. Subpages are disabled in the main namespace though, therefore so are subpage moves. Graham87 (talk) 06:43, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Add me to the group of people that agrees with this whether or not it's limited to just the template namespace; template editors can do a lot more harm than moving subpages if they want to disrupt Wikipedia, and I doubt we'll run into many issues with template editors moving subpages against policy. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 00:09, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm okay with this, though I think limiting to the template-space as a social constraint (doesn't need to be a technical one, just revoke template editor from those who can't follow the namespace restriction, as it proves they can't adhere to the requisite guidelines) would be a good idea. If they need to move other types of pages, I doubt most template editors would have much trouble asking for page mover anyways. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 03:54, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I do not think that there is an easy way to prevent template editors from moving subpages with edit filter. If there's any side effect of a template editor with the right moving articles nomally, it would probably be moving of archive subpages of the accompanying talk pages in a single move, which I wouldn't begrudge as well. – robertsky (talk) 12:22, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

It would be possible with an edit filter, though not necessarily worthwhile. Presumably template editors can be trusted not to click the box to move subpages when moving a mainspace article or a page in another namespace than Template or Module. TPEs without the page mover flag would be limited to 8 moves per minute (the page move rate limit for non-page movers), so it's not like they could cause too much of a problem even if they went rogue anyways. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 22:34, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Just to confirm: A single move of all the subpages with the move-subpages right counts as one move, not the number of subpages, right? Aaron Liu (talk) 22:46, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

From a technical standpoint, yes. It's up to 100 subpages at once according to T16356 (anything past that needs to be manually moved I think?), which means a malicious actor could theoretically move 800 pages a minute with move-subpages, but for trusted editors like TPEs, I doubt they'd be doing that kind of thing. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 00:16, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Do we have sufficient consensus to request this be deployed on Phabricator now, or does this need to be moved to some other venue as the ideal lab is an odd place to obtain consensus for something? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:29, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I'd either move the discussion to WP:VPPRO or put a pointer there back to here and add links to the discussion from Wikipedia talk:Template editor and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates, and give the 'crats a heads-up at WP:BN that we might be increasing their workload. After doing that I'd give it at least another 3-4 days. Thryduulf (talk) 18:38, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Question: Would you mean AN? Crats don't grant template editor (at least not as crats, they would as admins, I suppose). EggRoll97 ^(talk) 21:28, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

yes, I think I was conflating this with the electadmin proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 02:59, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree this is a good idea. Sending requests like that to RM/TR is inefficient, since I'm pretty sure non-template editor pagemovers can't move template-protected pages, so an admin would have to do it, and requests in the admin section tend to take a while to get done. I agree with EggRoll97 that we can say "please don't use this to do mass-moves unrelated to templates", though enforcement would be case-by-case and not via edit filters or other tools. Toadspike [Talk] 09:18, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Er.. RM discussions for Templates, if move consensus is found, may still come RM/TR's way, especially if pageswapping is required, but TEs effectively can effect the move of Templates listed on RMTR with ease now if no pageswap is required. But I would encourage the TE to apply for pagemover rights if they enjoy being on RM/TR. – robertsky (talk) 14:41, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

There's probably far more moves that require moving subpages but not swapping. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:43, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Note: Topic moved to VPP for further discussion. Pinging @Aaron Liu, @Chaotic Enby, @EggRoll97, @Graham87, @Pppery, @Skarmory, @Thryduulf, @Toadspike for awareness. WP:AN has been notified. – robertsky (talk) 14:35, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

I am jumping the gun here, planning on a succesful closure, ha!

1. Do we notify existing TEs about the change? If yes, all 189 of them (as counted on Wikipedia:Template editor)? Or we revoke some first based on Wikipedia:Template editor#Criteria for revocation? There may be bots or alternate accounts (for testing maybe?), so those can be excluded from the alerts.
2. And how? a one time special Mass Message?
3. The change can also be updated in the admin newsletter and Signpost, but not all TEs subscribe to them (neither do all admins).
4. WP:AN will definitely be notified as well once the change is in effect.
5. WP:Template editor, WP:User rights, and other pages (are there?) should be updated accordingly as well.

– robertsky (talk) 15:36, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Personally I don't think any kind of notice is necessary. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:44, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Probably just AN and VPT or some other relevant noticeboards. Mass message is a bit far. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:47, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Chiming in possibly a bit late to say that 68 of the 189 template editors already have the page mover right, if this is a list of page movers and I did my "find duplicate lines" text processing correctly. If we haven't seen any problems with those 68, the other 121 probably won't cause much trouble. I support this proposal as someone who already has both rights, but who has to clean up incomplete template moves from time to time. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:30, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

• Support move-subpages is restricted because one can easily make a big mess with it. Template editors are trusted on technical matters, though, so I see no cause for concern (the level of trust for template editor is generally higher than that for page mover, especially regarding technical matters). Oppose restricting this to template-space for that reason as well. If someone without the permission wants to move a page with a bunch of subpages, they can do it manually (there's no policy against someone doing that); there's no reason to inconvenience our template editors with that. Elli (talk | contribs) 19:16, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Support with template restriction. Not necessarily in template space, just a restriction to using this right only for template moves. As for Elli's concern above, from a technical perspective, sure, they could move a random page with subpages manually, but they'd quickly run into the 8 page moves per minute rate limit. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 22:31, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay, but what's the point of having the restriction? The restriction on doing this isn't high-trust; it's just to prevent people from making a mess. We know template editors won't make a mess. Elli (talk | contribs) 23:02, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

You have a point. My insistence on the template restriction is fairly weak. I just don't see necessarily why a template editor should be using this outside of..well, templates, given that we have page mover as a more general flag for move-related things. In any case, whoever ends up evaluating consensus here may feel free to consider this perhaps neutral, or the weakest possible support on the template restriction. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 02:10, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Finishing WP:LUGSTUBS2

We had consensus at WP:LUGSTUBS2 way back in March 2024 to draftify a bunch of articles, which was never implemented. Is it finally time to implement it now? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:26, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes! 3df (talk) 18:43, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Current § RfC: Condense Template:Current

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Current § RfC: Condense Template:Current. Toadspike [Talk] 11:41, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Update the Revision history legend

 You are invited to join the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Histlegend § Update legend. Krinkle (talk) 14:41, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Idea lab

Navigation pages

For topics which may not yet meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria for articles, but for which relevant information is present across multiple articles (such that an editor may have difficulty deciding which page to redirect to), there should be a type of mainspace page dedicated to listing articles in which readers can find information on a given topic. A page of that type would be distinct from a disambiguation page in that, while disambig pages list different topics that share the same name, a navigation page (or navpage) would include a list of articles or sections that all contain information on the exact same topic. In situations where a non-notable topic is covered in more than one article, and readers wish to find information on that particular topic, and that topic can't be confused with anything else (making disambiguation unnecessary), and there turns out to be two or more equally sensible redirect targets for their search terms, then a navpage may be helpful.

Rough example #1

Wikipedia does not have an article on the Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and Kanye West meeting, but you can read about this topic in the following articles: Kanye West presidential campaigns § Trump–West–Fuentes meeting Nick Fuentes § Dinner with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago Racial views of Donald Trump § Meeting with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West Views of Kanye West § Donald Trump–Nick Fuentes meeting You can also: Search Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and Kanye West meeting in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings. Start the Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and Kanye West meeting article, using the Article Wizard if you wish, or add a request for it. Look for pages within Wikipedia that link to this title.

Rough example #2

Wikipedia does not have an article on Anti-Bangladesh disinformation in India, but you can read about this topic in the following articles: 2024 Bangladesh anti-Hindu violence § Disinformation Fake news in India § Student–People's uprising in Bangladesh Non-cooperation movement (2024) § Disinformation by Indian media You can also: Search Anti-Bangladesh disinformation in India in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings. Start the Anti-Bangladesh disinformation in India article, using the Article Wizard if you wish, or add a request for it. Look for pages within Wikipedia that link to this title.

Besides reducing the prevalence of red links, navpages can also be targets for other pages (e.g. Trump dinner) to redirect to without being considered double redirects. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 16:23, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

This is a cool idea! Toadspike [Talk] 11:51, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

I also agree! I'm thinking some disambiguation pages tagged with {{R with possibilities}} could make good navigation pages, alongside the WP:XY cases mentioned above. At the same time, we should be careful to not have any "X or Y" be a navigation page pointing to X and Y – it could be useful to limit ourselves to pages discussing the aspects together. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 13:26, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Good idea – people seeing the nav page and how it is split across more than one article could also help drive creation of broad-topic articles. Cremastra (talk) 23:40, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Also noting that the small text If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended page. might not necessarily be needed, as it can make sense to link to navigation pages so readers can have an overview of the coverage, and since that page might be the target of a future broad-topic article. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:50, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

This seems a useful idea. As a similar example I'd like to offer Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area, which I created as an odd disambiguation page because it was a term people might search, but with little to say that wouldn't CFORK with content that would easily fit within both or either or the existing articles. CMD (talk) 01:32, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

This is great. I often edit articles related to PLAN ships, and since many ships currently lack articles, we cannot use disambiguation pages for those ships(e.g. Chinese ship Huaibei, which has two different frigates with the same name). This could really help out a lot. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 03:33, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

This seems like a useful idea. It would benefit readers and probably save time at RFD and AFD. Schützenpanzer (Talk) 15:16, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Throwing my support behind this as well. It would be very useful in cases where AFD discussions find consensus to merge the contents of an article into multiple other articles. -insert valid name here- (talk) 05:01, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

I've just come across Ethiopia in World War II, which is effectively already doing this under the guise of a WP:SIA. CMD (talk) 08:13, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Should I WP:BOLDly create {{navigation page}} and put it there? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:20, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

This would be very bold, but no opposition has been raised? If you do, please put it on Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area too. CMD (talk) 00:10, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Done for both! About the technical aspect of things, I added the "you can also search..." in the template (as it could be practical) but it might look less than aesthetic below a "See also" section. I made it into an optional opt-in parameter, is that fine? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 07:34, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Also did it for Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and Kanye West meeting, with a hidden comment to not convert it into an article per AfD consensus. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 08:07, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

If this sort of page type is to be used for topics without independent notability (including deleted through an AfD), perhaps it should just drop that part and simply say "You can read about the Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and Kanye West meeting in the following articles"? Those with the potential to be expanded could be integrated into the hidden Template:R with possibilities system or something similar. CMD (talk) 08:50, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I already added a parameter for that part (on the Fuentes-Trump-West meeting, the link inviting to create the article is not present). But yeah, removing it entirely as an optional parameter could also make sense. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 08:53, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Also thinking about the Poor people's rights search below, removal seems best. Alternatively, flipping it so that it is the prompt to create a page that is the optional addition might provide the desired goal while erring on the side of not encouraging creating poorly scoped articles. CMD (talk) 01:49, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I also decided to take the liberty of creating a new category and another page (albeit an essay in development) to go along with the new page type. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 01:41, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Great job! Just wondering, it makes sense for topics that might be notable but haven't yet been written about (such as Ethiopia in World War II) to be navigation pages, should that be included in the graph? (Also, wondering if this whole conversation should maybe be moved to Wikipedia talk:Navigation pages instead of being pinned here) Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:10, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Also, once that is all done, we should probably update {{Dmbox}} so navpages are a parameter, to avoid them being automatically detected as disambiguations (although that's not really that big of a deal). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:15, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I think we should decide early on, should this be allowed to have some context or info like WP:SIA? Maybe some content, which not enough for notability (the reason why it's not an article)? ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 12:04, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I think the amount of info allowed for SIAs should be the minimum along with a brief outline of the topic. Thryduulf (talk) 12:34, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

@MrPersonHumanGuy Could you possibly implement this in the draft you are writing? :) ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 14:05, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm wondering if Poor people's rights, currently being discussed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 April 13#Poor people's rights, might be a candidate for this sort of page? Thryduulf (talk) 10:26, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I am not convinced this is a good idea. Of the existing navpages, I boldly redirected Ethiopia in World War II; Armand Biniakounou, Glove and Boots, Amari McCoy, Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area, and Skillsville all just feel like poor man's duplicates of search that will inevitable go out of date as the will to maintain them won't exist; Goldie (TV series) only isn't that because the term is ambiguous, and the only exception is Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and Kanye West meeting. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:37, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I also have some concerns about navigation pages. They do indeed seem like they could require a lot of maintenance (especially if they are linking to sections. renaming a heading would break the links). It also seems like this could encourage fragmentation. Perhaps the better approach would be to pick one spot for something like Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and Kanye West meeting (pick a section in one of the articles), and redirect to that. Perhaps {{Navigation page}} might need to go to TFD to have a wider discussion to determine if it has consensus. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:53, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I am also unconvinced this is a good direction of travel. The article on the meeting of these three men was deleted; if we think this is a worthy article title, shouldn't we just have the article? There is a longstanding tradition at WP:RFD to delete ambiguous redirects and to rely on our search function instead, see WP:XY. Do we really want to have "navigation pages" for every single sports rivalry (mentioned in articles about both teams), relations between countries that do not suffice for a separate article? Amari McCoy is just bad: it is a bluelink that should be a redlink to show we do not have an article, and it is impeding the search function. If an article could potentially be created, a "navigation page" will impede actual article creation and (in the future) deny the creation credit (and the relevant notifications) to the actual article creator. —Kusma (talk) 19:17, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Amari McCoy just looks silly. Why are there references all over a navigation page? That looks like a stub article to me. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 19:20, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Additionally the "navigation page" hides the existence of Draft:Amari McCoy, which would be visible when visiting the red link. —Kusma (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I would be okay with this one being deleted, as it doesn't actually contribute to navigation in any useful way (none of the target articles do more than list her as one of many actors). However, I mildly disagree with your point about article credit, as it isn't meaningfully different from the current situation with redirects. More generally, I do believe that navigation pages could be useful in a specific case (where there is a substantial amount of information about the same topic on several pages), but that they shouldn't abused to link to every single page that namechecks a subject. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:14, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think redirects should be given creation credit either. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 23:17, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I think we agree on the point that creating a redirect/navpage shouldn't give you creation credit. But that alone doesn't mean the page type shouldn't be kept, otherwise one could argue that redirects should be deleted for the same reason. Since navpages are functionally intended as multi-redirects, I believe the analogy especially makes sense. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:25, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I also agree. Even though I created The Book of Bill as a redirect, it was Googabbagabba who ultimately filled it with meaningful article content and thus the one who should've been notified when the article was linked with a Wikidata entry. Nonetheless, I don't think "another editor wants to create an article under this title" would be considered valid rationale for deleting a redirect or navpage. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 00:16, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I'd also seen Goldie (TV series) and think it looks like an unholy amalgam of a stub article and a navigation page: it should be one thing or the other, not both. I suppose my principal concern is that permitting adequately-sourced and verifiable content about an otherwise non-notable subject in a legitimate navpage is effectively quite a backdoor to a Wikipedia article about a non-notable subject. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 20:12, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

The Goldie page is ridiculous; it should just be a stub. I think navpages have a very specific application: a topic that for whatever policy-based reason does not belong in mainspace as a standalone page but is discussed in multiple pages. I would oppose them having any references or additional formatting at all. It should basically a multiple-choice redirect. Dclemens1971 (talk) 20:44, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

For the avoidance of confusion, I've turned the page into a stub because it is. Old revision that everybody's talking about is here: Special:Diff/1286214323. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 21:09, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Yep, agree with you. I would even clarify that the subject should be discussed relatively in-depth in multiple places, so we don't get lists of articles that namedrop a subject like Amari McCoy. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:16, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

• Housekeeping note: I've notified WP:WikiProject Disambiguation about this discussion. Mathglot (talk) 23:11, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• I didn't really expect this to go anywhere so I'll now elaborate on "This is a cool idea!". I think these pages can fill a narrow but present gap in our page ecosystem. Essentially, topics where there is more than one possible redirect target about the same subject, which distinguishes them from DABs, which have more than one possible redirect target about different subjects.

Also, since it's relevant to this discussion, I closed an AfD as "Navify" earlier today – feedback from others on the close and the resulting nav page (Armand Biniakounou) would be appreciated. I thought nav pages had been fully approved by the community, but I was clearly mistaken – if I had known that this is still being discussed, I may have closed this AfD differently or not at all. Toadspike [Talk] 00:07, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I also misjudged consensus the same way, and that caused me to get carried away until I checked this page again and learned that not everyone was on board with the whole navpage idea, at which point I decided to pull the brakes and stop creating any more navpages. As for Amari McCoy, the fact that two stubs were being suggested for navification was what gave me enough guts to create that navpage in the first place. My reasoning was that "If these athletes can get navpages even though other articles only mention them as entries in lists, then that logic can be applied to other topics as well." In hindsight, that may not have been such a good idea after all. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 01:06, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I think your approach was reasonable. Sometimes you need to ramp up a bit to get wider community feedback. I didn't make a decision about this idea until I saw some actual articles with the template. Anyway thank you for stopping now that this is becoming a bit more controversial. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:13, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

• I think the gun was kind of jumped with this, though the topic was posted one month ago. Some more voices weighing in on this would likely be helpful. --Schützenpanzer (Talk) 00:15, 19 April 2025 (UTC)
• Chaotic Enby mentioned something above about namedropping a subject, which seems to be similar to something I've been mulling over, and trying to decide how to formulate my concern. Let me start by turning your attention to the issue of WP:NOTTRIVIA just for a moment. I know there are lots of editors who love to dig up every place their fave character was ever mentioned, and there are folks on all sides of the question of sections like "FOO in popular culture". I remember how discouraged I was when I found that the relatively short article on a medieval French poet was about 50% allusions to modern popular culture items which in my view contributed nothing to an understanding of the poet. When you have a good search engine, it becomes trivial to dig up obscure allusions of this type, and so people do.

Transfer that thought now to the nav page concept. At first blush, it kind of seems like a good idea, but how might it morph in the future, and are we maybe opening Pandora's box? Suppose the good guys all do it the right way for a while, and then enthusiastic new editors or SPAs or Refspammers or social media types get wind, and all of a sudden it explodes in popularity and these pages become heavy with idiosyncratic additions based on somebody's fave niche reference? Will we end up needing new guidelines to specify what is or isn't a proper entry? Are we setting ourselves up for a possible giant future maintenance burden for regular editors? Mathglot (talk) 00:53, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

That is indeed a very good point, and this is why we should, in my opinion, have these guidelines ready before having navpages deployed on a large scale. While every new article or page can be seen as a "maintenance burden", navpages should fill a very small niche: subjects where in-depth content can be found on several pages, but which do not fit the notability guideline by themselves. This should be a much stronger criterion than simple mentions, and likely only apply to borderline cases where notability isn't very far away. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:51, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Do you have a single example of a subject where we should really have such a navigation page? Everything we have above is "mentions" (we certainly shouldn't allow those, or we will soon have thousands of genealogy stubs on non-notable minor nobility disguised as "navigation"), with the longest discussions being those of the "meeting" above, which are a short paragraph each and fairly repetitive with little critical commentary. If that is the best use case for the concept, I think the negatives strongly outweigh the positives for this idea. —Kusma (talk) 11:36, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

It was a better situation for Ethiopia in World War II, which probably could be an article, but in the meantime the various links would have been very helpful to readers. Now it is a redirect to an article subsection covering a time period mostly before WWII that also does not cover most of WWII. CMD (talk) 12:49, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

The classic solution "just write a stub" still looks superior to having a "navigational" pseudo-article to me in that case. —Kusma (talk) 13:07, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

The stub is much less helpful than some very simply laid out links to multiple not-stubby articles. CMD (talk) 13:15, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree that the navigation page at Ethiopia in World War II was much more helpful than the current redirect, and I'm not sure what benefit a stub would bring given that we have existing coverage of the topic in multiple places already. Thryduulf (talk) 13:57, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I also agree this navpage was better than a redirect. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 05:13, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Maybe "just write a stub" situations should be encouraged to have See also links pointing to potentially useful targets. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 05:10, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

@Kusma Do you think the navpage (Armand Biniakounou) resulting from the AfD I linked is a good use? The two articles it links to don't have in-depth content, but there were two equally-good redirect targets and a consensus to redirect. Toadspike [Talk] 16:17, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I think that is terrible. The bluelink promises we have nontrivial information, but there is only a trivial mention in a table. This is what fulltext search is made for. —Kusma (talk) 19:27, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Very true. But – and I'm trying to understand the entirety of your argument, not be contrarian – the alternative is a redirect to one of the two bluelinks. This would equally promise nontrivial information, except it only provides half of the information we have.

In this case there was consensus to preserve the edit history; the need for a placeholder limits our options. Toadspike [Talk] 19:46, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Speaking not from a Wikipedian's perspective but a reader's perspective, I would be annoyed by that article. The formatting's a bit weird, and it's trying to tell me that it's not an article, but I can see very clearly with my own two eyes that it's just a short article that tells me this man has been in the Olympics, twice. Despite the promise in the template, clicking on those links does not give me any additional information about him. Also, there's a bunch of unsourced biographical details in the categories? My reader self doesn't understand why those aren't in the article. Additionally, I can only see those facts in desktop view, so if I send the article to my friend to tell them that Wikipedia says this sprinter was born in 1961, they're going to be very confused.

On a related note, I think understand ATDs in an abstract way, but it's very annoying when you're a reader, you're trying to look something up, you know Wikipedia used to have an article about the subject, but now you find yourself on a nearly unrelated page that doesn't seem to mention the topic at all? Or, if it does, only very briefly as one entry in a table? It's very frustrating and I don't like it. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 20:06, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I understand all your points. The issue is that this case ties into the broader debate over sports stubs and new sigcov requirement of WP:SPORTCRIT – we have a bunch of verifiable information about this guy (and thousands of athletes like him) but they are not notable. What we should do with them instead is a huge can of worms. If you and Kusma believe articles like this should be deleted instead of redirected or navified, we're gonna need an RfC.

As for the categories, I agree that they are questionable way to present unsourced information. Those were added by @MrPersonHumanGuy after I navified the article [11]. Toadspike [Talk] 13:43, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

To avoid redirection in general? Yes, that's a something even I'm not masochistic enough to deal with (though I will take any opportunity to remind people that we have a fairly functionable search bar for mentions and draftspace/userspace to preserve the history of poorly-sourced but potentially notable articles). To avoid navigation? This produced, again, an unsourced perma stub about a living person. Without sources, we actually don't even know if this is the same person. Sure, the external sources listed in the AfD (that I'm not allowed to put in the stub, aren't present in either of the articles?) seem to confirm that, and his name is unique enough, but we already have enough of an issue with editors accidentally mixing up people just because they have the same name. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 00:14, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Chaotic Enby, would would add a second type of use: Where two or more notable concepts are covered in separate Wikipedia articles but common searched for together - see WP:XY and Wikidata's "Bonnie and Clyde problem". Thryduulf (talk) 11:46, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area looks like an example of this type of use in action. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 13:51, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good example. Thryduulf (talk) 13:58, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I like the idea, but we definitely need boundaries on what qualifies for a navpage. The current categories seem to be something along the lines of:

1. Subjects which would be a {{R from subtopic}} as a redirect that have multiple potential targets (Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump, and Kanye West meeting)
2. Subjects which would be a {{R to subtopic}} as a redirect that have multiple potential targets (Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area)
3. Subjects which are more akin to an index of possible articles with content relating to the subject (the old version of Ethiopia in World War II, the example in the original comment about Anti-Bangladesh disinformation in India)
4. Subjects which are briefly mentioned on a couple pages with very little actual content (Armand Biniakounou, Amari McCoy, Glove and Boots)

It seems like there's more pushback to the fourth category than the first three. The third might be a bit too broad of a category that could be split up; I like the Ethiopia page as a navpage a lot more than the anti-Bangladesh disinformation page. The fourth category seems like a bad use of navpages, just because it leads readers to places that have little or no more information about the subject than the navpage itself. The first two seem to have the most potential. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 00:03, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I generally agree with that classification, although I'm not sure "subtopic" is quite the right word for 2 and the line between 2 and 3 seems blurry, with the only difference I can immediately see being 2 has a title that is a proper noun which gives it a firm scope, while 3 has a descriptive title and thus a more fuzzy scope. Is that a useful distinction to make? I'm not sure.

One thought that has just occurred to me with 4 is that this would be used to create pages that are just a list of notable sports teams this player we don't have an article about played for (either because they aren't notable or because nobody has written one yet). I can see arguments both ways about whether such a page is encyclopaedic, but it isn't a navigation page in the same way that 1-3 are. So I think we should come up with a different name for that sort of page and discuss separately whether we want them or not. This does leave open how to determine an appropriate amount of content about a is enough to make it a navigation page, and my thinking is that we want a rule of thumb rather than a hard limit, perhaps "at least a few sentences, ideally a paragraph". Thryduulf (talk) 00:20, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I would agree that a few sentences or a paragraph in two separate articles is probably a good bar for navpages, though they probably should also be different sentences and not the same text copied between articles (might be hard to police, but the reader gets no new information on the target by visiting both pages).

I think category 3 is the fuzziest one. I can see the argument for including category 2 in it, but my sense is that category 3 is already broader than I'd like, and I see a distinction there. I would say Ethiopia in World War II (as a redirect) would be more of a {{R from subtopic}}, not a redirect to a subtopic, so it'd be more likely to merge with category 1; the Anti-Bangladesh disinformation in India example is something I wanted to call a broad-concept page, but the definition didn't quite fit, and it's not really a clear subtopic or supertopic of anything (maybe {{R from related topic}} if used as a redirect to any of those?). Meanwhile, the Turtle Islands Heritage Protected Area is clearly a topic that contains both Turtle Islands National Park and Turtle Islands Wildlife Sanctuary; I'd call it a supertopic, but the redirect category is named R to subtopic, so that's what I went with.

I don't get the sense that consensus would like a separate type of page for category 4, though I personally could be swayed either way on it. I do agree that it shouldn't be what we're making navpages. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 08:45, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I like this precision, but I worry this whole concept of nav pages is too complex for little benefit. We would have to teach a lot of folks these 4 rules (npps, autopatrollers, wiki project disambig, gnomes) and this has a cost. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:37, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Obviously I don't speak for those groups, but I'm in three of them and I think the idea is definitely worth considering even with the editor hours it'd take to teach editors. It's not that different from the idea of a disambiguation page or a set-index article, and it will be helpful to readers if done right. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 08:49, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't see how this function could really be useful: it breaks our search function by directing readers to these short, useless articles. And I think they should be considered articles: Amari McCoy and Armand Biniakounou both list the name, vocation, and biographical details about a real person, but would otherwise be rejected as citation-free BLP stubs in AfC or NPP. I fully agree with GreenLipstickLesbian's comments above about the latter article. I worry that this opens the door for a million new context-free stubs for every name we list in the encyclopedia, breaking the hypertext-based structure of linking people's names when they become notable. Search would be totally broken if typing a given name like "John" into the search box returned a list of hundreds of non-notable people in the suggestions just because they'd been listed somewhere and thus got a navigation page. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 12:32, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree that John would make a terrible navigation page, and lists of places a person is trivially mentioned is not a navigation page per my comments above. Please don't be tempted to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Thryduulf (talk) 12:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

My point wasn't about a page called John, it was the issue of the search box's automatic suggestion function. Currently, typing a partial name into the box helpfully prompts the reader with a list of all the notable people with similar names for whom we have actual articles. If we made navigation pages for hundreds of non-notable people like above, this search function would be cluttered with short navigation stubs instead of the notable people we have useful articles on. This proposal is intended to assist navigation, but I think it would do the exact opposite. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 13:04, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

See above where we are dealing with this exact issue (Skarmory's type 4). We intend navigation pages to be used for instances of notable topics that are covered in at least some depth on multiple other articles. Lists of mentions of non-notable people are something qualitatively different - there are arguments for and against having such pages (and you have articulated some of them) but they are not navigation pages and their existence or otherwise should not be relevant to whether pages of Skamoary's types 1-3 should exist. Thryduulf (talk) 13:16, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Regardless, these pages exist already and have the {{navpage}} template, so it's worth discussing their place in this proposal and whether to explicitly forbid or allow them. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 13:22, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

My point isn't that they shouldn't be discussed, but that objections to one type should be used as a reason to reject the whole concept, especially when discussion about them being separate is already happening. Thryduulf (talk) 13:42, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

These are reasonable concerns; when I saw the "navify" option come up at AfD I thought it was already a settled template that was intended to apply to non-notable topics that are mentioned on more than one page and so can't be redirected. If the discussion is instead leaning toward these being restricted to the kinds of intersections of notable topics described by Skarmory, then we probably should make that clearer to AfD. I agree that these navpages showing up in prompts the same way real articles do is not ideal. JoelleJay (talk) 16:52, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Next steps

Looks like there's 7 pages in Category:Navigation pages. That's good that it's not growing. I think creation of these has mostly paused. I think the next step is for someone to create an RFC on whether navigation pages should be allowed to exist. I guess at WP:VPPR, or at Wikipedia talk:Navigation pages but with notification to many other pages. Does that sound reasonable? Depending on the outcome of that RFC, we can then decide on whether to start peppering navigation pages everywhere, or to turn these 7 existing ones into something else. Whoever creates the RFC should be someone who is pro-navigation page, and should do some work on Wikipedia:Navigation pages to make sure it accurately documents the navigation pages proposal, and that page can be where we have our description of exactly how navigation pages will work. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:55, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think we're ready for an RFC yet as discussion is still ongoing about which of the four types of page outlined above should be considered navigation pages, and if it isn't all of them how to distinguish the type(s) we want from the type(s) we don't. Some discussion on formatting will likely be needed too. Going to an RfC prematurely will just result in confusion and !votes based on different things and different understandings. Thryduulf (talk) 17:44, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. If we were to hold an RfC now, we should at least have separate discussions on each of the four types of navpages laid out by Skarmory, to be authorized or forbidden separately. Toadspike [Talk] 17:57, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Also agreeing – I would be in support of types 1 to 3, but opposed to type 4, which I believe is also the case for a lot of navpage proponents.

There are also more technical issues we should consider before going for an all-or-nothing RfC. For instance, whether it would be technically possible to suppress or push down the appearance of navpages in search results (although having limited use cases like types 1 and 2 will likely make these much rarer than actual articles, and limit them to topics with actual content written about them somewhere). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:22, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps also a wording tweak to be more conservative. "There is currently no article" feels too encouraging, especially if the template might be used in the wrong locations (much as how Ethiopia in World War II is mischaracterized as an SIA). The closer these stay to disambiguation pages, which are firmly established, the clearer it will be that these are not articles. CMD (talk) 00:38, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Metadata gadget as the default experience

Is there technical feasibility for including any part of the Metadata gadget in the default experience, or must it remain a gadget?

There seems to be a perennial wish amongst FA/GA contributors to make quality a more visible part of articles, for a number of reasons. The current experience, a topicon, seems to be considered too little. Previous discussions:

• 15 April 2021: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 174 § Move good/featured article topicons next to article name closed as no consensus
  pinging Jr8825 as proposer
• 1 February 2023: Wikipedia talk:Good Article proposal drive 2023 § Proposal 21: Make GA status more prominent in mainspace consensus to have an RfC on increasing visibility
  pinging czar as proposer
• 1 March 2024: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 211 § Proposal: Remove the topicons for good and featured articles closed as snow keep, article quality important to readers
• 14 April 2024: Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 31 § Proposal 10: Finish doing some or all of the things we agreed on last time we did this (lol)
  pinging Thebiguglyalien as proposer
• 11 January 2025: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 216 § Good Article visibility requesting the topicons in mobile, which is currently being worked on at phabricator:T75299
  pinging Iskandar323 as proposer

I think a good way to resolve this would be to get the FA, FL, and GA experiences from the metadata gadget into the default browsing experience for all users. Having at least the text A featured article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at the top of FAs would certainly make it more explicit to readers, and the wikilink (with a statistical redirect) to Wikipedia:Featured articles would serve the purpose of explaining what the FA process is (many oppose !votes in the above discussions hinged on reader confusion) as well as draw in interested editors (many others in the above discussions mentioned becoming interested in editing after learning about FA/GA).

This would surely be a very contentious RfC if proposed, but I'm not even sure if it's technically possible in MediaWiki, since it currently works via a fairly slow JavaScript gadget. Does anyone know if it would be possible to integrate this experience more deeeply? Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 21:03, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

I would support this RfC. Cremastra _talk 17:17, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

I wonder what the WP:PERFORMANCE implications of running that gadget millions of times would be.

Perhaps of more importance: Do we really want Another stub from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on about half of the articles?

Combining the two concerns, I suggest that if folks want to celebrate the FA/FL/GA status more, that should be done with ordinary templates that can be added to the individual articles. For example, expand Template:Featured article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:52, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps of more importance I think we do. Given we already have stub icons, adding that text under the title is just further incentive for more people to contribute.

Besides, stubs don't make up so many of the most-viewed articles, based on this data I just pulled out of my hat. Cremastra _talk 03:06, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't think that's actually an "incentive" for more people to contribute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:55, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

What do you think is an incentive for contributors, then? Redlinks, annoyning orange banners, tags, and stub categories are all at least partially aimed at getting people to hit the "edit" button for the first time. Cremastra _talk 23:06, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I don't think those are incentives. Some of them are invitations, but that's different.

For some of us, the incentive is making the internet suck less. Our response to someone being wrong on the internet is to add information where it can be found. For some of us, the incentive is a COI, or something next door to it. I could imagine, for example, someone getting tired of explaining some basic point about their industry/personal interest, so they try to share that information here. For others, it's because our friends are here, and you want to support your community's goals and get social status. Those people sometimes engage in Wikipedia:Hat collecting, but they also slog through difficult situations. Still others' incentive is to stave off boredom or to feel productive.

An incentive is what you get out of it. You don't get anything out of a stub tag. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

The incentive to see an article say "A-class", the incentive to see an article not say "stub". Aaron Liu (talk) 01:01, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

So the incentive is that you get to feel pride at causing the removal of a badge of shame (except that none of our maintenance tags are supposed to be treated like badges of shame). Sure, I suppose that would motivate some people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:12, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

It ain't much more a badge of shame than the maintenance tag. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:27, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Maybe. But the rating would be on every article, without an individual editor thinking that would be helpful for that particular article. And we do see people adding certain maintenance tags because they want to "warn the reader" or because they didn't get their way in a dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:41, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Second. Greater visibility of our better articles is a great thing, and this gadget does it well. Would support this. A star or plus sign means nothing by itself, but the difference between "an article" and "a featured/good article" at least tells the reader something meaningful. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 03:47, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

GA, A, and FA are probably roughly fine more accurate than not, however the rest of the ratings are likely of more variable accuracy. A side-effect of them being not that impactful is they often aren't updated. Anecdotally, not a small number of articles are classed as stubs simply because they haven't been updated since the articles were stubs. Displaying these ratings to the reader may give an air of officiality, giving the ratings a meaning we don't want to give them ourselves. CMD (talk) 01:23, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

I'd like to reiterate that this request is for technical feasibility of an experience similar to the metadata gadget using MediaWiki, not running the current JavaScript gadget. I'd also like to reiterate that it's specific to good and featured content only, as it derives from previous discussions. On the technical feasibility side, I think it'd require mw:Extension:CustomSubtitle embedded within {{Good article}} and {{Featured article}}, but it'd likely require security updates to restrict its use. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 15:40, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

You don't need a consensus discussion to investigate making a software thing without considering whether the community would want it. It's something developers are usually encouraged to just do; try MediaWiki channels if you need help since VPT deals little with non-enwiki-specific backend stuff. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:06, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

mw:Project:Support desk might be the right place to ask questions about whether that extension would require changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not asking for development on anything, I’m asking if anyone knows whether it's possible at all. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 18:30, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Anything is possible as long as you develop it. If you mean whether it's possible without changing the current backend (WMF) setup and do not want to involve the usual questions on "should we", that's usually a question for VPT. Using CustomSubtitle would modify the backend. A much more efficient way would probably be modifying mw:Extension:PageAssessments to add a parser function that returns the page class and then putting that parser function in MediaWiki:Tagline. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:28, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh cool, thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for! I didn't realize there was a MediaWiki extension behind assessments, I thought it was just a relatively simple template design where the |class= parameter of {{WikiProject banner shell}} changes the talk box text and image. I'll read up on the PageAssessments extension and see what's possible there, and then if I can do it myself I'll re-propose a more complete idea here or at one of the other village pump sections. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 21:42, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

No problem! It was just a template, but later the PageAssessments tool was reason so that e.g. you can query assessments by API better and the template was adapted to support PageAssessments. Note that it does not have said parser functions needed yet and you'll have to code or get someone to code the parser functions. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:55, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Looks like Module:Page assessment has already been implemented to do just this. Given that modifying the sitewide tagline would run this function a lot, would a parser function built directly into the MediaWiki extension be more efficient, or is this Lua module essentially the same thing? It doesn't look like it's using the API, and is just parsing the wikitext, but I'm not well versed in Lua to be certain. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 22:23, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Evad37 wrote the module, but has been off wiki for about two months. You should ask technical questions like this at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:12, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

As it's trivial retrieval of information, making it a parser function would almost always be better. And getting the wikitext of the associated talk page is effectively querying the API, except it's querying all the wikitext instead of just the pre-stored page assessment class. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:27, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Overturning NCCAPS

There's a discussion at WT:NCCAPS about the capitalization threshold (the current status quo is to only capitalize a title if it's always [sic] capitalized in sources), but it's gotten kind of personal in the last few comments, so rehashing it here for wider community input. Some editors have supported my proposal, others have opposed, overall something that needs to be discussed further. My original comment is as follows:

TL;DR: The threshold for capitalization or lack thereof should be the same as the threshold for a common name.

WP:AT says: Generally, article titles are based on what the subject is called in reliable sources. There is less than zero reason why the one exception to that should be the most trivial of matters: capitalization. The standard for American Revolution vs. American revolution should be the same as that of, say, Dog vs. Canis lupus familiaris. In the latter case, the majority of sources use Dog, thus that is the common name. In the former case, the majority of sources use American Revolution, thus that is the common name. There is nothing that makes capitalization somehow magically different from every other titling scenario.

If the title of an article in sources is 75% uppercase and 25% lowercase, then NCCAPS recommends we lowercase it. That's just plain wrong. If article titles on based on what the subject is called in reliable sources, then why should we contradict that rule for a small subclass of naming disputes? Going by sources and uppercasing the title violates no core content policies and reinforces the in-a-nutshell core of the titling policy. It's nonsense that we should ignore policy and a supermajority of sources to uphold this dubious guideline.

Thus we should follow the sources, as we always have. The threshold for capitalization should not be 100%, nor 95%, nor 90%. It should be 50.1% (with a ±5 to account for the extreme influence Wikipedia has on sources' titling).

So, what do we want to do? Do we want to follow sources and the core policy on article titles, or do we want to straight-up ignore sources, following an anachronistic guideline and some editors' minority grammatical opinions? Do we want to begin a never-ending shitstorm of "style warfare" over whether 50.1% has been reached, and depart from established grammatical norms, or keep in place a guideline that has been stable for twenty years? (Clearly each side has a different opinion...) 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 11:35, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I see absolutely no justification for capitalisation to differ from other aspects of naming. It's not surprising that the discussion at the MoS has resulted in ad hominems, any discussion proposing anything other than reducing the number of capital letters in article titles almost invariably does. Thryduulf (talk) 12:18, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I see no reason to change from the current guideline. Capitalization is a stylistic question. Unless it pretty much is capitalized in all sources, everywhere, all the time, then we are free to choose not to do so. Just as we are free to make other stylistic choices. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:03, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I think the underlying logic here—as Khajidha says, that we don't 'follow the sources' when it comes to questions of pure style—is sound and necessary to ensure some level of consistency between articles based on different bodies of sources. Disputes tend to arise when applying this logic to capitalisation because the style we have chosen is quite extreme (i.e. we use as few capital letters as possible without coming off as an art project) and therefore more likely to clash with sources and editors' experiences elsewhere. They are exacerbated by a small group of editors who zealously and tactlessly apply this style across articles, with no regard for the preferences of those that wrote them. I'm unsure that tweaking the rule will solve either issue. – Joe (talk) 15:27, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

"with no regard for the preferences of those that wrote them" I'm not seeing how this is a problem. You aren't writing for you and your preferences. You are writing for Wikipedia and our style. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:23, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

The proposal is to change our style… so simply pointing to the current style guidance and saying “you are writing for our style” isn’t really an argument. Please explain why you think the current guidance is better than the proposal. Blueboar (talk) 21:02, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Because it looks better and is easier to read with less capitalization. But, as I'm not the one arguing for change, I'm not the one who needs to explain. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:14, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

So, your reasons are 1) "your personal preference" and 2) "an uncited and possibly wrong factual claim"?

I've seen sources claiming that all lowercase is easier to read than all uppercase (once you know how to read. Brand-new readers often struggle to differentiate lowercase letters like d and b, so all-caps text sometimes works better for them). I don't remember seeing any research saying that "war and peace" is easier to read that "War and Peace".

About as I'm not the one arguing for change, I'm not the one who needs to explain: I guess I hope that editors who join a discussion are trying to find the Wikipedia:Consensus. That only works if everyone is willing to explain their views. Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, in particular, is entirely dependent upon the reverter/objector being willing to explain why they object to a change. A stonewalling attitude like "You made the change, so I'm not the one who needs to explain my views" will cause BRD – and most other serious discussions – to fail. Please don't do that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:12, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

The problem is that having people who still want to write articles is several gazillion times more important to Wikipedia's future than consistent capitalization of titles. – Joe (talk) 21:51, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

I have come to believe that enforcing a house style is overall a net negative for Wikipedia. (Personally, I contribute very little to the German Wikipedia although German is my first language, mostly because I disagree with their style choices, which are often different from the near unanimous view of the sources). —Kusma (talk) 08:36, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

• I find it interesting that basically everyone in that discussion agrees that "always capitalized in reliable sources" shouldn't be taken literally, but those opposed are saying we can't change it because some parade of horribles will follow. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 19:25, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

  Perhaps “overwhelmingly capitalized in sources” is closer to how we really operate? Blueboar (talk) 21:08, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

  It depends on the discussion whether it's "overwhelmingly", "almost always" or "literally always". Often it's "Overwhelmingly (or almost always) capitalised in sources that I can't dismiss as not-independent, unreliable, "specialist", "low quality", or for some other reason". I think it would be much closer to our ethos and a more professional approach to capitalisation if the standard was something like "predominantly capitalised" with usage by subject matter experts weighted a bit higher than usage by others and we treated the context-free evidence from sources like ngrams as a single, relatively low-importance data point. Thryduulf (talk) 21:26, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

  That "sources I can't dismiss as..." bit sounds like what I've seen in many areas. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:14, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

@Chicdat: I wish I had time to write and refine something concise and thoughtful here, because there is considerable history and a lot of nuance. But just to offer a few stray thoughts

In the end content is what's important, style is just the dressing. As a reader, I like to have articles that look nice and are consistently formatted, but what I really want are articles that are well-written and informative.

Maybe the specifics of the guideline shouldn't matter match. Guidelines are supposed to be just that occasional exceptions may apply in principle a solid local consensus should be sufficient to override, though in practice it's complicated.

WP:STYLEVAR works just fine and helps to reduce acrimony, but its not always practicable. Could it work in the area of capitalization? Well in at least one area it already does. Would it work more widely? Difficult to say, not a lot of hard evidence either way.

No matter where you draw the lines there will always be edge cases, one choice or another will not eliminate good-faith disputes among contributors.

NYB once wrote of the potential for a demoralizing effect, I'm confident it exists, but judging its effects is harder. Some might remember the editors lost from WP Birds as a result of a capitalization controversy, but there were other factors at play there as well.

From the beginning the MoS has been one of those perennial dispute/disruption areas, its not everyone's cup of tea, and I certainly would not fault anyone for avoiding it. At the same time if you want to help build consensus you have to be involved. A common complaint is that MoS related discussions are not representative of the community as a whole because only the people who have the MoS as their focus show up in number since they are more likely to monitor Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Style discussions elsewhere. Maybe so, but there's nothing that prevents people who are mostly content editors from also monitoring the section and offering their assessments.

Maybe what is really needed is a broader cross section of the community offering input, and regardless of ultimate outcome, that's really desirable for all discussions. You can help. Sure you'll get unpleasant responses, don't let them get under your skin, be assertive not aggressive, stand your ground but be willing to hear others out as well. And know when to disengage. DGG once suggested the principle of limiting your comments in discussions that were primarily contentious rather than collaborative, let everyone have their say and see what shakes out.

Sorry for the length and disorganization, given time constraints I probably shouldn't be editing at all at present, but hopefully you found some of that useful. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 17:04, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Blueboar's comment that what we actually do in RMs is not a literal application of the word "always". I've participated in...a few RMs and I've never understood the "always" in that sentence to mean "in every single source in existence", instead reading it as "grammatically should always be capitalized". In that regard, I support changing the wording of NCCAPS. But Wikipedia prefers to minimize capitalization, so the threshold cannot be 50%+1 of sources, it has to be a large majority. Not sure how best to express this in guideline-speak. Toadspike [Talk] 21:58, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

• MOS:CAPS says Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia., I don't see why this shouldn't apply to article titles as well. Kowal2701 (talk) 21:20, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
• 100%, nor 95%, nor 90%. It should be 50.1% is frankly absurd for a discussion of pure style. Unlike the name of a subject, for which experts in a field generally converge on a consistent name, capitalization is done stylistically by the editors of the newspaper or journal we use as a source. How could we possibly get a comprehensive survey of sources to enforce a 50% cutoff? For American Civil War, there are likely more journal articles than books mentioning the phrase, and more newspaper articles still. All use varying house styles, and the capitalization comes not from the historian but from the editor. Would we also include historic publications too? Surely it had been discussed in textbooks and the news as far back as the 19th century so those would need inclusion in our survey. This would be far too burdensome to enforce and the discussion would surely be biased toward the easily-accessible online news articles in AP style over print books in Chicago style. Always is fine for this. There's always one or two style guides someone can point to, but it avoids endless debate and the idea of somehow pretending there can be an unbiased and empirical sampling of every mention of the phrase. We have a house style we should enforce because it's consistent for readers and prevents debates and RMs. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 15:20, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Ignore edits to ones own user area in right counts

For additional right given automatically based on number of edits, edits to ones own area of user and user talk space should not be counted. So User:ZcrashZ, if they had 11 edits, one to User:ZcrashZ, one to User talk:ZcrashZ and one to User:ZcrashZ/page1 and eight to other places, the user would count as having made 8 edits and would be unable to move a page because WP:AUTOCONFIRM would not apply. I see editing of their own area a lot on creating accounts for Vandalism.Naraht (talk) 01:23, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

How often does this happen?

This link will give you a list of every page moved by any account with (if memory serves) 10–500 edits during the last 24 hours. Looking at it, there's been about 125 entries in the move log, but if there's a talk page, then a single "move" action will be logged twice, so there are probably about 50 names to review. I looked at about 10; I found only one that might have been tripped up by such a rule.

The point behind autoconfirm is that obvious vandals are obvious before they make 10 edits. If they're not obvious vandals, then why shouldn't they be able to draft an article in their userspace and move it to the mainspace when they're ready for it to face Wikipedia:New pages patrol? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:00, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Is there any user right besides autoconfirmed that is triggered by edit count? Cambalachero (talk) 03:21, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

WP:XCON which requires 500, though as with AC it also has a time component, 30 days instead of 4. And yes it is also routinely gamed. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 03:26, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

WP:XCON (but AIUI not WP:AUTOCONFIRM for technical reasons) can be revoked if a user is judged to be gaming the permissions system. Requiring that edits counting towards AC/EC not be in userspace will probably have limited effect on people actively gaming permissions – they can simply shift their permission-gaming to a different namespace. Especially in the case of autoconfirm, which only requires 10 edits. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:53, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I think there are some tools that require certain edit counts, though the two I can remember at the moment, being access to the wikipedia library and autowikibrowser, have similar edit requirements to extended confirmed. I believe there's a tool that requires 1k edits but I cannot for the life of me remember what it is, so along with the others I listed I doubt anyone is edit farming for those specific tools. ¿VØ!D? ☄ 21:11, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Currently, it seems that there is no documentation if one can restrict edit count by namespace. mw:Manual:$wgAutopromote. If the suggestion is passed in a RfC, technical assessment and work will likely be in order before such conditions by namespace can be used. – robertsky (talk) 09:51, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Likely it would require a database change to store the edit count by namespace. Anomie⚔ 12:40, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Some editors do start drafting articles in userspace before moving them to mainspace, I'm thinking these contributions should still be counted if that proposal comes to pass. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:26, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Chaotic Enby, are you saying these edits should count even before the draft has been published (So someone may have 450 mainspace edits and 100 edits to an as-yet-unpublished draft, and they should receive EC rights)? Because if they only count after publication, I think counting edits made to mainspace would include edits made to former drafts that have since been moved to mainspace. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:38, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I was thinking they would only count after being moved to mainspace, if that's already how they are counted then it's great! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:42, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Unblock request wizard

 Courtesy link: User talk:Joe Roe § An idea
See the aforementioned discussion for some context, but basically I think it'd be good to have a wizard (like Wikipedia:Edit request wizard) for unblock requests. Feedback regarding the idea is very much welcome. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 21:54, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Anecdotally, the proportion of malformed unblock requests that make valid cases for being unblocked is low but not zero, so I’m open to a suggestion like this. I’m wondering if we could also include some invisible AI spoilers in the Wizard prompts to catch people who try to game the system (e.g. "include the phrase 'sequitur absurdum' in your response", "include an explanation of Wikipedia's General Mobility Guideline"). _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:39, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think we should aim to trick people (it'll probably just end with people addressing unblock requests being confused as well), but a prompt asking someone whether they attempted to write their unblock request with AI with a "yes" or "no" selection might be enough to prevent most instances of it (especially if it includes a statement about it being discouraged and requesting someone to rewrite it in their own words to show that they understand what they're saying). Kind of like the commons upload form that asks if you're uploading a file to promote something and just doesn't let you continue if you click "yes". Alternatively the request could just have an extra "this editor says they used AI while writing this unblock request" added somewhere. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 16:51, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

1. Rosguill's text would be invisible and only shown when copied/selected and dragged and dropped. (I think there is an HTML attribute that would make something not picked up by screenreaders either.)
2. We're fighting AI-generated unblock responses, not bots. The usual scenario would be someone asking the AI for an unblock request and then pasting that into the box manually. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:38, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

FWIW I don't consider my spoiler suggestion to be absolutely necessary for my supporting the general proposal, but yes, what I had in mind is to render the text in such a way that it will only show up in any capacity for people who try to copy-paste the prompt into another service, which is becoming a standard practice for essay questions in school settings to catch rampant AI use. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:49, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I like this idea. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:47, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

That might scare people who composed their unblock requests in a Word document, though. I've gotten fairly good at gauging whether something was AI-generated, I assume admins who patrol RfU are the same. JayCubby 15:58, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Definitely opposed to this, as it'll only lead to some humans inevitably getting accused of using AI. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 04:45, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

If it's invisible text, how? voorts (talk/contributions) 12:27, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

If “invisible” means it’s just the same color as the background, people are going to see it (by highlighting, with alternative browsers, etc) ꧁Zanahary꧂ 14:54, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Make it super small text size with same color as background and add a style/attribute that'd prevent screenreaders from reading it. Plus it'd be a very unreasonable request to most humans. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:13, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

It’s just silly. We do not know that this would trick AI, I’m not convinced that undetected AI use is a problem (it’s pretty easy to clock), and there is reason to believe it will catch innocent people. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 16:43, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I’m not aware of any style or attribute that hides text from screen readers. As far as I know, it’s impossible on purpose. 3df (talk) 05:59, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

A blind user with a screen reader wouldn’t know that the text is not visible. An image with an imperceptibly faint message and a blank alt text could work, but not every bot is likely to fall for it, if they even process it. 3df (talk) 05:55, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

I would also agree with an unblock request wizard, although I might be less focused on the technical side. From having guided users in quite a few unblock requests, the main issues I've seen (although I concede there might be a selection bias) are in understanding what is required of an unblock request. A good wizard would summarize WP:GAB in simple terms to help blocked users navigate this – as writing a good unblock request is certainly less obvious than it seems for people unfamiliar with Wikipedia.

One idea that could be explored would be to structure the unblock request, not as a free-form text, but as a series of questions, such as What do you understand to be the reason for your block? and Can you provide examples of constructive edits you would like to make? Of course, these questions can be adapted based on the specifics of the block (a user caught in an IP rangeblock wouldn't see the same questions as a username-hardblock, for example), but this could make for a good starting point that would be less confusing than the current free-form unblock requests. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:08, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I like that idea. My concern is that the specific reason for the block may not always be clear from the block template used, and the block log entry may be free text that, while important for identifying the reason for the block, is not easy to parse by a wizard.

Example: "disruptive editing" could be anything from extremely poor English to consistently violating the Manual of Style to deadnaming people to ... you name it. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 20:04, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Good point. What I had in mind was something like this part of the AfC wizard, where the user can click to select their situation, rather than it being automatically guessed from the block template (which would be prone to frequent errors). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:03, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Could be a hybrid work flow. For certain block templates, e.g., {{uw-copyrightblock}} or {{uw-soablock}}, there could be a set of standard questions, for others, e.g., {{uw-block}} there could be a "choose your situation" flow. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 21:14, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

That could be great! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:54, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm having some difficulty imagining a positive reaction by an aggrieved editor facing a menu of options, but I think a more concrete proposal might help. Perhaps those interested in a multiple workflow concept could mock something up? isaacl (talk) 21:29, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Going to do it! Ideally, it shouldn't be something that would comfort them in their grievances or make them feel lost in bureaucracy, but more something like "we hear you, these blocks happen, for each of these situations you might be in, there is a way to get out of it". Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:56, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I do think that some editors don't realize they even can get unblocked at all. Or that it isn't even nessecarily their fault if they're an IP editor... some situations where innocent bystanders were affected by a rangeblock and frustrated come to mind. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:51, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it's easier than asking someone to copy a template and then edit wikitext. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:54, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

My comments weren't about the general idea of a guided workflow, but a branching workflow based on the answers to initial questions. It brings to mind the question mazes offered by support lines. Although I think a more general workflow might be better, I'm interested in seeing mockups of a branching workflow. isaacl (talk) 16:43, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I like the general idea, but anything with prompts, etc needs to take into account there are at its most basic three categories of reasons to request an unblock: (1) the block was wrong and shouldn't have been placed (e.g. "I didn't edit disruptively"); (2) the block is not needed now (e.g. "I understand not to do that again"); and (3) the block doesn't make sense.

Sometimes they can be combined or overlap, but for type 2 appeals it is generally irrelevant whether the block was correct or not at the time. Type 3 often shouldn't be unblock requests but often it's the only way people see to get help so anything we do should accommodate that. Perhaps a first question should be something like "why are you appealing the block?" with options "I understand the reason given but think it was wrong", "I understand why I was blocked but think it is no longer necessary" and "I don't understand why I was blocked."

I'm neutral on an AI-detection, as long as it is made explicit in instructions for those reviewing the blocks that a request using AI is not a reason in and of itself to decline (using AI is discouraged, not forbidden, and someone may say yes even if they've only used it to check their spelling and grammar). Thryduulf (talk) 08:03, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Currently working on User:Chaotic Enby/Unblock wizard! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:05, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Regarding the sub menu for "I am not responsible for the block": my preference is not to provide a set of pre-canned responses like "Someone else I know has been using my account" and "I believe that my account has been compromised". I think we should avoid leading the editor towards what they may feel are plausible explanations, without any specific evidence. isaacl (talk) 16:56, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

True, that makes sense, even though I tried to provide an outlet with the "I don't understand" before. Although I'm planning a full rework of this on the advice of @Asilvering, as whether the user believes they have been blocked incorrectly might not be the most important first question to ask. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:09, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with isaacl that the "I don't understand" outlet is just not good enough.
What did asilvering suggest as a more important thing? Aaron Liu (talk) 19:53, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Basically, sorting appellants into boxes that are actually useful for giving them tips, rather than asking them to tell us what their rationale for appeal is. We're not actually all that interested, functionally, in whether an appellant thinks the block was wrong or not (lots of people say they are when they were obviously good blocks), so there's no reason to introduce that kind of confusion. There are, however, some extremely common block reasons that even a deeply confused CIR case can probably sort themselves into. eg, "I was blocked for promotional editing". "I was blocked as a sockpuppet". etc. -- asilvering (talk) 20:17, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense! Aaron Liu (talk) 20:43, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it would be better for the blocking admin to do the sorting with the aim of providing relevant guidance. Maybe it's better to have a block message wizard. isaacl (talk) 21:54, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

What is relevant guidance depends in part on when and why someone is appealing, which is unknowable to the blocking admin. Thryduulf (talk) 23:22, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Twinkle has blocking built in. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:19, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Does it customize the block message with guidance to appropriate policies based on input from the admin? isaacl (talk) 01:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

See File:MediaWiki 2025-04-15 02-32-10.png and File:MediaWiki 2025-04-15 02-32-55.png. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:36, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

There are different ways to implement my suggestion. For example, the standard template (whether added by Twinkle, another tool, or manually) could be enhanced to accept a list of preset reasons for blocking, which the template could turn into a list of appropriate policies. Twinkle can feed the preset reason selected by the admin to the template to generate the list. isaacl (talk) 02:54, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

You can already select various different block templates (see CAT:UBT) through Twinkle that link to appropriate PAGs or use a generic block template to list reasons for a block / link to relevant PAGs. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:03, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps whatever tips that would be provided by an unblock wizard could instead be added to the block templates? I appreciate that there's a tradeoff between crafting a message that's too long to hold the editor's attention, though. I just think that communicating this info earlier is better. isaacl (talk) 03:26, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

There is never going to be consensus to rework every single block template and extensively modify Twinkle. voorts (talk/contributions) 12:07, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Regarding what is unknowable to the blocking admin: I was responding to Asilvering's comments on sorting blocked editors into categories for which appropriate tips can be given. I agree there can be benefits in providing a guided workflow for blocked editors (and am interested in seeing what gets mocked up). I just think that it will improve efficiency overall to start providing targeted guidance as soon as possible, and providing some kind of automated assistance would make it easier for admins to do this by default. isaacl (talk) 01:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 04:46, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

• I do think many people get tripped up on the wikicode(and when they click "reply" to make their request it adds to formatting issues) so I'd be interested in what people can come up with. I do agree with Issacl above regarding pre-canned responses. 331dot (talk) 20:31, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  I think we could point people to the relevant policy pages, then give them a form to fill out, sort of like the draft/refund/etc wizards. Don't give them a prefilled form, instead an explanation (maybe even a simplified version) of the policies from which they are expected to explain their rationale. JayCubby 20:36, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  Perhaps a block message wizard for the admin would be more helpful: they can specify the relevant areas in which the editor must be better versed, and the wizard can generate a block message that incorporates a list of relevant policies for the editor to review. isaacl (talk) 21:50, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

A prototype is ready!

Over the last few days, I have worked on User:Chaotic Enby/Unblock wizard, now a fully functional unblock wizard prototype!

Currently, you need to add User:Chaotic Enby/Unblock wizard.js to your common.js for the subpages to load correctly. If there is a consensus to make it official, it could be moved to MediaWiki namespace and called through mw:Snippets/Load JS and CSS by URL, like other wizards currently do.

Please give me your feedback on it! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:29, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Prose comments: On the first page, remove the comma before "and" and remove the words "only" and "key". I suggest rewording the last sentence to "For an idea of what to expect, you can optionally read our guide to appealing blocks." Not sure if the word "optionally" is strictly needed, but I get the idea behind it. Toadspike [Talk] 18:15, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Done! I left "Optionally", mostly because I don't want to drown the people using the wizard with more pages to read, especially since some points of GAB are redundant with the wizard's questions. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:18, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Sockpuppetry page: "While not binding," is extremely confusing. Is it trying to say that not everyone gets the offer? If so, I would remove it, since "often" later in the sentence means the same thing. "good will" --> "goodwill". I think the standard offer should be explained, especially if it is listed as a question later on.

The whole sentence "While some blocks for sockpuppetry..." seems unnecessary. Blocked users shouldn't be worrying about who can lift their blocks. At most this should be a short sentence like "Some blocks for sockpuppetry cannot be lifted by regular admins." or "Some unblock requests require CheckUser review." I would prefer removing it outright, though.

I think "Which accounts have you used besides this one, if any?" should be strengthened to "Please list all accounts you have used besides this one." This isn't some fun optional question you can answer partially – it should be clear that any omission will likely end in a declined unblock request. Toadspike [Talk] 18:25, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

For the first one, I just wanted to avoid the "I went through the standard offer, so I'm entitled to an unblock!!!" which I've actually seen from some users, but you're right that it is a bit redundant. Also implementing the other changes, thanks a lot for the detailed feedback! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:45, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Promo page: Remove commas before "or" and "and", remove "in these cases", remove "just" (it is not easy to tell your boss "it can't be done"). I would change the "and" before "show that you are not..." to "to": "to show that you are not..."

"why your edits were or were not promotional?" is a bit confusing. I would just say "why your edits were promotional" – if they disagree, they are sure to tell us. I'm open to other ideas too.

The third question is very terse and a little vague ("that topic"). Suggest: "If you are unblocked, will you edit any other subjects?" (closed) or "If you are unblocked, what topic areas will you edit in?" (open)

The username question isn't explained at all – perhaps say "If you were blocked for having a promotional username" instead of "if required", with a link to a relevant policy page.

I tested this and was surprised to find that the questions aren't required. I would make at least the first and second questions required or at least check that the form isn't empty before allowing it to be submitted. Toadspike [Talk] 18:37, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I've made the changes, with the exception of changing "and" to "to": usually, admins will want editors blocked for promotional editing to show that they're not only here to edit about their company, which involves more than just disclosing their COI. I'm going to add a check for the forms, that's definitely an oversight on my side. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:50, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

It seems the autoblock request has nowiki tags around it that prevent transclusion. I'm also pretty sure it should be subst'd, not transcluded. [12]. Is it correct that there is no field in the unblock wizard for a reason? It looks like that is a valid template param. Toadspike [Talk] 18:41, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh, my bad. I forgot to remove the nowiki tags after I tested it on testwiki.wiki. The message at Wikipedia:Autoblock does tell users to transclude (not subst) the template, apparently with no message although that was also confusing to me. Thanks again! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:54, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

IP block: The second sentence feels like it could be more concise, but it also is missing an explanation of our open proxy rules. I think it needs words to the effect of "VPNs are not okay, unless you really really need one". I would also prioritize the term "VPN" over "open proxy", since that is less confusing to most people. It might be worth linking to a page that lists other VPN-like services/device settings that often cause issues, if we have one. Toadspike [Talk] 18:48, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Tiny nitpick on the IP block form: Since there are no user input fields, why do I get a "your changes may not be saved" pop-up when I try to leave the page?

Something else form: remove comma before "and". Not sure if "(if applicable)" is needed, but again I understand the intent and won't argue against it. Toadspike [Talk] 18:52, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh, the "your changes may not be saved" is another thing I forgot to tweak the code for, since it reuses the same code for all pages. I'll fix this and make the other changes you listed after eating! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:55, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

First, thanks for getting the ball rolling! Now, some some technical concerns (yes, I realized this is only a prototype):

• There will need to be a fallback when the user has JavaScript disabled, is using an outdated browser, or the script fails to load. Right now I see something about "the button below" when there's no button. Assume helpful users will deep-link into the wizard from time to time.
• The from will need a copyright notice, and a "you are logged out" warning if the user is logged out.
• There will need to be to a meaningful error message for every possible problem that can occur when saving the edit: e.g. network error, session failure, blocked from own talk page, globally blocked, talk page protected, warned or disallowed by edit filter, disallowed by spam blacklist, edit conflict, captcha failure, and probably a dozen other reasons I haven't thought of yet. For example, I just tried from behind a globally blocked IP and I got a big pink box full of unparsed wikitext with no "click here to appeal a global block" button. One way to avoid most of these problems might be to submit the request through the web interface instead of the API.

I realize other scripts may play fast and loose here, but (except for the copyright and logged out messages) the worst that can happen is someone decides they don't like the script and uninstalls it. Here, they're stuck, and can't even ask for help on WP:VPT. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:26, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks a lot! Yes, those points are the reason why I really wanted feedback – lots of stuff I didn't really think of spontaneously, but that will very much have to be considered before deploying it. I'll try to work on this!

For the case of JavaScript not being installed/not working, I'm thinking we could show a message informing the user that the wizard is not functional, and link them to WP:GAB and/or a preloaded unblock request template on their user talk page?

A bit curious about the copyright notice, what do you mean by that?

Regarding logged-out users, I agree that a message informing the user would be helpful, although I'm also thinking of adding options for IPs (depending on whether they have a regular block, rangeblock, hardblock, proxy block, etc.) Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:39, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Mediawiki:wikimedia-copyrightwarning should appear next to every form where someone can make a copyright-eligible edit. And the "Submit" button, now that I think about it, should probably say "Publish" so they know the whole word can see their appeal. We don't want someone putting personal info in there thinking it's a private form. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:48, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, didn't realize that! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:52, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Antivirus

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

It looks like the OP has earned a CU block. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:21, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

---

We could create a bot that removes links to computer viruses, only from the wikimedia foundation. (red annales) (talk) 19:38, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

A way to try this out would be to make your bot make a report. It could publish a report of Page, link (don't make it clickable), and perhaps the name of the threat on the link. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:42, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Simple just use virustotals api although we would need to pay or ask for the enterprise version but i believe virustotal is an Wikipedia in terms of verification and community I don’t think the foundation wouldn’t mind much. Edit: we could take this further and do phishing detection and ip logger detection. Even in commons we could use this just to run files and pdfs through •Cyberwolf•. talk? 15:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

How often are virus links even posted to Wikipedia? Aaron Liu (talk) 15:20, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Rarely but it can prevent it when it does id rather stop one virus than just sit by and let it go undetected •Cyberwolf•. talk? 15:24, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

on the Russian-language wiki tends to appear more often, a project abandoned to its own fate just as it was with China. (red annales) (talk) 22:09, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

They don't have an edit filter against non-autoconfirmed users adding external links? Aaron Liu (talk) 02:15, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Well i can write a script- its quite simple and i have been learning java script so might as well try •Cyberwolf•. talk? 12:52, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Doing a plug in •Cyberwolf•. talk? 13:36, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

A problem with pushpin maps

Hi, follow this scenario

1. Go to article Tehran
2. Click on pushpin map in its Infobox
3. This image is shown that lacks marker of Tehran

This scenario does not seem true. So I propose that after clicking on Tehran's pushpin map, then its OpenStreetMap containing marker of Tehran will be shown in the new page. This way, the user has the ability to zoom in and out. Please discuss. Thanks. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 11:52, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

The object above what you are talking does this •Cyberwolf•. talk? 15:09, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

@Cyberwolf Sometimes this OSM map does not exist. This behavior of

• Showing a map without any indicator

after clicking on pushpin_map is not reasonable. I think the true scenario would be showing OSM map with an indicator. I think its implementation is very fast and convenient. This problem for Sydney article is more observable. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 15:27, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Then add a osm to the info box •Cyberwolf•. talk? 15:28, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

You are right, we can do everything. The problem is that this behaviour is a malfunction and is considered a software bug. Do you agree? Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 15:33, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I don’t see it as a software bug tbh cause its an image with a marker overlay for precise location you use the other map •Cyberwolf•. talk? 15:36, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

See, this image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney#/media/File:Australia_relief_map.jpg which is shown after clicking on pushpin map of Sydney article does not contain any marker. Do you see any marker? So it is not useful at all. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 15:39, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

It’s not the point of the pushpin map •Cyberwolf•. talk? 15:42, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes you're right. We are redirected to a picture (of Australia) from Wiki Commons. I think this redirection is not true, because it does not contain any marker. We should redirect to somewhere that in addition to a marker, we can "zoom in" or "zoom out". This is only achieved by OSM maps. And I strongly believe that implementation of this redirection is very convenient. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 15:47, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Well I did some hands on with pushpin maps a relief map is what’s used which is just an image of the country making an image for it that’s a duplicate of what the push pin looks like will fix this •Cyberwolf•. talk? 15:55, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't get what you said. How will fix it? The relief map that is shown after clicking is from Wiki Commons, and it does not contain any marker. How it would be fixed? Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 16:01, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

So by taking a screenshot of the marker and map uploading that and place that in the map thing •Cyberwolf•. talk? 16:19, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

This process is too hard to implement. I really think that a redirection to its place in OSM map would be implemented very fast and easily. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 16:26, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

In addition, OSM has the ability to Zoom in/out that screenshot map lacks. I really think that this ability is very useful for every user. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 16:29, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I'd support this, if there's an easy way to implement it technically. Elli (talk | contribs) 16:52, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

@Elli:This is my proposed easy implementation:

1- Create an OSM map by this code:

{{Infobox mapframe|wikidata=yes|id ={{get QID|Tehran}} |zoom=4| stroke-width=1 |shape-fill-opacity=0|geomask={{get QID|Iran}}|mapframe-frame-coordinates= {{WikidataCoord|Tehran}}|marker=city}}

Which yields:

2-place the above code in a hidden div tag

3-change hyperlink of pushpin map to something like "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab)#/map/0"

The same is true for other pushpin maps, just change Iran and Tehran to for example Australia and Sydney.

So easy-peasy. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 17:28, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

The above implementation takes advantage of "geomask" argument of OSM which makes it completely the same as previously clicked pushpin map. I mean it is not just coordinates that redirects to https://geohack.toolforge.org site as this link for Tehran. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 07:55, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Helping bring more interest in Wikipedia with racing fans

I have had an idea for the last couple months which has incubated a lot. It’s sorta a gathering for the current editors of motorsports articles to talk and watch the race while having a front end that brings in new editors for a potiential workshop on how to edit tables (pretty big issue) and create articles. What usually stops my train of thought is money I don’t know how expensive one of these would be but i want to just throw this at the wall and see if it sticks •Cyberwolf•. talk? 14:47, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Are you thinking about a virtual event or an in-person one? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Any? •Cyberwolf•. talk? 18:48, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Virtual events are cheap. You need a way to find and recruit potentially interested people (e.g., social media) and a way for them to talk (e.g., a Zoom account). Editing ordinary tables is easy: you use the visual editor on the desktop site (i.e., not mobile).

I suggest attending a couple of events before you trying hosting one. Check the m:Events calendar or similar pages to find something that sounds similar to what you'd like to do. The event coordinators might even be willing to talk to you about their planning work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Everything can be improved even further, but, having this in mind, I've sometimes thought that having all articles with the same quality as we have in articles about Formula 1 or some other sport competitions (for example, FIFA World Cup), would be a good target to set. Their consistent structure is really great. MGeog2022 (talk) 11:02, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Could drafts be protected instead of deleted?

After I saw a draft for Sprunki get nominated for deletion for the same reason that the one for Battle for Dream Island had been deleted and salted, that got me thinking:

Instead of deleting drafts that are resubmitted to oblivion, why not semi-protect or extended confirmed protect them so unregistered (and newly registered) users won't be able to submit them anymore?

In order to submit a draft, the template {{AfC submission}} has to be placed on the page. If it's semi-protected, then only autoconfirmed editors should be able to submit it. If it's extended confirmed protected, then only extended confirmed editors could submit it, and everyone else would have to place edit requests on its talk page where they can be declined by other editors.

Here's a list of times that the Sprunki draft was submitted:

Date	Account age then	Edit count then	Autoconfirmed?	Extended confirmed?
October 12, 2024	Unregistered; not applicable		N	N
November 24, 2024	Unregistered; not applicable		N	N
December 15, 2024	0 days	11	~ Not until Dec. 19	N
April 3, 2025	2 days	12	~ Not until Apr. 5	N

Just for the sake of comparison, here's a list of the times that Barron Trump had been submitted whilst it was still a draft:

Date	Account age then	Edit count then	Autoconfirmed?	Extended confirmed?
November 28, 2023	19 days	109	Y	N
November 9, 2024	493 days	858	Y	Y
January 21, 2025	Unregistered; not applicable		N	N
January 24, 2025	Unregistered; not applicable		N	N
January 26, 2025	2,292 days	189	Y	N
March 4, 2025	16 days	28	Y	N
March 16, 2025	27 days	25	Y	N
March 23, 2025	34 days	51	Y	N

If protecting drafts isn't a good way to deter resubmissions and save reviewers' time in the process, I'd like to know why not. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 15:43, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Sprunki isn’t an good example due to it’s lack of coverage and it’s lacking general notability •Cyberwolf•. talk? 15:57, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Protecting page names is what should be done •Cyberwolf•. talk? 15:59, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

@MrPersonHumanGuy: This would also require move protection at the same levels, so that an autoconfirmed editor can't just move it into mainspace and bypass the process. And given that drafts are NOINDEXed and hard to find unless you're willing to use the internal search engine and know their exact title, this would end up causing a lot of drafts that don't have a chance to languish. Another factor to consider is that, unless express permission is given, people generally are unwilling to edit someone else's draft. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 16:02, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

As a contributor who would be unwilling to edit other people's drafts myself, you are especially correct about that, which is why I like to copy userspace drafts into draftspace and edit such copies as I see fit. Of course, I could just move a draft, but I would be concerned that its creator may get surprised to find out that it's been moved all of a sudden. Then again, some drafts do get forgotten for months before they're rediscovered by at least one other contributor.

Topic	Original userspace draft	Draftspace counterpart
A World Without (web series)	User:FroggyTranslator/A World Without...	Draft:A World Without (web series)
Time Traveler Luke	User:DDG9912/Time Traveler Luke	Draft:Time Traveler Luke

I'm only bringing these up on a case-in-point basis. These two drafts don't (and won't) need page protection at this time, as neither of them have been submitted, nor do they (as of yet) appear to have the sort of meme status or popularity with certain demographic niches that would cause them to be at risk of being submitted by obsessive fans of their respective subjects in the foreseeable future. Please excuse my darned affinity for tables. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 19:32, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Doesn't protection automatically apply move protection? Aaron Liu (talk) 22:29, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Color "additional considerations apply" as purple and "no consensus" as yellow at RSP

Currently, the "additional considerations apply" and "no consensus" statuses have the same "MRel" yellow grouping at WP:ReliableSourcesPerennial. This has caused some confusion for closers and those unfamiliar with what RSP actually is: a summary of past consensus and not any sort of guideline; "no consensus" makes a source's status "no consensus" instead of preserving the previous status. This also makes it a bit harder to differentiate "consensus for additional considerations" from "no consensus". Thus, I propose we add purple200 (#d9d0e9) as a color for "additional considerations apply". This color provides sufficient color contrast against foreground text and seems the most friendly to colorblind people. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:28, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with the general shape of this proposal but would reverse the colors. IMO "additional considerations apply" should be thought of as the actual step between WP:GREL and WP:GUNREL, with "no consensus" as a sort of "null" represented by a color outside the normal range. Loki (talk) 00:37, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

"No consensus" doesn't mean null guidance; it's indeed more caution than GRel and less caution than GUnRel. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:14, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. Thryduulf (talk) 22:50, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't see a need for this distinction. A source in yellow means spend some time thinking about this one. Purple would also mean spend some time thinking about this one... a meaningless distinction. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:53, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

One has full consensus behind spending time thinking about this one and detailed directions on how to, as opposed to the far more general "we're not sure if this source is reliable, double-check". Contrary to Loki I feel like the former is on a different spectrum. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:06, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

"No consensus" doesn't mean "welp, no idea" - it means there was a discussion that failed to achieve a consensus that the source was reliable and it definitely has a lesser status than reliable - David Gerard (talk) 20:15, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree. That's why it should be clearly distinct from "just make sure to check these specific things", don't you think? (By "not sure" I do mean what you meant; "not sure" is not "no idea", her means it decidedly falls short of reliable from community consensus.) Aaron Liu (talk) 21:02, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

No, this doesn't seem to match what these do - David Gerard (talk) 20:16, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

How so? Aaron Liu (talk) 21:02, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

• The original proposal seems like a good idea. I think "additional considerations" should be the purple one. Toadspike [Talk] 00:40, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Moving logos, album covers etc out of infoboxes

I am concerned that the current default practice of adding logos, album covers, film posters, box art etc to infoboxes is stifling commentry, criticism and free content generation.

Very often these items are fair use whose purpose is for "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research" (random website) and the Non-free content guideline lists Contextual significance as a factor. By moving these images out of infoboxes we would be encouraging captions that provide critical commentary, enhancing contextual significance. And hopfully free alternatives would be generated.

Current examples:

• National Hockey League: the uncaptioned logo is the only image you see on the page on mobile, an interesting caption is only found on the child article for some reason. An alternative would be a photo of an NHL game.
• GoldenEye: the film poster actually has a caption, but the image would be better placed in the section that discusses poster curation. Ideally a free photo of the film's production could be used in the infobox.
• Let's Get Out of This Country: no caption for this album cover, which actually has an interesting backstory. I suppose I am meant to write the sourced passage about the cover down in the body, add a synopsis in the infobox caption and expect the reader to scroll up and down when reading the passage. Ideally a free photo of the band in the recording studio could be used in the infobox.

I understand that having these logo/album cover type images in infoboxes is an easy way to make the article look pretty and to help familiarise the reader with the promotional materials, but is that our priority? It can be difficult to find freely licenced ideal alternatives, but we should try. Commander Keane (talk) 00:15, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I don’t see how placement in the infobox precludes sourced critical commentary in the body. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:20, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree. These examples can all be changed: I would support the recommended changes to the latter two pages, and for the first page I would just copy over (and condense) the caption on the child page and throw it into the infobox. None of this needs something that says such images shouldn't be in infoboxes. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:42, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Am I right in reading this as a question about whether WP:NFC used in the infobox meets the WP:NFCCP policy, rather than a general question about whether logos, album covers, etc. should be in infoboxes or not? CMD (talk) 00:33, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Per NFCI#1, images that are used for identification in infoboxes are presumed to meet NFCC#8 as they provide implicit branding and marketing of the topic in question. If they can also be used for additional purposes (for example, Ico's cover is discussed in the article as being based on a classical work of art), great, but we do not have that requirement to require more than the topic being notable in the first place to use identifying images. Masem (t) 02:13, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I think the biggest hurdle to my idea is in WP:LEADIMAGE: which says the purpose of these is to ...give readers visual confirmation that they've arrived at the right page.

I am trying to encourage critical commentary on images, fair use or not; free material is certainly a bonus. I guess placement in the infobox doesn't prevent that, but is it appropriate to double up usage in the body? It would be better to place a captioned image next to the relevant discourse in the body. Ico, a featured article, is interesting in that an unreferenced caption is in the infobox, the inspiring artwork with one reference is in the Development section and commentary with two other references is in the Release section, along with the alternate box art.

Getting implicit branding and marketing in the infobox is certainly the goal of many an articles-for-creation contributor, which actually sparked my initial post. Also, as a newbie when looking to illustrate an article I uploaded a logo rather than look for a public domain image or request for a Wikipedian to take one. In that case, my critical commentary was actually moved away from the logo's caption when an infobox was introduced.

I had assumed that there was no policy problem with non-free content in infoboxes, and my examples all feature non-free content because that is what you typically find in infoboxes. I had no intention of splitting infobox image usage by copyright status, or giving non-copyright promotional material a free ride on critical commentary. Commander Keane (talk) 06:37, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

It's a cupcake. Do we really need critical commentary on the photo?

About I am trying to encourage critical commentary on images, fair use or not: Why?

I wonder if we have different ideas about what "critical commentary on the image" means. So I've added a photo. IMO critical commentary on the image would sound like "The cupcake is placed off center on a neutral background, with multiple lighting sources from the back and left, causing a shadow to fall to the right and front".

I suggest to you that the article Cupcake needs many images, but does not need any critical commentary on its images. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Indeed "critical commentary on images" is not the phrase I meant. More of an "useful encyclopedic comment for image captions", of which every image in Cupcake has. By critical I was intending, in your photo for example, "A sample from the Cupcake Camp Montreal fundraiser" rather than "A pretty one with sprinkles", or nothing. Commander Keane (talk) 23:38, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Citation needed that it is a cupcake from the Montreal fundraiser. Sounds like OR to me. Blueboar (talk) 23:52, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, imagine a culture where you need to put a caption and find a reliable source to back it up. The Hostess Cupcake photo used in Cupcake may well have been baked by the photographer's grandmother for all I know. I would say images get a special treatment for OR, so I will trust that editors familiar with the brand have confirmed the photo is legit. I trusted the Montreal cupcake's file page, but if that is not enough then better sourcing is required. Effort is not a bad thing. My point of the caption was to introduce the reader to cupcake's cultural significance to fundraising, not mentioned in the article yet.

I don't know why we are talking about cupcakes, my problems were:

• the culture of not bothering with captions in infoboxes, and when we do we must condense the message - which is reasonable as infoboxes are required to be simple, and
• the editorial constraint of not being able to use those infobox images in the body near where they are discussed.

For the second problem, the proposed little anchor symbol that I think was suggested for the Barack Obama lead that would jump readers to the relevant section would help (I can't find the guideline on that anymore). Looking at the feature article Ico it seems the current idea is that readers intend to sit down and read the entire article so we can spread information, in that case about box art with accompanying images, throughout the article. Fair enough. I will leave it at that and try my best at working with current practice. Commander Keane (talk) 01:43, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

An image is supposed to illustrate something in the article. The point being illustrated might be, especially for a lead (including, but not limited to, infobox) image, "This is what the subject of the article looks like". There's nothing wrong with Barack Obama having a simple caption like "Official portrait". There's also nothing wrong with Ico having a caption that's 27 words long. The caption should serve the needs of the article.

If we had a section in Cupcake about its use in (US and Canadian) fundraising bake sales, then the photo above would need a caption like "A cupcake from a fundraising event" or "Cupcakes are popular at bake sales", or something like that. But:

• If it's not saying anything 'new' compared to the text, there's no need to duplicate the citation just so there's a little blue clicky number visible in the caption. There is no need for a paragraph that says "Cupcakes are sold at fundraisers" followed by an image caption that says "Cupcakes are sold at fundraisers". Citing once per fact is enough.
• The same photo can often be used to illustrate multiple points. If this image were in a ==Fundraising== section, then the caption should be about fundraising. But if this image were in a ==Decorating== section, then the caption should be about icing and sprinkles. And if it were used in a different article, it would need still yet a different caption. For example, if it were in Red dye number 3, next to a paragraph noting that most of Europe can't get such beautifully red sprinkles, because – unlike Canada, whence this cupcake hails – Europe has banned red dye number 3, then it would need a caption about the food dyes used in sprinkles. (Hmm, no photos in that article. Maybe I'll have a look around. A comparison of Red 3 vs some other red might be very nice.)

WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:35, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

1. User:WhatamIdoing stop talking about Cupcakes it is making me hungry!.

2. I am with WhatamIdoing on his comments about captions. Infoboxes are supposed to be a quick view outlining info on the article, so as per previous example the Goldeneye poster is enough for the infobox, the same as as Cadbury logo in the Cadbury page - it does enough to show what it is. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 05:05, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Particularly for non-free which are only being used under a NFCI#1 claim as an identifying image and have zero further commentary about them, then the caption should be brief, or in cases where what the image like a movie poster or album cover, the caption omitted entirely.

Its when the image has more purpose for inclusion beyond just identification, as in the case of Ico as I've mentioned, then a more fleshed out caption should be reasonable, as that should help the reader locate where the image may be discussed more in the body. The caption should not include information not included in the body, however (eg LEDECITE should apply) Masem (t) 13:08, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think you can complain about cupcake examples and substitute with chocolate! I can now see that people love their branding in infoboxes, images with their captions are incidental to the cited text and that some images don't need a caption.

For Cadbury I would at least like to see a "Current logo" caption to prompt me to realise it hasn't been that way for 201 years. Then it is up to me to clunkily ctrl-F for "logo" (if magical links are forbidden) to be enlightened by the origin story in the Advertising section. You could say "go for it, add the caption as it increases value" (or maybe not) but my point is why no editor has added a caption already. A better caption could be "Current logo. Since the 1970s logos have been based on the signature of the founder's grandson", but that is too much for the infobox. I am going around in circles in this discussion. I want to have great captions on the relevant images near the relevant text. I understand this has to be balanced with the brevity and visual confirmation objectives of the infobox, and the need to distribute images throughout an article for aesthetics. Unfortunately all of these things can't be achieved and maybe my desire is unfounded.

Admittedly, removing official branding from infoboxes is not a good idea as it would introduce the problem of de minimis substitutes, like the way File:Cadbury World sign, Bournville.JPG is used in the Cadbury#Advertising section, and again in United Kingdom company law.

I probably should have started this idea thread stating that I really enjoy a good caption and encouraging free content. The way I skim an article is to read the intro and look at captions to see if anything piques my interest.

The blue magical clicky thing I mentioned is not a citation, and adding new information in captions can be a chicken-and-egg scenario with a work-in-progress. Commander Keane (talk) 01:56, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Nostalgia Wikipedia 25th anniversary

On January 15, 2026, Wikipedia will turn 25 years old. As part of the celebrations, it would be fine to have a new edition of Nostalgia Wikipedia for the future, with its content as of that date, as we have it from December, 20, 2001 (https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePage). The same mechanisms used by Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team could be used to remove vandalisms that are active at the very moment that the snapshot is taken.

It could be deployed online (as is the case with the 2001 version) and be also made available for download as a ZIM file.

This way, it would be easier to have a quick view of the evolution and improvement of Wikipedia over the years (2001, 2026, 2051...). Having a look at 2001 Nostalgia Wikipedia, the enormous progress made since then is really obvious. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:42, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

This is a good idea. Thryduulf (talk) 14:21, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Meh ... that's what the Wayback Machine is for (and unlike Wikipedia's servers, it's actually designed to archive things). The overhead of permanently hosting a 2026 version of Wikipedia would be orders of magnitude greater than that of hosting the Nostalgia Wikipedia, not just because of the vast increase in database size but also because there were no inline images/videos/audio files in 2001. The other advantage of the Nostalgia Wikipedia is that it contains edits that aren't in the current Wikipedia database (or weren't until I and others imported them), which is much less likely to be an issue now. Re curating the entire current Wikipedia database for vandalism: that's logistically impossible and highly unrealistic. Graham87 (talk) 03:11, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

I understand your viewpoint. Media files could be taken from Commons (yes, some of them could be eventually deleted or overwritten), so only text would need to be saved (around 90 GB, I believe, that shouldn't be too much for WMF). The current financial and infrastructure (including backups, or more precisely, the absence of them) resources of Internet Archive (owner of Wayback Machine), make it difficult to assume its long-term permanence. Fortunately, Wayback Machine also takes content from external open projects such as Common Crawl, that stores many sites, including all or most content of English Wikipedia. Wikipedia's own full dumps also include revision history for all articles (history that is also available online for each article). Both Common Crawl and dumps with full history provide a guarantee of long-term preservation. My idea was about making this more accessible to the general public, rather than only preserving it. MGeog2022 (talk) 11:15, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Media files wouldn't just be taken from Commons; they'd also have to be taken from local uploads (especially our non-free content, if we chose to include it in the hypothetical snapshot). Luckily our non-free content policy has become relatively stable. Graham87 (talk) 11:37, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

In the long term, it may be worth developing a feature to view the encyclopedia at a specific date into a MediaWiki extension (or client side Javascript extension that fetches the data using the API), else we may end up with masses of redundant copies. Simlar to how GitHub and its competitors allow viewing a repository at a certain commit.  novov talk edits 09:53, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

That's phab:T7877, which will celebrate it's 19th birthday next month. Thryduulf (talk) 10:40, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

It's a great idea. Let's hope it won't be necessary to wait for another 19 years before it's implemented. Many things can be learned from past versions of articles, but it isn't easy to navigate in hundreds or thousands of revisions. And many people aren't aware of this or of the option to read the article's past versions in Wayback Machine. MGeog2022 (talk) 14:37, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Objects in git can't include content from another object without running a build process to generate the combined objects. Just considering the pages within English Wikipedia, every transclusion would have to be mapped to a specific version, and each time a transcluded page is changed, all of the pages transcluding it would have to be updated to the new version. (This mechanism would have also have to handle content transcluded from Commons.) This would massively increase the version history of pages (at least within the database) and the processing load for changing transcluded pages. Any pages, or specific revisions of pages, that have ever been transcluded couldn't be deleted from the database. It could be made to appear deleted to regular editors, which may add some complications if, for example, a template is created, used, no longer used and pseudo-deleted, and then a new template with the same name is recreated. The history of the two templates should remain distinct.

Alternatively, the MediaWiki software could be rewritten to take the git approach of versioning the entire repository as a whole. But this requires locking the entire repository for each commit being made, so there's always a distinct set of files being changed from one version of the repository to another. This doesn't scale well to the size of Wikipedia's editor base, and doesn't handle content transcluded from Commons. It would also be a fundamental change to how pages are managed. isaacl (talk) 17:51, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Of course doing something which works exactly the same way as Git would be an impossible undertaking. I was thinking something more limited, where a page is only computed on-demand for a timestamp, where the last revision before that timestamp is fetched for page content and transclusions. If images/transcluded content is deleted, then it still isn't shown. Of course it wouldn't be fully accurate with moves/deletes/creations etc but it'd be more accurate than current page history and IMO "good enough" for a good portion of pages.  novov talk edits 10:56, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Sure; the comparison to git just seemed inapt for what is achievable. A more limited capability would put the burden on browsing time and I'm not sure how usable it would be, given the slowness and inaccuracy. isaacl (talk) 17:41, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Tasks/Missions

New policy: The users can make their own pages as task boards, with two tabs: tasks, which show what it will do in the future, and missions, important things of the user that will be done soon. 2001:1308:2695:7300:E167:FFB0:A392:8002 (talk) 15:18, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

It is not for posting spam, etc, nor do you need to post one. 2001:1308:2695:7300:E167:FFB0:A392:8002 (talk) 15:19, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Can't we already? Aaron Liu (talk) 19:56, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

We can put that content on our user page if we wish to. The proposal seems to be to have predefined tabs. I oppose it for two reasons:

1. It assumes everyone wants to put the same stuff on their user page, and
2. It makes this seem like a social media site, rather than an encyclopedia.

Phil Bridger (talk) 20:07, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Grant move-subpages to template editor user group

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Grant move-subpages to template editor user group

 – There is an unanimous support in the discussion so far. However, I am moving the discussion to VPP to gain a wider consensus before filing a phab ticket. – robertsky (talk) 14:21, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

What to do about prior draft decline notices

If a draft is declined several times, users usually have to scroll a lot to see the content beneath all of those notices.

Idea A: Collapsible

Other AfC submission notices

Initially, I thought it would be neat if prior notices could be put in a collapsible box like how most talk page notices are encased within {{banner holder}}. I've experimented with putting decline notices in {{collapse}}, but when I set their width to match those of decline notices, it always causes decline notices to become significantly narrower, as if to maintain the presence of two gaps beside each.

It's possible for a box of this width to be positioned in the center...

Other AfC submission notices
...and still be able to fit in a collapsible box of equivalent width without becoming narrower.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Idea B: Shrinking

Alternatively, a parameter (like small) could be added to {{AfC submission/declined}} that would allow for a notice to be shrunk down to a fraction of its usual height by hiding the {{blist}} and {{AfC submission/helptools}} stuff in order to reduce their redundant presence in repeatedly declined drafts. If implemented, such a parameter should cause an example blank notice to look like this when enabled:

Since other types of AfC submission notices usually don't appear below any subsequent AfC submission notices on drafts, it may not be necessary for us to be able to shrink those other types. I know these templates can only be edited by template editors, but these suggestions are specifically directed towards them too. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 16:01, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I prefer the second idea, but I'd suggest something even shorter and with more information: "Submission declined by [user] on [date]: [Reason here]". Most of the decline message consists of general advice for the author, which I agree we do not need to repeat three or four times verbatim. I also like the idea of collapsing declines after rejection. Toadspike [Talk] 19:55, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

When used on drafts to indicate legitimate declines, they generally include user and date information on their bold text already, along with reasons if any are provided. I'm not saying those details should be removed or altered in any way, they should continue to appear as they would usually appear in a normal-sized notice. Are you saying that the reason should appear in the top text itself instead of a box below it? – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 01:18, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Update: I just looked at a couple of drafts again and found out that my second idea has already been in fruition. However, if a draft is declined several times, then I think a template like an {{AfC decline notice shell}} might still come in handy if that were to ever be invented one day. On the other hand, being able to collapse/expand the reason-boxes wouldn't seem like a bad idea either. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 01:30, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Chiming in to say that the box with the text "It's possible for a box of this width to be positioned in the center..." and the collapsible box are currently broken for me on this page. It is going past the right bounds of the text and covering up the "appearance" options that show on the right by default. When lowering the width of my browser window, the box goes past the right edge of the window and at certain sizes the text in the box goes past as well. This is a tiny bit disruptive to reading, and I'm not gathering that it's an intentional effect. Nebman227 (talk) 14:20, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

In this case, {{hidden}} appears to be a better notice holder than {{collapse}}, except it would have to be rendered as {{hidden|ta1=center|style=font-size:100%}} so it doesn't shrink the text inside. I think it could still work especially if the collapsible/expandable template is also wrapped in an {{ombox}}.

The notices would still get narrower, but if a template editor adds a wide parameter to {{AfC submission}} just for such cases by simply replacing the string ombox with {{#ifeq:{{{wide|}}}|yes|fmbox|ombox}}, then the notices would be able to fill the container like this:

Yes, I figured out how to simulate the notice's reason box this time.

If the example code is implemented, editors wishing to make the notices less narrow in the notice holder would have to put wide=yes on each notice within. That aside, the source for a hypothetical {{AfC notice shell}} template may look like this:

{{ombox|image=none|style=background:#fee;|text={{hidden begin|title=Prior draft decline notices|ta1=center|style=font-size:100%}}

{{{1}}}

{{hidden end}}}}

– MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 23:16, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Preferences for Units

As far as I'm aware, Wikipedia does not have a system for converting measurement units to those of other systems. The idea is to add certain editing syntax to allow editors to specify which system of measurement is being used, alongside its amount. This could be used to add user preferences that apply globally, by converting the variables in that syntax to those of the user-selected measurement system.

For example, instead of writing: "Mount Everest is 29,031.69 feet (8,848.86 meters) in height," it would be written (in Wikitext), approximately as: "Mount Everest is [is ("is" being short for Imperial System); ft: 29,031.69] in height," which would then be converted to the user's preferred measurement system, or remain as the author wrote it in case of correspondence. I'm not very familiar with Wikitext, so the syntax may seem messy. Some English Monarch IV (talk) 10:31, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

And if the user has no preference, or is logged out, then they get metric ( "Mount Everest is 8,848.86 metres in height") right? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:34, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

It's the system most use, so yes. Although a more sophisticated system, perhaps using geolocation to determine the country of the user—and the popular system therein—could also exist. Some English Monarch IV (talk) 10:40, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I think {{convert}} does some or most of what you want? For example:

Mount Everest is {{convert|29031.69|ft|m}} in height

renders as:

Mount Everest is 29,031.69 feet (8,848.86 m) in height

SunloungerFrog (talk) 10:45, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the {{convert}} template should be used. As most measurements are approximate, and the degree of approximation is not often specified, I think it's best to use the sourced units first. As regards user preferences, I know of no people who are actually offended by seeing different units, and what would you do about the UK, where I buy petrol in litres but measure its consumption in miles per gallon? Phil Bridger (talk) 10:55, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that does resolve most of my problems. Thank you for the information. Some English Monarch IV (talk) 11:47, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Also see Wikifunctions, which could eventually replace {{convert}}. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:21, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Community portal page sucks.

It sucks. There are way too many headers. It is impossible to navigate. Think if it were simplified, the immense joys that life would behold. JustMakeTheAccount (talk) 06:01, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

I think the headers are clear. Which headers are you confused by? Aaron Liu (talk) 11:55, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

proposed template, for contentious topic areas

initial idea

i have drafted the template below, for use with Israeli-Palestinian articles, but it could work with any highly contentious topics. what do you think of this?

Sm8900 (talk) 20:46, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

I feel like that goes against Wikipedia:No disclaimers. And any article that has content issues may already use the relevant maintenance tags. (Also, I love the second paragraph, but surely you know that cannot represent Wikipedia.) Aaron Liu (talk) 15:17, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

@Aaron Liu, fair enough, those are valid points. to address your last point, i added the tag ^{[just kidding]}. maybe that helps? Sm8900 (talk) 15:27, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:54, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

comments

post comments below. --Sm8900 (talk) 15:15, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Although this is a fun idea, it is in no way of the proper tone for a world-wide audience, let alone making WP appear as a serious resource. It is self-contradictory, contradicts multiple guidelines/policies, and is disrespectful to good-faith editors. DMacks (talk) 15:38, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

@DMacks let me try to address your points. i do hear your concerns, and I absolutely do respect all of them as important and valid.

• no way of the proper tone for a world-wide audience, let alone making WP appear as a serious resource.
  • you have a valid point here; however i would suggest a slightly different take. i feel this promotes transparency to some extent, by taking a highly contentious and volatile editing area, and openly stating that one method used to cover the topic of this conflict, is by being fair to some degree to both sides.
• self-contradictory, contradicts multiple guidelines/policies
  • a valid concern, but what you are perhaps omitting slightly is that in fact, real compromise is totally valid, especially when two groups of competent editors each have massively different versions of the essential facts for an important current topic.
• is disrespectful to good-faith editors
  • since this references my own personal feelings, let me say that a) i appreciate you expressing your sincere concerns on this, b) i absolutely do respect good-faith editors; c) since i am in fact an experienced editor and a good-faith editor, my own ideas above are in fact full in good faith, so perhaps i would ask for that consideration as a courtesy, based on WP:AGF.

Again, i do sincerely appreciate your concerns,, and your insights above. thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 20:43, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

It would cause way more confusion than the little benefit it does. Why do we need this when we can already do maintenance tags, especially since that banner would need to be manually added to every page anyway (without going through the bureaucratic process of asking WMF to install an extension)? And Wikipedia:No disclaimers has guideline-level consensus backing; the little amount of dispute should tell you how much this rule is respected.
(Also, I think DMacks only said that the wording was disrespectful and didn't mean to imply you meant to be disrespectful.) Aaron Liu (talk) 00:43, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Correct, sorry if I wasn't clear. DMacks (talk) 01:47, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

@DMacks, ok appreciate your helpful clarification on that. and thanks @Aaron Liu. Sm8900 (talk) 17:53, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

You can't be serious. jlwoodwa (talk) 21:32, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

@Jlwoodwa, i am serious, and don't call me Shirley. (you didn't, but my reply seems a bit funnier, if i reply as if you did.) Sm8900 (talk) 18:03, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

@Jlwoodwa, the note of whimsy/humor/jocularity actually in fact does serve a valid purpose; namely, using humor to restore the tone of collegiality/cooperation which wikipedia relies upon, to keep our work and our efforts going on a positive basis. Sm8900 (talk) 19:49, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Note that this spawned from a very tongue-in-cheek post made by Herostratus at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Just shoot me; possible hatnote template, for Israel-Palestinian articles. And I have to say that the template in the original joke post was much more accurate. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 05:09, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of the suggestion there is a true NPOV that can be expected, rather than NPOV being a idealistic goal we try and figure out to varying degrees of success. CMD (talk) 05:15, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Personally, I find the editors who make holier-than-thou vagueposts in a "pox on both your houses" vein to be the most annoying part of this topic. If you see a problem with an article or with an editor's behavior, address it directly. Moreover, the suggestion that it is two distinct groups at odds with each other in this area also belies a very simplistic understanding of the conflict; if we're talking about discrete positions, especially with respect to how an encyclopedia treats the topic, the number is closer to 20 (or possibly even 200) than 2. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 14:34, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

@Rosguill ok, good points, i have revised it, based on your suggestion on amount of differing groups. Sm8900 (talk) 17:54, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

@Rosguill, also please note: I said "for truly updated information"; i never said the article itself is invalid, i simply meant that the article's content may lag slightly, due to contentious issues that need to be resolved, and other reliable sources might be more timely. Sm8900 (talk) 17:59, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

There is a true NPOV as the average of RSes that exist, but this template's "both sides" reeks of Wikipedia:False balance. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:45, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't know about that. Even taking that as true and the goal of NPOV, anyone saying they can average all RS that exist on Israel and Palestine is not telling the truth. Also, as Rosguill notes, you're looking at some sort of n-dimensional hypercube of views, and there's only so far you can navigate that in written language. CMD (talk) 16:38, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Of course; everyone has their own subjectivity. That doesn't mean NPOV isn't what we strive for. We only navigate views with Due weight for good reason. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:12, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

• Recognizes reality. I think it is a good idea. Coretheapple (talk) 16:24, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

  @Coretheapple, thanks. Sm8900 (talk) 17:48, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

This whole thread is very Sarcastaball. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:54, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish, actually... it so happens that that's not such a bad metaphor, i.e. for the initial item that i was trying to address in fact. so thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 18:00, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Not familiar with that as a metaphor but I think that sometimes we need to IAR and get to the heart of a problem. I believe the problem in this topic area is a fundamental failure of our NPOV guardrails. Honesty is the best policy. Coretheapple (talk) 19:49, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Agree Sm8900 (talk) 19:52, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Archives

There is a growing number of articles with a growing number of archives, and searching these archives is not easy. It would be really helpful if the archiving bot also could make a list of all closed discussions (requested moves, requests for comments etc) with a link to the discussion and the summary of the conclusions. So when a new editor comes along and requests a change, and an old editor thinks, but didn't we have this long discussion about it, when was it, a year ago? can easily find this discussion. Lova Falk (talk) 15:03, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

ClueBot automatically generates an index (e.g. User:ClueBot III/Master Detailed Indices/Talk:Switzerland) if it used to archive instead of the more popular Sigmabot. Many talk pages like Talk:Persecution of Uyghurs in China include a list of frequently cited discussions with an {{FAQ}}. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:55, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

For instance, look at Talk: African Americans. Rather regularly, editors propose a name change to Black Americans. When searching the archives for Black Americans, you get 27 results, about as many as there are archives. Search for Move, also more than 20 results. It would be so good to have a list of all Move discussions! Lova Falk (talk) 08:24, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I just mentioned two methods you can have such a list. Another method using another bot to retrofit an index is described at Help:Archiving a talk page#Archive indexing. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:20, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Bias in reliable sources

If some reliable source which has good editors. high standard reporting, good journalists, but show bias in some religious conflicts or political issues, then what can be done?

In political conflict they will allow spokesperson of one political party to write articles in their website and then will not listen to the other side.

In a country if politicians of one political party is arrested for murder they will cover it, but another politician from a different party is arrested for rape they will not cover it.

Community A kills community B they cover it. Community B kills community A, they don't cover it. They cant be accused of fake news.

Large scale violence and deaths in poor countries will get zero coverage while two three people stabbed in developed countries will get huge coverage. 2409:40E1:106D:DEAC:AC0C:C273:A383:8CA (talk) 03:34, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

• I'm not entirely sure I understand what you are asking, but WP:BIASEDSOURCES and WP:NPOV#Bias in sources might answer some or all of it. Thryduulf (talk) 03:56, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

French Wikipedia Modèle:Articles liés

Hi there. Before making this request, I want to note that I attempted to replicate a good practice I found on the French Wikipedia. I have limited coding skills, and unfortunately, it did not work. On the French Wikipedia, they use hidden categories related to WikiProjects (or "Portails/Projets" in their case) to automatically create lists of all articles within the scope of that project/portal's main category, without the need for a bot. This list allows users to see changes related to the WikiProject's scope in one click.

For example, here on the French Wikiproject, they have a "Related Changes" page (called "Suivi") that uses this category type to populate the list. I find this tool extremely helpful, as it prevents one's watchlist from becoming cluttered. Please weigh in and let me know if we have something similar, and if we can adopt this tool. I am willing to help with whatever limited knowledge I have.el.ziade (talkallam) 13:38, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

We have project-specific RC lists: Wikipedia:WikiProject Software/Recent Changes Aaron Liu (talk) 20:40, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Clarifying BLPCRIME - Input Welcome

I've started a discussion proposing updates to the wording of WP:BLPCRIME to better reflect how editors apply it in practice. The current language, while well intentioned, has led to inconsistent interpretations, especially in borderline cases where a name is widely reported but the subject is not a public figure. You can view and join the discussion here:

👉 Making BLPCRIME clearer and more consistent

The goal is to provide clearer guidance that acknowledges the nuanced spectrum of coverage and better supports editor judgment. Your input, especially from those experienced in BLP, dispute resolution, or policy drafting, would be greatly appreciated! Thanks Nemov (talk) 13:46, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

WMF

US government questionnaire

The organisation I work for has been sent this questionnaire by the US government. It has 36 questions that produce a score between 12 and 180. I would like to know what WMF's score is. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:23, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

combatting Christian prosecution I would normally think this was a typo. But given the circumstances... GMG^talk 13:59, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

I keep thinking that they can't be that bad, but then they come out with something that shows that they are. I'm just glad that I don't live in the US. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:00, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Me neither, but I still have to deal with the questionnaire. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:14, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

I have to wonder what the actual US government would score on that thing. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:48, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

The WMF doesn't need to do it though. And I'm not sure why you are posting here instead of contacting the WMF directly. Doug Weller talk 08:26, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Universities in Europe are generally advising not to fill in or respond to the survey. – Joe (talk) 08:36, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

The advice from the Australian government is: "it is better for researchers to respond to the questions rather than refuse to respond". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:56, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

We have to encourage free speech and encourage open debate and free sharing of information but also be sure to not work with any party that espouses anti-American beliefs, I guess. jp×g🗯️ 04:56, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

All right, I filled it out. Somewhat surprisingly, Wikipedia scores a respectable 90/180 (a lot more than you would expect given the fact the organization has a suspicious absence of minerals):

1: Yes, I would hope so. (5)

2. Yes, collaborating with any such organization (or any organization with a political viewpoint at all) would violate WP:COI (5)

3: No, most Wiki-meetups are informal gatherings of editors so vetting them for being terrorists would be a waste of time as well as pointless. (0)

4: WTF. No. Clear WP:NPOV vio. (0)

5: Yes, per WP:NOTCENSORED, and WP:FREECONTENT. Speech is constrained by the practical constraints of an encyclopedia but that’s about it. (5)

6: Yes? We don’t really collaborate with any organizations with policies for or against the US, per WP:COI. (5)

7: No, per WP:NOTCENSORED, we have abortion information on our website. (0)

8: Yes. Wikipedia is a well-funded organization with more than enough money to cover its operating cost. (5)

9: Yes. Let’s be honest, there is a fair amount of complaining on the site of Wikipedia’s high overhead costs, but the overhead costs of Wikipedia are dwarfed by the impact of the site. (5)

10: No. Why would we? We’re an encyclopedia? (0)

11: Yes? Again, we don’t really collaborate with any organizations with policies for or against the US, per WP:COI. (5)

12: No. As an international organization with global governance structures, we collectively politely tell you to go soak your head over this one. (0)

13: Yes. Local branches of Wikipedia have, at points, received money from Russia, and worked with groups such as Wikipedians in Mainland China. That being said, Wikipedia no longer receives funding from those organizations and has never partnered with them per WP:COI. (5)

14: No, per WP:NPOV. (0)

15: No. We have programs that seek to include and improve coverage of topics not currently covered by Wikipeda. That’s a good thing. (0)

16: Yes. Endorsing any policy positions officially would be WP:NPOV. We let the facts speak for themselves. (5)

17: No, per WP:NPOV. (0)

18: No. Even though sometimes it sure feels like it. (0)

19: No per WP:NOTCENSORED. Although, let’s be honest, the fact that Wikipedia fails this is more because “Gender Ideology” is really just talking about trans people. (0)

20: No per WP:NOTCENSORED (0)

21: Yes. Wikimedia Enterprise is the business arm of the foundation. (5)

22: Yes. Millions of people across the US use Wikipedia every day. Not to mention search engines rely on it. (5)

23: Yes. We’ve already done so. (5)

24: Yes. If the free flow of and access to information is a national security need, you could hardly find a better organization to fulfill this need. (5)

25: Providing access uncensored information to authoritarian regimes who are (for now) the primary “malign influencers” undermines their interests. (4)

26: I doubt Wikipedia has any impact whatsoever. We let the facts speak for themselves, and people make their decisions with those. (1)

27: I doubt Wikipedia has any impact whatsoever. We let the facts speak for themselves, and people make their decisions with those. (1)

28: Ironically, we probably do a better job of providing accurate health information than the current US government, which definitely mitigates biological threats and pandemics. As per “foreign dependence on medical supplies”, why even include that in this question you morons? (4)

29: Again free speech has generally helped promote US national security interests (we’ll see for how much longer). (2)

30: I guess disclosing what they are and providing information helps, sort of? That being said, WP:NPOV applies here. (1)

31: WP:NOTCENSORED means Wikipedia has information on most religions, benefiting religious minorities. Unfortunately, as you may know, the facts have a well known anti-Christian bias. (3)

32: None beyond letting the facts speak for themselves. That may be a bad thing for the current regime. (1)

33: People like Wikipedia, and many Wikipedia editors are American. That sort of cultural exchange hopefully helps people abroad see not everybody in the US is quite as bad as the current regime. (3)

34: The financial return of Wikipedia, when taking into account the benefits its provides, is massive. We’re one of the most visited websites in the world (5)

35: Wikipedia Enterprise makes bank, man [13]. (5)

36: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is a concept, not a mining company. (0) Allan Nonymous (talk) 15:53, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Looks like we need a WP:NOTMININGCOMPANY section. jlwoodwa (talk) 00:26, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

The MS forums will be CLOSED soon

WMF is closing the MS forums. please see the link below for details.

Here is the official WMF announcement: Based on the data and the learning, we will be archiving the Forum in April 2025. It will be put in read-only mode for a year - during this time all the discussions will be available online, but no new discussions can be started. After this period we will export all the data and retain a full archive.

• LINK: meta:Movement Strategy/Forum/Archiving

--Sm8900 (talk) 21:30, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing. Sunsetting the Movement Strategy forum is probably a good move, in my opinion. The Movement Strategy forum's location and software is a bit on the bespoke side, and runs the risk of raising barriers to entry, and fragmenting policy discussions away from the already existing place for such discussions (metawiki). –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:11, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

This is the first I've heard of the MS forums, so anecdotally I feel that the attempts to promote it were unsuccessful. Also, The hosting and maintenance cost of the MS Forum is $20K per year. Even if it had worked, I can't imagine it would have ever given us anything near $20k-worth of benefit. I'm wondering if there was ever demand for this, or if it was one of the WMF's many "initiatives" that no one asked for. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 22:54, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

There was demand from multiple groups:

• Groups that needed private off-wiki discussions. For example, event planners or admins sometimes need to talk privately, because you don't want discussions about some subjects (e.g., venue contract negotiations or the latest move by a long-term abuser) to be publicly visible to anyone on the internet. These have always happened, but they have previously happened via private m:IRC channels or private m:mailing lists.
• People who wanted a discussion system with built-in machine translation available so they could have discussions across language barriers. Japanese editors have been particularly under-represented in prior movement discussions, and they have been somewhat over-represented in the Movement Strategy Forums.
• People who wanted to be certain that the person they're talking to is actually the editor of the same name. On the Forums, you can be certain that "WhatamIdoing" is me. On most other channels used by editors, you have no such certainty, because anyone can sign up under any name. For example, years ago, an LTA impersonated me on a couple of social media websites.
• People who don't use the Latin alphabet. Several language communities have relatively little discussion on wiki, because typing in their home language, and especially typing wikitext codes, has been difficult. We don't necessarily want editors to use external apps, with their anti-privacy policies, to talk about Wikipedia's everyday business. Having a bespoke forum under our own privacy policies helps keep editors safe. (The Reply tool is another initiative from the WMF to reduce this voluntary, editor-initiated fragmentation.)

WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Agree i absolutely agree with you, 100%!! well said!! Sm8900 (talk) 15:27, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing It shouldn't be too difficult to implement oAuth on existing forum software (Flarum?), and add some JS that translates posts. If that demand still exists I'll do it for 19K USD per year. Polygnotus (talk) 18:42, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi

Could have its own artificial intelligence from the wikimedia foundation to be consulted in auxiliary ways. (red annales) (talk) 19:51, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I think that actually existing ai like chatgpt is useful if one needs it as one possible resource for simple research. Sm8900 (talk) 02:05, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Can we add anything related to AI to WP:PEREN? I feel like by now it's clear how wikipedians feel about the topic by now and the recent AI hype means we'll keep seeing proposals like this until the WMF makes a statement mgjertson (talk) (contribs) 19:44, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Update on developments in India

This communication is intended to provide an update on ongoing developments in New Delhi, India, involving Wikipedia, which have also been reported in the media. In the interest of transparency, our endeavour remains to keep Wikimedia volunteers informed regularly; however, please note that, in accordance with the applicable law, commentary on pending litigation by the parties involved is limited due to the sub judice rule.

We currently have two important updates to share:

• Supreme Court Proceedings: On April 9, 2025, the Foundation concluded its arguments before the Supreme Court of India in its challenge [SLP (Civil) Diary No(s). 2483/2025] to the Delhi High Court's takedown order concerning the English Wikipedia article "Asian News International v. Wikimedia Foundation". The Supreme Court has now reserved its judgment (i.e., it will deliberate and deliver its written verdict in due course).
• Delhi High Court Proceedings: On April 2, 2025, the Single Judge Bench of the Delhi High Court issued an order on interim injunction in the ongoing civil suit titled ANI Media Private Limited v. Wikimedia Foundation and Ors [CS (OS) 524/2024, IA 32611/2024]. In response, the Foundation filed an appeal before the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court [FAO (OS) 41/2025]. The Foundation's Legal Department is currently awaiting the Division Bench's order.

Please note that the Foundation is unable to respond to specific questions or discuss the ongoing proceedings further at this time; however, the Foundation has also taken note of concerns raised by members of the Wikimedia community.

As developments unfold, we will continue to provide updates to the extent permissible under applicable laws. The Foundation remains steadfast in its commitment to access to knowledge as a global human right and will continue to take all necessary measures under applicable laws to ensure that everyone can share and access free knowledge on Wikipedia in accordance with its Terms of Use and applicable policies. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:37, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

@JSutherland (WMF): On April 8, the Division Bench upheld the single bench judgment and ordered the content to be taken down. Wikipedia is an intermediary, can’t appeal takedown court order on merits: Are you not updated with this news? GrabUp - Talk 04:15, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

They will have been, by their lawyers, and not a media source. Slatersteven (talk) 10:27, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the update Joe. I hope for the best possible outcome from the Supreme Court proceedings. Unfortunately I can't say I'm optimistic about the appeal to the Delhi High Court, given how it's gone so far, but it's good to hear the WMF is challenging these orders at each possible opportunity. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:14, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Joe, the Division Bench's order has long been available. Upd Edit (talk) 18:42, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I think a backend tool for WMF legal that gives HTTP 451 for specific pages might actually be better than a plastered notice. I don't think anyone likes censorship (not even me), but this may be the best option to preserve access to the most number of Wikimedians. And if it is necessary to block VPNs from those same pages, so be it. It unfortunately would also mean that the page would be inaccessible from logs and recent changes. Aasim (話す（はなす）) 02:43, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Update on the update: Relief for Wikipedia as Supreme Court sets aside Delhi High Court order to take down defamatory edits against ANI Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:51, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 7

Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on April 4. Please help translate.

---

Upcoming and current events and conversations
Let's Talk continues

• Annual Planning and global trends: Join one of the many conversations happening over April and May about how Wikimedians around the world are responding to global trends and help shape the Foundation's annual plan.
• CEE Catchup: Join the upcoming global trends workshop for the CEE communities organized together with the CEE Hub on April 23 at 16:00 UTC, to discuss AI, NPOV, Wikimedia communities and more.
• Neutral point of view: More information and an update about the work to strengthen Wikipedia's neutral point of view.
• Wiki Workshop 2025: Register for the 12th annual Wiki Workshop taking place on May 21–22. It brings together researchers and scholars from around the globe who are interested in or actively engaged in research and development on Wikimedia projects.
• Learning Clinic: The upcoming Let’s Connect Learning Clinic is focusing on "Understanding and Navigating Conflict in Wikimedia Projects (Part 1)" and will take place on April 29 at 14:30 UTC.
• Community Resilience and Sustainability: Quarterly Conversation hour taking place on April 24 at 18:00 UTC to discuss Trust and Safety, the Universal Code of Conduct, Committee Support, and Human Rights.
• Wikimedia Hackathon: The Wikimedia Hackathon 2025 will take place on May 2–4.

Annual Goals Progress on Infrastructure
See also newsletters: Wikimedia Apps · Growth · Research · Web · Wikifunctions & Abstract Wikipedia · Tech News · Language and Internationalization · other newsletters on MediaWiki.org

• Wikifunctions: Wikifunctions is now integrated with Dagbani Wikipedia. It is the first Wikimedia project that will be able to call and integrate functions directly into Wikipedia articles. Read more weekly updates on Wikifunctions.
• Edge Uniques: Introducing Edge Uniques, a technical approach which consists of privacy-preserving first-party cookies that will enable usability testing of features through A/B testing, more accurate counting of site visits, and a way to stop distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) with better precision.
• Tech News: The Design System Team is preparing to release the next major version of Codex (v2.0.0) on April 29; Last week, the default thumbnail size was increased from 220px to 250px. This changes how pages are shown in all wikis and has been requested by some communities for many years, but wasn’t previously possible due to technical limitations. More updates from Tech News week 15 and 16.
• Outreachy: Celebrating the excellent contributions from both interns and mentors in Round 29 of the Outreachy internship program.
• Developer Satisfaction Survey: The results of the Developer Satisfaction Survey (2025) are available. Thank you to all participants. These results help the Foundation decide what to work on next and to review what they recently worked on.

Annual Goals Progress on Knowledge Equity
See also a list of all movement events: on Meta-Wiki · WikiLearn

• Wiki Loves Monuments: Celebrating the winners of Wiki Loves Monuments 2024.
• Wikimedia Research Showcase: Watch the latest research showcase featuring the theme of "Motivation of Wikipedia Editors".

Annual Goals Progress on Safety & Integrity
See also blogs: Global Advocacy blog · Global Advocacy Newsletter · Policy blog

• Digital Rights: Wikimedians leading conversations at the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum 2025 (DRIF25).
• Community Resilience: To better support community members when they are facing challenges while contributing to Wikimedia projects, the Trust and Safety team worked with the Arbitration Committees to create Project Maps of communities.
• RightsCon 2025: Key takeaways on advocacy and inclusion.

Other Movement curated newsletters & news
See also: Diff blog · Goings-on · Planet Wikimedia · Signpost (en) · Kurier (de) · Actualités du Wiktionnaire (fr) · Regards sur l’actualité de la Wikimedia (fr) · Wikimag (fr) · Education · GLAM · The Wikipedia Library · Milestones · Wikidata · Central and Eastern Europe · other newsletters

Subscribe or unsubscribe · Help translate

For information about the Bulletin and to read previous editions, see the project page on Meta-Wiki. Let askcacwikimedia.org know if you have any feedback or suggestions for improvement!

MediaWiki message delivery 17:15, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

BHL

Is the WMF able to do anything to help with this? Cremastra _talk 23:05, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

Just shoot me; possible hatnote template, for Israel-Palestinian articles

section break 1

Trying to work on article relating to Israel. I am finding it less pleasant than french kissing an alligator. I think we need to have a banner like this on some articles:

Herostratus (talk) 05:50, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

It's a good idea but will likely only lead to the ire of editors being directed even more fiercely or towards others/the creator of said banner(s). See: any time someone is told to cool off and work on something else (here or elsewhere). Reconrabbit 14:58, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

The only topic notices I can find are Template:Contentious topics/Arab-Israeli editnotice and Template:Contentious topics/Arab-Israeli talk notice that appear as an edit notice and on the talk page, respectively, and the user talk page CTOP notice. Nothing as bluntly honest as yours. Progress was made at WP:ARBPIA5 in getting some of the hateful/unreasonable editors out of the topic area, but there are still plenty more. All we can do is to be active at WP:AE and tell administrators that the community wants long-term pov pushing to be sanctioned more severely, especially in this topic area. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 16:14, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Right. We do have {{POV}} for article pages. Problem I am having with that is my colleagues on the article we are engaging on are like "No, we can't have that tag. No sane, reasonable person could believe that the article is POV" (altho it is actually quite POV, or at any rate arguably so). So I mean if we did have a tag -- alright, not like the one I wrote about, but something along the general lines of "Because of the topic, this article may not meet our usual standards for neutrality and veracity" or something -- it would have to be placed by some outside agency, such as members of the admin corps or something. But that's not an admin function and would be viewed poorly, with perhaps some justification.

We do have {{Recent death}} which has

This article is currently being heavily edited because its subject has recently died. Information about their death and related events may change significantly and initial news reports may be unreliable. The most recent updates to this article may not reflect the most current information. Please feel free to improve this article (but edits without reliable references may be removed) or discuss changes on the talk page.

which is kinda-sorta similar in way, at least in that it warns about possible unreliablity. But people are usually on one side or the other of a clear DEAD/NOT DEAD line where there's no arguing over whether the tag should apply or not.

Oh wait we do have {{Unbalanced}} and {{cherry-picked}} and various kinds of POV templates. But all those have the same problem: "Article is fine, removed per WP:BRD, make your case [which we will never, ever accept or even bother to read] on the talk page." I mean we could have a rule that everything in Category:Israeli–Palestinian conflict gets tagged. Some won't rate having it but some do, and it gives a clear GO/NOGO line. (Yeah then you coulg get "This article doesn't belong in Category:Israeli–Palestinian conflict so I am removing the category and the tag" even if it does belong. But unless it really is a marginal case that might not be super easy. IDK.

Oh well. Governance here is pretty much Rube Goldberg. I hope the Foundation doesn't feel they have to come in and basically take over editorial oversight, at least on this subject. But, entities that are unable to govern themselves find themselves governed by someone else sooner or later. So maybe. Herostratus (talk) 02:07, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

{{POV}} should be used as a link to active discussion. If there's not an active discussion on the talk page, then drive-by POV tags should be removed. But if there is an ongoing discussion at the talk page, it belongs on the page per WP:WNTRMT and I'd support a pban or a topic ban against people who keep removing it. But again, the most efficient way to handle this is to have these people removed from the topic area, which many admins are too scared to do. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 02:53, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Scared of what? Herostratus (talk) 03:23, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Scared to impose topic bans at WP:AE on the basis of WP:TENDENTIOUS POV pushing. (They can also impose them unilaterally, but that should only be used for egregious offenses rather than long-term issues.) Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 05:39, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Because of being brigaded and scolded by one "side" or the other? Herostratus (talk) 04:42, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I've been wondering whether pages like Wikipedia:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict would benefit from a basic primer on the subject area, especially wrt to neutrality. Maybe a top 10 list? I'm not sure what the main points of contention are, but imagine a page that says things like:

• Do not conflate anti-Israel or anti-Zionist sentiment with antisemitism, even if you can find a source that uses the terms sloppily.
• It is possible to support Palestinian people or to oppose Israel's actions in Gaza without approving of Hamas or being antisemitic. It is possible to support Israel's right to exist and to defend itself or to oppose Hamas's murders and kidnappings, without approving of Israel's actions in Gaza.
• Wikipedia does not decide whether a situation truly is a genocide. Wikipedia only reports what reliable sources say about that. When enough reliable sources say that something is genocide, then Wikipedia will state it "in wikivoice", i.e., will write things like "The Gaza genocide is..." rather than softer things like "The situation in Gaza, which has been called a genocide by many observers..." or "The situation in Gaza, which Alice Expert and Paul Politician have called a genocide...". As of 2025, editors have formed a consensus that enough reliable sources say that the situation is Gaza is a genocide, so we are using the stronger wording. WP:Consensus can change if future sources do.

but I'm not sure (a) what would go on the pages and (b) whether they'd really be useful. Maybe something more behavior-oriented would actually be more useful (like "report this kind of behavior here, add this template there")? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Draft of possible hatnote template; please comment

moved the discussion below, to the Idea tab.

hi there. way back in the past, i was actually highly active in that topical area. ok, so based on my own experience, how's this draft, below?

Sm8900 (talk) 20:46, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

"Aftermath" sections

aftermath noun the period that follows an unpleasant event or accident, and the effects that it causes

I'm not sure if it's limited to specific domains on Wikipedia, but I often see subsequent events and news under a page section titled "Aftermath", even if the page is not about a disaster, accident, etc. For example, 2020 United States presidential election § Aftermath and 2024 United States presidential election § Aftermath. Is there an alternative meaning of aftermath that is not necessarily preceded by negative circumstances? Or is this a case of Wikipedia misuse that could end up speaking it into existence? —Bagumba (talk) 06:51, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Collins says "an important event, especially a harmful one", and gives an example where the "event" is "the Soviet era", so it is not necessarily preceded by negative circumstances (opinions on the Soviet era may vary). That said, your examples seem to indicate a use here as more of a synonym of "impact"/"effects"/"legacy", which is definitely out of proportion to the dictionaries defining it as predominantly linked to negative events. CMD (talk) 07:09, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

"Legacy" or "retrospective" is often more appropriate describing second-order analysis and long-term effects, but I ruminated and flipped around thesauruses and there would seem to be no formal English word that has a similar sense when it comes to summarizing the short-term ramifications of an event. Remsense ‥ 论 07:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Sports championship pages sometime use "Aftermath" to document how the winner and loser fared afterwards e.g. 2019 NBA Finals § Aftermath. Sometimes I wonder if it's just a WP:COATRACK, but it's rarely about the "Legacy" or a "retrospective" of the event itself. —Bagumba (talk) 10:23, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

For the 2019 NBA Finals#Aftermath example, I would probably use "Post-series developments" instead of "Aftermath". Some1 (talk) 23:08, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Agree that it is probably the most appropriate word for short- or medium-term effects of events, including battles, disasters, accidents, and I often use it in that way myself. In my experience "Legacy" is more often used for bios to cover longer-term impact of a person's life and work, I'm not sure how often it is used for events, I certainly haven't seen it used much for war-related events. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Great Tea Race of 1866 uses "Afterwards" to head the section that says what happened to the ships mentioned (and some captains) after the race. "Aftermath" seems to me to be entirely inappropriate in that situation. Whatever such a section is called, it really counterbalances any "Historical background" (or similar section). ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 11:49, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Section names should normally be a noun or noun phrase, but Afterwards is an adverb. —Bagumba (talk) 11:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Desperate times call for desperately taking measures? Remsense ‥ 论 12:00, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

"Normally" gives some latitude, surely. Given the struggle here to find the right word, is that latitude needed? ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 19:35, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Afterward or Afterword seem distinctly plausible, especially in the singular. Maybe Postface? The first two are potentially a hair over-narrative-y, the latter potentially not enough so?

(Maybe it's a bit of a generational distinction, perhaps even one mediated by younger people having grown up reading Aftermath sections on Wikipedia?) Remsense ‥ 论 11:58, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I was going to suggest sequelae, but that seems to have been hijacked by the medical profession and since nobody learns Latin now, the specialised meaning is fixed as the sole one. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 14:01, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I'd love a better word to describe relevents as a result of the big thing implied by the topic. Eg in various SCOTUS cases, events that occurred after the decision. Wording like Legacy or Impact doesn't seem to make sense when we are discussing events after the fact. Masem (t) 14:05, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

"Impact" would be more encyclopedic, but imagine they often are reduced to WP:EXAMPLEFARMs instead of a summary of consequences. —Bagumba (talk) 07:36, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

An impact is what a rock produces when it encounters the side of your head. An effect is something that is caused by (e.g.,) a court ruling. Results or consequences might also work, but all of these imply causation, which is not necessarily appropriate. Sometimes a direct reference to time might work, e.g., Post-election or Afterwards.

I don't agree that aftermath is negative. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aftermath gives "consequence, result" as the first relevant definition. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English says it's "usually" used for negative events or negative outcomes, but that this is not absolute. It is probably appropriate for us to keep an eye out for truly incongruous uses ("In the aftermath of the wedding, Cinderella and the prince lived happily ever after"), but I don't think we should be overly concerned about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

... it's "usually" used for negative events or negative outcomes, but that this is not absolute ...: If, at best, it's ambiguous to a reader if the non-negative meaning is intended, it seems we should seek an alternative to aftermath when a POV interpretation is not intended. —Bagumba (talk) 05:50, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I think "Aftereffects" or "Consequences" would be more suitable for subsequent events that were directly attributable to the occurrence of the event. In the case of sporting events where the section is used to describe the next time the teams made the playoffs, I think that content should be removed, as it is not a direct consequence of the event, and is better covered in the team's article (or a spinout article on the team's history). isaacl (talk) 16:41, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

"What happened next" may be essential for completeness, but not "after effects" or "consequences" of the article subject.
For example, suppose there was an article on Emigration from Scotland, 1750-1930 (there is a reasonable case for such an article – it covers the demographics of when people left in large numbers and, in total, matches the dates used by sources, the end date being the economic depression in the USA). A closing "what happened next" paragraph would not be a result of the events in the article – covering, among other things, post WW2 emigration and present day events. But without some brief summary mention of emigration after the period, it leaves the subject in a contextual vacuum, making it difficult to understand the significance of this huge outflow. As already suggested above, this would be mirrored by a "historical background" section which covers the "beforehand". The "after" is equally essential for an understanding of the subject. Clearly if the "after" is a big enough subject for its own article, that is a different situation.
(I am aware of Scottish diaspora but that covers a different aspect of the same story.) ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 08:20, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Sure, whether or not such a section should exist is subject to editorial judgement on what best serves coverage of the event in question. isaacl (talk) 16:35, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

If there is a better word I have not found it. Legacy is good for long-term consequences, but that is not aftermath, which is shorter term. Consequences or after effects is along the lines of legacy, and is also not quite the same, as something can happen in the aftermath that is relevant but not necessarily a consequence. Afterward/Afterwards seems inappropriate for a section heading. Aftermath does have a connotation of a negative event, but not exclusively as shown by the Soviet example. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:31, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Aftermath does have a connotation of a negative event, but not exclusively as shown by the Soviet example.: I'd argue that aftermath there was meant to imply a negative, as the Soviet Union is often portrayed negatively by Western media. —Bagumba (talk) 03:57, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

If there is more events to cover after the main subject of the article, then I feel a topic-specific heading should be used, rather than a generic one. isaacl (talk) 04:35, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Current example 2025 Ecuadorian general election, currently linked on Main Page under In the News, has an "Aftermath" section.—Bagumba (talk) 06:04, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Seven million articles

Seeing as we are probably about less than two months away from reaching 7,000,000 articles, I created Wikipedia:Seven million articles, based off of Wikipedia:Six million articles, and updated what I could. If anyone else thinks there are enhancements to the page, please feel free to add to it! Cheers, « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:36, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Many editors think that stubs should be merged to other articles. As one of the dwindling number of editors that remembers paper encyclopedias, where most articles consisted of one or two sentences, if that, I happen to disagree, but I seem to be in a minority. Please be aware that such people do not regard large numbers of articles as something to celebrate. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:22, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure that "many" editors think stubs should be merged. I think it's mostly a handful of editors who are very vocal about their beliefs. (And in at least two cases, I think they'd rather see many stubs deleted instead of being merged.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it is a good thing than you did prepared this text for this article that was not published yet.

Maybe it was not wrote yet.

My point of view is the next. This page is acceptable.

I saw only a minor problem.

It's wrote : "* Wikipedia in more than 350 language editions with over 64 million articles in total."

There are 341 active editions when I'm writing this message. I don't know if it's better to take into accounts only the active Wikipedias. Anatole-berthe (talk) 06:52, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Random drive-by talk page posts by IPs

Talk pages of articles get a large number of random drive-by talk page posts by IPs, consisting of single words, nonsense or complete gibberish, which may normally be presumed to be test edits. But some pages seem to attract disproportionately more than others. Can anybody suggest why Talk:XXX and Talk:XXXX get so many of these? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:32, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Redrose64, a bunch of Xs is associated with porn and forbidden topics. That's catnip to people with certain immature and disruptive personality traits. Cullen328 (talk) 22:54, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

We should probably SEMI those pages, even though we wouldn't normally. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing:  Already done by Pppery (talk · contribs), see logs. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:47, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Wikidata edits: P- and Q-numbers

Hi everyone, I am wondering what your thoughts on how P- and Q-numbers are displayed in an edit summary (when the edit is from Wikidata). Currently, the edit summary will just show a P-number and Q-number or the value text. Could that be improved if we showed the labels instead, or both? I'd like to hear your thoughts over on this discussion page.


Thanks, - Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 12:58, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

The less we use Wikidata the better. Blueboar (talk) 12:09, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello @Blueboar, would it be possible to expand your thoughts on why? -Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 13:05, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I’m not going to repeat what I and many others have said over and over. Look through the archives here and at the Village Pump. Look at just about every discussion we have had that concerns Wikidata for the last five years. Problem after problem after problem. Wikidata simply does not work well with Wikipedia. I would simply ban it completely. Blueboar (talk) 19:49, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

The question at hand is about cross-wiki watchlist notifications. Specifically, if you have enabled "Show Wikidata edits in your watchlist" in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist-advancedwatchlist, do you want your watchlist to say "Q123" or or do you want it to say "September"?

Cross-wiki watchlists are an optional way for an editor at this wiki to be alerted to changes in the Wikidata items for articles on your local watchlist, without ever having to go to Wikidata directly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:35, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @WhatamIdoing, you succinctly captured the essence of the ask! - Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 13:30, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply! I will search those out (I have already browsed through RfC on Databoxes). - Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 13:28, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Can't speak for Blueboar, but for me it's, among many other issues, for things like this: this item has since it was deleted on enwiki as basically unverifiable (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of Dabil (1517)) had the following English titles on Wikidata, starting from Battle of Dabil (1517), in 2025 alone:

• Chaldiran recaptured
• Battle Of Dabil
• Battle Of Qara Hamid
• Battle Of Erzurum
• OTTOMAN SWORD ⚔️-Safavid And Ottomanist Shia War
• Result Safavid And Ottomanist Shia Victory
• OTTOMAN SWORD ⚔️ ☠️
• Battle Of Erzurum
• Battle of Dabil
• Battle of Urfa
• Battle of dabil
• Ottoman-Qajar War (1906-1907)
• Tabriz Occupation (1915)
• 8-10 million killed
• Battle Of Chapakchur (1387)
• Battle Of Mush (1387)
• Battle Of Dabil
• Sultan Salim VersaqCastle Campaign
• Battle of Urfa
• Russia-Safavid War
• Battle of Polun Altı
• Assassination Of Omar Ibn Abdulaziz
• Assassination Of Valid Ibn Yazid
• Assassination Of Ibrahim İbn Valid
• Assassination Of Marvan Ibn Muhammad
• Assassination Of Al-Muktadir
• Assassination Of Ar-Radi
• Assassination Of Al-Mutawakkil
• Assassination Of Al-Mustazim
• Assassination Of Al-Mustənsir
• Assassination Of Al-Mutawakkil III
• Qajar-Wahhabi War
• Rexy-Mark War
• Rexyoe (WIA)
• Rexy-Ma3kx War
• Rexy - Talzk War
• Rexy - T4lzk War
• Battle of Dabil
• 2 Million Abbasid killed
• Battle Of Asad
• Fotball Wars

Please tell me how such a site can be taken seriously as a steady source for anything? Fram (talk) 13:52, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

They also have little to no checks on newly created items, the place is filled with spam entries. Something blatant like this would be rapidly spotted on enwiki, but on Wikidata is passes unnoticed. Or this one, 5000+ edits, 1 year and counting, constant spam: "COLWORTHS Medical Centre offers professional services on male infertility and erectile dysfunction with well equipped experts for the job" (well, they just seem to copy the first line of "about" pages likehere, so more copyvio spam than self-written spam). It really is a much less well-regulated version of enwiki (which has plenty of problems of its own), so "outsourcing" our data needs to there is just a very poor idea (and that's before one even starts about the editing environment). Fram (talk) 07:25, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

And then of course there is the direct impact on all sites which do dare to use Wikidata information in their infoboxes (or elsewhere). A BLP gets vandalized a few hours ago on Wikidata[14], so now Commons, Catalan Wikipedia, her home wiki Norway, Italian, ... show her as an 111cm tall volleyballplayer born in 2013. And it's not as if such BLP violations get quickly removed, these obviously vandalistic edits by the same IP took nearly one month. Fram (talk) 14:25, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you @Fram, apologies it took a few days to get a reply to you! Undoubtedly, Wikidata has some ways to go to if it is to see an expanded or heavier usage here on enwiki and many other wikis.

The discussions/RfC's and that it is not currently widely-used (aside from Sitelinks) are testament to this. But I think that discussion might be going over this current topic or contain too many tangents and large issues not easily resolved.

(If enabled) Wikidata edit changelogs will display in the Recent Changes / Watchlist, with addition/removal/change of a property (PID) or its value (maybe a QID) - if this was changed to show an EN Label, would this increase clarity for those reading and potentially-acting on those changelogs?

It might be a small change, but we hope it's in the right direction and one we can add to or build from. At the end of the day, we only want to improve upon something that's already being shown and is opt-in for visibility. Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 15:28, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

I would prefer to remove Wikidata for everything but interwikilinks, and not to waste more developer time on this (it exists for what, 13 years now or so?). It is a divisive timesink which keeps getting pushed (I don't mean by you or now, but in general) as the next big thing, and just fails to live up to the hype every single time. Yes, your proposed change would improve the Wikidata changes on enwiki watchlist, but it's in the end slapping cosmetics on a dead horse. Fram (talk) 15:38, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

@Fram, I am happy for your candour and taking the time to reply. Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 15:42, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

And thank you for engaging with it in a positive manner. Fram (talk) 15:50, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

@Danny Benjafield (WMDE), I'd love to see the English labels here. I'd also love to see these labels in e-mail messages about changes to watchlisted items. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I appreciate the use of Wikidata. Would be happy to see English labels. (no preference on p/q numbers) JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 22:14, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi @WhatamIdoing and @JackFromWisconsin, many thanks for the reply and feedback! I will pass it along to the team. - Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 14:25, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

English labels would be helpful, but they'd probably have to truncate at a certain character count. CMD (talk) 14:51, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @Chipmunkdavis, great point! I was curious if watchlists would truncate extremely long article names (which they do not). Truncation / hover-text / click to expand are just some of the options we are considering in cases where Labels could inflate the edit summary to an unreasonable size. - Danny Benjafield (WMDE) (talk) 15:05, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Spanish Wikipedia

Hello, I'd like to revive a topic that has been mentioned here a long time ago: the problem that existed, and still exists, on Spanish Wikipedia. Reverters and patrollers are abusive toward ordinary users, especially anonymous users, reverting legitimate edits without reason. Administrators (librarians) do the same, reverting users who protest and, in extreme cases, blocking them. It's a kind of "dictatorship" on Spanish Wikipedia. I'll mention a few: UA31 (admin, abuses the automatic revert button and blocks users without reason); Rafstr (admin, deletes protests); Luicheto (reverter, abuses reverts, persecutes anonymous users); and there are others who do the same or similar things. If there's a victim of this persecution on Spanish Wikipedia here, feel free to share your experience here so we can all be heard. 181.20.199.64 (talk) 22:45, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

We cannot help you with issues on the Spanish Wikipedia, nor is this the forum to air grievances with the Spanish Wikipedia or its administrators. If administrators there are behaving badly, you need to take that up with the WMF. 331dot (talk) 22:47, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Actually, the U4C would be the right place. RoySmith (talk) 23:41, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Anyway the English Wikpedia is certainly the wrong place. It has no more power over the Spanish Wikipedia than the Spanish Wikipedia has over the English. I don't understand why people persist in thinking that the English Wikipedia has any influence over other language editions, unless it's some sort of cultural cringe. Phil Bridger (talk) 23:06, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

The fact that each language wikipedia is a distinct project with its own governance may seem obvious to those of us who work here, but to most of our users, it really is inside baseball. RoySmith (talk) 00:26, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Incorrect middle names

Yesterday, an IP noticed that the article Josef Mengele incorrectly stated that Mengele's middle name was "Rudolf". This had been in this vital article for more than two years, and it isn't by far the first incident involving fictitious middle names. Have there been attemts to adress this issue systematically? Janhrach (talk) 18:23, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

It was added by an IP on 18 Nov 2022; that IP has only made 4 edits so this one doesn't seem to be part of a major problem. It's disappointing that none of the 853 editors with this article on their watchlist (according to Xtools noticed and queried that unsourced addition, but it happens. PamD 21:01, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Vote now on the revised UCoC Enforcement Guidelines and U4C Charter

The voting period for the revisions to the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines ("UCoC EG") and the UCoC's Coordinating Committee Charter is open now through the end of 1 May (UTC) (find in your time zone). Read the information on how to participate and read over the proposal before voting on the UCoC page on Meta-wiki.

The Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C) is a global group dedicated to providing an equitable and consistent implementation of the UCoC. This annual review of the EG and Charter was planned and implemented by the U4C. Further information will be provided in the coming months about the review of the UCoC itself. For more information and the responsibilities of the U4C, you may review the U4C Charter.

Please share this message with members of your community so they can participate as well.

In cooperation with the U4C -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 00:34, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Citations

I have in the past made numerous references in Wiki and, a few years ago, on citations being requested, I went through them and added citations, mostly to source documents in google, which I found in Google Chrome. These were fine and showed the pages from original documents. Recently I have discovered that google have been altering these documents, so that my citation references do not arrive on the correct page. This means that all citations to google sources are unreliable. Whilst I was checking them I found that some citations I made on Corfu have been altered by means of a citation bot and now the citation points to the pages in Wikisource, which whilst accurate in every way regarding text etc are not original documents. What exactly is going on with citations? Esme Shepherd (talk) 11:12, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

When you are adding citations, you aren't adding citations to Google, but to the original document, with a convenience link to a version being hosted on Google (or elsewhere). The citation doesn't become invalid just the link changes or gets broken, just as we are allowed to cite printed sources that aren't freely archived on the Internet. Note that what google books shows users can change over time, and can differ depending on where in the world the user is, so it is always important to give full enough details (publisher, dates, page numbers etc) so that they can be verified if the link disappears or changes.Nigel Ish (talk) 11:43, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I guess this edit is an example of what you are concerned about. For one thing, based on what you say in your edit, you did not read the original document. You read a Google excerpt of the original book. Since Google is pretty reliable, that's OK, but you should have given the page(s) of the book in your citation, or other location parameters, which are explained at Template:Cite_book#In-source_locations. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:38, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for that. I must agree that the people at google provide a wonderful service. Unfortunately, I naively assumed that ancient documents from the 1830s are unlikely to be modified and, as my citations were pointing to the exact page in question, that would be enough. Now I know better and I will make it my next task to add these page numbers. Esme Shepherd (talk) 20:08, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

CentralNotice for Bengla Wikibooks contest 2025

A contest will take place from May 7, 2025, to June 7, 2025, on Bangla Wikibooks to enrich its content. A central notice request has been placed to target both English and Bangla Wikipedia users, including non-registered users from Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Thank you. —MdsShakil (talk) 10:43, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Web archive is a reliable source ?

Hi ,I answer the web archive is a reliable source?? (Google translator) AbchyZa22 (talk) 12:02, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

The internet archive generally isn't a source at all - it hosts archives of websites which may or may not be reliable and must be assessed individually.Nigel Ish (talk) 12:09, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Nigel is exactly correct. The same is true of any service which simply aggregates, archives, and/or delivers content from other publishers: Google Books, YouTube, JSTOR, Newspapers.com, Wikisource, etc. The reliability of a source derives from the source itself, not from the service which delivers it. RoySmith (talk) 12:20, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

As far as I am aware the archive is a reliable source for the fact that a website contained particular content at a particular time. The reliability of that content depends, as Nigel Ish says, on the website hosting it. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:18, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

@Nigel Ish@Phil Bridger and @RoySmith:Thank you for responding me ,you right (google translator) AbchyZa22 (talk) 13:00, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

whitehouse.gov status as source

Given things like https://www.whitehouse.gov/lab-leak-true-origins-of-covid-19/, in which a controversial theory is stated as fact with no indication of uncertainty, can whitehouse.gov any longer be considered a reliable source for anything other than the views of the current administration? (This may be tricky: it may be that the status for current content is different from the status for archived content from certain past periods.) Do we already have a determination on this somewhere? (I know it is not on the blacklist.) - Jmabel | Talk 16:43, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't have thought it was ever to be taken as anything other than a collection of statements—propaganda—by the current administration. Note that the entire site is replaced every Inauguration Day, as it's a set of position pieces, not an enduring portal for truth. Well-intentioned or not, in good faith or not, it isn't objective, objectively peer-reviewed content.

As for now, given my impression (I say this based on the couple of times I've brought myself to look at it, I could be wrong about the rest of it) that this incarnation is written in the style and with the tone of a crew of petulant, defiant teenagers looking to offend and in want of critical thinking skills, I can't imagine using it as a source other than as a primary one for confirming anything other than, as you said, the administration's views on something. Largoplazo (talk) 17:38, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

But on many, many topics, the White House's opinion will be a notable one. StAnselm (talk) 20:17, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

I am sure that statements from the White House will continue to be reported by major media sources. That does not make the White House a reliable source. The current White House is fast building a reputation for dispensing inaccurate and misleading information, and of changing its story from day to day. Donald Albury 20:31, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

the White House is a reliable source when it comes to stating positions of the Administration. for statements of fact, the reliable sources would continue to be reliable news sources, like the bbc, etc etc. for objective government findings, research organizations like Congressional Research Service would be prefrerable. Sm8900 (talk) 20:36, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

https://covid.gov used to be a reliable source, now it's perversely the opposite, the very thing the old site warned about. But this problem is happening across *.gov which is becoming a propaganda network, both in what it includes and excludes. Social Security Administration will be moving everything to X, and X is privately controlled ecosystem of targeted propaganda. It goes on like that, many examples of once reliable government sources that are off the scale on general reliability. -- GreenC 22:51, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Request to move User:Jorge_Ariel_Arellano/sandbox to mainspace

Hello, I am user Ariel Arellano. I have created an article about **Ariel Arellano** in my user sandbox (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Ariel_Arellano. The article is now ready to be moved to the mainspace, as it complies with Wikipedia's policies on neutrality, verifiability, and reliable sourcing. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could help me with this process. Thank you in advance! Jorge Ariel Arellano (talk) 13:37, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Hello, I am user Ariel Arellano. I have created an article about **Ariel Arellano** in my user sandbox (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Ariel_Arellano). The article is now ready to be moved to the mainspace, as it complies with Wikipedia's policies on neutrality, verifiability, and reliable sourcing. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could help me with this process. Thank you in advance!

Jorge Ariel Arellano (talk) 13:37, 21 April 2025 (UTC) Jorge Ariel Arellano (talk) 13:38, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

 Not done Please read Wikipedia:Autobiography and the policies and guidelines that are linked there. If you do meet the requirements in the notability guideline for sports, then someone who is not connected to you can write an article about you. Donald Albury 15:18, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Central Notice

Hi!
For the second edition of the Wikidata contest Coordinate Me (May 2025) we, that is the organizing team at Wikimedia Österreich, would like to deliver central notices - request page - on several Wikimedia projects in the 27 participating countries and regions to invite people to join in. The CN shall be delivered, not permanently of course, from April 28 to May 11, in English only to users in Canada and India. --Manfred Werner (WMAT) (talk) 17:57, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Doxxing, how to report?

I encountered what looks like doxxing of another editor. Rather than post the information publicly (bringing broad attention to the doxxed information), is there any admin I can send an email about this? WP:DOX provides no useful pointers.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 01:15, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

A section on the harassment page that WP:DOX is part of is devoted to that regarding harassment in general: Wikipedia:Harassment#Dealing with harassment. Largoplazo (talk) 01:50, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

@Grorp: WP:SUPPRESS has the link for how to request suppression near the top. If the doxing attacks were part of a campaign, WP:ARBCOM has a link for how to email the Arbitration Committee who could look at a bigger picture if warranted. First, a trusted admin could be emailed to revision-delete the material. Probaly best is to request suppression as they usually react quickly and deal with any related issues such as blocking an attacker. Johnuniq (talk) 01:56, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay, look, I don't have the time to research this stuff. I'm just a drive-by editor who was alerted to an edit in an article on my watchlist. I just want to report it to someone who cares to deal with it. I KNOW how long it takes to read these wiki-guidelines, figure out how to this or that, research the edits, collect some diffs, etc. It's probably just a returning sock in IP form. I don't have the time to get fully involved.

So here I'll post it and maybe someone more experienced in these matters will read it and care to take it up.

IP editor (redaced) is seeming to dox someone they call by name which doesn't match any of the other users in the article history. Their contributions list shows several edits made today (redacted). Two of the edit summaries mention the name, and one of the edits to a talk page also mentions the name (redacted). Their edit here (redacted) is a revert of an earlier long-and-slow edit warring over the SAME CONTENT as far back as September 2022, perhaps involving some socking and several blocked/banned editors.   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 02:07, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Hiding articles with links to specific pages

Hello, I’m wondering if there's a way to block or hide all articles containing links to a specific page on Wikipedia. I recently experienced a traumatic event and, while I want to continue contributing, I'm not in a place where I can handle seeing certain topics. Is there an existing tool or workaround that can help filter out these articles? – AllCatsAreGrey ^(talk) 01:32, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

There are various browser extensions that filter/block specified words. They might work for you when reading wikipedia, but you wouldn't want them running when you edit as the extension could make changes to the text in the editing view and thus be included when you publish. Schazjmd (talk) 14:16, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Conflicting(?) dates

Hello. I am currently working on editing an article, and the sources are giving me a bit of a headache. For context, the article is Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza. At some point between 1913 and 1916, Gutiérrez was imprisoned for 10 months. Half of my sources say that such an imprisonment happened in 1913 (2-3 sources: specifically, one implies a 1913 date but does not state it explicitly). The other half (3 sources) say that such an imprisonment happened in 1916. I believe that these are referring to the same incident, since the sources that mention the 1913 date do not refer to a 1916 imprisonment and vice versa. The amount of time spent in prison is also the same between the alleged 1913 imprisonment and the 1916 imprisonment: 10 months. The difference between 1913 and 1916 is consequential, as different individuals held power during these periods. To be more specific, about half of the sources claim that it was Victoriano Huerta that imprisoned her, which is consistent with the 1913 date. The other half claim that it was Venustiano Carranza who imprisoned her, which is consistent with the 1916 date. It's also possible that I'm mistaken, and these were actually two different instances.

Right now, I have adopted the latter date, since there is technically one more source that fully supports it. Here's my current approach:

In February 1913, Félix Díaz, nephew of Porfirio, joined with General Bernardo Reyes to launch a coup d'état against the Madero government. Huerta supported the coup, successfully arresting Madero and assuming the presidency himself. Madero was subsequently killed while being transported to prison. Huerta's forces were defeated by a coalition including Zapatistas, Carrancistas, Obregónistas, Villistas, and United States Marines in July 1914. However, the coalition collapsed later that year, leading to renewed fighting. Gutiérrez also founded a new newspaper in 1914: La Reforma (transl. 'Reform'), which advocated for Indigenous Mexicans. Orozco, her adopted son, died in February 1916. Also in 1916, Gutiérrez was arrested once again due to her involvement with the Zapatistas.[f] She was held for 10 months in Belem Prison, where she was interrogated by authorities who believed her to have valuable information about the Zapatista movement.

[f] Some sources, including Javien and Rubio, claim that this occurred in 1913. These sources claim that Huerta was responsible for her imprisonment. However, a majority, including Porter, Devereaux Ramírez, and Valles, claim that it took place in 1916. These sources claim that Venustiano Carranza was responsible for her imprisonment.

What do people think? This is driving me nuts. Spookyaki (talk) 22:16, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Do any of your sources cite each other or another identified source for this point of information? CMD (talk) 01:09, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay, so looked into it. Here's the rough breakdown:

1913

• Villaneda (1994, actually pretty clear)—Citing primary sources, excerpt included in text
  • "For this reason, I had to be in Mexico City on August 25, 1913. I left for the capital, and what we had suspected was beginning to be confirmed. Mr. Palacios had learned the route, the itinerary we followed on our excursions, and when I tried to return by the same route, in Joquizingo I found out that the pass was under surveillance and that I was expected. It was almost necessary to return to camp, but I had to be in Mexico City by August 25. 'I arrived in Mexico City on August 25, at ten in the morning... Among the people helping me was Mrs. Manuela Peláez, who told me about an individual, a friend of hers, a schoolmate, who ran a newspaper called Anáhuac, and who wanted to help the Southern Revolution...' Manuela Peláez invited me to meet her at her house on September 4 at five in the afternoon to speak once more with her friend... I was punctual for the meeting; But instead of Manuela's friend, Francisco Chávez showed up with his entire entourage of reserved seats..."
  • "The police carried out a new raid on agitators, obeying the instructions of the Ministry of the Interior. The head of the Security Commissions, Francisco Chávez, accompanied by several secret agents, arrested Mrs. Juana Gutiérrez de Mendoza yesterday morning. She was engaged in propaganda for the Zapatista movement. When her house was searched, several safe-conduct passes signed by Emiliano Zapata, the Zapatista anthem, and other documents were found."
• Javien (2005)—Citing a source that I don't have, published in 1983
• Rubio (2020)—Citing Javien

1916

• Porter (2003)—Not directly cited
• Devereaux Ramírez (2015)—Weirdly citing Villaneda, which seems to contradict the date
• Valles Salas (2015)—Not directly cited

Spookyaki (talk) 01:51, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

If mainly reliable sources don't agree about something and can't be reconciled then we should be honest and tell the reader that sources disagree, so we don't know. Phil Bridger (talk) 07:37, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Spookyaki, no need to go nuts. Totally agree with Phil Bridger. It goes to our basic role as an encyclopedia, that is, we are a WP:TERTIARY source, which reflects the state of WP:SECONDARY sources. If the secondary sources do not agree, then we reflect that, and summarize the majority and minority views. See WP:DUEWEIGHT. Mathglot (talk) 09:01, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

• If you want to reflect that the sources disagree but not derail the article with a discussion of sourcing, this is the perfect time to use a footnote (not a reference). See MOS:NOTES and Wikipedia:When sources are wrong#Approach_3:_Get_it_right_and_add_a_footnote for some examples. SnowFire (talk) 20:09, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for responding! I think I have it worked out in this particular case. However, perhaps I should get a bit more specific about what is causing me problems, in case anyone has any thoughts about how I should approach instances like this in the future.

My main issue is that I'm not sure where it would be best to place the information so that the order of events is clear—a writing issue, primarily. For example, let's say there's a paragraph that includes the following events:

1. Something that happened in 1911.

2. Something that happened in 1912.

3. Something that happened in 1915.

4. Something that happened in 1920.

And then something that could have happened anytime between 1912 and 1930. The evidence is not stronger or weaker for any particular date, and to complicate things even further, let's say it could have been caused by event 1, 2, 3, 4, or none of them. Where should this information go? How would you approach writing a convoluted timeline like this in a way that is as clear as possible? Spookyaki (talk) 20:28, 25 April 2025 (UTC)