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Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope.
I don't think it's unreasonable to conclude that while some parts of MOS are the result of consensus with significant participation, there may be other parts that are indeed consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time.
Also of note are the proposals by L235 that did not make principles for that case. Specifically,
Policies and guidelines have a combination of prescriptive and descriptive characteristics. Policies and guidelines document community consensus as to "standards [that] all users should normally follow" (Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines), giving them some degree of prescriptive force. Simultaneously, policies and guidelines seek to describe "behaviors practiced by most editors" (Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines), and change with community practice, giving them a descriptive quality. Naturally, disagreements regarding the extent of a policy's consensus or prescriptive effect arise from this combination, and the text of a policy can sometimes diverge from or lag behind community consensus. These disagreements, like all disputes on Wikipedia, should be resolved by discussion and consensus.
Does MOS necessarily indicate community consensus on a wider scale? In other words, should closers examine the specific text for level of consensus before using it to overrule a (potentially larger) group of editors? Good day—RetroCosmostalk01:45, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree with L235, and add that, ideally, policies and guidelines describe community consensus and prescribe editors to follow this consensus. Regarding the MoS, as a set of guidelines with various ranges, it is expected that not all of its pages will have the same level of consensus – a very specific topic will attract less interested editors, and thus naturally have a lower CONLEVEL. That in itself is not necessarily problematic. However, if it goes against a wider consensus, or only reflects a subset of the views of editors interested in that topic, then there is indeed a CONLEVEL issue and a broader discussion should be held. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:31, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a closer, I would not feel justified in going on an independent fact-finding mission to determine the level of consensus that supports a specific policy or guideline. I would support overturning closures that were based on such an independent mission. If participants in the discussion gave valid arguments based on their own analysis of the level of consensus, I would consider that when making my decision.To put it another way, I presume that guidelines and policies have a higher level of consensus than any local discussion. A mass of editors who disagree with a guideline should be directed toward venues where guideline change can happen, not a local discussion. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:53, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus isn't only found by discussion, but also by use. Maybe four editors discussed a particular piece of policy or guidance, but many editors may follow it because they also support what has been said. If editors disagree with any particular price of guidance then they should start a centralised discussion in whatever forum would be appropriate. So the answer to the specific question is probably, maybe, but to start discussion on specifics as required. Certainly the MOS in it's entirety has some level of wide scale support, even if it's quite possible that not all of it does. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°12:42, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ActivelyDisinterested is absolutely right. Many long-standing aspects of the MOS have strong consensus not because of the number of editors involved in the original drafting, perhaps decades ago, but because they have been widely followed without significant challenge ever since. It would be quite unworkable for closers to start undertaking historical investigations about the origin of about any particular rule in order to determine how seriously it is to be taken. All MOS rules should generally be followed per WP:MOS, and if a later group of editors think the rule is wrong they always have the option to open a centralised discussion suggesting that it be changed. MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:23, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To answer the question Does MOS necessarily indicate community consensus on a wider scale?, I would say the answer is a clear yes. Closers should not try to deep dive the history of how certain parts of the MOS came to be in determining a local consensus on (for example) an article talk page. Instead, those concerned with MOS should go to the MOS talk page and open a discussion there to enact change. And I would say this for any policy/guideline (including notability guidelines, for example, where I've found discussions were limited to 2-3 people for some changes, but those changes have stood for over a decade). —Locke Cole • t • c19:45, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this RFC question would have benefited from some additional workshopping. There are two unrelated questions being asked:
Is the MOS prescriptive, descriptive, or both?
Does the MOS have consensus?
My answer to the first requires you to know what prescriptive and descriptive mean. The MOS is both, depending upon the level you analyze it at. It is descriptive in the sense that the community wants to follow the rules of good grammar, punctuation, and other elements of writing style that are relevant to an encyclopedia. We follow these; therefore, a style guideline saying to follow these accurately describes the community's practice. At a more specific level, the MOS is prescriptive: instead of saying 'the community uses good punctuation practices' (descriptive), it says 'the correct punctuation practice to use is this one' (prescriptive).
My answer to the second is that you should assume, unless and until you can prove otherwise, that any page with a {{guideline}} tag at the top is exactly that community consensus on a wider scale that is mentioned in CONLEVEL. RetroCosmos, since this was all before your time, let me tell you in very concrete terms what CONLEVEL is actually about: CONLEVEL means that when MOS:INFOBOXUSE says The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article, then a handful of editors at Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers are not allowed to say "Yeah, well, that might be what the official Wikipedia guideline says, but they're prohibited for our articles, because we had a private chat among just our little group of editors, and we decided that the official Wikipedia guidelines don't apply to us". Trying to apply the MOS (or any other policy or guideline) = not a CONLEVEL problem. Declaring "your" articles exempt from the MOS = possibly a CONLEVEL problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:30, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This RfC is overly broad. Most of the MOS is supported by strong affirmative consensus. I encourage editors who take issue with a particular part of the MOS to start an RfC asking whether that particular part currently has the support of the community. Such narrow discussions would be far more productive than philosophizing on the nature of the MOS as a whole. Toadspike[Talk]06:07, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This RfC is not helpful because standard procedure acknowledges that no set of rules can apply in every circumstance. The Article_titles_and_capitalisation_2 Arbcom case concerned extreme disruption over an extended period. That can occur with any policy or guideline. A favorite that pops up from time to time is WP:V where people go around deleting chunks of correct and well-written material because no one has added citations. WP:V definitely applies everywhere but dumbly pushing it wll result in blocks. Johnuniq (talk) 06:42, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, that the topic-interested in an MOS discussion might sometimes result in an MOS issue resulting in a local consensus, the solution certainly wouldn't be to defer to a local consensus, which is far more likely to represent a local consensus. If there are concerns that an MOS consensus was not agreed upon by a sufficiently wide cross-section of editors, then the solution would be to discuss that consensus in a place likely to be seen by a wide cross-section of editors.CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 19:07, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Right. All guidelines, including all MOS pages, are presumed to have full community (i.e., non-local) consensus. However, there are hundreds of guidelines with thousands of pieces of advice, and at any given point in time, some small fraction will be out of date, badly explained, not reflective of current community practices, etc. Whenever those problems are identified, editors should fix them. That can be done through bold editing, through ordinary discussions on the guideline's talk page, through RFCs, etc. And even if the advice is sound in general, there might be reasons to not apply it in a specific instance. But you should not start from a position of assuming the MOS to be a WP:LOCALCON. It might be wrong, and it might need to be changed, but it's not a local consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:59, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what the status is now, but I remember when the MOS had large parts written by a small group who hung out on the MOS talk pages, fiercely arguing with anyone who came there with an opposing viewpoint to preserve their desired version. Anomie⚔11:35, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a participant in the arbitration case referenced in the opening, I feel I should point out that the issue there wasn't disagreement with the MOS but disagreement over how a particular section (MOS:CAPS) is interpreted. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 11:53, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That was a reckless charge during the arb case. If something, in fact, lacked WP:CONLEVEL, then it should have been changed by a larger consensus. The case failed on that point. —Bagumba (talk) 14:08, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The answer to the question "Does MOS necessarily indicate community consensus on a wider scale?" is generally no. The MOS is by and large the result of WP:BOLD editing and even when there is a discussion it usually involves only a very small number of people. It therefore reflects local consensus. Much was written before guidelines became elevated to the status they hold today and at best has implied consensus owing to having been there for years without being changed. In cases where it has proven too burdensome, it has indeed been overridden by a larger consensus. Most editors cannot be bothered. Some parts have never been able to reach a consensus. Mainly, though, we have an ongoing iterative process of improvement. Hawkeye7(discuss)03:45, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I reject the notion that two editors on an MOS talk page represents community consensus better than fifty editors on Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers. Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. That applies to the MOS talk pages every bit as much as project talk pages. Like most editors, I am happy to follow local consensus. Hawkeye7(discuss)23:01, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Hawkeye, what matters is the visibility and scale (number of participants) of a discussion, not the venue. Obviously the venue is not irrelevant - a discussion at VPP is more likely to be accidentally discovered than one at e.g. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poetry, but if the latter is well-advertised and attracts 30 editors the consensus it establishes is more likely to reflect community consensus than an un-advertised discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles of works with only three participants. This is especially true if the subject of the discussion is specific to poetry and the consensus is to adopt the style that's been consistently used by a significant majority of relevant articles for many years. Obviously there are exceptions to this (e.g. if the de facto standard is inaccessible) but those exceptions need to be supported by evidence of an actual problem and an alternative must not be blindly and rigidly enforced without discussion to see if a compromise can be reached. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways/Archive 48#DLR colours for a semi-relevant example. Thryduulf (talk) 00:23, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But do you also reject the notion that two editors on the guideline's page is better than two editors on any other page, when the purpose of the discussion is to improve the guideline?
Or imagine that it's not a guideline. If you and I have a chat on an article's talk page, is that better than you and I having the same chat on your talk page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
do you also reject the notion that two editors on the guideline's page is better than two editors on any other page all other things being equal, the discussion on the guideline's talk page is slightly better, but its still a weak consensus. A discussion elsewhere that is advertised to multiple places, including the guideline's talk page, is stronger than one with approximately the same number of participants that was held on the guideline's talk page but was not advertised elsewhere. Also, where the elsewhere is can matter - a WikiProject talkpage is probably going to produce a stronger consensus than an article talk page, which in turn is probably' stronger than a discussion on your or my talk page.
Venue, number of participants, amount of advertising, significance of change (from both the de jure and de facto status quo), reason for the change, depth of discussion and degree of unanimity are all relevant considerations and you absolutely cannot look at one factor in isolation and arrive at a reliable answer. Thryduulf (talk) 10:30, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A WikiProject's talk page is more likely to produce the appearance of unanimity. The people in that group are largely there because they like working with each other, after all, and we expect them to mostly agree with their chosen wiki-friends. It is also, for most subjects, likely to represent the views of editors who know something about the subject matter (e.g., if you have a question about a medical article, drop by Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, not a village pump).
It is, however, less likely to represent the broader community's POV, especially if the question is:
not a question in which the group's subject-matter expertise is relevant (e.g., WikiProject Composers on infoboxes; WikiProject Infoboxes on composers' genres) or
an interdisciplinary question (e.g., in which WikiProject Medicine and WikiProject History might have different perspectives on what's important to include in the article).
I don't know if this is a good example, but I uploaded an image which (to my understanding) was allowed by policy/guideline. The image replaced an existing fair-use JPEG with a fair-use SVG of a videogame box cover. Upon getting the deletion notification for the old JPEG, the editor that uploaded the JPEG passed on talking to me directly, or opening a discussion at the article talk page, or just taking it through WP:FFD. Instead they opened a discussion at a WikiProject and "unanimously" decided to remove the image there.
In my view, the WikiProject definitely has knowledge about videogames, but the issues being raised by editors there are more technical and/or concern NFC questions, so surely the discussion would have made more sense at the article talk page with pointers at WP:VPT, WT:NFC and WT:VG to this centralized discussion. —Locke Cole • t • c02:36, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think FFD might have made more sense, but I think the important thing to do right now is for you to post messages to relevant pages (e.g., WT:NFC) to bring in people who know less about what the group usually does, and more about what the Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria policy actually requires. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:02, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So, as I see it, there are a couple of things going on here which could influence how much "binding" consensus we should ascribe to any particular section/verbiage within the MoS. And these absolutely should be given serious consideration when applying any particular rule of thumb found within the manual, but in practice, these considerations are rarely cited, let alone heavily considered in debates that center around particular application in given use cases in article space. It would be nice if we had a more formalistic system for establishing the weight and uniformity to be ascribed to any given style principle, but the ad-hoc nature of the evolution of the MoS, combined with the fact that it was at one time meant to be purely advisory, but over time has taken on a less permissive tone overall, and with particular sections being almost entirely mandatory, that it would be very difficult to reverse engineer the entire body of style recommendations and re-code them in conformity with new and more express scheme for different levels of absoluteness with regard to different provisions. Though goodness knows that would probably save the community a lot of time on disputes if such a clearer system were implemented, so maybe it will be worth the effort at some point.That lengthy preamble made, here are the primary two factors that I think influence how much weight and certainty a given piece of style guidance should have:
First, was the discussion which lead to that verbiage the result of a full and appropriately approached WP:PROPOSAL? How many individual discussions were held, and how many community members took part in those discussions? Were the held in the right venue for the proposal in question (the talk page of the MoS subsection itself or the village pump, typically) and were they well advertised in other fora if the resulting rule was likely to effect a non-trivial number of articles? For example, on a significant number of occasions, small cadres of editors operating out of WikiProjects have tried to create rules (some of which were added to MoS pages without further authorizing discussion among the larger community. This of course is expressly forbidden by WP:Advice pages and a number of ArbCom rulings. On the other end of the spectrum, we have something like MoS:GENDERID, which is the result of a lot of community negotiation in some of the most massively-attended and assiduously-argued discussions in the history of the project. Some of argued that the resulting rules should have been codified in WP:PAG as a result, but for good or ill, it was placed in the MoS. But while there is some wiggle-room for most provisions in the MoS, there is a fairly absolute consensus at this point that no part of GENDERID is optional--though we continue to have arguments about how to apply it in particular cases. However, most provisions of MoS exist in a grey area between these two extremes. And unfortunately, because there are no handy labels to easily distinguish which are the result of more trivial or robust previous consensus discussion, it is often incumbent upon those arguing over a particular piece of guidance and its application to a given article or set of uses to either accept that they have to make pragmatic arguments for that use case, or else demonstrate that the history of debate for that provision shows previous and broad consensus for a universal approach, or that the particular use case in question has already been addressed. Again, suboptimal, but the reality we are left with after the organic and non-formalized growth of this part of our rules ecosystem.
Second, we can also look to the intrinsic text that was generated by the consensus process described above. Because traditionally (and less so as time went on, but still to some extent) we intentionally left a lot of flex in MoS wording itself, to account for previous disagreement and to allow editors to use their best sense of what was required for the needs of the individual article or other namespace. Rules creep has gobbled up the edges of much of that flexibility, but many sections of the MoS still have vague or expressly permissive language for those purposes. Personally, I think we benefit from keeping those provisions lean for those very pragmatic reasons, but it is a natural consequence of a bureaucratic apparatus such as we work with here that more and more rules will accrue over time. Especially as it has turned out that there is no principle of grammar, formatting, or presentation to trivial or inane that the Wikipedia community at large has proven unable to generate at least two camps of deeply committed proponents willing to regularly and disruptively go to war across hundreds or even thousands of articles/talk pages to enforce their preferred version.
All of which is to say, the MoS is clearly very prescriptive with respect to many considerations, but the degree to which a given prescription (or proscription) is permissive or mandatory is highly variable, and often nothing short of research into and reference back to substantially aged discussions can settle just how strong a given requirement is. And even then, everything is of course subject to WP:CCC. Only the most well known and at one time divisive subjects, like GENDERID, are so absolute that everyone is expected to comport with them in the vast majority of use cases, with failure to do so often being considered highly disruptive. But as time goes on, we have more and more of this body of uniform rules. A better system would re-categorize all style guidance into levels of permissibility in a system which roughly shadows the levels of weight seen as between information pages, guidelines, and policies, but such a re-conceptualization would be a herculean effort that I just doubt we even have the manpower for, even if we could get the broad community buy-in to support such a massive restructuring. SnowRise let's rap21:56, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One thing I think gets lost here is that the process (where was the discussion? Was there a discussion? How many editors? How many experienced editors who haven't been blocked in the intervening years?) is not really as important as whether the policy/guideline/help/whatever page matches what the community wants now. A perfect process, with dozens or hundreds of people, that arrived at the (now) wrong conclusion is not nearly as important as whether the community agrees with that decision today. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't disagree in principle, but even if there is a new established best practice or general unspoken consensus, it's infeasible to allow editors to just assert it as a given; there needs to be a new formal consensus discussion at some level, as otherwise we will just have people insisting upon their own idiosyncratic views about what the "obvious" or "accepted" rule is--assumptions which are subject to every cognitive bias under the sun. In any event, you are touching upon another factor I had meant to list with the other two above: independent of the degree of formal consensus behind a given rule, or the certitude/universality of the wording of the rule itself, one can also point to the uniformity with which it has been applied. More than once I have seen wording in an MoS section, or even a guideline that it turns out was added despite no WP:PROPOSAL (or any substantial WP:CONSENSUS) process, but by the time this is caught years later, the community is willing to give it a free pass and basically endorse it despite these usual required checks. Either because it turned out to be the right utilitarian approach, or disentangling it from established best practice is more trouble than it's worth. All that said, I think the "accepted custom" prong of legitimacy ought to be treated as absolutely the least compelling and reliable factor. Not wholly irrelevant, but definitely to be taken with a grain of salt as arguing for the presumption that a given rule is practical or represents community support, express or tacit. SnowRise let's rap04:48, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not feasible to have "a new formal consensus discussion" every time a policy or guideline is reworded.
Most policies and guidelines had no WP:PROPOSAL. I wrote PROPOSAL in 2008. Before then, exactly two (2) of the guidelines and zero of the policies had followed that process (WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS). The original process was "slap a tag on it, and see if someone reverts you". After a while, the process usually became "have a small chat on the talk page, then slap a tag on it, and if someone reverts you, point them at the discussion on the talk page when you revert them back". And quite a lot of WP:Naming conventions, and some of the WP:MOS pages, achieved guideline status through the WP:MOVE button. But at this point, 17 years after the PROPOSAL process was adopted (its adoption being the third time that process was fully followed), and after the massive MOS cleanup project coordinated through Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style (which delisted and rewrote a number of pages), I think we can safely say that anything that is still tagged as a policy or guideline is actually accepted as a policy or guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's some conflation of concepts going on here. With regard to "a new formal consensus discussion", I personally do not see that as typically involving a full formal WP:PROPOSAL process, or anything remotely like it, as a per se matter. At least for inline changes to existing PAGs or MOS pages, in the vast, vast majority of cases, much less is called for. PROPOSAL is for creating new guidelines wholecloth, not for iterative additions or amendments to existing policies. Nevertheless, I consider it a bit of a tautology that no change to a PAG (nor any other express community guidance codified in MoS or an info page) which has proven contentious can be argued to have a clear "community consensus" unless a consensus discussion actually took place, at some level and in some way endorsing a particular proposition. I appreciate that things were quite a bit more free-wheeling once upon a time, and respect your role in codifying some of our early standards on formalizing consensus at the PAG level (I did not know you were the original author of PROPOSAL, which is quite the contribution to the project's mechanics), but as you yourself alluded, we've come quite a long way since those seeds were planted, and today we have a much higher burden for formally adopting a rule. As such, the mere act of being able to point to a rule that just happens to not have been disturbed is never going to be the strongest form of evidence that the community has endorsed that principle (or would, if directly asked). Although I will grant you, the farther back the rule stretches without a formal challenge, or the more central the position of the rule in our most heavily relied-upon policies or processes, the more confident we can be in regarding it as a kind of consensus principle. That said, as to ". . . I think we can safely say that anything that is still tagged as a policy or guideline is actually accepted as a policy or guideline., I'm not sure I'd agree that is likely to be universally true, but let's put that to the side for present purposes. That's still a very different thing from saying "Every bit of verbiage placed within a guideline since it was adopted came about as the result of community consensus." And that's an important distinction when we are talking about the MoS in particular, since MoS changes tend to be for the purpose of ammending or adding to existing sections, rather than creating new ones. SnowRise let's rap00:16, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My immediate coarse intuition is, of course, if an editor sees a substantive, questionable change to P&G without explicit consensus, they would be encouraged to yank that material from production at any time?
(If the initial RfC needs my own variation on this theme: I hope other editors are actively motivated to remove any material that can't be assumed to possess a clear prescriptive mandate – i.e. material possibly not reflective of consensus, explicit or otherwise.) Remsense 🌈 论23:59, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You should only revert changes that you personally disagree with. It's not exactly that we "encourage" people to revert changes, but if you personally believe that a change is harmful or even probably harmful, then yes, you should probably revert it. If you're only a bit uncertain, it's probably better to take it to the talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:22, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I meant to say—in my mind, one could only discern a change could be against consensus if one directly disagrees with it first. Remsense 🌈 论02:24, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have been reducing my reverts for any editor with a track record of contributions and opting for Talk-first. For many editors reverting is very aggressive and Talk-first often leads to a better outcome. I try to explain reverts for editors who registered, usually "Sorry,...". IP editors with no edit summaries I just revert full stop. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:28, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Often the very best move—though, in terms of policy, I would very much prefer and prioritize my disputed additions not being live parts of the document, and I think most experienced editors woudl agree with that too at least in theory. Remsense 🌈 论03:05, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely. We're talking about two distinct subjects here. On the one hand, the more abstract question of whether an addition to a PAG or style section has community consensus, whether it is subject to being summarily reverted, and how much the benefit or problem caused by that change either militates for its retention or reversion. And then on the other hand, the more idiosyncratic question of how a given editor feels about how to address a problematic change that arguably could or should be reverted. When you layer the two over one another, you get a broad range of responses from different community members, but they are in principle discrete questions; the "What is this change, and can/should it be reverted?" and "Now that I've made that decision in principle, how do I really want to go about it to maximize the chance of the optimal outcome, not just with respect to the a priori issue, but also while being constructive and collaborative, and also while keeping other project priorities in mind. Now, if we wrap back around to your initial question, and contemplate how much we want policy to encourage reversion in those circumstances, I would say we should at least be making the process relatively painless for them, if the change has proven at all contentious and there was no clear consensus. While WP:BRD is mostly conceptualized in the context of namespace contributions, I would say its even more essential when it comes to the language in guidelines: what is codified and memorialized in those pages should be more conservatively approached and should usually only happen with some degree of consensus discussion. Contributors should be discouraged from being WP:BOLD with PAGS or even the MoS. And if they aren't, we certainly want the standard to be that there is very little noise or drama from and objecting party exercising the R&D part of BRD. But I certainly don't fault anyone who would rather exercise a softer touch. Nobody should feel compelled to actively object if it wouldn't normally be their wont in that situation. SnowRise let's rap07:57, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In short, being prescriptive in principle, the state of a P&G page over time (clearly) has greater stakes than that of any one article, and it seems healthy for whatever quasi-WP:OWN feelings editors may have while working on an article (i suppose, in the sense of "let me cook, watchlist voyeurs") should by contrast be wholly absent when in P&G-space. That sounds super obvious, but whatever. Remsense 🌈 论08:10, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with what SnowRise says above that it's important to distinguish between "Is this MOS page really a guideline?" (to which the answer is 'yes') and "Does this specific paragraph in this specific MOS page still have community consensus?" (to which the answer is variable, because there are a few bits that probably don't).
But @Remsense, it is possible to treat the policies and guidelines as too much like holy writ. If editors think they can improve them, whether that means making them clearer, less verbose, more reflective of daily practices, more in line with our values and principles, etc., then editors actually should try to do that, and be encouraged to do that. Bold editing of policies and guidelines is officially permitted by policy, and the fact is that a change made today and reverted tomorrow probably has no, or very little, effect on what editors actually do. (Though if you wait long enough, it can become a problem; I now wish I had reverted this dubious addition in 2012.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We often have consensus on the wording of policies and guidelines, and we often don't have consensus on applications (one of which applications being, ignore). That's just the nature of the work, and then we have to work it out, in the moment. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:24, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would say that for the most part the MOS should be followed unless there's a compelling reason otherwise; but it can be ignored when a stronger policy-based reason exists. Guidelines in general are not absolute (though they vary in how forcefully they're worded), but in particular even the most forcefully-worded parts of the MOS always lose to WP:NPOV / WP:RS / WP:V when those things come into conflict with it, because those things are core policy and the MOS just governs our, well, style; we're not going to sacrifice NPOV for mere stylistic issues. If there is a consensus on a particular article that we must do something that the MOS forbids in order to preserve NPOV or reflect the sources, then the core policies obviously win - there are very few "you absolutely must do XYZ without exception" from-above policies in Wikipedia, and none of them are part of the MOS. That said, I do think that overriding the MOS on anything of significance would normally be expected to require an argument like that, ie. you need some actual policy-based reason to do so - guidelines are followed unless someone can articulate a policy-based reason otherwise. But once someone has articulated a reasonable policy-based reason why they think other policies are in conflict with the MOS, it's a matter for consensus and discussion on that article, and generally speaking I would expect policies to win out. (Of course, people might disagree over whether there's an actual conflict, but that is something that local consensuses can cover, since it involves how we interpret and apply policies and guidelines in specific cases.) In situations where someone disagrees with following the MOS in a particular article but can't come up with a policy-based reason why (ie. it's basically just disagreement with that part of the MOS), they should probably challenge it directly - the point of the MOS is to give us a consistent style, so you need a better reason to override it than "I just like how this looks better." --Aquillion (talk) 15:58, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fun fact: The MOS uses words like "must" and "do not" more than any legal policy. If someone wanted me to show them an example of "you absolutely must do XYZ without exception", the MOS is the first place I'd look.
There is quite a lot about the MOS that cannot be overridden by a content policy. Whether you put the little blue clicky number before or after a sentence's terminal punctuation is not a matter for NPOV/NOR/WP:V. Additionally, if you get it wrong, a bot or a script-wielding editor will soon come along and "fix" it for you. You actually don't have a choice about whether to comply with most of the MOS. It's no good saying "Well, I think there's a compelling reason not to use proper grammar in this sentence, namely that the version approved by English teachers sounds bad to me"; as soon as someone notices the MOS error, MOS:GRAMMAR will be enforced. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In general PAGs describe practice. It's a bit messier than that, and there are many internal tensions both within and among our PAGs not necessarily a bad thing IMO but that topic would need an essay unto itself. Even when you get one of those big CENT advertised RfCs that really is trying to change the way we do business the specifics of application will still be worked out in practice.The first thing to keep in mind here is that the MoS is a guideline, so there is an expectation that it will not be implemented rigidly and that exceptions may apply. Local discussions can and sometimes do determine that an overall consensus should not apply in a specific case. The threshold for so doing is not insignificant, but not as difficult to surmount as when policies are in play. Even where policy is also concerned, PAGs are applied to specific situations in practice by contributors through discussion. If a discussion has been open and advertised for some time and there is insufficient support among the community to implement what you might perceive as the global consensus in a specific circumstance, that indicates there is not in fact consensus despite the PAG wording specifics. As always, an active consensus of editors is required to make changes when an action is controversial.The above is general, but I'm not convinced this latest bout of MoS fracas is even a good-vehicle for reviewing the level of consensus that individual parts of the MoS may or may not have. My own experience is limited and peripheral, but it seems that much of the disputes centered on interpretation of existing verbiage rather than a desire for exceptions per se. How much is substantial? 70%? 80%? How much weight should sampling from various linguistic corpora carry? What about cases where the term usual is employed instead? All of those are cases where reasonable people can and often do disagree. And RMs, around which much of the acrimony was focused, aren't really local anyway but part of a sitewide process where pages are discussed for a week or more to ascertain how PAGs should apply in a specific circumstance. By no means do these discussions carry the same weight as a widely advertised CENT RfC, but they are broader in scope than most talk page discussion and usually include more points of view and participation from a wider swathe of the community.There were many assertions mostly from since t-banned editors regarding strength of arguement, but as most are doubtless aware, that is normally merely wikilawyer for the outcome was not what I wanted, please change it to my preferred outcome after all we already know you think your argument was the better one, that's why you made it. Numbers also matter if they didn't supervoting would be the way we decided things closers should not be deciding between reasonable interpretations of and between various PAGs, but to summarize which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it. If an argument fails to sway participants given reasonable time than maybe it isn't all that strong. So sure SPAs, socks, and yes much as I defend their participation clearly clueless newcomers can be ignored, but when good-faith users with an understanding of PAGs support applying them in one way given a specific circumstance or even not applying them in a specific circumstance the closer can't simply ignore them. I understand this made some people with a particular interest in MoS matters unhappy, discontents of this nature are if anything even more common in deletion discussions, but the project has always been a collaborative effort; we all have to work with people who hold different, sometimes even sharply different views.To address one more point, guideline really is the best classification for the MoS because as a practical matter it is not applied rigidly or uniformly across the project much to the irritation of some I know, local consensus does have a stronger sway over outcomes and there's nothing really wrong with that.By way of disclosure though I doubt I'm really unrecognized I never really liked the need for an MoS and have long been a WP:STYLEVAR proponent. I also admit that while I don't think there's any good evidence for Wikipedia's (de)capitalization choices having any non-trivial effect on the outside world, I would not lose the slightest amount of sleep over them even if they did. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 23:11, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
RfC: Bot to add dark mode compatibility to old AfDs
When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
Should a bot be used to fix linter errors and fix Vector 2022 dark mode on old Articles for Deletion subpages? 16:46, 9 September 2025 (UTC)
Please read this RfC before commenting here. I (Matrix) am proposing a bot to fix dark mode on old AfDs, please read the proposal at the BRFA and comment here whether you support or oppose it.
@Pppery: Chaos? Firstly, unlike the above RfC which made millions of edits, this is limited to the WP namespace, so no "user talk was edited" notifications will go off. Secondly, there's a reason the bot flag was created, which was to help you hide stuff in watchlists and stuff like that. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 19:13, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(I'm copying this from the BRFA) "The question isn't the number of people who use dark mode, it's the intersection of the number of people who use dark mode and who visit old AfDs, and the latter set is pretty small in the first place. And you surely know already that large bot tasks inevitably cause people to complain as they are happening." (from Pppery) —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 19:17, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pppery: People scrolling through AfD archives are more likely to have dark mode on, because they are likely power users and power users want all the new features. Besides, we're fixing lint errors along the way. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 19:34, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm someone who is often regarded as a "power user". I use Monobook skin in light mode and, when I use the source editor (roughly 50% of my edits) I use the 2010 editor. Most "power users" will use whatever tool is the most powerful which is not necessarily the most recent - indeed in many cases the most recent tool is often less powerful because it has been simplified for the benefit of those who are not power users. Whether someone prefers light or dark mode is likely something that is completely independent of whether they're a power user or not. Thryduulf (talk) 01:02, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And many other power users will, like me, keep using what they're used to and already have set up how they like it if they don't need any of the new features, instead of changing and having to relearn how to do all the things in the new interface. Anomie⚔13:52, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps, but turning on the bot flag when there's a large activity in the spaces we edit means we're not only missing less frequent bot edits we might want to see, but also are missing recent living creature edits that were immediately followed by a bot edit, as the watchlist system will sometimes not display the human edit when that happens. As such, it's best to avoid the mass edits unless they are necessary. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:44, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Izno: we're also fixing lint errors in this task as well, which has no workaround except fixing. And while we're fixing the lint error with color: inherit, we might as well convert the background color to the new dark mode one. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 19:36, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The relevant workaround being the one that targets [style~=background]? I'm the one who suggested that bit of CSS one fateful day several years ago to a relevant engineer as the dark mode effort was beginning to ramp up. I don't see trying to remove the need for that CSS as useful (at this time, perhaps) as there are many many other places that rely on it besides 500k pages worth of archives.
@Izno: we need to move away from relying on that CSS rule, which is why I am suggesting this. We don't need to remove the rule, but just reduce reliance on it, as it is quite crude. This is one step at that. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 22:48, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Pppery and Nat Gertler. Editing archives should only ever be done when the edit makes a substantial improvement to the project in some way. Making nearly half a million edits just so that a bit of form text that appears on >90% of AfDs is slightly more visible to the tiny number of people who read old AfDs while using dark mode is so far below that bar it's ridiculous. Even fixing lint errors fails to reach the bar most of the time and this is significantly less useful than that. Thryduulf (talk) 20:46, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A lint error that only appears in dark mode? You really need to do better to explain why this should be "fixed" and why it is worth doing more than 50 edits. —Kusma (talk) 22:19, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Matrix, if this is a lint error worth fixing then there will be consensus for the lint error fixing bots to fix it. You will also note that I said Even fixing lint errors fails to reach the bar [where editing archive pages is beneficial to the project] most of the time and this lint error is especially low value. Thryduulf (talk) 00:57, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pppery: Considering this is a very technical topic it is necessary to explain a bit more - that is not bludgeoning and is actually constructive towards consensus. I only responded to like 3 comments anyway, and I don't expect to change anyone's view if they are opposed. See Wikipedia:Encourage full discussions. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 16:23, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support I don't use dark mode myself but looking at the before and after examples linked on the BFRA, it improves things for those using dark mode. Also, doesn't hurt things for anyone not using dark mode, so don't see any reasons not to. If someone is willing to do those changes then why not. -- WOSlinker (talk) 21:28, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per WOSlinker and what Primefac said on the BRFA. It doesn't really hurt anyone, those concerned about watchlist spam can just configure their settings to ignore bot edits. Tenshi! (Talk page) 22:13, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
er, what is the improvement being made? It looks pretty much the same to me (at least in Monobook Dark mode) so oppose unless it is clarified what the point is. —Kusma (talk) 22:15, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support: I don't personally think linter errors are a huge priority, but that doesn't mean others should be prevented from fixing them. The set of people who have old AfDs on their watchlist for some reason and could possibly be inconvenienced is probably as small, if not smaller, than the set of people who view old AfDs in dark mode. Gnomingstuff (talk) 23:22, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am in generally in support, but if you're going to make this many edits I'd like to see a deeper investigation of what other kinds of issues can be fixed at the same time. Also seems like it would be more worthwhile to replace it with a template so we don't need to make a second pass if other issues are discovered in the future. Legoktm (talk) 00:08, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Legoktm: that would be a good idea, but if we did that we would also need to do the same thing for all XfD discussions, plus all RMs, most {{atop}}s, etc. Not to mention the massive technical issue of fixing nearly every single anti-vandalism tool. I don't think that's worth it. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 16:25, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we need to decide the fate of literally everything now just to improve AfD archives, it can be an iterative process. I also don't see why anti-vandalism tools need to be fixed, why would they even care about this formatting change? Legoktm (talk) 17:55, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we use a template now, don't we have to use the template in the future? I feel it would be inconsistent to sometimes use a template and sometimes subst stuff. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 18:27, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to make this an RfC from the start to avoid LOCALCONSENSUS issues, but forgot. Also as proposer and the person who made the BRFA, I support obviously. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 16:46, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I really don't see any downsides to this. But, as someone who regularly reads old AfDs, sometimes uses dark mode, and generally appreciates that linter issues can be important in the long run, I think there would be significant benefits. Toadspike[Talk]06:54, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Similar to WP:RAGPICKING: we all have better things to do than make miniscule formating tweaks to old pages for a minority of users. If hundreds of editors were coming forward and saying "I use dark mode and this is a real pain", then I'd support. But I'm not seeing that. I honestly don't understand what a lint error is, but this one seems to be pretty minor (replacing standard inline CSS with something complicated). Cremastra (talk·contribs) 20:21, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Full Support: Accessibility improvements should never rejected on the basis of "it inconveniences my watchlist" or "I don't use this feature", it should pass or fail on the merits and benefits of the task proposed and the proof of the task will address the issue as intended with minimal to no error rate if run. To those complaining about "well, it don't look broken in light mode", this task isn't for fixing something in light mode and will not affect your light mode viewing, this is for fixing a glaring problem in dark mode that makes viewing AFDs in dark mode problematic. The claims of "well, I don't use dark mode, don't run this task" are an injustice to users who do use dark mode who have to endure being blinded on AFD pages from these sections not displaying as they should. If Wikipedia offers different viewing modes, all pages should work and display correctly in all modes.To highlight the proposed change in a visual manner so that there's no question what this task is changing, This -> https://i.imgur.com/Fch83DD.png is an AFD page in dark mode with no changes and is a prime example of this error. The page should NOT be mostly white in dark mode, it should be uniformly dark and comfortable to view without feeling like you are staring at an approaching car's highbeams at night. After this task runs, it would look like this -> https://i.imgur.com/Gw40Qfc.png for dark mode users and behave as it should. The suggestions of "just use light mode, there's no issues here" are as obnoxious as me stating to you "Dark mode is only a few clicks away, why aren't you using it as it's easier on the eyes"?... We both know we have reasons for picking light mode or dark mode as our mode of choice, and we just want pages to display correctly as much as you do with as minimal bother to you as possible. This is a small step in the equal display direction.Additionally, ditto WOSlinker, Primefac, and Legotkm's comments about can we fix anything else in this run to minimize the AFD pitchforks, and why isn't this a template we transcribe? Seems problematic that it isn't due to standard "woe is my watchlist" kerfuffle whenever corrective tasks regarding AFDs are mentioned. Zinnober9 (talk) 21:28, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Zinnober9. Further to Legoktm's point, I would support adding __NOINDEX__ to all AFDs while we are at it. We discovered that our attempt to do this site-wide is not working last December, but we didn't actually come up with a plan to fix it. I think the idea of transcluding a template (maybe just add {{AFD help}} where it is not already present?) is a great one, so we can easily make updates if needed in the future. Don't want to spend time on this? You don't have to code the bot or worry about what it will do. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they)01:29, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In case people wonder why robots.txt does not work, from Google themselves: Don't use a robots.txt file as a means to hide your web pages... If other pages point to your page with descriptive text, Google could still index the URL without visiting the page.– robertsky (talk) 03:57, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support although it should be noted that the only thing that needs to happen is "unblending" i.e. figuring out which color mixed with white in which alpha amount results in the resulting color. These are very minor but important changes to improve legibility in dark mode. Aasim (話す) 21:00, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I'd probably be considered a "power user", I do peruse old AFDs, and I want to use dark mode. However, I don't use dark mode anymore because too much doesn't work well in it. Anything automated process that can make the dark mode experience better, I'm all for it. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:32, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I use dark mode for everything, and I'm an admin. Sometimes questions arise about why a page was deleted and I have to go back and read AFD archives. Or often I'm checking back to see the outcome of a discussion I participated in (it's unfortunately not possible to subscribe to these discussions). Whenever I run into a dark mode problem on a page, I feel it's my duty to preserve accessibility for other users (and my sanity) to either figure out how to fix it or file a complaint if it's too complicated. This is not something I'd be able to fix on my own and I'd have to request a bot run and...well, someone has already done that part and that's where we are now. As dark mode becomes more popular, more people will be affected and it would be nice to avoid wasting everyone's time with duplicate complaints, and just fix this now. -- Beland (talk) 19:56, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Replacing with a template?
Creating a separate discussion, since a lot of supports seem to be stating that I should replace the whole thing with a template, rather than just changing the CSS values. Any input is appreciated —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 17:08, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral as original proposer. I don't have any strong views on this, and am willing to do whatever the community's view on this is. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 17:08, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, no one replied to this; there are a few other tasks that can be done on the journey, what's the consensus on doing those as well?
"un-subst" the template, so that future edits can be made at once, rather than on all ~495K pages
add NOINDEX to prevent indexing by search engines (because apparently robots.txt doesn't work)
Support unsubst (so we don't have to do this ever again) and support NOINDEX (while we can argue about the efficacy of dark mode fixes, I hope we can agree that NOINDEXing discussions, including those about BLPs, is a worthwhile pursuit). Probably a better idea to just unsubst and then do the dark mode and NOINDEX fixes in the unsubsted template. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they)20:47, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support both as generally good ideas. I can see no reason a boilerplate header/footer that could foreseeably need updating should be substed every time, and these pages do not need to be indexed. Toadspike[Talk]20:52, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support switching to the template in general, I don't have the relevant context on NOINDEX so I'll abstain from commenting on that. In general I disagree with Pppery that doing some cleanup isn't worth it just because the task is significantly large (I appreciate people who are willing to take on such gargantuan tasks!). Legoktm (talk) 00:41, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I Support replacing the boilerplate with a template after a sufficient set of demonstration edits on AfDs from many different years. I have found while editing (far too many) AfD and similar pages to fix Linter errors that there are sometimes subtle variants on these bits of text that one presumes would be identical. Also, the boilerplate text sometimes gets edited after it is placed. It might take a few runs to find the variants, and a bot task might only be able to handle 90+% instead of 99+% of them. Ideally, they won't contain elements that need different template variants to replace them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:12, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So are you saying that you support the unsubst that would eliminate future needs to updating AFD pages directly whenever these boilerplates need an update in future years? Or are you rejecting any and all bot tasks on any AFD page? Please clarify your ambiguous statement. Zinnober9 (talk) 22:19, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see the ambiguity here; but to restate my position, I reject any and all bot tasks that would require editing all hundreds of thousands of AfDs (or pretty much hundreds of thousands of pages of any kind as a one-time run; note I also opposed the reflist bot above). * Pppery *it has begun...04:20, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we were going to have a bot editing the ~half million AFD pages (40% of the namespace?), I want it to move them to a different namespace, so I can search in the Wikipedia: namespace and not have the results filled with old AFDs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Skimming through some very old discussion archives, I've come across a few mentions that now go against WP:Don't worry about performance and others that are similar to what Thryduulf mentions below in saying opposed to boilerplates not being substed going forwards because care will have to be taken to ensure that changes don't state or imply things that were not true at the time of old AfDs. There may be other discussions I haven't found. Anomie⚔02:21, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, so far I'm leaning towards an oppose on the unsubsted template idea based on the "historical record" point. I'm not much caring about fixing versus not-fixing the inline CSS in the archives, since I doubt both that many will care that much about old AfDs while not being able to work around the possible contrast issue and that many will be paying enough attention to the old AfDs that a bot going through them actually matters (as long as we don't get another MalnadachBot situation). Anomie⚔02:21, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I get you kind of, but I'm not really sure any historical records would be changed, since the rendered text would be pretty much the same. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 15:26, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Currently the rendered text might be "pretty much" the same, but with a transcluded template there is no guarantee at all that this will always be the case. Thryduulf (talk) 16:19, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At that point you might as well just subst it. You'd have to create a new template for every change in the wording, and then get everyone to switch to the new one each time. Thryduulf (talk) 17:40, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But if you subst the template you get stupid problems like this later on (what if the WMF decides in 10 years they're gonna make a high contrast mode, for example?) —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 19:36, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that is unlikely because many operating systems have their own high contrast mode or something like color filters. Aasim (話す) 21:01, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was just an example; no one could have predicted dark mode 10 years ago. We can't predict the future, so a template could be adjusted normally, that was my point. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 16:09, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Although it's a bit of a side note, dark modes have been implemented long before that (though support for web browsers to automatically follow an OS setting is newer). The problem is on the web design side, where there hasn't been a standard palette established for use on English Wikipedia. To be fair, CSS variables and to some extent template styles make deploying a standard palette that can be adjusted by skins much simpler.
The purpose of substituting a template is to ensure that a specific snapshot of how it appears is captured, which is needed to help trace historical discussion. To facilitate future changes to style, in theory an outer wrapper template could set up styling and then substitute an inner template with the content. But to be honest I think the negatives of making the templates less accessible to potential maintainers outweigh the potential future positives. isaacl (talk) 16:57, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If, at some point in the future, this same non-problem arises then we can deal with it the same way we should be dealing with this one: not fixing something when the cost of the fix is many orders of magnitude greater than the cost of the status quo. If, at some point in the future, an actual problem arises where the cost of fixing it is lower than the cost of not fixing it, then at that future time we should fix that actual problem. Until then, let's not base our decision making on vague speculation about future problems that have a low probability of ever existing and an even lower probability of actually justifying costly action. Thryduulf (talk) 23:18, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I continue to oppose these essentially cosmetic changes to old AfD pages because the value of them is multiple orders of magnitude lower than the disruption the bot will cause (and regard this discussion following the extensive objections above to be rather tone deaf at best). I don't necessary oppose all future changes to old AfD pages, because I don't know what those changes will be, but will oppose any others that don't provide benefit to the project above and beyond the disruption. I'm weakly opposed to boilerplates not being substed going forwards because care will have to be taken to ensure that changes don't state or imply things that were not true at the time of old AfDs. For example if a new rule required everyone who had contributed to the article being discussed to explicitly disclose that, and this was added to the boilerplate, it would be misleading for that to appear on discussions from before the rule was introduced. Thryduulf (talk) 22:33, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There wasn't any consensus that this was a desirable thing - almost none of the supporters actually engaged with reasons to oppose (which were opposed to the concept not the implementation) - so just continuing on as if doing something like this is self-evidently a good idea is what feels tone deaf. Thryduulf (talk) 16:17, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the consensus among "support"s is "make an exclusion for MatrixBot" or "don't look at bot edits". I don't use my watchlist anyway so I'm not that familiar with how it works. Also, if there's an alternative solution that doesn't mess up your watchlist but still solves the problem(s) at hand feel free to let me know. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 17:38, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do not support replacing <spanstyle="color:red;">'''Please do not modify it.'''</span> with a template. There isn't much value in trying to make this particular message more legible, and with banner blindness, most people will never pay any attention to it.
I am more ambivalent about changes to specify the background colour, whether that is by introducing a template, or changing the hardcoding. In principle I think it is a good idea to make all pages follow dark mode standards. But I understand that churn to so many pages can be unappreciated by those most involved in the articles for deletion process. The gentler approach is to just continue with new discussions supporting dark mode, and at some point in the future, when the discussions supporting dark mode are the large majority, consider if a change should be made then. isaacl (talk) 23:28, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Isaacl: whilst I understand your first point, if we're going to have a template "afd top", we need an "afc bottom". We might as well do that while we're at it. —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 15:24, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, I disagree with replacing the text at the top of articles for deletion discussions with {{Afd top}} solely for the purpose of changing how the "Please do not modify it" message appears. With regards to replacing the text in order to change the background colour, I appreciate the concerns of those most involved in the process, including how the text will no longer be a snapshot of what appeared at that time. I'm indifferent about replacing the closing </div> with the {{Afd bottom}} template. isaacl (talk) 15:44, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support transclusions per Jonesey95. Substituting these has never made sense to me, and doubly so in regards to the ubiquitous AFD pitchforking. If someone knows why they were substituted, then I'm open to considering the merits of that reasoning. But converting to transclusion would reduce the future bother to the Afd community from the known knowns at hand so far in this AFC. I agree that variants (if any) should be identified, and any variants' adjustments retained. I'm Indifferent on the Noindexing. I don't have a grasp on the ins and outs of that at this point to have a strong vote, but I don't object. Overall I think we all agree that the AFDs should be left alone as much as possible, but how or to what point looks to be the meat of this discussion. Zinnober9 (talk) 00:13, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Jonesey95. Consistency is generally better here, and we wouldn't need to have another bot run to replace the text if another issue comes up with it later. Tenshi! (Talk page) 15:01, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Except that consistency would come at the price of accuracy whenever changes are made to the meaning. Do you regard that as an acceptable tradeoff, because I absolutely do not. Thryduulf (talk) 15:07, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Subst:ing templates makes me nervous for exactly this reason. It would be nice to put in a template, even an archived one, to prevent having to make a huge bot run in the future just to keep these archives functional. -- Beland (talk) 19:56, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Directing new users to essays on the top of policy and guideline pages
I see Template:Simple has recently been placed at the top of some policy and guideline pages. Are we sure we want to direct new users to unvetted info pages off the bat like this.... that in my view are leading them to the wrong type of pages in some cases. For example at Wikipedia:Content assessment we link a readers' FAQ page Help:Assessing article quality that is designed for non-editing readers. At Wikipedia:Deletion policy a page about rationale and how to go about the process we link Wikipedia:Why was the page I created deleted? a page about what you can do about a deleted page. Not sure if these links have been well thought out. Wondering if we should have a chat before this is added to more policy and guideline pages? Linking simpler help pages from long-winded help pages make sense... I'm just not sure linking these types of pages from policies and guidelines are appropriate in the fashion that they're presented at the top of the page as if these linked pages have been vetted by the community makes sense. Moxy🍁22:31, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure merging simplified essays into policies and guidelines pages would be beneficial or pass muster. My main concern is are we and should we direct new users to loosely related essay pages from policy and guideline pages off the bat that currently stand out in big bold letters.Moxy🍁23:09, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've not looked at any of the examples yet, but really nobody should be adding prominent links to the top of (especially fundamental) policy pages without at least discussing it first. I don't know that it needs to be a full-on consensus discussion unless there are substantive objections, but there needs to be at least some agreement from talk page watchers that the other page is relevant, appropriate and helpful. Thryduulf (talk) 23:32, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't love this, but I think this is probably not a bad thing, overall.
First, before anyone panics, this is only on about two dozen pages, and I think that it's only on two official policies:
The pages it points to are generally community favorites, and there is no reason to believe that any of these links were snuck on to the pages without anybody noticing. And frankly, in the case of pages like Help:Table (5754 words "readable prose size", except most of it is not readable by ordinary humans), most editors actually should be looking at a much simplified page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:11, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I read your argument as "these linked pages are de-facto approved pages". Under that condition, of course it is fine. Maybe these simple pages should be the main pages and the current main pages need converted to specialized instructions? Johnjbarton (talk) 02:30, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We can't really "replace" the pages. They aren't interchangeable. For example, Wikipedia:Inline citation exists to explain what an inline citation is and isn't. WP:REFB exists to help newbies figure out how to format the most popular kind. If you moved REFB at the name "Inline citation", we'd just have to create another page that explains that ref tags aren't the only kind of inline citation ...and a newbie would still end up at that page when they really just need something that says "copy and paste this wikitext", and we'd get another note at the top saying that if you're not really looking for details, then there's a simpler instruction page that you might want to look at instead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:16, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a good template idea, agree with Johnjbarton. Our policies and guidelines are, when not simple, not so for a reason. We should not give alternative wording official sanction unless it has this. Simultaneously, if there is an obvious way to simplify the policies and guidelines, it should be done on the actual pages. Perhaps we might link to essays that oversimplify the relevant pages, which could have some use for new users who want the basics that won't land them in trouble, but these should clearly be marked as oversimplifications. CMD (talk) 02:51, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Relative to most newbies' needs, do you think that WP:REFB should be labeled "an oversimplified version" of anything? I think "a simplified version" is a fairer description, though "Are you new here? Start with WP:REFB" would work for me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:20, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You said these should clearly be marked as oversimplifications. But you don't want us to label a link to REFB as being an oversimplification, because calling REFB an oversimplification would be a misleading lie. These statements are superficially self-contradictory, but I think you're right.
I think we have two separate questions to answer:
Do we want to have links/hatnotes/banners/templates that direct inexperienced editors away from complicated pages, towards simpler/more relevant pages?
If so, how should we describe those links? You dislike the "simplified version" language (for understandable reasons). "Oversimplified" is IMO even worse. Maybe something like "If you're new to editing Wikipedia, you may want to start at _____" would be better.
The statements are not contradictory. The first statement was a general one premised on the good faith assumption that the items under discussion being presented as simplified versions are simplified versions. The second statement relates to a specific example raised after that first statement where the item presented as a summary was not a summary but rather a general guide of a related topic. CMD (talk) 16:19, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just since I was pinged, yes, I do disagree with Favi doing this, but since I did not see much in the way of reverts, and they're not terrible additions, I have mostly left them be. Primefac (talk) 17:32, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, we do have a mechanism to differentiate between a random essay and a broadly accepted consensus supplement for policy/guideline pages - WP:SUPPLEMENTAL with the pages that are broadly agreed upon by the community being tagged with it and are part of Category:Wikipedia supplemental pages.
So maybe the question is whether any how-to pages that are linked at the very top of a policy guide using the {{Simple}} template should also mandatorily have been evaluated to qualify similarly for supplemental status (over just being a regular info/how-to page), since that seems to be kind of the bar for such articles that are tagged with {{Supplement}} and linked at the policy section, e.g. WP:LOWPROFILE supplement being the supplement to WP:BLP - WP:NPF - Non-public figure policy - the supplement has broad consensus and is de-facto policy on how we assess whether someone qualifies as public figure or not. Raladic (talk) 02:29, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also: Being 'an info page' or 'a how-to page' doesn't provide the page with any special status. It's supposed to signal that the page has practical value. Read some essays if you want to know some opinions about why we add sources; go to a how-to page if you need to know what wikitext code to type to get the little blue clicky numbers to show up in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know you know how often it's done, and don't see the point of reverting since the people who watch the essay will include people who think the essay is worthwhile, and will therefore be likely to revert the reverter. However, I missed that the argument is not that info pages have special status but that supplement pages do. I guess. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:11, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nominally, supplement pages have same status as an essay. In practice, many of them have "the same status as an essay such as WP:BRD", rather than "the same status as the average essay". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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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.
It does? Because I said Agreed on both points? The only thing I'm planning to do is return to causing trouble at Donald Trump lol. If someone wants to spearhead a move for reversal, and I'm aware of that, I'll be there to support them. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 13:03, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
According to the Olympstats blog, one possible estimate for the total number of people to have participated in the Olympics as of 2015 was 128,420, though as it notes other estimates could be created. It has been proposed to create a complete alphabetical listing of all participants of the Olympics, spread across a number of articles. An example of one of these lists can be seen here. FOARP (talk) 11:16, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AFD discussion (nb. this RFC was recommended in the close here).
Survey
Do you:
Oppose creation of these articles
Support creation of these articles
Responses
Oppose - The possible number of entrants makes this essentially a phonebook, something which Wikipedia is clearly WP:NOT. It would not be useful for navigation because of its length - a figure that is not even fixed but grows by thousands with each edition of the summer and winter games. FOARP (talk) 11:16, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - It seems like the only logical choice is to oppose this RfC as written because the articles already exist, and any duplicates would have to be deleted under WP:CSD A10. This says "this RFC was recommended in the close here". Where was this RfC recommended in the admin's close? The only time an RfC was mentioned by the closing admin was as as an aside "...and I believe the intersection of lists of sportspeople with NOTDB is ripe for a community-wide RfC". Creating an RfC focused on one specific list to exist or not, as this is, feels like circumventing the AfD process just one day after an AfD on this list was closed. I wouldn't oppose a broader RfC on "the intersection of lists of sportspeople with NOTDB", but it can't be phrased in this way about one specific list that both you and I were WP:INVOLVED in the AfD for. (also, why wouldn't you use the first page as an example of the list contents?) --Habst (talk) 12:07, 17 September 2025 (UTC), added !vote --Habst (talk) 15:14, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So that this isn't just an exact re-hashing of the AfD closed one day ago, I proposed adding additional options:
Oppose lists:
Oppose having any list of Olympians
Oppose specifically an alphabetic list, open to others
Support having a list in some form:
Support keeping existing Olympic list (alphabetic)
@Habst the diff of the reversion is actually Special:Diff/1311888941. I think the additional nuance is useful and won't overwhelm the discussion - indeed I think it's likely to aid the finding of a consensus and avoid the need for more future discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 14:26, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose A full alphabet listing of Olympians is not a natural sorting order for them, so it doesn't make sense to make such a list. (Olympians by country or by sport are far more natural). This is also where categorization is already set up to do that. Masem (t) 12:11, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. At AfD I said that these clearly meet NLIST, and they do. But whether they are worth having around is a separate question, hence why this RfC is a good idea. I think arguments on both sides are sensible, so I land at a neutral or weak support. These lists technically fall within policy, but I'm not fully convinced that they're useful to readers. Toadspike[Talk]12:59, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support a list of all Olympic competitors is very clearly useful and satisfies NLIST as they are discussed as a group and the inclusion criteria is not indiscriminate. Such a list would be impossible to navigate for size reasons though, so it needs to be split and alphabetic is self-evidently one logical method of doing so. Wikipedia is not paper so we don't need to worry about the number of articles, and the existence of these listings does not preclude the existence of other splits (e.g. by games or by nationality). Thryduulf (talk) 13:24, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify now additional nuance has been requested above, I support the existence of lists organised alphabetically, by nationality, by games and by sport. I'm presently neutral on other lists. Thryduulf (talk) 13:27, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The maintenance burden for these lists would be pretty high. Every Olympics, someone would have to go add them all in alphabetical order, interspersed. Perhaps grouping by Summer/Winter Olympics Of Year XXXX would make more sense, instead of a massive alphabetical list? –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:00, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As Perryprog alludes to, there are so many different ways to organize the data and the data is constantly being updated, so a database sorting/filtering interface is more suitable than creating snapshot lists of all possible organization methods. Even if the snapshot process were automated, the length of the lists makes them unwieldy for convenient use. I think better search tools (either based on Wikipedia or Wikidata) would be a more extensible, manageable solution. isaacl (talk) 16:06, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In my AfD closure I recommended that the community discuss the intersection of lists of sportspeople and WP:NOTDATABASE, or possibly the interpretation of NOTDB as it applies to large groups with well-defined inclusion criteria more broadly. There is a clear divide in the community as to the interpretation of NOTDB in this context. I didn't intend to recommend an RfC about this list specifically. I cannot preclude one, of course, and as I closed the discussion, and am genuinely undecided, I won't be commenting on the merits. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:21, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Also agree with User:FOARP that this is basically a phonebook given the sheer length. It's not useful for navigation particularly: who knows only the first letter of an olympians name, and nothing else, and needs to find them? What about "List of olympians in snowboarding" or topic-based lists? Those might be more useful. Mrfoogles (talk) 01:10, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This list is fundamentally a bad idea for several reasons. WP:NOTEVERYTHING shows an existing consensus that databases and phone lists are not appopriate on Wikipedia. Secondly, discussion at AfD revealed that the collation was manuallyy sourced and created from wikidata. But if that is so, then we already have the collection in wikidata. This is just bad information management, to create two copies of the data that require manual intervention to prevent them falling out of step with each other. And thirdly, that workload is excessive and the reason that wikipedia lists, in general, are not useful if they claim to be exhaustive: because they are not. They rely on diligent and continual editor resource, that they cannot ever achieve. As FOARP points out, the enormous size of this list, and the speed at which it accrues new entries will guaranty that the list will be incomplete, and bad data is worse than no data. Fourthly, in this format, the data is unusable. If you know the name of someone you want, search is faster, as is querying wikidata. If you don't, then this list is not a suitable taxonomy. Fifthly, we already have the means for creating taxonomies, and those taxonomies already exist in the form of existing categories. So no, we shouldn't do this. We should use the existing wikidata and categories, and if anyone is interested in some kind of searchable list - dynamically generate it from wikidata. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:33, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, those categories do not contain every Olympian. There is no other place (whether categories, wikidata, or even other websites) for anyone to find a complete listing of Olympians. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:50, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, I support having this information, I just think there is probably some better way of organizing the data that would make it more accessible to readers than an arbitrary number of alphabetized lists. mdm.bla17:18, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose These articles are too long and have too little information to be useful. They also clearly violate the spirit and probably the letter of the law that Wikipedia is not to be a directory. Some have argued that there is sourcing about Olympic competitors as a group. This sourcing is on the general trends of who has been Olympic competitors, but with an unclear number somewhere around 150,000 or 160,000, it is not possible to create a comprehensive list and sources do not do this, just cherry picking some sub-group, or what they find interesting or excited cases. We maybe could have an article Olympic competitors or the like that says things about Olympic competitors as a group, maybe subdivided in some ways, but sourcing does not justify creating a directory of every single Olympic competitor whose name we know, especially one that really does not tell us much about the individuals. I do not think creating such a massive directory of Olympic competitors is within the listed things Wikipedia is, and I do not think there are sufficient reliable sources to support such a directory in Wikipedia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:37, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose creating these types of lists in mainspace, which are effectively databases. Considering that the cited AfD had many participants calling for a RFC on this subject, I see no issue with how this was brought up here, and I have no opposition to possibly having lists in a different format, with a very careful curation process, but this isn't it. Lists that exist now can be moved to draftspace or deleted. Let'srun (talk) 16:11, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Except that the categories will be missing those without articles, and currently those categories do not exist. It makes no sense to delete quality lists we have on the basis that "well, we could create a category that could have some of the entries on the list, though we almost certainly won't". BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:00, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Soft Support I think I prefer Olympians by sport as more manageable lists, but I do think a list of Olympians clearly meet NLIST (per Toadspike and Thryduulf). --Enos733 (talk) 02:50, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Opposed - per WP:NOTDIRECTORY. I could certainly see a list of medalists (by year and sport), and perhaps this could be expanded to include those who were in serious contention for a medal (as indicated by sources)… but a list of everyone who participated in an Olympics is just too much. The simple fact is that many participants have no shot at winning a medal, and are there simply so their country can claim they participated. These are not noteworthy. Blueboar (talk) 11:57, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because these are biographies, and policy says I'm to be very firm about insisting on the most reliable sources for them. Unfortunately we don't have impeccable sources. What we have is online databases compiled by, err, who, exactly? Making a completionist list of everyone who's ever competed in the Olympics isn't a good move. If you asked me, "Shall we make a list of everyone who's ever won an Olympic medal?" then I would not object because I think the content would be so much easier to verify.—S MarshallT/C17:24, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support a list of Olympians by country. It's subcategory being the 'Sports' they participated in.
Oppose a list encompassing all Olympians of all the countries. Hardly anyone would require such marathon of an extensive list, thus it would barely add any value to Wikipedia.Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 12:13, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Such lists would be almost paradigmatic examples of what is advised against in WP:NOTDIR. While I wouldn't say that the information is completely WP:INDISCRIMINATE, the lists would have close to zero value for the typical reader, relative to huge editorial burdens in maintenance for verifiability, presentation, and vandalism. Yes, we can probably expect, from the mere existence of this discussion, that there is a cohort of editors willing to generate and organize the initial versions of these pages, but once created, the community as a whole accrues a certain degree of obligation to maintain accurate and up-to-date content therein. This compared against a utility for such an exhaustive list that I can only imagine would ever be leveraged in exceedingly rare use cases by athletics researchers and the highest levels of enthusiasts--groups which have other resources at their disposal. There have been some strong WP:NOTPAPER arguments made above, but at the end of the day, this kind of extensive database is just not really consistent with the high-level review purposes of a general encyclopedia, imo. SnowRise let's rap06:38, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, for the same reasons described in the initial discussion and the AfD, and per the many arguments above. Such a comprehensive list serves no useful purpose to readers, and indeed the original purpose of the extant lists was actually to shoehorn in biographical info from deleted non-notable multi-Olympians. This RfC is a reasonable followup to the AfD and of course should be interpreted as applying to existing lists. JoelleJay (talk) 15:33, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose creating a laundry list of all Olympic athletes ordered alphabetically, however split up: against WP:NOTDIRECTORY; pushing the boundaries of WP:INDISCRIMINATE; terrific maintenance burden; and, in my opinion, not especially useful for the majority of readers, who, if they are looking for a particular Olympian, are probably best off using search. Also, for clarity, I oppose the current lists of this ilk, which I think should be deleted. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 10:44, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
What is it we're looking to do here? The framing is odd -- It has been proposed to create, and a focus on supporting/opposing creation as though the articles don't already exist. It just went through AfD, which ended in no consensus, and an RfC on retroactive opinions on creation (?) isn't a substitute for that process. Opposition to creation doesn't necessarily mean support for deletion (and vice versa), and the choice here doesn't include deletion. If you're trying to establish a precedent about the scope of a list, this also doesn't do that, because it's too focused on a specific example. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 14:46, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. To be honest, I'm feeling this RfC is a little bit of a hostile environment for me because, as it's written, I don't see how this isn't circumventing an AfD that received a sufficient amount of participation and was closed yesterday, started by an editor who I greatly respect but was heavily involved in that AfD (I was also involved as the list creator). It claims it was created at the behest of an admin, but then the admin came here and commented that wasn't what they said. (And if that's going to be the case, shouldn't all the AfD and WikiProject Olympics thread commenters be pinged...?) I desperately want to achieve consensus on having a list of Olympians, including making concessions if needed, but I want to do it the right way.
From a bigger picture it seems this list is being used as a 'proxy battle' among inclusionists and deletionists w.r.t. WP:NSPORTS2022 and its recent implementation this year, resulting in hundreds of Olympian articles being deleted and no suitable place to put that lost information. As someone who genuinely tries to look at each case on its merits, I don't know how to rectify that.
One of the biggest concerns I heard was editors saying they would prefer if lists were created by sport rather than alphabetically. I also thought that originally, but after actually compiling it I realized that anything other than an alphabetic list is guaranteed to create duplicate rows (e.g. for multi-sport athletes who would be listed in more than one of these articles) and thus introduce unforeseen complexities.
Nonetheless I did some of the legwork on this over the last few days to determine what that would look like. The largest Olympic list segment currently is 2,136 rows, a limit that was essentially decided by the community as others have split the original segments that were longer. Using that limit of about 2,100 rows per article, we would need more than one article for each sport, even if broken up further by gender. My best idea after that is to split by year and gender, so here's what that would look like in a ToC table with that approximate limit: Special:Diff/1311981102
This would result in duplicates both across sports and across years, but is the only way I can think of to split by sport. I'm not opposed to creating all those pages, just struggling to see how that would be better or more maintainable than the current list. --Habst (talk) 01:01, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for validating my confusion. The question seems to be "Should we create these articles?" but then the already-existing articles are linked to. The answer would then logically be "No, they already exist." 207.11.240.2 (talk) 12:29, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The AFD close specifically included the line "I believe the intersection of lists of sportspeople with NOTDB is ripe for a community-wide RfC." As such, I don't think holding such an RfC could be seen as an end-run around the AFD result. Also, procedurally, I don't think the "retroactive" argument is strong when the mainspacing of these lists is comparatively recent. SnowFire (talk) 15:25, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But this... isn't an RfC about the intersection of lists of sportspeople with NOTDB. It's about whether we should create these concrete lists that happen to already exist. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 15:28, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's about whether the community supports the creation of these lists, past, present, or future. This is the discussion that should have happened in the first place. It needed to be about something concrete because any other question is far too open-ended.
That'll give us a clear result: if it's against then the issues with these articles need to be addressed, if it's support then sure: "script goes brrrt!". FOARP (talk) 08:56, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It plainly isn't, which is why I created the list but agree with the community in opposing the RfC question. The RfC doesn't say or imply anything about past, present, or future. The closing administrator you cited in #Previous discussions even chimed in above to say this isn't what they said to do.
The articles were also not created with a script, by the way; scripts were sometimes used for formatting but the list contents were compiled via a manual process. --Habst (talk) 10:46, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there's any mystery what the people !voting above are saying about these articles. I urge you to put it to them directly if you think otherwise, rather than try to use this as a pre-emptive rationale for ignoring the result once it arrives. FOARP (talk) 12:44, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're right that it's not a mystery; the RfC is very clear that it's about creating new articles and not about keeping or deleting existing ones. The only logical decision is to !vote oppose, which I did in part because any new articles would have to be deleted under CSD A10. --Habst (talk) 13:24, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I urge you not to try to set up a pre-emptive rationale for ignoring the result if it's not the one you'd prefer. The discussion is ongoing, if you really think people don't know what they are !voting for, then you should put that to the people !voting. FOARP (talk) 13:34, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I promise you I am not setting up any rationale, I am just reading the RfC as written. I do think editors know what they are voting for because it's plainly stated. That's why I !voted to agree with the consensus and most other !voters. --Habst (talk) 13:46, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As one voter voting oppose, I can quite clearly assert for myself that FOARP is spot on here as far as how I interpreted this RFC, and I would encourage you to take the feedback from any result seriously rather than casting aspirations or doubt on this process. Let'srun (talk) 20:38, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think there is some misunderstanding here. I always have aspirations to achieve consensus; I agree with the process and the !voters' rationale for voting on this RfC. That's why I !voted similarly to you above. That's of course not incongruous with wanting to keep any existing list; the process for deciding that is generally AfD. The closing administrator, who commented above, was cited incorrectly in #Previous discussions. --Habst (talk) 20:42, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is WP:NOTBUR. It is quite clear that this is about having these pages in mainspace at all, not just about future creations (otherwise this would be a pointless RFC, and besides that there isn't a grandfather clause in our P&G's). We disagree on this topic, and that's okay. Just please accept the consensus and take the feedback in stride, no matter what happens. Let'srun (talk) 20:45, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do agree with de-bureaucratizing Wikipedia. It's very clear from the RfC that this isn't about keeping any particular pages in mainspace, but whether or not we "oppose creation of these articles" or "support creation of these articles". That's why I !voted as I did. I don't even agree that's a pointless RfC, though the outcome is somewhat predictable. Opposing creation but not supporting deletion isn't the same thing as a grandfather clause; that's the entire reason why we have the "no consensus" close as an option.
I don't even see where our disagreement is on this topic? I have always accepted community consensus just as you have, have made dozens of changes to my editing behavior and the articles on account of community feedback, and I will do the same on the list of Olympic competitors. --Habst (talk) 20:53, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also oppose creating alphabetical lists of Olympians. I guess the difference is, now that we're here, whether we should delete existing lists -- that question wasn't asked in the RfC. --Habst (talk) 22:12, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This RFC isn't about deletion because this isn't AFD. This is about whether these lists specifically should have been created in mainspace, and if the community is opposed to that then they either need to get out of mainspace (e.g., back to draftspace, though I guess transwikiing is also an option) or change to be acceptable to the community.
Of course if the community supports them having been created then they stay as they are.
Can I also point out that your attempt to pre-emptively dismiss the outcome of this RFC doesn't pass even a casual reading of what the people !voting above actually say? The !voters, support and oppose, are taking this as a discussion on the articles that presently exist in mainspace, which is the natural interpretation since there is a link to them (and discussions about them). FOARP (talk) 07:38, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FOARP, I am affirming the outcome, not dismissing it as I would never dismiss any community consensus. As you yourself said, this AfD "isn't about" draftification or transwikifying -- it's about whether or not to create an alphabetic list of Olympians, which I happen to think, from where we are now, that it shouldn't be and !voted accordingly. Simultaneously, I don't think they should be draftified or transwikified. That rationale and thought process broadly agrees with the other editors above; even if you interpret it to be about the existing articles which in a very literal sense it isn't, the above editors aren't arguing in terms of draftification or transwikifying.
I think there is some misunderstanding because in #Previous discussions, a specific administrator was cited as the reason for creating this RfC, but then that administrator commented above that wasn't what they said. --Habst (talk) 11:11, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@FOARP, I'm speaking to you with an open mind, please tell me where I have erred. The question in the RfC was whether or not an alphabetic list of Olympians should be created. I don't think it should be created, so I !voted oppose. This isn't incongruous with not wanting the lists to be draftified or transwikified.
So that I can hear it or get the point very clearly, can you please state your disagreement in clear terms? Do you think I should have !voted support, even though I don't agree with the RfC statement? --Habst (talk) 12:32, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Simply so you cannot later claim that this was not explained to you: This is about the creation of the articles presently in mainspace, not theoretical future articles. FOARP (talk) 13:12, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I will accept that and am still against their creation (to be clear, now I'm speaking about the existing articles, not any hypothetical future ones). I'm also against transwikifying or draftification of the existing articles. How is that IDHT, and what is our disagreement here then? --Habst (talk) 14:01, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The disagreement here is that you appear to think that the outcome of this discussion will have no impact on the articles presently in mainspace. Read the !votes and see what they say about these articles.
I don't think the outcome will have no impact on the articles in mainspace; the outcome will decide whether or not to create an alphabetic list of Olympians.
You can disagree with that but still be against deletion, draftification, or transwikifying, which is why I don't think this discussion will result in those three outcomes but others are on the table. I am genuinely in good faith trying to come to a shared understanding here; please explain how this is IDHT. --Habst (talk) 14:30, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think FOARP believes that (almost?) everyone opposing the creation of these lists is inherently simultaneously also advocating for the deletion of those that currently exist and is not understanding why anyone could or would, in good faith, think otherwise.
You (Habst) obviously do think otherwise, and I have no reason to believe you are contributing here in anything other than good faith.
I've just read in detail some of the comments from those opposing, and while some are clearly in support of deleting the articles that currently exist, most do not express a clear opinion on that either way so there is no way that I could support any deletions of any content based on this discussion alone. Thryduulf (talk) 14:49, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see, thank you. The confusing part for me is that FOARP said above, "This RFC isn't about deletion because this isn't AFD". I honestly don't want to get bogged down in semantic debates, but I don't see how one can square that with a closing action of deletion, draftification, or transwikifying.
I do think that (because nobody WP:OWNs an RfC) the community can decide on a result even if it's against the RfC creator's original intentions or wishes, but I just don't see how that can happen here. --Habst (talk) 14:54, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've been saying that from the very beginning, including pointing out that the articles don't have any owner and thus opposition based on the personality or perceived motives of any one editor isn't justified. The majority of recent edits to the lists have been from other editors, and more than 30 of the list pages were created by someone other than me. For the pages I did create, let me say here I'll dual license the contents under CC0/the public domain because I will always encourage contributions from other editors and prefer them over my own. --Habst (talk) 22:17, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Opposes deletion: All those supporting the proposal
Unclear: Masem, Novem Linguae, Isaacl, Sapphaline, mdm.bla, Anachronist, Blueboar, CreateiveLibrary460, Cdr. Erwin Smith
Supports deletion and/or draftification: Mrfoogles (probably), Sirfirboy, John Pack Lambert, Let'srun, S Marshall (probably)
Note that the last category does not distinguish between those who oppose draftification and those who do not. Nobody in the unclear category has made any comment regarding draftification. Several commenters explicitly support lists in other formats and/or more focused (e.g. just medallists) and they would presumably not oppose editing the current lists so they fit that scope but nobody has explicitly commented either way regarding this other than Habst (who opposes). Thryduulf (talk) 20:37, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of your position, I think leaving the nom completely out of this analysis shows that it is quite flawed. Feel free to ping the "unclear" voters, but I think they all are against any such articles being in mainspace. Let'srun (talk) 18:01, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't intend to ping editors who have clearly responded to the question asked of them to complain that they haven't answered a different question to someone else's satisfaction. I think stating that they are against any such articles being in mainspace is projecting your own preferences onto others. Thryduulf (talk) 19:50, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Who in this discussion do you think supports keeping..." -- You don't have to support keeping a list to be not in favor of deletion. That's what no consensus can mean -- if people oppose deletion but don't support creation, which happpened to be the closing decision at the AfD closed one day before this RfC was started. That's not the same as a grandfather clause, which I also am against on Wikipedia. --Habst (talk) 20:45, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. There's a lot of highly motivated reasoning going on here. This is about the pages an example of which is literally linked in the RFC intro, and which the question was clearly referring to. There is only one logical way to interpret the question. Saying "no, they were talking about theoretical pages that might be created in the future, not the pages that were linked to in the question" is just sophistry, sorry.
Also the answers were very clearly about the pages that had already been created. When @Anachronist said "This is what category pages are for" they clearly didn't mean that they were OK with the pages that had already been created listing every one of the 150,000 Olympians alphabetically and which are not category pages. When @Sapphaline said "Oppose creating database-like lists in the mainspace" they clearly meant the database-like lists that Habst created. When @Mdm.Bla said "Oppose the creation of these lists." they meant these lists. When @Blueboar said "a list of everyone who participated in an Olympics is just too much" they mean they opposed the lists of literally everyone who ever competed at the Olympics that Habst created. When @CreativeLibrary460 said "Oppose per above" underneath a load of other !votes opposing the creation of these articles, they weren't saying anything unclear at all. Similarly when @Cdr. Erwin Smith said "Oppose a list encompassing all Olympians of all the countries.", that clearly applies to the listing of all Olympians of all countries that now exists. FOARP (talk) 22:37, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. To clarify, I oppose creation of a page as proposed, and simple deduction would mean that I also would support deletion of such a page. Why someone wants to interpret what I wrote as something I didn't write is beyond my comprehension. As I said, that's what category pages are for. The objection that category pages don't list nonexistent articles is a red herring; that's what redirects are for. ~Anachronist (who / me) (talk) 23:19, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just because someone does opposes creation does not necessarily imply that they also support deletion, especially when options other than deletion (such as draftification and converting to a category) have been explicitly brought up in the discussion. Many participants have also explicitly supported lists in other formats (e.g. by sport) and/or subsets (e.g. only medal winners) and especially with the latter it's highly plausible that at least some of those editors would support editing the existing lists to convert them to that form/scope - possibly directly in mainspace, possibly in draftspace. It is perfectly reasonable for you to oppose everything that isn't straight deletion, it is not reasonable to accuse other editors of "highly motivated reasoning" or of (deliberate) misinterpretation of comments because you didn't explicitly answer a question that was not explicitly asked. Thryduulf (talk) 23:46, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When @Sapphaline said "Oppose creating database-like lists in the mainspace" they clearly meant the database-like lists that Habst created - yes, thank you for clarifying my words. Sapphaline (talk) 09:22, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What happened to all the people at the AfD who !voted keep? Literally none of them have voted support here for some reason. I also note that JoelleJay was potentially canvassed. Her vote above is her only edit since she received FOARP's message. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 12:07, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Content merged and later removed
Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 September 19#Big gene involves a proposal to delete a redirect: Big gene had content that was merged into Gene, and it's still visible in the merger diff (which links big gene, so it's properly attributed), but at some point since then the content's apparently been deleted. Do we have to keep the merged page's history in some manner, because the content is still visible in the page history, or can we dispense with it, because it's not in the current version? I'm leaning toward the first option, but I'm uncertain. Nyttend (talk) 09:01, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If there's consensus at RfD that a redirect should be deleted, I don't think it's appropriate to keep it in mainspace solely to preserve attribution. I would feel that way even if the merged content were still live somewhere. Maybe a move (while suppressing redirect creation) to a subpage of the merge target's article talk page? In this example, it'd be Big gene → Talk:Gene/Big gene. Too crazy?
Alternatively, our attribution requirements can be met with a list of authors in an article edit summary, with the summary linking to a longer list kept at the talk page (or subpage), if necessary. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:36, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Both of those ideas were in my mind. But again: do we need to keep something because of the merger, although the merged content is now gone? Nyttend (talk) 07:51, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My reading of WP:CWW is that yes, Big gene should be kept for copyright purposes. As an alternative, though I haven't checked the merged text word for word against the Big gene text: it looks to me like all of the content that was merged came from a single editor (the editor who created the article, where the content was present in this diff), so for copyright purposes, it might be acceptable to create a dummy edit that identifies that editor as the copyright holder of the material that was merged from Big gene, also noting the edit where the merge occurred. But I'm not positive that that's sufficient. FactOrOpinion (talk) 03:21, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A permanent note on the talk page would be more usual than an edit summary at a place in the page history that's far removed from the actual content.
BLUF: What should be done when the perpetrator of a crime is killed and will never face trial?
I'm curious to know if there is established precedent on this, or if we maybe need a clearer policy. This has come to bear in a few recent cases like Annunciation Catholic Church shooting and Grand Blanc Township church attack, etc, where the suspect is killed or kills themself. Once the suspect is identified, there is a rush to add their name to the article, which can be seen to violate WP:BLPCRIME as it also applies to recently deceased persons. We do not generally name perpetrators if they have not been found guilty, so we find ourselves in a dilemma where the suspect will never be found guilty in a court of law.
And so my question is: when do you add the name of a dead suspect to an article? First news report? Preponderance of news reports? Once a final investigation has been released? Once the suspect is no longer recently deceased? Once consensus is reached at each individual article that the person has appropriate notoriety because of the news coverage? Something else?
There is a major difference between a perpetrator and a suspect; the Innocence Project has a long list of cases where not only were suspect and perpetrator not the same, but convict and perpetrator were not the same. Similarly, there have been cases where a suspect was shot but the perpetrator turned out to be somebody else. Confusing these terms violates NPOV. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:02, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We do not generally name perpetrators if they have not been found guilty I think that's just incorrect. We name deceased perpetrators if they have been described as such in reliable sources. Jahaza (talk) 20:22, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. What matters is that we do not name somebody who has not been named in reliable sources and do not imply they were convicted unless they were. Describing a person as the "alleged", "suspected", "apparent" or "believed" perpetrator (or similar wording) is one way of doing this. Also things like describing someone as having carried out a "killing" rather than a "murder" is relevant in many cases (even if it is incontrovertible that X was the person who killed Y there are many reasons why they might not have been tried for and/or convicted of murder had they lived). In all cases though, the individual circumstances and what reliable sources say matter so there cannot be a one-size-fits-all policy. Thryduulf (talk) 20:57, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One should keep in mind that BLP not only concerns the individual but also their family and friends. We want to be sure a named individual, even if killed at the crime, is properly investigated and named before adding it to prevent doxxing and other outings involving their close associates. Masem (t) 20:30, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that it's easier to figure out the right answer if we set aside most of our "rules" and think about this from the POV of common sense. Think about when you would not want to name a perpetrator: If you didn't have good sources. If there was some reasonable doubt about the facts. If it's a relatively minor crime (someone ran a red light, and hit Chris Celebrity's car). If there's an indication that it wasn't really an intentional crime (someone ran a red light because they unexpectedly had a stroke, and hit Chris Celebrity's car). If the crime is being used as an example, so the broader details aren't relevant ("Sometimes, when drivers run red lights, they unintentionally die"). In cases like these, don't name the perp. In cases the opposite of these, then you should name the perp. And in between, you should talk to other editors about it, and make a decision as a group. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:29, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that works, though I might add something like "including the name(s) of any recently dead person(s) involved." Perhaps there should also be a brief mention of some elements that might affect the consensus, such as how recently the crime (and possible death) occurred, how widespread the names are in reporting about it (though it's still essential to distinguish between "person of interest" and "alleged perpetrator") FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:04, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FOO, the more we write, the more we have to wonder whether there's consensus for everything we're writing. I suggest starting small. "Folks, consensus is still a policy" is a pretty minimal thing to add. "Here are the factors I want to explicitly state that the consensus should prioritize" is a bigger lift. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:17, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if I posted at the right place, but anyways:
If I saved an academic research paper via institutional account, one that's otherwise unavailable on the internet,
uploaded the PDF to Internet Archive, then linked to it in an WP article's references, would that be copyright infringement and a really terrible/stupid/bad thing for me to do?
That would very likely be an infringement, unless the article had a license that permitted reproduction. And so should not be put on archive.org, and not linked from Wikipedia. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But to add, you absolutely can still cite that as long as you yourself can view and confirm the article contents and know that even with PAYWALL issues, a reader should be able to as well, so do not back away from using those. Like, most papers have DOI information which helps to locate the source via the journal or publisher itself, so that should be in the reference. Also keep in mind that we have the Wikimedia Library Card that helps anyone with an WP account in standing to access numerous academic journal libraries. Masem (t) 12:47, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. I came up with that idea when thinking about the accessibility of citations, because I've always wanted to verify / read in detail many of the MEDRS before my extended confirmation. Remembering that feeling, I try to make it easier for other readers to verify an article (especially for empirical sciences) whenever I'm reading the original text through the Library. I now settled on supplementing non-open citations with quotes and/or other open-access papers.
I think the Library is a truly marvelous invention thing to have in this world, especially for individuals / populations unable to access higher education. I always had a passionate love / appreciation of the WP/WM, for gifting me free access to high quality sources and papers I would otherwise never even dream of.
Sure, its just a redirect page. Sort of defeats some of the principles of using account vanishing, and also no one (including you) can prove that it is "your" old account. — xaosfluxTalk09:34, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One can always check the revision history but it wouldn't be something people would instinctively go for to inspect if it is 2 different accounts or just 1. I get your point. 8rz (talk) 09:37, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At stewards@wikimedia.com they told me and I quote "The account vanish workflow is not reversible. You may however simply create a new account and begin contributing again.". So I created a new account and now we are here. 🤷 I've been trying to get 2 of the rights I had prior back, but've hit a snag...anyway...still doing my things, tennis lists (records and stats), my forte... My MO checks out...but oh, well. Stewards' word is law. Nothing I can do about it... 8rz (talk) 15:39, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The vanish workflow really is not practically reversible. In addition to changing the username and locking the account, which stewards can undo, it also removes the email, password, and any other authentication data like 2FA from the account, which they can't undo. More importantly, removing the email etc. makes it difficult for anyone to prove that you're the same person who previously used the account (which is the point of vanishing), so while it's possible for system administrators to reset the email, this generally won't be done.
I think the text at Wikipedia:Courtesy vanishing mostly refers to an older vanishing workflow, which was not a software feature, but just involved someone renaming and banning the account. That was easily reversible. The page was partially updated when the new workflow was introduced (e.g. diff), but the bits about reversing it probably need to be updated still. Matma Rextalk17:05, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for being unclear. The text does not mean that the account can be restored for use. It means that the account can be renamed back to the original name, so that the user is no longer vanished. Because vanishing is a courtesy for those who never edit again, the original account name is restored when the editor returns. isaacl (talk) 21:47, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I already piled up a handful of edits 1k+ in the opening week of the new account, so I am good. No need to rename it. I left a notice on both accounts' user- and talk pages 1 is a continuation of the other and the 1 I am using right now has a much shorter name, which is easier to remember. But thanks for the consideration and helpful info. Much appreciated, isaacl. 8rz (talk) 22:15, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Restoring the original account name isn't for your benefit. It's to assist the community with traceability. Once you return, you no longer meet the criteria for a courtesy vanishing. isaacl (talk) 22:23, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While logged in, when switching to the mobile version on desktop, Minerva now displays as Legacy (my default skin) instead as the Minerva I remember. Only when I log out, do I get to see the classic mobile version. What happened to the classic mobile display from before? Did it get updated in the interim (was absent Sep 2024–25)?
Does it have something to do with the user vector.js page settings where I can display the old Minerva will display for me properly? 8rz (talk) 10:54, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Both of the images at right are Minerva. The left is what would typically be displayed at a narrow resolution while the right is what would typically be displayed at a wide resolution.
It is possible that you clicked the 'display as mobile' link lying around on desktop (the footer of Vector, though I notice that you have installed a script that does it also). You can reverse this by clicking the link in the footer again for display desktop view.
I know that WMF has recently adjusted some things about how mobile detection works in anticipation of the forthcoming removal of the .m subdomain. It is possible that these adjustments have affected things. Or it is possible that much earlier adjustments are affecting how you think things should display or did display.
Lastly, you may have added a script in your lengthy common.js which affects how things display. You will have to troubleshoot that on your own. Most people use a binary search method, though the only script I can see that would affect it is the one mentioned earlier. Izno (talk) 17:42, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I blanked my .js page, purged it and I am still seeing the same when on mobile view on desktop. I guess that's the way things are now. I guess it's back to logging out to get the OG mobile view... was using this to troubleshoot issues on mobile for sticky charts...oh, well. 8rz (talk) 22:40, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Check you have the responsive setting enabled in skin preferences.
responsive setting. Can't find such option in the "Appearance" tab. I am using vector legacy (2010) skin. I see that there is MinervaNeue now. What happened to the old Minerva skin? 8rz (talk) 15:17, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That has always been its name while it's been a skin (it wasn't its own skin until sometime between 2015 and 2020). Izno (talk) 16:53, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@8rz: Minerva was renamed Minerva Neue way back in mid 2017, round about the time that it was separated out from MobileFrontend and made a selectable skin in its own right, see phab:T71366. In some areas, the names are synonymous; in others, you still need to omit the "Neue". For example, try using a query string to force VPT to display in that skin: useskin=minerva and useskin=minervaneue. Notice that the second one isn't recognised as a valid skin, so you get served the default, Vector 2022. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Update: Vector 2022 skin supports responsive mode. Vector 2010 used to support it as well but not anymore, it would seem. 8rz (talk) 10:18, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I went to Babe Ruth on my mobile iPhone and the signature at the bottom of the infobox looks off center and crammed to the left for some reason. When speaking with another wiki user, they said it actually looks fine and centered to them on mobile. Not sure what the problem is, but thought I would bring it to your attention. GOAT Bones231012 (talk) 20:03, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The infobox is doing something weird where it is embedding an {{infobox person}} template with JUST the signature parameter. This then creates some sort of very minimal 2 column infobox inside the primary infobox. Because this embedded infobox only has a signature image, it is smaller than the available space. The mobile layout doesn't really expect this layout, and simply lefts aligns the subtable, instead of centering. I'd advise taking this to the talk pages of the respective infoboxes. They built this tower of babylon, they will know best what to do I think. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:35, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's because mobile CSS sets display: block on the table below the mobile token width. It has little to do with alignment.
Hey @Qwerfjkl, I’m not sure, sorry I’m very dumb when it comes to these technical things😅. I see a module for infobox person at the bottom of Ruth's infobox baseball biography if that's what you mean. GOAT Bones231012 (talk) 15:22, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve actually tried doing that myself earlier. I was tinkering around with removing the other infobox, module, both, etc. and previewing it and still nothing, but I do appreciate the advice. Doesn’t seem like it’s even affecting a lot of people on mobile so I won’t fret too much about it. Hopefully per Izno, it will eventually be fixed at some point. GOAT Bones231012 (talk) 20:28, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Top / Bottom arrows overlapping links
As can be seen in the given picture, arrows to navigate to the top or bottom of page overlap links in the talk message. This screenshot is from a user's talk page but can also be seen on Teahouse and other forum pages.
There are basically two options for this: Remove {{Skip to top and bottom}} from the page in question, or have individual users bothered by it add the CSS from Template:Skip to top and bottom#Example to their Special:MyPage/common.css. IMO people who like the functionality provided by this template should lobby for it to be added to browsers so they can have it everywhere on the Internet, or failing that use something like Greasemonkey or Tampermonkey in their browser to do the same, or failing that get a gadget created so they can enable it for themselves on every page, or failing that use a user script like User:Qwerfjkl/scripts/skipToTopAndBottom.js to do the same, rather than sticking a template onto random individual pages and forcing everyone annoyed by it to opt out. Anomie⚔20:18, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It already is at the bottom of the page? ... Oh, there's custom CSS for Vector 2022 (and for Minerva) that makes it behave differently in those skins, in that it's confined to the content area of the page. User:Matrix, looks like this is more of your doing? Anomie⚔13:08, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Anomie: Yes, I can confirm. There's not much space in Minerva for stuff like this, so it might be better to hide. The main problem is we can either hand position: fixed (and overlap all the links) or position: sticky (which can sometimes be buggy). —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 17:40, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this template could be displayed in a separate column, at least for Vector-2022 users as it's very lenient whitespace-wise, unlike any other desktop skin (sadly). Sapphaline (talk) 21:55, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Go to the user's block log (Special:Log/Byxakissaren, and reconfigure User logs to show "Block log" instead of "Main public logs"), and you see no entries at all.
Special:CentralAuth/Byxakissaren says that the account was registered (apparently as some sort of global version of an account on another Wikimedia wiki) at 20:12 on 13 April 2013 and blocked in the same minute, but managed to make 24 edits between registration and block.
Special:Contributions/Byxakissaren says A user with 24 edits. Account created on 31 January 2007 and lists sixteen live edits, and Special:DeletedContributions/Byxakissaren says the same thing and lists eight deleted edits. Normally Special:Contributions has a big banner noting the status of a blocked user, but it's missing from this user's contributions.
Oh, so that's the date of the creation of a global account, not the creation of an en:wp account associated with the global. Special:CentralAuth/Nyttend gives 2008, not the 2006 date for my account's creation. Good to get that resolved. Now...any idea why the June 2007 block is apparently missing from the account? Nyttend (talk) 09:27, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Reader Growth team is starting work on an experiment to test how to make it easier for readers, particularly visual learners, to browse and discover images and other multimedia on Wikipedia articles.
Since the Simple Summaries experiment conversations, we’ve been reflecting on how we can better come up with, discuss, and work together on reader-focused work. The Product and Technology Advisory Council (PTAC) talked about this and they made some recommendations for how to improve. If you get a chance, please check out this page where we talk through the changes we plan on making and leave any feedback on the overall process. You’ll see us putting these recommendations into action for this and future projects.
Why are we working on this?
Wikimedia’s mission is to make knowledge accessible to every human on the planet, which means continuing to figure out how Wikipedia can be useful to new people just starting to visit it. Unfortunately, our recent data shows that over time, a significantly smaller percentage of internet users are visiting Wikipedia and relying on it as their primary source of knowledge, even as internet usage worldwide increases. To address this, we want to experiment with ways that help new generations of readers find Wikipedia useful, return frequently, and eventually become the editors we need to keep the projects healthy.
Many of these new readers are visual learners who rely on images and multimedia to learn; in surveys of global internet users that WMF conducts periodically, “more images/photos” is the most asked-for improvement to Wikipedia (slide 53). While other platforms have adapted to the shift toward visual learning, Wikipedia has vast amounts of visual content that could be made easier for readers to see. Making it easier to explore the images that are already in Wikipedia articles could make learning on Wikipedia more engaging and encourage new readers to come back more frequently, with some of them eventually becoming the editors of the future.
What idea are we testing?
We want to try out ways for readers who are most interested in images to see and navigate them directly, without distracting from the text of the article.
What stage is this project in?
Right now, this project is in Phase 0 / Phase 1 (exploration and early experiment design). That means nothing is being launched yet. We are gathering input and sharing early designs to help shape an upcoming small-scale A/B test, in which we’ll decide whether the idea is worth any further investment.
What is the timeline?
We want to spend September and October discussing the idea and building a simple version of a new image discovery feature. Then, we hope to A/B test this version with a small group of readers (about 0.1%) starting in late October and ending four weeks later. We’ll measure whether people engage with the feature and whether they visit Wikipedia more often. If we see positive results, in November and December, we’ll share the results of this A/B test and decide together whether to proceed and what changes to make if we do.
What does the experiment include?
We are designing the experiment to give us data on the following ideas for this feature:
A more intuitive way to begin looking at the images in an article on the mobile website
Easier connection from images back to the text – an easy way for readers to go between looking at the image and looking at where the image is in the article
Simplified exploration of more images – allowing readers to see images for the same article for other wikis if interested
Our current thinking for the A/B test is to build an early version of the feature for the mobile website and show it to 0.1% of all readers that explores the ideas above. We will also provide a url parameter that will allow communities to directly see the feature and provide feedback as well.
This feature would include a gallery at the top of articles showing all the images from the article. Tapping on any image would open a browsing experience with more details, the image caption, and options to view it on Commons (if available). Readers would also be able to switch back to where the image appears within the article. At the bottom of this experience, readers will be able to view images selected by editors for the same article in other Wikipedias. Since this work is still experimental, we expect to refine and adjust this idea based on your feedback.
Mock-ups:
This feature hasn’t been built yet, so this is a mock up of how it might work, shown in an animated gif.
We’re interested in showing images from other Wikipedias and Wikidata which editors have chosen for the same article on those wikis. For example, on smaller projects, this will allow them to see images from larger wikis, such as English Wikipedia, without switching wikis. In what ways might this feature change how readers interact with images in an article? How do you think these images could appear within the experience?
We know that some articles contain sensitive images, and it might worsen the reader experience if those images are given greater prominence. How do you think we should approach sensitive images? In initial conversations with communities on Discord, community members suggested using the notpageimage class for exclusion, as well as respecting any other exclusions Mediaviewer has. Thoughts on this?
We know editors have thought carefully about image placement on articles, including which feature most prominently at the top of the page. How can we make sure that any feature that raises the prominence of images doesn’t alter the integrity of the article as the editors made it?
Any other thoughts around the project or the mock-ups above? What are other aspects of images and image browsing that you think a brand new Wikipedia reader might find useful? Are there other pieces of this project from a contributor perspective that you think we should be aware of?
For more info on our research, mock-ups, and other details, see our project page.
Re item 1 above, if editors are encouraged to add images to articles, I suspect that we will see more violations of WP:NFCCP and of WP:NFLISTS, especially if that policy and that guideline are not enforced at other Wikipedias. And re item 3, we already have links to images on Commons from the bottom of many articles; maybe the {{Commons category-inline}} template and its siblings could be enhanced to actually show images rather than just link to them. Showing images from other Wikipedias without checking their licensing will probably lead to copyright issues. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:49, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for leaving us your thoughts, @Jonesey95! I like your idea about showing Commons images directly, I'll bring it up with the team. For this version, we held off on pulling images directly from Commons since we assumed not all of them would be immediately relevant to the article (or at least as relevant as an image selected for the same article on another wiki), but it’s definitely something we could rethink as we move forward. From your perspective, do you think those Commons images would generally be relevant/interesting to explore through in this context? In terms of licensing, thanks for the reminder - we'll definitely pull in some of the legal team to make sure there isn't anything we're missing on that front. OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 08:26, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if the Commons images would be relevant. It sounds like you are willing to experiment, though. I do notice that Frank Lloyd Wright has an automatic link to "Wikimedia Commons" that goes to commons:Frank Lloyd Wright, which "is a gallery page containing specially selected image and media files. They have been chosen as highlights of a particular topic, but do not represent the full range of files that are available on Commons". The "Wikimedia Commons has media related to Frank Lloyd Wright" link at the bottom of the page goes to commons:Category:Frank Lloyd Wright, which is kind of a mess. It looks like the former, which is curated, might be a good choice. Using images from other Wikipedias rather than Commons seems quite likely to cause copyright issues here on the English Wikipedia. – Jonesey95 (talk) 11:11, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Ahecht I think visual learning is a misnomer in this context, I think the team is planning on targeting trends where we see a lot of visitors gravitate towards visual media. Sohom (talk) 22:01, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How will this cope with cross project image vandalism? If adding an image in one project then gets in shown on another project, this seems like a likely vector to inject image vandalism. Small projects may pack lack the resources to deal with such issues in a timely manner. Also how would a project go about excluding images it thinks are inappropriate, or is this simply forcing image choice on them? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°20:54, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, like @Sohom Datta mentioned, this is definitely something we’d want to build out and discuss further! @ActivelyDisinterested, I'm curious if you have any thoughts and ideas on this specifically? Right now, we plan on respecting editor choices to not include images in MediaViewer, so those already wouldn't appear in the carousel. That said, those choices would come from the wiki where the image is originally from, not the one displaying it, which doesn't fully cover your concern. We’d also explicitly mark where the image is coming from (by adding “from X Wikipedia” under the image) to set the expectation for readers that the decision to include it wasn't made locally.
Another idea we’ve floated is to make this section be opt-in only by adding some explicit “see images from other Wikis” button or link that give people the decision on whether to see these images or not. Or, we could have some sort of direct way for editors to remove an image they find inappropriate. Curious if you have other thoughts/ideas on this! OVasileva (WMF) (talk) 08:36, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest this is optin. My concern is that the burden of patrolling images for wikis with small user bases is going to be unsustainable. Even for English Wikipedia patrolling this will be problematic, having editors from one wiki going to another wiki to correct vandalism is problematic especially when it's a much larger wiki enforcing policy on a smaller wiki. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°15:01, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, the it is weird to read about visual learning etc. without acknowledgement that this site is designed to replicate an encyclopaedia. That is, it is designed with a particular mode of learning in mind. We should experiment with new ideas, but changing the premise of the project to attract new editors to that new premise does not help the original premise. That said, on the experiment, Re question 1, this seems likely a risky idea for other wikis to en.wiki given how much discussion there can sometimes be on ensuring that our images are useful and neutral. Philosophically this takes editorial decisions out of en.wiki and into projects en.wiki has no control over. Re question 2, neither en.wiki nor Commons has ever found consensus to or even a practical way to generate effective image filters, it seems unlikely to be worth the effort to invent a new class that somehow editors will need to decide to apply for images that are selected because they appear in the article anyway. Re question 3, it would have to be made clear that the image wheel is not part of the article. I'm not sure if the current mockup does this, as it looks like the image gallery replaces the lead image and/or infobox. Re question 4, I am not sure why a brand new user would want to go to the Commons page. Commons pages look like slightly different versions of other wiki file pages, and I'm not sure readers would want to be on our file pages either. If this wants to be useful, better to directly show relevant Commons categories that can be clicked through to. CMD (talk) 02:49, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
CMD, I wonder if it would be more in the goal of the project to surface "related images" (like say parts of a diagram or the skyline of a city) to draw users to those specific parts of the content. I'm pretty sure what is being built here is a abridged version of mediaviewer that does not immediately channel folks into commons. Wrt to your point of there never having been consensus about hiding specific images, I'm pretty sure there are existing mechanisms inside mw:Extension:PageImage that are already used to keep non-free images out of image previews, I think the team is hinting at using something similar (or even community heuristics like looking at the licensing data) to pick appropriate images. Sohom (talk) 04:24, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think they want the upper gallery images (is there a shorter name? wheel images?) to link to specific points in the article, which makes it like a second ToC. The Commons part is a response to "Tapping on any image would open a browsing experience with more details, the image caption, and options to view it on Commons (if available)". Hiding images by licence is possible, but I have significant doubt "sensitive images" refers to licences. CMD (talk) 04:43, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Carousel maybe (but this doesn't fit that description since it is static)? It doesn't sound like a half bad idea to have a more visual way of navigatingsections through images (especially if the text appears below the image once the image is clicked on). Honestly, it might pique peeps curiosity about content further down in the article.
With respect to sensitive images I think the developers were talking about re-purposing features like mw:Extension:PageImages#Can_I_exclude_certain_page_images? where a CSS class prevents a image from appearing as a page image in the preview. I'm honestly not sure how widely it is used but something like that could help editors curate against specific images (if there is a local consensus on a page to not include a particular image). From what I remember, the initial proposal didn't have a "sensitive image" rider, it was added after there was feedback on discord that such a mechanism would be needed in some cases. Sohom (talk) 05:03, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are existing mechanisms for individual accounts to block specific images in articles, I assume such functionality would be replicated for the static carousel. However, any attempt to create a wiki-wide list of images is based on past experience not going to gain consensus here or on Commons. I don't know much about other wikis, but it seems reasonable for the developers to be aware of what the effort invested into such a tool is likely to go unused here. CMD (talk) 12:55, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That gif file of adding essentially a scrolling gallery to an article is probably against Manual of style. I do not see it becoming used.
I have the following ideas:
Change Wikimedia commons link in sidebar to "Wikimedia Commons (multimedia)". It is not obvious to newcomers that it hosts multimedia content.
Add a read section link to every section in every article. We allready have mw:Extension:Phonos which can read text. This is mainly for people with perfectly fine vision that would like an audio version, for example they might be multitasking. Blind or half blind people just use screen readers, this feature is not useful to them.
Auto generate slideshows of pictures and audio. It would read an article section with mw:Extension:Phonos and switch out images as they appear in the text. I write slideshow, not video, because the rendering time alone of the video would become a hardware issue.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Weekly highlight
A major software upgrade has been made to Phabricator. The update introduces performance improvements, a refreshed search interface, enhancements to Maniphest task search, updates to user profile pages and project workboards, new Herald automation features, as well as general text input, mobile experience improvements and more. [10]
Updates for editors
The Community Tech team will release the new Community Wishlist extension on October 1, that will improve the way wishes will be submitted. The new extension will allow users to add tags to their wishes to better categorise them, and (in a future iteration) to filter them by status, tags and focus areas. It will also be possible to support individual wishes again, as requested by the community in many instances. The old system will be retired. There will be a brief period of downtime while the extension is deployed and wishes are migrated to the new system. You can read more about this in the latest update or you can consult the current documentation on MediaWiki.
As announced on Diff blog, the production trial of the hCaptcha service for bot detection has begun. The trial is currently using hCaptcha to protect account creation on Chinese, Persian, Portuguese, Indonesian, Japanese, and Turkish Wikipedias, where it will replace our existing CAPTCHA (FancyCaptcha). The goal with the trial is to better block bots while also improving usability and accessibility for users who encounter CAPTCHA challenges.
The CampaignEvents extension has been deployed to Wikimedia Commons. The extension makes it easier to organize and participate in collaborative activities, like edit-a-thons and WikiProjects, on the wikis. On Commons, anyone who is a registered user can use it as an event participant. To use it as an organizer, someone needs to have the event organizer right.
On wikis using the Mentorship system, communities can now opt experienced editors out of Mentorship through Special:CommunityConfiguration/Mentorship. Within this setting, communities may define thresholds, based on edit count and account age, to decide when an editor is considered experienced enough to no longer receive Mentorship. [11]
The Editing Team and the Machine Learning Team are working on a new check for newcomers: Tone check. Using a prediction model, this check will encourage editors to improve the tone of their edits, using artificial intelligence. We invite volunteers to review the first version of the Tone language model for the following languages: Arabic, Czech, German, Hebrew, Indonesian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, Farsi, Italian, Norwegian, Romanian and Latvian. Users from these wikis interested in reviewing this model are invited to sign up at MediaWiki.org. The deadline to sign up is on October 3, which will be the start date of the test.
The rollout of multiblocks had the side effect that non-active block logs may have been shown on Special:Contributions and on blocked users' user and user_talk pages. This issue will be fully resolved in a few days. As part of the fix, messages prefixed with sp-contributions-blocked-notice will be removed and replaced with those prefixed with blocked-notice-logextract in a few weeks. Please help translate the new messages and update any local overrides if needed.
There was a bug with links added using visual editor if they included characters such as [ ] | after the fragment identifier (#). They were not encoded properly creating an incorrect link. This has been fixed. [12]
One new wiki has been created: a Wikiquote in Malay (q:ms:) [13]
View all 21 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the User Info Card now displays currently active global lock/blocks. [14]
Updates for technical contributors
Later this week, editors using Lua modules will be able to use the mw.title.newBatch function to look up the existence of up to 25 pages at once, in a way that only increases the expensive function count once.
A new Unsupported Tools Working Group has been formed as part of ongoing efforts to collectively determine technical work priorities, similar to the Product & Technology Advisory Council (PTAC). The working group will help prioritize and review requests for support of unmaintained extensions, gadgets, bots, and tools. For the first cycle, the group will be prioritizing an unsupported Wikimedia Commons tool.
Hello. When I'm viewing an article and I do Tools --> Download as PDF and then click Download, it says "Bad Request", and the PDF is not created. Is this a known issue, and if yes, is there a timeline for fixing it? (If it makes any difference, I'm on a Windows 11 PC, using Firefox.) — Mudwater (Talk)21:45, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
BTW if you are attempting to double-up archives ie. an archive.today capture of a Wayback capture .. this is not recommended, an unnecessary complication that can cause trouble with tools and bots. Instead make a capture of the original URL at each service. If one service is ever no longer available, it can be replaced with the other service. -- GreenC05:25, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When a regex search times out, it displays a message saying "A warning has occurred while searching: The regex search timed out, so only partial results are available. Try simplifying your regular expression to get complete results." That's fine, but it would be helpful to also provide some estimate of how complete the search was. For example, right now there are 7,066,306 articles in English Wikipedia. If the search was in article space and managed to get through 1,234,567 articles before timing out, it could report something like "1,234,567 of 7,066,306 pages (17.47%) searched before timeout." —Anomalocaris (talk) 07:37, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Feedback request and next steps on draft "history of place" Infobox
Hello,
I’ve drafted a new infobox in my userspace, aimed at *“History of …”* articles (for example, History of Suffolk). At the moment there isn’t a dedicated template for this kind of page, and most use none or borrow {{Infobox English county}}, which isn’t quite appropriate.
I see no issues whatsoever, except for background:#f6f6f6 style in headerstyle parameter, which should've been background:#f8f9fa if you wanted the first header's background color to match with the background color of the rest of the infobox; I fixed that. Sapphaline (talk) 09:11, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is no point to make the header color match the background. I believe the style was intended to be different. It's just not a good color to pick if so. Izno (talk) 16:04, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Cascading protection bug with link-formatting templates
In principle, Wikipedia:Cascading protection should mean that any pages transcluded on the protected page are also protected (and any pages transcluded onto them, and so on down the chain).
RMS Queen Mary and HMS Curacoa (D41) are linked from Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/October 2, which is cascade-protected as it is on the main page today. However, those articles showed up as cascade protected - no non-admins were able to edit them. This did not happen with any other linked items and after some investigation it seems that the problem is in the use of the {{RMS}} and {{HMS}} formatting templates - this edit by @Queen of Hearts removed the templates and thus removed the protection (thanks!).
I'm guessing the issue is going to be common to all ship prefix templates and probably ultimately in Module:WPSHIPS utilities - there's something in there that means the underlying article gets treated as transcluded - but it is way beyond my technical expertise & so I have no idea what it might be. Thought it would be worth reporting it here in case it shows up with other seemingly-innocuous templates, though. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:52, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That seems likely. If you change the code to check isRedirect before calling redirectTarget, it should avoid the "transclusion". Anomie⚔23:35, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have noticed several problems with Images and Thumbnails across wikipedia.
The images either appear blank until you click on them, or they say sorry the file cannot be displayed. This seems to be a technical issue. Sometimes if I click on image details the image will appear on it's own page or will not.
Most likely this is because of the godawful amount of images (650) that that page is using (every flag is an image). As there is a rate limit of the amount of requests you are allowed to to make within a certain timeframe, if you load this page you have to make 650 requests to the server, and you ikely will run into this limit and be blocked from viewing more images. Best advise i can give, is to stop using all these flags. This page also uses color to give meaning to tablecells, which is an accessibility/MoS violation and should be rewritten to be done in another way. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:41, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is actually a little surprising though, those flag icons are used all over Wikipedia, all in the same size, so they should be cached, and hence people should not hit the rate limit. Bawolff (talk) 11:08, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In Lua 5.1 (on a standalone computer), tonumber('nan') is nil because 'nan' is a non-numeric string.
In Scribunto Lua, tonumber('nan') and mw.getContentLanguage():parseFormattedNumber('nan') give the number NaN.
Any ideas on why this occurs, or whether it is desirable?
I encountered this in a couple of articles where "NaN" was given as the value for a field in an infobox. That field is passed to {{convert}}. That gave error "convert: number overflow" because convert optimistically tests the value with tonumber on the principle that it will work almost all the time. Convert expects the result to be nil if the value parameter was not a number. Actually, because of the way convert is called for the infobox in question, convert gets the number NaN, not the string "nan". That happens because parseFormattedNumber is called before convert. I'll dream up some workaround (or fix the article wikitext), but why is this happening? Johnuniq (talk) 06:25, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh. Thanks. On my old system (Lua installed when Scribunto was first developed), lua -v shows 5.1.4. That means code using n = tonumber(s) shouldn't assume n is a usable number just because it is not nil. I wonder if there is any other magic text apart from "nan". OTOH this is the first time this problem has arisen with convert in the last 12 years so a workaround in the module to avoid it might not be worthwhile. Johnuniq (talk) 11:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Depends what you mean by "usable". There's "inf", as well as "-nan" and "-inf". "-0" produces a negative zero. It will also recognize hexadecimal notation like "0xff", and exponential notation like "6.022e23". Anomie⚔13:41, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think we should change the village pump's header color? Personally, I dislike this yellow-brownish color; it feels outdated and isn't in the usual Wikipedia style. We have so many better colour options over at pages like:
and many others. I suggest we pick a replacement for the current color. The colors below are just some examples; the first three are used on the Main Page.
Update 16:08, 21 August 2025 (UTC): Zanahary has created actual mockups; you can see them in the § Mockups section. (I also collapsed the other color choices below, which weren't being voted on.)
Option A
this is an example of black text with color applied to its background and border
Option B
this is an example of black text with color applied to its background and border
Option C
this is an example of black text with color applied to its background and border
Option D
this is an example of black text with color applied to its background and border
Option F
this is an example of black text with color applied to its background and border
LMFAO. Chaos! Hyperbole much? Encountering an unexpected color change, editors will be beside themselves and won't know what to do! If I didn't know you, I'd suspect trolling. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 07:10, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The current dehydrated beige-yellow-ish looks fine as-is, but D also looks great. Everything else is too light, imo. EF500:29, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support for decorative reasons. This will give visual impact and this will be decoratively clear for colorblind users. Additionally, this will make the Village Pump creatively nice and beautiful. Fabvill (Talk to me!)01:09, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever you do, don't forget about dark mode whenever you pick colors nowadays. it has to be legible in both, or you need additional colors for dark mode. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:48, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All of the options look ok to me in dark mode. A and C are pretty dark, but I don't see how that would be a problem in dark mode. You want dark? You got dark. Mustn't wake up the wife. Text-background contrast is fine for all. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 07:59, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support D as proposer; I like purple in general and D is also used on the Main Page, so I agree with the other comments. The village pump should be welcoming and purple is perfect for that. FaviFake (talk) 12:01, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support, the color is indeed ugly right now. I have no problem with any of the mockups made by the proposal nor by myself below. ꧁Zanahary꧂14:34, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, no harm, purple would probably look nicer than the current option. But this really isn't the most pressing issue facing us at the moment; bold editing might have been better than launching a giant survey. I'd suggest this be moved to the talk page. Sdkbtalk15:01, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But this really isn't the most pressing issue facing us at the moment - Oh I wasn't aware we were supposed to limit discussion to the most pressing issue (wouldn't that mean one thread on the page at a time?). bold editing might have been better than launching a giant survey. Bold editing would have been promptly reverted by one of the Opposers in this discussion. Then we'd be here anyway. We just skipped two needless steps in the process, B and R, and led with D. No, it doesn't need to go to talk. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 07:28, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OpposeWP:DONTFIXIT, there's nothing wrong with the current color and there's nothing better about any of the suggestions below. All this will come down to is which color happens to get the most "I like it" votes from people who bother to comment at all. Anomie⚔16:11, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not so much. We're looking at actual real tangible things like contrast ratios. Besides, I have no problem with popularity for something like this. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 11:56, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The only discussion of contrast ratios is making sure all the options have good ratios. Your own chart below shows that the current one has a better ratio that many of the proposed options, but even the worst is well above the minimum. So, no, that doesn't really seem to be part of anyone's decision here. Anomie⚔12:06, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fine. In that case, I have no problem with popularity for something like this. Also, one of my greatest Wikipedia pet peeves is resistance to change. "What we have is fine" is a horrible argument, just horrible. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 12:32, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Did the current color set even get so much as "a popularity contest vote"? The colors for talk page templates did (Wikipedia:Talk page templates/vote). It would be unfortunate if we rejected the results of current discussions as a mere vote, if the current state didn't even get a discussion in the first place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:08, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support D (or option 6 below, with option 5 as a second choice). I don't think WP:DONTFIXIT applies here as there is an identifiable issue, even though it is of an aesthetic nature. I also wouldn't be opposed to revamping the tab design entirely, as the border still gives it a very dated feel. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:30, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
After trying the mockups below, also support option F as a third choice. My only worry is that it might be a bit too close to the WP:CENT color. Although Option D would likely look better with a lighter border like F's. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:54, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One thing I forgot to consider: on blue and purple skins, blue and purple links will naturally be less readable. I added colored links to my mockups – looking at the contrasts, I now have a preference for option F over option D. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:19, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like that would only work in Vector 2022 and Minerva. Those CSS variables don't seem to be defined in Vector, Monobook, or Timeless. Anomie⚔18:20, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah apologies that's why you define them like this: var( --background-color-success-subtle, #dff2eb );. thanks for letting me know, I didn't actually know that :) waddie96 ★ (talk)22:59, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option A. Tastefully understated, calming, not one of the overused blues. Like the paint in a doctor's office. Brown looks like dirt; if I see that on the walls of my doctor's office, I'm finding a different doctor. And that's how to put together a proposal, by the way. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 07:13, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I used Snook's Colour Contrast Check. For the uninitiated, higher numbers are better, and all values exceed WCAG 2.0 Level AA (4.50) and WCAG 2.0 Level AAA (7.00) by a wide margin. Black-on-white and white-on-black are 21.00. I'm assuming #000000 for black and #FFFFFF for white, though I can't get Firefox's color picker to verify that for text.
The examples here (as well as the current header) all specifically set color:black, overriding the Vector 2022 (and Minerva) default text color of #202122. When I toggle Vector 2022's dark mode, the current header's colors are overridden entirely (we wind up with #eaecf0 text on a transparent background (showing through black), with the colored border remaining unchanged) while the examples here are not changed for dark mode at all. Anomie⚔12:00, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There shouldn't be a problem if just the colors are switched in the existing {{Start tab}} invocation. You said I'm assuming #000000 for black and #FFFFFF for white, though I can't get Firefox's color picker to verify that for text, so I was providing more information on the text color used for the header and why it's actual black rather than Vector's normal dark-grey. Anomie⚔13:57, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Revised table. For the purposes of contrast checking, I think we need to look at the paler of the two shades in each option sample. For the previous table, I was looking at the darker shades. I'm just correcting the record; the conclusion is the same: Contrast is not an issue.
Comment. This is not a suggestion for proposal expansion (I know better). But I note that there's a lot of brown on the site; just look at the top of an article talk page, for starters. I can imagine the output of this proposal becoming the new en-wiki color, thereby conveying a certain site-wide cohesion—like there is actually somebody in charge of the whole site; like there is some coordination happening. If it's good at village pump, it's good anywhere. One could argue that the brown does exactly that; problem is, it's a terrible color choice. And the browns aren't the same, anyway.As I understand it, this is what CSS is for. With a virtual flick of a switch, we should be able to change en-wiki's color site-wide. Anything less is 20th century technology. The uses for that switch are yet to be imagined, but I'm certain they would exist. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 02:41, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be nice if the Villages Pump had different color schemes to more easily distinguish them, but for the record, the heretofore-besmirched "yellow-brownish color" is actually a quite venerable piece of Wikipedia design history: the palette used by talk page headers and message boxes is called "ClockworkSoul's Coffee Roll" and it dates to a big RfC from some twenty or so years ago (prior to that, there was no unified formatting for the headers at all, and they were just all totally different styles and it looked like puke). jp×g🗯️19:20, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option This colour is ugly :( or Option C. But in all fairness I don't really care. This is exactly WP:COLORWAR. We probably should have law of triviality (at least in non-article space) as a contentious topic because we keep on getting into heated debates over very minor details. Aasim (話す) 05:43, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Triviality is a matter of editor opinion, perspective, and standards. At least 22 editors currently think a color change is in order, and it's not for you or anyone else to say what editors should care about. If you shut down a discussion because it violates your law of triviality, how can you know how many editors would disagree that it's trivial? That's essentially a supervote among a handful of editors before the discussion even gets going, and we don't do that. Good luck with your law of triviality. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 09:11, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said I don't really care. We shouldn't get wrapped too much on colors unless if the current colors are illegible or inaccessible. Aasim (話す) 23:15, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
LOL. You're doing it again. Nobody is forced to "get wrapped on" anything, including you. I bypass dozens of uninteresting (to me) threads a day, with little effort. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 23:41, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is my opinion that this is a trivial change and I don't care. Others are free to have different opinions as to the triviality of such a change. Aasim (話す) 22:33, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You proposed a law of triviality, which sounded a lot like caring to me. And you're saying a lot for somebody who doesn't care. Climb to the top of the bell tower and scream I DON'T CARE!!! so the whole town can hear you. But enough spent on such nonsense. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 23:18, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion (colours)
I note none of the examples given here actually show what the header would look like. Even the one that claims to be the current color isn't, nothing in the current header uses this color. If we want to make a choice, we should probably have accurate mockups to choose from. Here's some wikitext to mockup the current coloring:
Selected tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the actual current village pump color. It uses the 50° row from Help:Using colours: "header background" as the background, "header border only" as the border, and "accent color" for the inactive tabs.
Unfortunately I can't guess at what was intended for any of FaviFake's suggestions here to mock them up similarly. Anomie⚔12:09, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. I only copy-pasted these "coloured boxes" from the pages i linked to to get a general sense of which one people would prefer. If a colour is more liked than others, say, green, we could then figure out all the specific shades of green for the border, inactive state, background, etc. I could work on creating more accurate mockups, but I think other people would do a much better job than me. I'm no colour scientist. (However, I've changed the incorrect colour you pointed out; it was intended to be more visually pleasing, but I agree it should match the current colours.)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
If you don't know what you're doing, perhaps you should take a step back and ask people for help before making half-baked proposals. Anomie⚔12:50, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me? Again, my goal wasn't to propose specific colors. I wanted to see if there was consensus for changing the current colour. As I stated in my proposal, the examples were just that, examples of colours I thought looked better. FaviFake (talk) 14:10, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
An initially inaccurate summary along with suggestions that don't correspond to how the colors would actually be used doesn't sound fully baked to me. FaviFake has been doing a lot of this sort of thing lately. Anomie⚔14:33, 21 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do agree there is something wanting in the current color choice. However, I'm not sure whether to support, due to a lack of discussion on which color, if any, is best accessibility-wise. A second concern is how the new header would appear in light vs dark mode, and on mobile vs. desktop. Dege31 (talk) 00:41, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is actually genius! But we might need to create another VP topic to gather consensus for this, I suspect it'd be much more controversial. FaviFake (talk) 17:49, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is the village pump header using the 50° row. That's "header background" as the background, "header border only" as the border, and "accent color" for the inactive tabs.
This is the village pump header using the 40° row. That's "header background" as the background, "header border only" as the border, and "accent color" for the inactive tabs.
Option 2
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the 90° row. That's "header background" as the background, "header border only" as the border, and "accent color" for the inactive tabs.
Option 3
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the 140° row. That's "header background" as the background, "header border only" as the border, and "accent color" for the inactive tabs.
Option 4
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the 190° row. That's "header background" as the background, "header border only" as the border, and "accent color" for the inactive tabs.
Option 5
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the 240° row. That's "header background" as the background, "header border only" as the border, and "accent color" for the inactive tabs.
Option 6
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the 290° row. That's "header background" as the background, "header border only" as the border, and "accent color" for the inactive tabs.
Option 7
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the 340° row. That's "header background" as the background, "header border only" as the border, and "accent color" for the inactive tabs.
Options A, B and D derive their color palettes from the 150°, 210° and 270° rows respectively, with the only difference being the use of "main background" for the lightest color instead of "accent color", while options C and F have unique color palettes. Here is what the header would look like using these color palettes directly (as well as the 150° row for comparison).
Option A
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the Option A palette. That's "Title background" as the background, "Title border" as the border, and "Light Box background" for the inactive tabs. On Vector 2022, blue links look like this and purple links look like this. On other skins, blue links look like this and purple links look like this.
150° row
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the 150° row. That's "header background" as the background, "header border only" as the border, and "accent color" for the inactive tabs. On Vector 2022, blue links look like this and purple links look like this. On other skins, blue links look like this and purple links look like this.
Option B
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the Option B palette. That's "Title background" as the background, "Title border" as the border, and "Light Box background" for the inactive tabs. On Vector 2022, blue links look like this and purple links look like this. On other skins, blue links look like this and purple links look like this.
Option C
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the Option C palette. That's "Title background" as the background, "Title border" as the border, and "Light Box background" for the inactive tabs. On Vector 2022, blue links look like this and purple links look like this. On other skins, blue links look like this and purple links look like this.
Option D
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the Option D palette. That's "Title background" as the background, "Title border" as the border, and "Light Box background" for the inactive tabs. On Vector 2022, blue links look like this and purple links look like this. On other skins, blue links look like this and purple links look like this.
Option F
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
Other tab
This is the village pump header using the Option F palette. That's "Title background" as the background, "Title border" as the border, and "Light Box background" for the inactive tabs. On Vector 2022, blue links look like this and purple links look like this. On other skins, blue links look like this and purple links look like this.
Contrary to the popular opinion, Palette 'Blue' and 'Purple' (Options B, D & F) are clearly mixing-up with the Blue & Purple links, which will make it very hard for the color blind to distinguish.
That only leaves us with 'Green' (A) and the current 'Yellow' (C). Yellow is going to be replaced, so I would prefer Green - Light Green (Option 2 in this list) since not only is it different from the existing Green 'tq' function, but also it has a tint of legacy of its 'soon to be predecessor' Yellow. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 08:21, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Propose to deprecate direct linking to non-English Wikipedia in articles
The proposal as written — in which an AbuseFilter would be created to forbid direct inline linking to foreign-language Wikipeda articles in mainspace — did not secure consensus. In general, commenters overwhelmingly did not concur with GZWDer's invocation of WP:ASTONISH, and found an AbuseFilter to be unnecessary overkill for the problem outlined. Some supported a more minimal version of the proposal, in which these links were discouraged in the Manual of Style; some held that the problem did not require a policy solution at all (and that, to the extent that a problem existed with misleading links, {{ill}} would suffice). For this issue, a separate proposal (with an according diminution in the severity of the proposed remedy) may prove beneficial. jp×g🗯️21:28, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.
E.g. I am viewing Maheboob Khan, and click the link "Maula Bakhsh" which bring me to Dutch Wikipedia article. Similarly, the link "Maritim Hotelgesellschaft" in Maritim Travemünde links to German Wikipedia. This has two disadvantages: (1) It clearly violates WP:ASTONISH; (2) This does not encourage creation of articles in English Wikipedia. So I propose we should only link to foreign Wikipedia via {{Interlanguage link}} and create an AbuseFilter to prevent users from adding direct links to non-English Wikipedia in articles. GZWDer (talk) 01:56, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This is already deprecated per H:FOREIGNLINK, which explains that you should use the inter-language link template so that the English Wikipedia article for it shows up as a redlink which is accompanied by a smaller bracketed link to a foreign language article. I've gone ahead and fixed the issue with the article.--JasonMacker (talk) 03:13, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was surprised to see this, because it's been officially discouraged for years. @GZWDer, do you really mean to be asking if someone would figure out how many of these errors exist and fix them for you, or were you just trying to get a rule written down, even though nobody will read it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:53, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:AFD is neither a policy nor a guideline. WP:RFC is neither a policy nor a guideline. WP:BRD is neither a policy nor a guideline. WP:5P is neither a policy nor a guideline. WP:TE is neither a policy nor a guideline. Editors want to do the right thing, and they don't require good advice to say "policy" or "guideline" at the top of the page to do the right thing anyway. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure if interwiki links are explicitly "deprecated" by H:FOREIGNLINK, but the ill template is the best practice and avoids the issues raised. What gets tricky is edits such as Special:diff/1308072402, which places the link somewhere a template may break things. CMD (talk) 05:21, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Thryduulf. We shouldn't get in the way of adding links to other Wikipedias when relevant. Of course, I don't have any objection to banning links like the one you propose (I agree with your references to ASTONISH and RED), but if we go creating an abuse filter, it won't be able to distinguish between good and bad. Nyttend (talk) 09:51, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This does not seem to be a big enough problem to justify an edit filter, which can only be edited by a few people and needs testing. The use of {{Interlanguage link}} is already listed as best practice by H:FOREIGNLINK and it doesn't matter a bit whether it is called a policy or a guideline. What matters is that it's a good idea. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:25, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I like this idea but I'm not exactly sure what is being proposed. My complaint is that articles should be internally linked to internal wikipedia articles. What I mean is that English wikipedia articles should only link to other English wikipedia articles. Logoshimpo (talk) 11:05, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We also link to Wiktionary and Wikisource. We don't do this very often, so you might not have seen it, but one hardly wants to dumb down our writing ("but readers won't know what that word means!"), and sometimes a link to the dictionary definition makes a good compromise between brilliant prose and helping readers understand it. Wikisource links tend to be for non-notable historical documents ("issued the 1789 proclamation for the election") or in a list of works (* "The Bluebell" by Anne Brontë). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd support upgrading a slimmed-down version of H:FOREIGNLINK to guideline status or adding it to the MOS, but I strongly oppose an addition to the AbuseFilter as overkill for a really minor problem. Toadspike[Talk]17:57, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I missed that. We should consider upgrading "may be helpful" to "should be used" based on the strong preference for the Ill template here and elsewhere. Toadspike[Talk]14:07, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose articles in other language Wikis are useful in the absence of an English article since translation programs, however flawed they are, are available and better than nothing.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:56, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's exactly the role of {{ill}}: it does give a bluelink to the existing article in the other language, explicitly identified by what language it is, but it also has a redlink to the enwiki article. That means readers can immediately read (and decide if they are able to read) but there's also a tracked inbound link and an easy route to creating the article (for example, de novo or by translation). DMacks (talk) 02:14, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, seems to already be covered by the MOS and Help. No need for more instruction creep, and there are potential reasons to allow such links. —Locke Cole • t • c00:26, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. there are many times when linking to a non-English Wikipedia entry is actually the best option, as we don't always have corresponding articles. The template is the best solution, but adding an abuse filter seems unnecessary. Firsfron of Ronchester00:45, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose abuse filter; per Toadspike, I would support strengthening of language at MOS:IWL with more precise directions for the use of {{ill}}. In my opinion, {{ill}} should always be used when linking to a non-English wiki. Wrackingtalk!01:59, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Except in rare cases, it's my impression that if {{ill}} isn't used, it's not for a lack of directions. It's because the editor didn't know that the option existed, and they'd be happy to have someone add it for them. If we could find a way to locate 'missing' uses of the template, and had a volunteer to fix them, then I would expect that to be welcome assistance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:24, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. I agree that editors not knowing about {{ill}} is probably a primary cause of this, and a way to locate 'missing' uses of the template would be great. Wrackingtalk!02:37, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
{{ill}} is also a real pain to use. Highly non-intuitive. I have to consult the documentation every time I have to use it. Usually takes a couple of goes to get it right. Hawkeye7(discuss)02:43, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
+1 all of this. I think something like {{ill|langcode:article}} would rock, exactly matching the style of [[:langcode:article]] interwiki links (and the natural extention of piping, as {{ill|langcode:article|displaytext}} for [[:langcode:article|displaytext]]). Or {{ill|:langcode:article}}, which probably makes it trivial to program (a "if first parameter has leading colon, parse off the first colon-delimited string and push it into the second parameter" wrapper converts it directly to the currently-handled syntax). DMacks (talk) 02:57, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would object to introducing such complexity across every use of this template when most of the usages probably won't use this complex feature (complex as it involves string operations). How about instead introducing a new template that uses this syntax? Aaron Liu (talk) 01:05, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nearly all uses of the template link to a single language code, but the template is optimised for multiple languages. So we can have things like: {{ill|Charles Darwin (botanist)|lt=Charles Darwin|fr|Charles Darwin|de|Charles Darwin|es|Charles Darwin}}. This illustrates the difficulty remembering how it works. The first guess of most users would be {{ill|fr|Charles Darwin}}. That is wrong; the English text has to come first. And while the editor might expect the next parameter to default to the display text, this actually requires |lt=, an abbreviation I'm not aware of being used anywhere else. Hawkeye7(discuss)01:43, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I were writing the parameters from scratch, I'd have chosen something like {{ill|target=local link|text=display text|lang=code|article=other wiki article|lang2=code|article2=other other wiki article}} (e.g. {{ill|target=London|text=Capital of the United Kingdom|lang=cy|article=Llundain|lang2=fr|article2=Londres}}) as those are names and ordering that intuitively make sense to me. Whether they made sense to anybody else I'm not sure but the ordering seems to match what others are suggesting. I don't have a clue how easy this would be to program. Thryduulf (talk) 03:41, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why that means we can't have a lang alias for just the first language.I agree that "lt" is weird. I'd use display, text, or something. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:25, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can't an edit filter not just disallow an edit, but also tag an edit? Not sure how hard/easy it is to add a custom tag, but if there were a way to filter recent changes to show edits that added an interwiki, it might make what you're thinking of easier to track. =) —Locke Cole • t • c04:31, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Answering my own question, but yes, from WP:EFBASICS, denying altogether is an option, but so is warning, tagging, or simply logging. Warning might not be a bad option, if the warning is customized to let the editor know about the interlanguage templates, it could be both educational and a way to remind editors in case they forgot. —Locke Cole • t • c04:44, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did a search and found that this was an edit filter before (780); it was disabled in 2016 by MusikAnimal (Too infrequent and for the good-faith edits I'm not too happy with even throwing a warning) Also, I left a note at WP:EFN to alert watchers of this discussion.Wrackingtalk!05:27, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Correcting myself. It seems 780 (hist·log) was meant to catch attempts at connecting different-language, same-topic articles via a link at the bottom of the article (also called interlanguage linking); this is now handled via Wikidata. The issue we're discussing here is the in-text linking of non-English wiki articles instead of using {{ill}} template (per MOS:IWL, WP:ASTONISH). Wrackingtalk!05:42, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per WP:CREEP and WP:IAR. Note that there are Wikipedias for Simple English and Scots which would not be especially astonishing. Fixing up such usage with templates or whatever is routine work for gnomes. Andrew🐉(talk) 05:42, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree - anytime a link sends the user outside en.wikipedia.org this should be clearly messaged before the click is made. There's no reason to have exceptions to this principle. (I for one would find it very astonishing to find myself at the Scots(?) wikipedia w/o prior heads-up). Regards CapnZapp (talk) 08:12, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment What does "deprecate" mean? I thought this was already discouraged. I don't think trying to actively prevent users from direct links is useful. Generally, spending effort making it hard or impossible to do wrong is futile; we should instead trust users to do the right thing. We can always revert/admonish/ban mistakes and errors after the fact. Discouragement should be sufficient. Does this mean I'm opposing? Then so be it. If this proposal's "deprecation" includes a suggestion to make sure our discouragement is clearly communicated, however, I'm in support. CapnZapp (talk) 08:08, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even if you considered it "already discouraged", there are still many such links existing and should potentially be replaced with templates. GZWDer (talk) 12:59, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
GZWDer That's not the proposal discussed here? Certainly not ALL such links should be replaced. When context makes the out-of-English-Wiki link obvious, {{ill}} is less necessary. {{ill}} is less desirable on pages with very many links. So if you want to discuss how to find them so you can manually convert them, go ahead, nothing is stopping you. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 11:25, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Declaring something to be unwanted doesn't help us find and fix the problems. I realize that since I spend so much time working on policies and guidelines, it surprises people to hear me say it, but Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions. This is just the reality we work in. It often takes two years for editors to notice changes even to the highest-traffic policy pages. Writing down the answer is IMO good, and it's helpful to the rare person who goes looking, but seriously: Policy and guideline pages are not magic pixie dust. Not one of us has actually read them all. Need proof? This whole discussion began because someone thought we needed a rule that has already been documented in at least two guidelines and one help page for years.
WhatamIdoing First off, maybe you're responding to GZWDer and not me? (Your first sentence appears directed at me; your last at them) Anyway, of course nobody always read the rules. That doesn't mean we should always (or even often) back up the rules with things like edit filters that physically stop editors from breaking them. Is this a case where strong measures are warranted? I say no. Yes, I've found cases where an "invisible" off-en-wiki link was inappropriate, but... then I fixed it. This is not on par with, say, how we ask IP editors to solve a captcha before they can add external links to articles. CapnZapp (talk) 11:30, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would be happy to have stronger wording that discourages linking to other Wikipedias by means other than {{ill}} and would support some project to systematically search and eliminate such links (for example, insource:/\[\[\:de\:/ helps search for German Wikipedia links; I also use CSS to underline these links so I notice them more easily), but I can imagine some places (like tables where the linking is explained outside of the table) where they are appropriate, so I hesitate to support this as written. —Kusma (talk) 10:21, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support in principle. This should not be blocked by an edit filter, but if an EF can flag and/or log such additions so they can by fixed by the gnomishly inclined, that would be great. older ≠ wiser11:46, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Playing around with the insource: search code above, it looks like this might affect something on the order of 1% of articles (~70K articles). If we assume (for nice round numbers) an average of 10 edits per article, that suggests that it might tag one edit per day. Would 1–10 edits per day be worth flagging? Is anyone here committing to watching for and fixing the flagged edits? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:53, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is definitely something I would watch for. I already use {{ill}} quite a bit in normal copy-editing when I come across underlinked articles or articles with existing non-enwiki links. Wrackingtalk!20:29, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If an article change on my watchlist was flagged, I'd likely check it out. I'm not sure I'd going hunting them down in other articles. older ≠ wiser10:19, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Opppose, looks like we have enough guidance already, and to physically block with edit filters is overkill. I'd rather see a bot that converts bare links to {{ill}} as a solution. -- GreenC18:22, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would you be OK with the an edit filter for the purposes of warning (to let the editor know, or at least remind them, of the template method of linking in article-space) or tagging the edit? —Locke Cole • t • c18:33, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Mostly a non-problem; such links are very rare. They appear in a different color from en links, which mitigates the astonishment problem. No need to add more rules to ban a rare but occasionally useful tool. --Trovatore (talk) 18:46, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this may be due to a skin. Non-enwiki links appear normal blue to me, so opening them and landing on a non-English page is astonishing. Wrackingtalk!20:10, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. I use Monobook with a couple of customizations, but I don't think either of them affects this behavior. Maybe we could make the different color the default? --Trovatore (talk) 20:48, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment on {{ill}}. I wasn't really familiar with this template, but I just looked it up, and to be honest I'm not convinced it's a good solution. Apparently it auto-converts the link to an en.wiki link when an article of that title is created. The problem I see with that is that there's no way of predicting in advance what the en.wiki article will be about. If, say, the title is a false friend, or just a different meaning, then all of a sudden you have a link that goes to an inappropriate article, and there's no human intervention to notice it. In general I think foreign-language links are not such a bad thing as some people seem to think. We should give readers credit for being able to deal with seeing stuff they can't read. It's not like they'll be in a situation they don't know how to deal with. Either they can read it, or they can't read it but they know they can't. In the latter case, they either try to find some way of understanding it, or they understand that this link is not useful to them, and no big deal. --Trovatore (talk) 18:54, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am a frequent user of {{ill}} and I love it. Indeed it requires some care to prevent wrong links, but so does just wikilinking a word in the article. The invisible automatic changing to an enwiki link is followed up by a bot edit that will show up on the watchlist.
The main downsides of direct interwiki links are that they are almost the same colour as enwiki links so there is no warning where you'll end up (I fix this in my user CSS by adding underlines), and that the links do not turn from red to blue when a suitable enwiki article is created, so they tend to stay in articles despite better targets being available. —Kusma (talk) 20:07, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It really seems like this is more a problem with the default skin than it is a problem with direct interlang links. Could we get in a request to make them more distinct in the next update? --Trovatore (talk) 20:58, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what interwiki links look like in the default skin (I use Monobook). Changing the link colour won't make people notice when an article matching the foreign one has been created though. —Kusma (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also use monobook and it comes out in light blue, whereas en.wiki links come out in dark blue.
True about the article-creation issue, but again, I don't see the foreign links as so bad, so this doesn't seem like a deal-breaker to me. The link can be upgraded in the normal review process. On the other hand links to the wrong article are bad; those are actual errors, not just a missed opportunity to link an article in English. --Trovatore (talk) 22:05, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Depending on lighting conditions, I don't see the difference between the two shades of blue without effort. The"wrong link" issue you mention is something that can happen with every red link on Wikipedia and is not related to interlanguage linking. —Kusma (talk) 22:27, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) There's already T333577, which is likely to continue being ignored. As for colors, looks like the default colors for unvisited links are
The problem I see with [auto-conversion of ill's by the bot] is that there's no way of predicting in advance what the en.wiki article will be about... all of a sudden you have a link that goes to an inappropriate article
You say you weren't familiar with the template, so as someone who has added hundreds of interlanguage links and seen many thousands more, I can say that this has not been a problem, or at least, no worse than people adding direct wikilinks to the wrong article. Both occur (rarely); both are annoyances; neither is a valid reason to deprecate ill's or autoconvert wikilinks. If there is a real problem with interlanguage links, it is that since by definition the English article does not exist yet, the ill creator has to invent an English title for the red link, and it can happen that two people each create an ill about the same thing with two different red link titles for the future English article. That does happen sometimes, but it is more of an inconvenience than a problem, analogous to two editors creating direct red links to the same topic and calling it two different things. If and when an English article is eventually created from one of the two ill red links, it usually gets shaken out eventually, either by the other one getting fixed, or becoming a redirect, and then eventually Cewbot comes along and culls it. So, you needn't worry too much about this case, as it is not a serious problem, and we needn't consider it as part of this Rfc. Mathglot (talk) 23:10, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - So if this is enforced by an abuse filter, will and/or how will this affect edit summaries that use those links? Usually for translation attribution these links are needed, so if this is disallowed how will this be done? The {{Ill}} template does not work in edit summaries (or any template I'm pretty sure). This could also very well be fixed in the abuse filter itself and I just don't know it, but I'm curious regardless. Sophisticatedevening(talk)19:36, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – This is basically a 'best practices' issue, but forbidding one practice is not the best way to encourage a better one. I share your concerns upon clicking a blue link that takes you unexpectedly to nl-wiki—I don't like that, either. I am also a huge supporter of {{interlanguage link}}, so we see eye-to-eye there as well. Nevertheless, I must oppose your proposal; it is not necessary, the remedies are draconian, and there are better ways to deal with this. Additionally, you haven't considered some of the possible reasons for keeping them around, or alternative remedies. I also oppose it on the grounds of instruction creep; existing guidelines suffice for this. The fact is, that interlanguage links are part of Wikipedia, and there are legitimate uses of them. You did not mention their use in citations, for example. There are other situations where they might be useful, for example when the link is called out in running text as a foreign link and therefore the ASTONISHMENT goes away; e.g., at Kemperplatz#Sources or any of these articles.[slow link] Presumably you would make an exception for those, and there may be other cases like that as well. As has been said, many users of direct interlanguage links may be unaware that template {{ill}} exists, and forbidding use of the former is not the best way to promote the use of the template; that should be achieved with the carrot, not the stick. Some here have mentioned difficulty in using the {{ill}} template, and to the extent possible, that should be handled by improving the template doc. One positive step that could be taken that I have not seen mentioned thus far, is to trap new interlanguage links as they are typed and pop up a dialog box, similar to the disambig popup dialog that appears in edit mode when you type a link that is a disambig page. A solution like that would probably go a long way to minimizing growth of this problem, and WP:AWB could find and assist in repair of such links. Forbidding them is overkill, and not necessary. Mathglot (talk) 22:49, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to click on your expensive link, but I'm curious about how many articles were found in that search.
Could we do a bot run to tag the links (skipping anything inside a template or otherwise feeling like it might break something)? It wouldn't necessarily have to be visible, but if we could get a group together to sort through these, like Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation handles dab links, then we might be able to solve the problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:35, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There were 144 results but it is a lower bound, and probably only a small minority of the total, as I was looking for a particular pattern likely to yield on-page translation attributions similar to the Kemperplatz case. That said, every little bit helps, I suppose. (P.S., that search can be slow, but I don't believe it counts as expensive, as it includes a double-quoted insource term, which works off an index and is described as "ideal" here. That might be a good question for VPT, though.) Mathglot (talk) 01:07, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then I think it's missing most of the articles, because a simple search on insource:/\[\[\:de\:/ turns up about 20K articles, just for the one language. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's only part of Mathglot's argument, but yes, I don't think there are many articles that link to other-language Wikipedia articles qua articles. And many that do should not – Kemperplatz § Sources treats a German Wikipedia article as a source, in violation of WP:CIRCULAR. Such uses should be replaced with {{translated page}} on the talk page and possibly a maintenance tag like {{expand language}} on the article. jlwoodwa (talk) 04:16, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, this discussion is not related to only those ~144 articles; the 20K for dewiki (and other non-enwiki) is what we're talking about. If you click the "slow link", it shows articles that link to non-enwiki articles andself-reference those articles, e.g., The German Wikipedia article [[:de:Konkordienbuch]] (at Book of Concord).
For Spanish, insource:/\[\[\:es\:/ returns 13K results. Not all are especially problematic—I wouldn't consider eswiki links in citation templates to be high-priority, e.g., |publisher = [[:es:Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21|Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21]] (at Jimmy Wales). Here is an example of a cleanup I did at Mexico after finding eswiki links via that search pattern. Wrackingtalk!05:36, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I believe {{ill}} is expensive, and so one use case for other solutions I would bring up is possibly when the sheer number of links rule out using ill? CapnZapp (talk) 11:35, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If seeing something written in a foreign language without being warned in advance is astonishing then I don't know what is non-astonishing. Some people must go through their whole lives being astonished. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:59, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone here is saying seeing something written in a foreign language is astonishing. What many might find astonishing (or confusing) is to click on a wikilink that looks identical or nearly so to any other ordinary wikilink and being taken to an article in another language (and with the concomitant navigational framework in the other language as well). older ≠ wiser14:43, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I see several comments above discussing how to find the problematic links. Here are some possibilities, in approximate order of escalation:
People manually do searches like insource:/\[\[\:es\:/ for every language code.
Someone could re-enable CW Error #68 for enwiki (cf. the report for eswiki), which interested editors could use to find pages to clean up.
A log-only edit filter could be created, and people could use that log to find edits to follow up on.
An edit filter could add a tag to edits, without warning or preventing them. Interested editors could watch for edits with the tag for review.
An edit filter could warn users against adding such links, possibly teaching them about {{ill}}.
An edit filter could prevents edits that would add such links.
Seems like there's not much support for the last, and probably not a whole lot for the second-to-last either. But some arguing against seem to be overlooking the earlier options. Anomie⚔14:06, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You missed out the most likely scenario - that people spend far more time than it would take to enact any of those proposals on discussing the "issue" here and end up being too exhausted to do anything about it. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:23, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good list @Anomie. Another possibility is to more clearly differentiate links to other language wikis. Unfortunately, as you've said, T333577 doesn't appear to be going anywhere. But perhaps, to also address concerns about {{ill}} being 'expensive' as well as cases where the link shouldn't change when an English article is created, there might be another template specifically for creating stable links to other language articles with color coding or other visual indicators. Perhaps include mention of the language, such as (German article: Bundestag) somewhat similar to how {{langx}} displays the language label. older ≠ wiser15:13, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Having the link show a different color when you happen to read the article doesn't help an editor find articles that have this problem. I like the idea of re-enabling the WP:CHECKWIKI report. It'd probably be a good idea to find a couple of editors who are willing to work on the list before running it frequently. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe if the color were more distinct it wouldn't be so much of a "problem". I'm still not convinced there's anything wrong with interlang links per se. --Trovatore (talk) 18:59, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that any amount of fiddling with the color will work. On the one side, you have people saying "It must be different – really, really different, so it's super obvious that it's weird and different and not normal". When we do that, then other people appear and say "Now it doesn't look like a link! Nobody knows they can click on it. It just looks like someone randomly decided to put {green|purple|orange} text in the middle of an article for no reason at all!" (And most compromises are met with "It's basically unreadable in dark mode".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at Anomie's table, I think the Monobook dark contrasted with the Timeless light would work pretty well. Dark mode looks atrocious to me but I don't see that this would be any less readable in dark mode than dark mode is anyway. --Trovatore (talk) 22:00, 3 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again: no amount of fiddling with the colors helps editors who are starting at the Main Page figure out which articles contain potentially unwanted links to non-English Wikipedia articles.
What's wanted – assuming we're trying to fix this problem – is "Here is the list of articles that need {{ill}} added to them". This is not a common enough problem that we can change the color and then tell people to click Special:Random a few hundred times and manually scan the page for the color change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:45, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose an edit filter (way too blunt), but support codifying {{ill}} as best practice, which is already de facto the case but isn't strongly codified yet. Indeed, guidelines should follow and codify community practices. It still leaves leeway for edge cases or people not knowing the guideline, as it would only mean that regular interlanguage links can be converted to {{ill}} (when reasonable) by later editors. Changing link colors to better distinguish interlanguage links is also a good thing, although such a visible change should probably be a proposal of its own. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 14:08, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose all. The English Wikipedia already has a severe lack of information about non-anglophone countries, and any form of this proposal would just make matters worse. James500 (talk) 05:14, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
MOS is not something even supposed to read all of to understand. It's uncohesive and does not need cohesion, so I don't see how any of the proposals here would diminish understanding. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:21, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.
Change editnotice appearance for mobile contributors
Hi all. I've started editing on my phone recently, and I've experienced the annoyance of editnotices for editors on mobile devices:
They're disproportionate to the rest of the UI and imposing
Their icons cause the text to stack to sometimes a screen's length high
So I propose improving their appearance for mobile editors with responsive web design, particularly since mobile devices constitute more than 40% of all Wikipedia readers, and growing.
The proposed changes' visual effects can be seen in the before and after screenshots below, additions to the CSS can also be seen below, and the actual changes viewed on Template:Editnotice/testcases on your desktop and mobile device by enabling the mobile sidebar gadget in your preferences (or use Chrome DevTools to simulate it on your device); it can also be perused in its entirety with the Template:Fmbox CSS at Template:Editnotice/styles.css too. My changes also include updating the colors used from static Hex to global variables, so that they automatically change with dark mode.
Instead of making the table cells in the Editnotice display: block; which is a 'quick fix', it would be wiser to convert the HTML <table> layout used in Template:Fmbox (as well as all the other mboxes) to use <div> instead, then use flexboxes (display: flex;) to get the horizontal and vertical layouts as the layout would be more responsive.
Edit notice before adaptive CSS on iPhone 380px ✕ 844px.
Edit notice after adaptive CSS on iPhone 380px ✕ 844px.
@mediascreenand(max-width:639px){/* Target smartphones */.fmbox.mbox-image,/* Stack icon and text vertically */.fmbox.mbox-text,/* Make the font size normal */.fmbox.mbox-imageright,.fmbox.editnotice-header,.fmbox.editnotice-headerspan{display:block;font-size:100%!important;width:90%;}.fmbox.mbox-imageimg.mw-file-element,.fmbox.mbox-imagerightimg.mw-file-element{height:auto;width:auto;max-height:40px;text-align:center;}}@mediascreenand(max-width:300px){/* Target tiny screens */.fmbox.mbox-image{/* Hide the icon */display:none;}}
Instead of making the table cells in the Editnotice display: block; which is a 'quick fix', it would be wiser to convert the HTML <table> layout used in Template:Fmbox (as well as all the other mboxes) to use <div> instead, then use flexboxes (display: flex;) - agree, and IMO this should be done to all other message boxes too. Sapphaline (talk) 14:58, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gnomingstuff: I hear you, and I agree that editnotices are important tools. The tricky part is weighing up the cost vs. benefit. Large, heavy editnotices might reduce vandalism, but they also risk discouraging good-faith editors (lowering editor retention) — and at some point the effect on vandalism bottoms out anyway. I don't think bumping the text size or icon slightly really changes that dynamic, since the notice still takes up a lot of space. We could always experiment with making the icon a bit larger (say 60×60px or more) and nudging the text size to 105%.
Your example I must disagree with though as it's a false argument, showing one example as the status quo is a hasty generalization and false equivalence. waddie96 ★ (talk)22:26, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Waddie96, I wonder if you could produce a mockup image that would help people understand what you're talking about. I doubt that anybody looks at the above screenshot and thinks "You know what's really great about edit notices? Having 25% of the screen be empty white space, with a blue dot most of the way down the screen, and all my important written instructions getting smushed over to the side in small text".
I don't understand this opposition. THEYCANTHEARYOU describes situations where editors can't see or understand things like editnotices. This proposal intends to repair serious HTML accessibility issues present in editnotices, thereby making them more readable to editors who might otherwise not understand them. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs)01:16, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The original proposal took issue with edit notices being disproportionate to the rest of the UI and imposing. That's the entire point.
The upstream systems that care about message boxes only care about ambox, hence why Module:Message box/div/doc details a plan that makes ambox (and tmbox) last in the rollout. fmbox and cmbox should be pretty safe, but either way, that's why there's a staged rollout. Izno (talk) 21:13, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It looks to me like the stop sign is slightly bigger (taller) than the others, but I believe these details can be changed. Also, I'm looking at this on a laptop, and the appearance on mobile (=66% of traffic) is going to be more important. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, icon size and line-height we can adjust (I believe it may be line height I did not adjust, but sized down the text. Can size it down proportionally. But main thing is the concept for now.
What I think is most important is either coming across a community developer/contributor who knows if MediaWiki core has implemented some mobile adaptations for web (I know they have an entire interface etc. for mobile apps, that's fine)? Or anyone know of someone they can ask. Otherwise last resort, I can log a Phabricator ticket, asking if this is feasible, and ensuring it won't interfere with the mobile app implementation. Let me know what you think. waddie96 ★ (talk)00:34, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Will the icons' appearance on Wikipedia Mobile (Web) be different from Wikipedia Mobile (App)?
Asking this because I viewed those icons on the web version, and wouldn't wanna give false inputs which might confuse you.
And we're discussing the web browser mobile app version yes, (I have used the app just not enough to confidently declare "I've used the app"), because the apps parse/process/sanitize the wikitext beforehand in some way I'm sure, for example the infobox is brought straight to the top just after one paragraph of lede (same as MobileFrontend), but also it doesn't go to the Main Page, it has it's own custom main page.
Support – they do look incredibly ugly. They'd still not be good-looking, but at least the font sizes won't be all over the place. In general I think we should turn ALL editnotices into a standardised template, which has set levels of importance and makes the notices appear accordingly. Like we did for Mbox in the 2000s. But that's a lot more work. FaviFake (talk) 18:57, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
RfC: merging Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names with AN(I)
Survey (merging Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User names with AN(I))
Support as proposer. There have been three (3) archived requests in 2025, and there were six (6) in 2024. We have too many noticeboards, discussion venues, and processes; dealing with this one seems like some low-hanging fruit. We previously shut down WP:EAR and WP:N/N for disuse. At the VPI discussion, it was brought up that this might slightly discourage filing reports. I see that as a feature, rather than a bug: only two of those nine reports found consensus that the username was inappropriate, most recently over a year ago, so slightly increasing the threshold for a filing would cut down on unnecessary discussions. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they)16:16, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. While ANI is definitely getting a bit large, the very low volume of requests this would add isn't really an issue compared to the advantage of simplifying a whole noticeboard away. If we want to limit ANI bloat, we could move something like TPA requests away to AIV instead. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:21, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This will just create confusion I think. The current page is being used for when UAA has declined to block a username, but the person reporting would like a community opinion. Bringing it to AN or ANI will result in overblocking, I suspect as blocking admins may not be familiar with the detailed rules we have. Secretlondon (talk) 16:43, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
SupportWP:AN or the suggestion in the discussion below for WP:UAA. OpposeWP:ANI, for reasons similar to Secretlondon's (though I'd say the bigger problem will be the dramaboard mob not reading the rules, rather than admins). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:39, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. RFC/N is a specialized venue for a specialized set of cases—notably, applying a policy that many users, even experienced users, even admins, often misunderstand. The proposer hasn't presented any evidence that RFC/Ns are resulting in unjust outcomes or otherwise hindering the smooth running of the encyclopedia, just that there isn't much volume of cases and that some can be resolved through normal admin actions, neither of which is inherently a problem. Nor have they presented any evidence that AN or AN/I is better-equipped to handle such cases. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and it ain't broke. Instead, I'd rather we better advertise the existence of RFC/N, particularly to UAA filers (who frequently report users on bases that do not justify a summary block, but might be disallowed at RFC/N if anyone bothered to file), and consider expanding RFC/N's scope to also include signature issues, which are related to username issues and are not well-suited to AN(I). -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 17:46, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Moving that "specialized set of cases" to a more widely used venue might result in more people understanding that policy better. That could result in fewer unjust accusations being made in the first place, which would support the smooth running of the encyclopedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose (summoned by bot). ANI every time I drive by or am summoned to it is definitely too large, and having a specialized venue would enable admins to get to specific username requests quickly, and sort them out. I would be more open to making them a dedicated section, but I still feel like that one page for everything could have a load time impact, as well as increase the chance of edit conflicts. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 14:16, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, largely as per Tamzin. We have a process and namespace already established and relied upon for this purpose, and there's absolutely no showing that it currently results in any issues of note. The vaguely ideological and (no offense to any party intended) fairly oversimplified argument that we should reduce and consolidate our processes wherever possible is, imo, uncompelling--at least in this instance where no evidence of confusion, substantial inefficiency in use of community resources, or abuse of process has proven demonstrable. The infrastructure of this project simply is a sprawling bureaucracy, by dent of the work we do and the challenges of coordinating so many different users with roughly equal standing across our consensus model. I'm very much with Tamzin especially with regard to their comments in the RFCBEFORE discussion, in that I do not think that "too many noticeboards" is really an issue for the project, let alone one of such magnitude that we should begin a process of eliminating niche administrative spaces without a substantial showing of need and funneling all of their traffic into an increasingly smaller number of work spaces. Indeed, I think the siloing of workflows is broadly speaking very healthy for our throughput and capacity and a not-insignificant part of the formula that keep the gears cranking here. I'm especially skeptical of diverting more discussion to AN/I as the supposedly most rational solution in this instance, as those boards have some of the most notoriously difficult issues with discussion tracking and admin response fatigue due to the number and variety of discussions that already take place there, the outsized attention demanded of controversial discussions, and just a lot getting lost in the mix because of the volume of contributions. Name change discussions tend to be relatively simple, straight forward and non-controversial, and moving them from a space where they seem to be readily and non-problematically resolved into the same fora that, depending on a given week, may be absolutely drowning in content and high emotions seems highly counter-intuitive to me. SnowRise let's rap21:18, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support this proposal and any alternative merge destination. Unlike some of my colleagues here I do think having too many noticeboards is a problem, and merging this one to AN or UAA would draw more attention to these discussions. I have no preference between those venues, but I do prefer these go on the main page and not a subpage, as that would kinda defeat the point of merging. Toadspike[Talk]22:40, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No - it's used when the submitter thinks it should be blocked but the admins don't agree. They've all gone through UAA and been found as borderline. Secretlondon (talk) 16:40, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see it as a separate section of the page. Given the very few username discussions it shouldn't be a problem. The other alternative would be to create a template to use and hold the discussion on the talk page of the user. Just spitballing here. 331dot (talk) 17:34, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, a dedicated section for deeper discussions would be quite helpful. Avoids sending editors flying from one noticeboard to another, and especially avoids the risk of ANI drama, while keeping the number of noticeboards low. I'm inclined to support that as my first choice. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:48, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That might necessitate renaming UAA to something else; Usernames for attention; Username reporting and discussion; something else..... 331dot (talk) 18:25, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yet another perfect place to change "administrator" to "administration", just like with AN/ANI. They're not pages for administrators, they're pages for the administration of the encyclopedia. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:23, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate what you are getting at, and don't disagree, and maybe there is something to be gained in our volunteer culture from making such changes, but I also tend to think there is nothing really wrong with keeping a slightly outdated and idiomatic title, once it has been grandfathered in for so long. It's really been a very, very long time since I've seen anyone, even a new user, imply that (for example) AN or ANI should be left to the mops. SnowRise let's rap21:22, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's easy to fix this in MediaWiki. There's no need to hack it via the message as it has some side effects, like the inputbox showing up again when you enter an invalid username. – SD0001 (talk) 10:06, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone ahead and implemented the inputbox as a stopgap. We can remove it if/when T404930 is resolved (just because a fix in MediaWiki is easy doesn't mean it will be fast). --Ahecht (TALK PAGE)14:15, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Removing extended autoconfirmed time for WP:Tor exit node users
Currently, we block all WP:Tor exit nodes such that any user wanting to edit through a Tor exit node would first need to contact a administrator and obtain the WP:IPBE user right before making any edits. (i.e. convince a admin that you will edit constructively and not sock, which is a much higher bar than typical autoconfirmed). However, currently MediaWiki artificially extends the period of time a user needs to edit for to be autoconfirmed to be atleast 90 day with a edit threshold of 100 edits. Given the way we currently handle Tor IPs, adding this extended time period seems counter intuitive. Would it be a good idea to remove the 90 day, 100 edit barrier for WP:AC users (especially those who have been granted IPBE)? (cc @W00zles and @Stwalkerster who were involved in the request, and @Risker, who I know has a lot of institutional knowledge of why certain features were implemented v/s weren't) -- If the community is okay/open to the idea of reducing/removing the WP:AC time/edit extension, I'll file a phabricator task to reduce the period! Sohom (talk) 20:07, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm generally supportive, but a couple of points. Global IPBE (torunblocked) can be granted by stewards, even for accounts which don't exist on this wiki. In those cases, and in some cases on this wiki, the bar can be very low - often we'll just take a look whether we believe someone is in China, or Iran, or wherever. No edits required. That said, having a high bar for AC doesn't really add much in today's environment. -- zzuuzz(talk)20:34, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I support this motion. I will admit that this directly benefits me as a Tor editor. Failing the accepting of this proposal, I would ask that the tools that check for autoconfirmed to be unified. A lot of sources don't agree with the autoconfirmed status of Tor users. The MediaWiki API returns that I am confirmed, but the internal tools such as Special:UserRights indicates to me I only have IPBE. My Preferences page also disagrees with the API. W00zles (talk) 21:58, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some groups are actually assigned in the database, while others are implicitly assigned at runtime. It appears that TorBlock changes the implicit assignment based on the source of the incoming request, so you when using Tor you'll see the higher requirements being applied even when you look at the implicit groups of other users who never use Tor. OTOH, if you're making the API request via Tor and it's not applying the higher requirements, that's probably a bug. Anomie⚔22:18, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Z@Anomie, I think the problem here is that they see very different results compared to me, if I make a query through the API, I see them as autoconfirmed, whereas when they try to edit a page that has a autoconfirmed restriction, they can't. If the answer is "keep the extended period", then we need better tools as administrator to know that this restriction is being applied. Sohom (talk) 13:37, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not certain what your proposal is here, so I'll give two answers. I think I'm opposed to reducing Tor autoconfirmed status below non-Tor status especially if GIPBE allows Tor editing, but I don't have any reasons why we shouldn't equalise it between Tor/non-Tor while a blanket ban on non-(G)IPBE Tor users exists so I'm weakly supportive of that. stwalkerster (talk) 22:28, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I support. Tor requires IPBE, which isn't exactly an easy feat for a new user. I don't see much of a reason to have the higher bar these days, with the global ban on Tor. EggRoll97(talk) 15:20, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Responding to ping. Tor is a form of open proxy, which is generally banned throughout the Wikimedia world for a lot of complex reasons. There are attribution issues, there is the longterm dramatically higher rate of vandalism, and there is the simple fact that Tor historically was used regularly by two groups: vandals and activists of various stripes. I genuinely do not know if the extended period for autoconfirmed applies only to those using Tor, or if it applies to all users with IP block exemption. (Logically, it should apply to all accounts with IPBE, because there is no "special" permission above that to enable access via Tor.) All known Tor exit nodes are blocked globally, and pretty much have been since the "no open proxies" global policy and philosophy was introduced. In response to EggRoll97, I can honestly say that probably 1/2 of IPBE requests coming in through the central checkuser VRT queue are from comparative newcomers; in about 5-10% of cases, we actually have to create their accounts for them. It's really not hard to find us or to ask for it.
I'd suggest that the real debate here is whether the no open proxies policy needs to be revisited, in light of (often justified) concerns about personal internet security throughout the world, not just regions with authoritarian governments. I realize that doesn't really answer the subject of this thread, but on reading things through, I can't tell if this is a local issue or a global one; and given my personal opinion on autoconfirmed is that I'd rather increase the requirements for everyone, I'm probably not the best person to weigh in. Risker (talk) 15:43, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I should clarify, my main reason for calling it not an "easy feat" is the specific case you mentioned, which is that they would need to go through the VRT queue. That's already a lot just to get an account created, involving manually contacting CheckUsers (I don't believe there's really an automated way to just submit a request to the CU VRT queue). I know it probably doesn't sound like a lot of work, but comparatively to just creating an account as normal, that's a much more involved process.
Side note, I do think it probably would be good to start discussing autoconfirmed being bumped a bit, the low standard may be intentional, but it feels far too easy to game autoconfirmed socks with the current requirements. EggRoll97(talk) 16:21, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can say in my personal experience attempting to get my account usable was a real challenge. I had to go to an admin in real life and ask them to confirm me. I never got a response from the stewards when I made the IPBE request after getting my account made for me over Tor, leaving me with little ability to do anything.
I am not opposed to a raised autoconfirm requirement due to vandals but I do think, as mentioned in the other reply thread, it should be equal at a minimum between IPBE and not. W00zles (talk) 23:10, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
Background, currently, we block all WP:Tor exit nodes such that any user wanting to edit through a Tor exit node would first need to contact a administrator and obtain the WP:IPBE user right before making any edits. (i.e. convince a admin that you will edit constructively and not sock, which is a much higher bar than typical autoconfirmed). However, currently MediaWiki artificially extends the period of time a user needs to edit for to be autoconfirmed to be atleast 90 day with a edit threshold of 100 edits. This is enforced by the the TorBlock extension which was added some time in 2008. Since then, our policies have shifted, in the current day, due to our No open proxies rules, editing through Tor exit nodes are typically always blocked locally (and many times globally). Due to this, the bar for editing through Tor proxies has become "request the IPBE userright" + the aformentioned extended autoconfirmed userright. Given this, I would like to propose that we remove the special extended time period to get autoconfirmed for Tor users, and instead equalize the bar for recieving the autconfirmed userright for both Tor and non-Tor users. -- 14:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)
!Votes
Support, per what I have said above, getting IPBE userright is not a small task for users with no edits to show (since the bar often used is "has constructive contributions/will not edit disruptively" which is hard to show when you are blocked from making any edits). As such, the bar for getting IPBE is a higher one than to be autoconfirmed (which for normal users is 4 day and 10 edits) and given that IPBE is basically mandatory to edit through Tor, it does not make sense to create another meaningless hurdle here. Note that this proposal does not preclude (and is mutually exclusive from) discussion about increasing the level required for autoconfirmed users for everyone. -- Sohom (talk) 14:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Soham Datta, the proposal and the preceding discussion. There is no reason to treat tor and non-tor users differently in this regard. Thryduulf (talk) 17:06, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Permission to create beetle articles at a pace that exceeds the normal limit
Hello everyone. I have been creating stubs and expanding existing articles on beetle species for a while. They range from very short, to start class (I guess). If they are very short, they always include: a taxobox (with all relevant info, including all synonyms), distribution of the species and host plant/prey (if known). It seems I create articles at a pace that has raised some eyebrows for some fellow wikipedians. See: User_talk:B33tleMania12 and Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(species) to read all about it. What I am requesting is permission to add beetle articles like I am doing (which may include a range of these very short articles). I was told that the normal daily limit is between 20-50 articles per day. I guess that if I could get a waiver to create about 100 per day, that would at least make clear to everyone that it is ok what I am doing. That being said: I am now working on a source that allows me to create these very short basic stubs. I do intend to get back to making more sizeable articles after that, see for examples all species articles I created for this genus Cephaloleia (but I might in the future like to work on a list of these basic stubs again if I find a good source). B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:26, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I dont make automated or semi-automated articles. I use a template in notepad which includes the static info. That is why the request is not a pure MASSCREATE request. B33tleMania12 (talk) 22:29, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is okay. The subjects are all notable per Wikipedia:Notability (species), and there is basically no chance of them being deleted. A spot check shows that he's citing two sources in each stub. The {{Taxonbar}} links indicate that most of these have another half-dozen reliable sources available. Unlike other species, there doesn't seem to be an authoritative, comprehensive database for beetles, so I'm glad that he's checking them individually. Looking at articles such as Brontispa cyperaceae, even the shortest ones provide basic information (name, type, family, location, what it eats), plus the usual {{Speciesbox}}. Articles such as Gonophora whitei provide even more (that one even qualifies for WP:DYK).
"The normal rate", or at least the normal maximum under WP:MASSCREATE, is 25–50 articles per day. I think B33tlemania12 recently created about 100 or so articles in one day. That's a lot, but reviewing these is so much quicker and easier than for, e.g., BLPs, that it's IMO not unmanageable on our end. I have seen discussions about the creations, and none of the comments are about an unfair load on page patrollers.
Based on prior discussions, I believe that any complaints will take one of two forms:
People who (incorrectly) think that systematic article creation (as opposed to hopscotching through whatever catches your eye) turns Wikipedia into a database. WP:NOTDATABASE is about not putting unexplained raw data into an article; it's not about writing an ordinary sentence about whether we know what a given beetle eats.
As someone has unilaterally draftified a few of these, I want to say that there is no point in sending these through AFC; species articles are evaluated only for notability, which means that species articles get kicked right back out into the mainspace. (AFC's job is not "protect my delicate eyes from all these WP:UGLY little stubs"; it's job is to determine notability of the subject, rather than the beauty of the current revision, and to get pages moved to the mainspace as soon as the AFC reviewer is confident that the article is unlikely to be deleted if it's sent to AFD.)
I don't think that either of these are valid reasons to prevent or slow down the creation of these articles. IMO these are decent, if usually brief, articles on obviously notable subjects, and the creator should be encouraged to continue creating articles with a minimum of two cited reliable sources. If someone wanted to create, say, 500 articles a day, then I think we should have another discussion, but for anything in the 500 a week range, I think we're just fine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
" The links indicate that most of these have another half-dozen reliable sources available. " Nope. E.g. Aspidispa maai has 8 links in the taxonbar, but at least two of them (Wikidata and iNaturalist) are not reliable sources, others are not independent of each other: Open Tree Taxonomy is an automatic representation of data from GBIF, also included in the taxonbar, similarly Catalogue of Life is a rehash of ITIS, and ITIS is already a reference in the article anyway. I wasn't able to access BioLib (thanks to AI scrapers overload), but the others are at best interdependent databases, not a series of reliable independent sources. Fram (talk) 13:45, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, but we don't count them as multiple sources (e.g. multiple newspapers reposting the same Reuters report = one source). The Taxonbar doesn't indicate what you claimed it did. Fram (talk) 08:50, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The notability of a species doesn't depend on how many sources exist.
Those links overlap, but I think most of those sources also contain some unique information. For example, in Aspidispa maai, the first link in the taxonbar has very little information, but gives the family's common name of 'leaf beetles'; the second link says that it's an accepted species, which isn't in the first, and doesn't say anything about the common name, which is; the third link says it has bilateral symmetry, which isn't in either of the prior ones, and so on. Unlike the example of a Reuters or other wire service article, they are not simply duplicates of each other. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:30, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your first sentence is a rpeply to nothing. The "first link in the taxonbar" is to Wikidata, which is not a reliable source. Like I said already. The second link is another wiki, again not a reliable source, third one is one I had no issue with, and then you "and so on" the ones I actually did discuss to indicate that your "another half dozen reliable sources" was incorrect (three wikis, one other already used as a reference, so immediately you are down to 4 anyway; and then something like the "Catalogue of Life" entry[15] is just a copy of ITIS, the exact same data presented in a different layout; this is not "another" reliable source, this is two instances of the same database (just like opentree is a gbid copy, not a new source). So the taxonbox on this article gives us two new databases. Fram (talk) 15:57, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, for this subfamily, there will always be at least three reliable sources (if you include ITIS and its 'copies' if you want to classify them as such). That is: 1. World Catalogue of Hispines, 2. The original description of the species (this must exist for it to be an accepted species) and 3. ITIS. For most, more will exist, but I think these three would be enough to get it at least at the level of Aspidispa maai (which could be longer if I would have included more detail about the species description, but I think that would make it too technical and I don't want to add words just to make a certain imaginary threshold. I do copy the full species description from old sources sometimes, because they are written in such a way that make it hard for me to rewrite (I do try to make proper sentences though, which is often not the case in the original. All of that being said: I wont be able to get access to point 2 sources (the original description) if they are behind a paywall or in a language I dont understand (and if google translate isnt able to make me understand). However: even if that part of the article would be missing (for now or worst case forever), as I understood it, these would still be acceptable articles. So the debate is not IF I am allowed to make them, but at which pace. At least, that was the intention of the discussion. To add to this (I wont use any user names to spare them the ) but I have seen other articles being added constantly that are lower quality (bare URLs, only one sentence, etc.) and I have looked at the Talk pages for these users, and there is no discussion (sometimes suggestions to improve, that are not followed by that user, at which point nothin happens), so I am wondering what that is about. Besides not following the suggestion to merge species into genus pages and making too many in a short amount of time, I have (I think) taken to heart every comment made by others to improve the articles. Anyway: I think there will be no end to this discussion and I don't know how this works now.. the question was if I could make more than the normal daily limit. So far, there is not a clear answer I think? B33tleMania12 (talk) 17:37, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was not commenting on the request you made (although I would prefer in general that much more often similar short articles would be combined into lists, by all editors), I was commenting on typical clearly incorrect statements by WhatAmIDoing. Requests like yours should be discussed on their actual merits, not on misconceptions from other editors. Fram (talk) 08:21, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My first sentence ("The notability of a species doesn't depend on how many sources exist") is a reply to your comment that we don't count them as multiple sources – as if that could be a problem, given that WP:NSPECIES does not require multiple sources.
I ignored Wikidata in counting the links, because obviously we don't use wikis as reliable sources. I'm not sure where BioLib falls in the WP:UGC spectrum. The website says "Unlike other systems such as Wikipedia users are not directly changing content of BioLib but the added data is added as "unconfirmed" and our administrators review it first before accepting it among verified data". This constitutes "editorial oversight", to use the wording in WP:V and WP:RS, but is it good oversight, or rather perfunctory? Someone would have to know more about that site than I do. At first glance, though, I wouldn't describe it as a wiki myself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the above that this seems OK. Being efficient and systematic are not problems. It sounds like enough care is being taken to avoid bad information being included in the encyclopedia, which is the most important thing. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 15:36, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I likewise agree. People may prefer longer articles, but these are longer than the alternative, which, unless you are prepared to write about the subject yourself, is of zero length. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:41, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks for your input all. I do not know how much time must pass to come to a conclusion, but I am going to at least move the drafted stuff back to Live. B33tleMania12 (talk) 12:04, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do question whether having separate articles on every species of beetle is the right approach (I would probably go with a list), but that is more a quibble with the notability guideline itself and not with the rate at which the articles are created. THAT is more an issue of not overwhelming new article reviewers. If they are comfortable with this, I don’t see a problem. Blueboar (talk) 17:12, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. If all the content you have for an article is this then please do not create a new article. Consider adding it to a list instead, as I have suggested to you multiple times. I do not understand why editors want to create so many low quality articles. You should get more satisfaction from writing a featured list and this would serve readers much better. In my opinion 25 new articles in a day is plenty, and allowing more means that editors will not be giving due attention to the new articles they create — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:26, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is not the only thing I have, but like I said numerous times also: it is easier to first make the page at the right place (i.e. get the taxonomy right) before adding more detail. If I add more info right away, I have to do a dive into taxonomic changes for each individual species. The source to expand the article you just mentioned would be this: Wayback Machine, but I would like to get the species pages added first, so I don't waste time adding species that have now been placed in synonymy, moved to other genera, etc. B33tleMania12 (talk) 08:40, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do we have any statistics that show how likely a separate article is to be expanded, as compared to an entry on a list? Intuitively it feels to me that a separate article is much more likely to be expanded. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:51, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The point of comparison would be what articles are created from a redlink on a list (or unredlinked item?), rather than expansion on the list itself. CMD (talk) 13:01, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on the list? A table-formatted list, or one with descriptions for each item, might see expansion. A list of bare names (see Aspidispa#Species, for the example Martin gives) is unlikely to be expanded in the list. I guess the answer to your question is: B33tleMania12 made that list of redlinked species, and is now turning the red links blue, and Martin recommends that they should go make the list...that they already made. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:25, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's a good idea to tell editors what kind of contribution "should" be satisfying to them.
Also, Martin, the time to say that people should make lists instead of short articles was in Wikipedia talk:Notability (species)/Archive 2#Proposal to adopt this guideline (where that view was rejected). These aren't "low-quality articles". These are "short" articles. 16% of Wikipedia's articles have three sentences or less. 38% of Wikipedia's articles have two refs or less. These are not weirdly short outliers compared to the rest of Wikipedia's articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:15, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, and I'd rather that admins didn't restore potential copyright violations[16] added by an editor with a history of source fraud, socking, and nationalist POV stuff, after being told they were likely copyright violations,[17], and I'd also really like it if their most recent article creation didn't have a bunch of close paraphrasing of a tourism site (ad) that they split from the main article, but I guess those were more satisfying? Beetle guy's article contributions are higher quality that than, anyway. If they want to make these articles, then I say let them. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋09:39, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm with Martin, I don't support this but I also don't necessarily oppose it. It's worth noting that you've been denied autopatrolled twice, most recently in August, so I don't know if mass-creating would be the best idea. EF513:11, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, one of those denies was down to the fact that the editor creates articles that 'are easy reviews' (which did strike me as an odd rationale!) and the other was that the editor hadn't created any long articles (when they clearly create very short ones). It appears to me that many, many of these species type stubs are out there and the bar for creation (ie: not applying WP:GNG to the letter) appears to have long been set low for species stubs, no? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 14:20, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not that odd a rationale if you consider why autopatrol exists. It is a means of reducing the work involved in new page patrolling, rather than a hat to be collected. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:47, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, but an editor creating hundreds of valid species articles (and I couldn't find one that NPP had rejected/tagged/draftified) could - and I believe should - be autopatrolled, even if each article isn't a huge overhead to review. But, hey, that's just me... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 16:10, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did not ask for autopatrol myself, so I was not aware that I was 'denied'. I do not care for myself either, but I guess it would help others. Anyway: it seems reasonable not to give autopatrol too soon. You never know how that might turn out in the end. B33tleMania12 (talk) 16:32, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's fine I bet the boys and girls at New Page Patrol love you... The articles are indeed valid (and have been universally patrolled as such by NPP) and a nice, easy new page review at that! Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 08:39, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose this is a WP:PAGEDECIDE issue and here the answer is often "no". Instead of aiming for completion, we should ask: do these articles help the reader? And the answer is no, because the reader wants an encyclopedia article, which is not what they're getting. Wikispecies is a worthy project, but it's not this project. Microstubs which have very little hope of expansion aren't helpful; they're an annoyance. Cremastra (talk·contribs) 21:45, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have a few suggestions for this. First, you could create pages in draft space and submit them for promotion. Second, as some have suggested above, you could start with list articles creating summaries of this information with many redirects pointing to those lists. BD2412T22:32, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing Species to genus redirs are fine if there is, as BD suggests, actually information at the target. What generally get deleted is when the genus article is just a list of species which redirect back to the same article, with no actual information anywhere. Cremastra (talk·contribs) 22:58, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, that is all possible. The way I wanted to work is create a basic stub and then use a source to expand them. Because this seems to keep going forever. I also refute the claims above that these 'can never be expanded'. So (as I already did before), I spend some extra time fleshing some out. If these are still not satisfactory, then I guess I am done with Wikipedia and wish future editors good luck with the bureaucrats. For the work I did the past hour on expanding: User contributions for B33tleMania12 - WikipediaB33tleMania12 (talk) 22:43, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I have frequently encountered B33tleMania12's articles while doing new page patrolling. At first, I thought there was something up - the number of new creations in so short a time, and the brevity of the articles. But looking at new page criteria, all of the articles, while essentially stubs (at least initially) meet our criteria. Sure, there's an argument that they could be just some list articles, but they are being expanded, and - well, anyone is free to create a list article if they want? Why not both? (Also, Alexandermcnabb - yes! ;-) BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!09:52, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Up to 100 per day seems OK to me. These are not going to flood watchlists and there's no question of notability. Re the argument that they are permastubs: some are likely to remain stubs for a very long time, but as far as I can that's generally because there are a lot of them, not because they are inherently incapable of expansion. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:22, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Should we have an essay or something on "Jew tagging"?
This feels like a BLP thing, like, just as we shouldn't push a person's religion or political views unless they are well-documented, we shouldn't go around pushing a person's ethnic heritage unless that's always well-documented and part of their history. Most well-researched biographies will include this info and will make it due for us to include, but I suspect in cases like these, the editor leaning into one source to include and pushing a type of agenda. Masem (t) 13:03, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The difference between Jew-tagging and inclusion of ethnicity and/or religion in a well-researched (and well-written) biography is generally readily apparent in the wording. 'X is jewish' with no further context is bad writing, if it isn't tagging, and anyone adding that to multiple articles needs looking at. Look out also for people insisting that ethnicity and religion are one and the same: it's a clear WP:BLP violation to assign religious beliefs to a living person based on descent, but far too many people think it appropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:14, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I am saying while this Jew-tagging is most predominated, if we write something it should be neutral w.r.t to any ethnicity/religious background. Masem (t) 14:01, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So there are two situations where this is a factor:
Situations where an editor who is proud of their ethnicity/religion/nationality/etc wants to “tag” the subject of an article as being “one of us”.
Situations where an editor who dislikes a particular ethnicity/religion/nationality/etc wants to tag the subject as “one of them”.
In both situations the editor is inserting (“tagging”) the information for the wrong reasons. The editor is being non-neutral. The editor is adding information because that information is important to the editor, not because the information is important to the subject. Blueboar (talk) 14:13, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For Jew-tagging I'd mostly say it's the latter, collecting people they think are Jews to justify some antisemitic canard (example). However, I've also seen the former in e.g. WP:CT/SA topics. A broader guideline/policy might help, such as only including ethnic labels when they show significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. ChildrenWillListen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 14:30, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's how I see it too. And I'm not saying these situations are equal in yukky-ness or whatever, but I think both motivations exist.
And there are cases where one GF Wikipedian thinks "Jewish should be mentioned in article per coverage in existing WP:RS", and another GF Wikipedian thinks "You're wrong." Consensus might be achieved if both consider the other Wikipedian GF.
In both the cases of Einstein and Jesus, being Jewish was critically important to their respective biographies, and belongs in the lead. I don't think we should categorically create a policy against so-called Jew-tagging, as this is already covered by MOS:ETHNICITY, and the need for everything in a BLP to be reliably sourced and in due weight for inclusion. Andre🚐01:13, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, it should be mentioned (and I'm not saying those current articles are WP-bad on this issue), but there is more to it than that, there is devil in the details and the article is bigger than the WP:LEAD. In both the cases of Einstein and Jesus, the question on "how" has been discussed and edited. See for example the mentions of Einstein in [23]. Paraphrasing page 13-15: "It should be mentioned... but not like that. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:31, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Btw, I know this may not be the really problematic kind of Jew-tagging, but I sometimes wonder about articles like Joshua Waitzkin. There is no mention in article text, but the categories are there, which is clearly undesirable if we follow WP:BLPCAT and WP:CATVER. It's not my basic assumption that whoever added these had an antisemitic motive, but I think of it as Jew-tagging nonetheless. I have also encountered what I consider LGBTQ-tagging, but that's off-topic in this thread. So yes, we should have an essay or something. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:01, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Its the same problem, as we are not using categories to create a classification system for articles, but instead to put articles into categories that they are well-known to be within. If the article makes no mention, the category absolutely should not be there, and even if there is mention, editors must use good judgment to add to the category. Masem (t) 14:04, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gråbergs Gråa Sång: Sometimes (and this is something I have found as a longtime user of AWB) that comes about because there was, once, some kind of reference to Judaism in the article that was later removed. But a category was added based on the reference, and that category remains...and then gets reinforced by the AWB search. I try to weed things out, but in a large category with many articles that's not always easy.
That being said, there are always articles where someone has taken something and run with it, incorrectly. (I may be tooting my own horn, here, and forgive me for doing so, but in my own article someone added me to the category Category:American Ashkenazi Jews. Which...to be charitable, I can maybe see where it came from, though I do not agree. But I am not an Ashkenazi Jew, nor have I ever claimed to be one in an interview. And it really bugs me that someone has gone ahead and made that assumption for one reason or another.) --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa.16:19, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This subject has come up before. It reminds me of this piece about the importance of this information to readers:
(If you can't read it, then go to https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/suggest/, scroll down until you see the entry for 'Washington Post', and click the Upvote button, and then search for the title in your Favorite Web Search Engine. The overall point is that having a Wikipedia article indicate whether someone belongs to a particular identity group is really important to a lot of readers.)
I think we sometimes approach this from the wrong direction. The fact is, in all of human history, there have been "us" and "them". Who is in which group varies by time and place, and which factors are considered more or less salient varies by time and place, but if a person in a given time/place happens to be in a socially disadvantaged group (any group[s] that time/place disadvantages), then that's an important factor in those individuals' lives. I think we all know this, even if we're sometimes squeamish about acting on it because of our own personal political views (e.g., that Racial color blindness is a good thing and we should write articles to fit that view). We're happy to write "attended Big University for one term", even though this may have had no real effect on the person's life, and we cheerfully write "was orphaned at the age of 15", because we instinctively recognize that this matters, but we don't want to write "was Black" even if the person was born under Jim Crow laws and therefore almost everything about their life, including where they could live, whether they could learn to read, and what would happen if they told a joke at work, was determined by this fact.
I would like to suggest editors consider this model for determining which factors should be included when verifiable: Look at the person's main reason for notability, and think about whether being "the first ____ " would constitute a Wikipedia:Credible claim of significance. If it would, then the fact that the person is ____ should be included. For example, if the person's claim to fame is being an artist who won the "Notable Artist Award", then as yourself what you would do for various categories of identity, if the person were the first from that identity group to win the award:
The first woman to win the Notable Artist Award: Include her gender.
The first Roma person to win the Notable Artist Award: Include their ethnicity.
The first American to win the Notable Artist Award: Include nationality.
The first Asian person to win the Notable Artist Award: Include race.
The first gay man to win the Notable Artist Award: Include sexual orientation.
The first Muslim to win the Notable Artist Award: Include religion.
The first teenager to win the Notable Artist Award: Include age, assuming it usually goes to older adults.
The first blue-collar worker to win the Notable Artist Award: Include social class, assuming it usually goes to people with higher socioeconomic status.
The first Southerner to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include geographic identity unless there are special circumstances (e.g., the award comes from a group that emphasizes their Yankee heritage).
The first parent to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include family status unless there are special circumstances.
The first blonde to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include hair color unless there are special circumstances.
The first cancer survivor to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include health status unless there are special circumstances.
The first short man to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include height unless there are special circumstances.
The first Boomer to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include generational identity unless there are special circumstances.
The first schoolteacher to win the Notable Artist Award: Don't include occupational identity unless there are special circumstances.
To be clear, try this exercise even if you know that the person isn't the first ____. The point is, if it would be obviously worth including (or obviously worth excluding) if the person were the first ____ to do this, then it's probably okay to mention (or probably not worth mentioning) the fact that the person is ____ somehow in the article.
Also, don't we have a page somewhere that says to be careful about how we describe membership in an Ethnoreligious group or Ethnonational group? "Born to a Jewish family" doesn't make assumptions about the person's religious beliefs, and many people in the world should be described as "Israelis" instead of "Jews who live in Israel". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the closest we have is WP:ETHNICRACECAT. There was a donnybrook a few years ago from a journalist who wrote about what he viewed as the tagging of his article, when according to him it does not matter to his life or his work, the account claiming to be him even participated in the discussion. I think it was ultimately excluded. I don't want to draw more attention to him, but it is not surprising that it is personal, and even going toward private, to some. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:10, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not so clear what the *specific* objective here is. I'm somewhat reluctant to separate out antisemitic editing from any form of discriminatory editing. I'd categorise philosemitism as of a different nature and intent. What is missing from our current toolkit that creates a loophole for antisemitic editing? Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 00:48, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:ETHNICITY covers current practice concerning how ethnicity should be handled. Also edit filter 982 flags Jew-tagging pretty well. Until recently the proportion of malicious tagging has comprised about 80-90% of such edits. Over the past couple of years that seems to have fallen to maybe 60%, with the remainder appearing to be editors who are showing philosemitism (thanks Goldztajn). It can be hard to distinguish between the two at times, and I've seen malicious editors try to portray themselves as the latter, while editors motivated by ethnic pride have argued that someone's Jewishness is being "suppressed" inappropriately, complicating things. I think an essay describing how singling out Jews for special emphasis would be valuable. I see a lot of edits where people are described as "Jewish American" (insert actual nationality as appropriate), as if that's some other nationality than other Americans. I regard it as a pernicious form of othering that should be deprecated. Acroterion(talk)01:11, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Indian-American, Mexican-American, Jewish-American, Italian-American, Irish-American, black or African-American, these are all terms in RS, they aren't neologistic, and if RS use them, they are appropriate to use to describe a person. That isn't necessarily othering or malicious. Diaspora communities exist in other countries that also retain their own cultural communities. The original Americans are of course indigenous Native peoples, First Nations etc. But in terms of X-American as an ethnicity+nationality, this can be specifically to describe an artist that draws specific inspiration from their work and embeds it in that work. For example, Ana Mendieta is described as a Cuban-American artist. Andre🚐01:18, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Those are appropriate in the right context, but Jewish is also a religion. We don't say "Catholic-American." While ethnic identifiers may be appropriate where warranted farther in, the lede sentence or paragraph is where mixing ethnicity or religion is explicitly discouraged, and where we see the most trouble. We stick to nationality only, unless there is some unusual reason to mention ethnicity. We mention something like "Mexican-American" in the lede only where there is dual nationality. Jewish isn't a nationality. I often see nationality taken out entirely, and replaced with Jewish. Acroterion(talk)01:39, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is discouraged if and only if it is not an important part of the biography. Jewish is an ethnicity, not a nationality. There are Mexican-Americans who are not Mexican by nationality, just by ethnicity. For example, George Lopez lead mentions Mexican American, but he is a natural-born American. Andre🚐01:48, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I want to distinguish between in the lede sentence and mentioning it in that context elsewhere. Remember that a lot of people and AI read only the first few lines. Lopez is mentioned only as American in the lede sentence, per the MOS. His Mexican-American heritage is important to his biography and is covered immediately after. What I see in many instances of Jew-tagging is something different - a negation of nationality in favor of ethnicity, or just random tagging of "he is Jewish" when it's not otherwise significant. An Orthodox rebbe would be another matter.. Acroterion(talk)01:57, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am talking about the lead paragraph, you just a moment ago said, the lede sentence or paragraph, and while it may not be in the lead sentence in Lopez's article, see the 3 Cuban-American artists below. Andre🚐02:02, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know. I'm not concerned about mentioning ethnicity in the lede where appropriate. What I'm talking about (and what the rest of this thread is about) is sticking in ethnicity or religion where it isn't appropriate, sourced, or significant. This happens a lot in the case of Jews. I think an essay covering the ins and outs of this kind of thingiwould be useful. Acroterion(talk)02:06, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know what you mean, but we have to distinguish the random tagging of just putting the sometimes inaccurate or sparsely sourced mention of someone being Jewish as a biographical detail that isn't "relevant to their notability" (which is vague, but I would interpret that pretty broadly), and certainly if it involves replacing American with Jewish (or the lowercase jew is often a sign of bad faith), versus what may not necessarily be a philosemitic boast or claiming, but simply an accurate read of someone's biography. Einstein was an American Jewish scientist, in my view, this is shown by the fact that Einstein left his papers to the Hebrew University that he helped found. "By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, today in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be represented as a bête noire, the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!" Dara Horn, Michael Chabon, and Regina Spektor could, in my view, reasonably be described in the lead as American Jewish. They aren't right now, but I personally do not think they would either be offended or dispute that that is just an accurate read of its importance to their oeuvres. Andre🚐02:12, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes," significance" can be kind of vague. It can come from either the subject's personal experience or the emphasis placed by historians. That's not what I usually see - it's picking out people that an editor imagines embodying some kind of attribute associated with Jews - positive or negative - and dumping in ethnicity out of context. Again, we're talking about a potential essay that covers all of this. Acroterion(talk)
You are an experienced and responsible admin, rolling in clue, who can easily distinguish between drive-by tagging and serious work. But I worry about others. For example, in the discussion below this point, several users have either opined that almost any descriptor of someone being Jewish is inappropriate, which I think as you gave in the example of an Orthodox rabbi, let alone my secular artist examples, is worrisome in terms of how this could be overzealously or mistakenly interpreted. Especially for historical figues and non-BLP with a historian source analysis consensus of the importance of their Jewishness, or Cubanness, not even getting into the living artists that, in my view, are obviously proud of and centering their culture and are not being singled out by right wingers to exclude or diminish them just by describing them as what they obviously describe themselves as in those cases. While I recognize that an essay could better elucidate the distinction, I don't necessarily feel that the right ingredients for what that essay would be have been brought forth in a consensus manner here, and I feel like any essay distilling the reasoning here would actually be non-neutral in terms of its rejection of any ethnic or national component of the biography. That is also a pattern that Wikipedia can fall into, namely erasure of difference and intersectionality in favor of a logical, neat, black and white modernism. Andre🚐19:37, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Those are poorly done, they are American, per guideline. There is no good reason to 'other' them. To the extent their ethnicity is reflected in their work or plays a part in their career, it can be mentioned after the first sentence. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:47, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, they are. The guideline says the first sentence should focus on their nationality linking to citizenship. Citizenship in the United States, was so much trying to other, that there was the 14th Amendment passed to preclude that. And it has become a political football again. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:56, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Multicultural representation and the celebration of diversity isn't necessarily othering, that is part of what makes America great and special - salad bowl and not a pure melting pot. In The Heights would be a very boring play if Lin-Manuel Miranda referred to every character as just generic Americans without portraying the challenges and joys of the Puerto Rican and Dominican immigrant community of New York. The Cuban-American artists I linked were all born in New York or Chicago, so they are American citizens by any plain reading of the amendment, and Wikipedia should decline to participate in any hysteria about birthright citizenship being on the chopping block: it can't be, and isn't. People can't just wish away constitutional amendments even SCOTUS judges. Anyway, the Cuban-American artists I linked all make their heritage and experience part of their work, and critical to their biography and notability, which is excepted in policy. Andre🚐03:52, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You don't seem to be paying attention nor listening. Your comment on multiculturalism is not in the least responsive to what has been said. My comments never said nor suggested don't mention it anywhere, indeed they explicitly said put it elsewhere, as warranted. (As an aside, you seem to have no knowledge what is in fact going on in the Supreme Court, and even if the administration loses the active case, many people will still cling to the othering argument. But as your comment is generally irrelevant, we should move on.)
The place we are talking about in the guideline, the first sentence, is reserved for citizenship, not race nor ethnicity. So, therefore doing something else, like replacing citizenship with ethnicity is othering, and its literally treating the bio unlike other American bios, so again, othering. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:58, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is an unnecessarily personal comment. We just don't agree. There's no reason to accuse me of not listening or paying attention. That kind of comment has no place in Wikipedia discussions. You were the one who brought up birthright citizenship, which is not relevant terribly to this discussion except peripherally. You are reading something that isn't in the guideline MOS:ETHNICITY/MOS:CONTEXTBIO. most modern-day cases, this will be the country, region, or territory where the person is currently a national or permanent resident...Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability. It clearly makes an exception and allows for "most" cases, in fact most modern-day cases. Nowhere does it say that you can never mention an ethnicity in the lead paragraph or sentence. It is not othering, necessarily, to describe someone as Cuban-American or Jewish-American or American Jewish, as all three of those contain a nationality, not replacing it. Andre🚐21:24, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, when it is clear you are not listening. Then it needs to be said. Your the one who brought up these examples, which in the place of American for citizenship, literally have something other. So, my addressing American citizenship is spot on. Nor did I argue, ethnicity should necessarily not be elsewhere in those articles. So, your argument has to do with failure to to listen to what I, in fact, said. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:33, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your accusation that I am not listening or paying attention is a personal attack, so please refrain from saying that in the future. And perhaps you may want to strike part of your comment if you are seeking to resume good faith. Andre🚐21:45, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What? Your not listening is what accounts for your irrelevant statements. Since acknowledging culture was literally what I said could be addressed elsewhere in the article, as appropriate. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:53, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'll try one more time to reply and then we should drop this because I don't see how we can come to an understanding at this rate. My argument is that 1) the guideline allows for some situations where ethnicity may be mentioned in the first sentence and/or the lead, 2) you claimed it was othering due to what you mentioned about citizenship which I rebutted arguing that representing multiculturalism is not necessarily othering, EVEN when it involves using the exceptions in the guideline to express ethnicity in the first sentence. We obviously don't agree, and continuing to double down on a personal attack that I am not listening certainly won't help. Andre🚐21:59, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing I said, addressed elsewhere in the lead, expect to say ethnicity/culture could be addressed elsewhere than the first sentence, as appropriate (as guideline places the norm being citizenship in the first sentence). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:10, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Cuban-Americans are American citizens, and the artists who identify that way because of those themes and that culture in their work aren't being othered by using the same name they use for their own identity. And those are modern-day cases. In many historical cases, it is hardly clear-cut that someone who lived in let's say Spain or Portugal or Italy or the Rhineland in the Middle Ages shouldn't say Sephardic Jewish instead of Spanish, or Italian-Jewish, for individuals who were not equal and full citizens or even citizens at all in the world they lived in, in a ghetto with restrictions on their movement and discriminatory legislation. Andre🚐21:42, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You given no reason for not calling them American, as we do other Americans. American is the guideline word for citizenship, whereas, Cuban American, is culture or ethnicity. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:58, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps an essay on "tagging" in general, basically explaining MOS:CONTEXTBIO (aka MOS:ETHNICITY, but covering more than just ethnicity), would be useful. Jew-tagging is definitely the example I've heard about the most often, but tagging issues do emerge in other cases as noted by some of the examples at CONTEXTBIO. WP:BLPCAT is in the same spirit, a category tag rather than a lead tag. CMD (talk) 02:38, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be invented by a Wikipedia critic and basically means labeling someone as a Jew (he is a Jew or she is Jewish-American) when their religion/ethnicity doesn't have much encyclopedic value. ChildrenWillListen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 03:20, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is outright saying, in so many works "So and so is Jewish." without any further context. Most of the articles I spotchecked did not do this but left this as an exercise to the reader (of a sorts) within the person's early history, like their family origins. That's reasonable, as that also gives context. Masem (t) 04:13, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is honestly unnerving to see. I know we're not out to right great wrongs, but would cutting down on extraneous ethno-religious labels reduce this? Or would the alt-right simply find something else? ChildrenWillListen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 13:53, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hiding or removing someone's Jewish heritage that they may be proud of to avoid it being on an alt-right T-shirt is a lot more troubling to me personally. Andre🚐18:01, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because unlike Einstein, he doesn't have a personal story of fleeing Nazi Germany or of publicly expressed solidarity with a community of tradition, but he was painstaking in his secularism. So that is appropriate. Andre🚐03:45, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That certainly does frame the importance of any decisions made in this area. That said, I am extremely concerned about going into these kinds of questions about how we want to put our thumb on the scale here with the most virtuous of intentions and ending up somewhere deeply regrettable. There is substantial potential here for cultural erasure and letting bigots create social pressure for suppressing Jewish identity and representation. Because I am fairly confident that if we left the decision up to the actual Jewish BLP subjects themselves, that the vast, vast majority of them would be lay somewhere in the span between being ok with to being very insistent on having their Jewish heritage mentioned in any biographical entry about them, being proud of their heritage and probably offended at the implication that it should be concealed, whatever the context, and however rooted in sympathy and a protective impulse the motive in considering omitting that fact might be. I understand where the cause for concern comes from here, but let's take a step back here and remember that it's not actually the recognition of Jewish identity that is the problem here. It's the bigoted belief systems, scapegoating, hatred-mongering, and crack-brained conspiracy theories which constitute antisemitism itself that are an issue. I'm generally supportive of editors choosing to, in their individual capacity, decide wherever or not to mention Jewish heritage for a BLP subject on the basis of what they see in the sources, as a general application of WP:WEIGHT. Because, lacking any unambiguously good solutions, one might as well just default to standard practice and the general principle of WP:NPOV. But going a step farther and deciding we should implement a standard rule against mentioning Jewish heritage except where "it's really, really important to the understanding of that subject", or any rule that is out of lockstep with out usual coverage of ethnicity? Well, again, while acknowledging that the idea comes from a good place, I just don't think that's necessarily a good idea, nor one that Jewish people would generally thank us for, nor even a decision we should consider within our remit to make. I'm pretty sure most of the Jewish people I know would, in reaction to having their Jewish heritage noted in an article (even by someone we could prove was doing it as flagging maneuver) respond with something at least in the vicinity of "Yeah, and what of it? My people have suffered persecution for thousands of years, including pogroms and genocidal movements in the last century alone. You think I'm scared of you, a skinhead, keyboard warrior pussy? Yeah, I'm Jewish, and if you think I give one ten-thousandth of a shit that you and every inbred neo-Nazi fuck between Charlottesville to Munich knows it, you'd better guess again." I think that we need to consider the possibility that our approach should be ideologically in solidarity with that perspective. If we start second guessing whether it is appropriate to mention a demonstrably Jewish person's Jewishness in an article, even to the extent of creating a rule about it, we are very arguably handing a small victory to the racist troglodytes who want to inject into our culture the perspective that there is anything negative in that association. I think we should be very hesitant to treat the question of Jewish representation any different than any other ethnicity in terms of how we shape and apply our policies. SnowRise let's rap04:14, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Snow Rise, I wasn't suggesting the "Early life" meme was a reason for not mentioning Jewishness. I merely thought people might be interested to know about it. Well, interested or depressed. Bishonen | tålk21:16, 30 September 2025 (UTC).[reply]
Yeah, don't worry, that was the sense that I got, Bish. And regardless of any other considerations, it is very important context that I thank you for raising. Even if our decision is not to alter our standard approach because it raises too many concerns for collateral harms, it is vital that we know when our content is being utilized in this way. Unfortunately, I think such situations may be outside our ability to effectively answer here. Memetic social ills like antisemitism can arguably only be effectively combated at the source of infection, and require inoculation through other and more foundational forms of education: early exposure to critical thinking, disciplined training in information and source assessment, and other efforts to promulgate skills which make the pathetic shortcomings of conspiracy theories more broadly apparent. There are always going to be people who, through tribalistic thinking, Dunning-Kruger styled self-aggrandizement, or propensity to fall prey to other common cognitive biases, will promote such nonsense. But as I think the last couple of decades of worrisome decline in this respect demonstrate, it is the quality of baseline education which has the greatest impact on the proliferation of such beliefs. Certainly there is also much to be said for the influence of technological developments in that same period. But even then, I still think the only even half-way effective solution is to be found in inculcating the general populous with familiarity with empirical reasoning and a rationalistic world view. Which is deeply disheartening when you see just how aggressive the needle is being pushed in the other direct right now, in many of the world's most powerful nations and largest societies. Unfortunately, our piece of the educational puzzle is providing information, not the mental tools to use it. So we are ill-prepared to do much to constrain such degredation of the collective intellect, especially when even the half-measures available to us have problematic trade-offs, as here. As you say, deeply depressing, but a basic tautology all the same, I fear. SnowRise let's rap00:51, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Re "any rule that is out of lockstep with out usual coverage of ethnicity", my suggestion at the start of this subthread is to expand the essay to all tagging. Our policy on the lead already applies to all ethnicities, so there is already a standard rule against mentioning Jewish ethnicity and religion in the opening paragraph, as there is for other ethnicities and religions (and sexualities and former nationalities), unless it is important to the understanding of the subject. Any guidelines relating to the body would, if reflecting the spirit behind CONTEXTBIO, also apply to all ethnicities and religions. I do agree that the various postings dogwhistles and memes shouldn't factor at all into our decision-making however, the decisions should be based on what we find best for helping readers understand article subjects in an encyclopaedic manner. CMD (talk) 05:01, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is hard to understand who this is in response too. No one has suggested not mentioning as appropriate, they have been discussing "Jew-tagging", because it is an issue that affects certain bios, not all bios. And on thing we definitely should not have is a discussion concerning your/my feelings based on your or my personal life, whatever that is. Your/my feelings are your/my feelings, but no basis for a discussion of editing essay or policy. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:17, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But at least one participant in the discussion has opined that almost any mention of being Jewish in a bio would be extraneous, and several people are inventing a policy that doesn't exist that supposedly bars any mention of ethnicity in the first sentence. Andre🚐21:27, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Who is this one person? Certainly not the person this comment is appeared to be responding to. And you again don't address the guideline, which was not called a policy. You have given no good reason to depart from the standard of the guideline. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:39, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That comment does appear higher up in the same thread. And in terms of the guideline, it quite clearly contains wiggle room and an explicit exception. Andre🚐21:48, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that comment is certainly not clear, as you have presented it. You can ask that HiLo about it. No one else is suggesting they speak for HiLo, perhaps you misunderstood. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:14, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What is not clear about that comment? It is an expression of an opinion that nearly every mention that says someone is Jewish lacks encyclopedic value. Andre🚐22:17, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? I don't see where you are getting that from. HiLo48 says in "almost every article that says someone is Jewish," it would not have any encyclopedic value, and be therefore Jew-tagging. Yes, only some people should have their ethnicity mentioned in the lead, as far a I know, this was never in dispute by anyone, except perhaps people who are saying that the set of notable-relevant people is negligibly large. The issue of "Jew-tagging" is when someone tags, probably a living person, probably someone not specifically known for or associated with Judaism, with that ethnicity. I am arguing that we should not make a special guideline for this, or a special essay about it, because it is already covered by existing guidelines, which are already not interpreted correctly, and we should not lean even more on the tendency to adopt a postmodern idealism that cultural and ethnic differences are rarely an important part of someone's biography. So I broadly agree with SnowRise. Andre🚐22:40, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify my now multiply reinterpreted position, it's really very simple. Almost every time I am told by Wikipedia that someone is Jewish, I fail to see any connection between that claim and anything else in that person's article. If I ever get an article, it will be of zero significance to mention that I am a failed Presbyterian, or have Scottish ancestry from seven generations ago. HiLo48 (talk) 00:20, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is close enough to what I said or thought your position was, in my view. And demonstrably, there are myriad examples where your generalization is false, but I have no way of knowing what articles you read. I completely understand if you don't have any particular connection to Scottishness in your field, whatever that is. But Andrew Carnegie did. And Sean Connery did. Those are just the first 2 Scots I thought of, but consider that there are very many people for whom their ethnoreligious community was an important part of whatever they did. Maybe not for any random politician or businessperson or actor, but for some. Andre🚐00:43, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My "Scottishness" is from seven generations ago. Carnegie's and Connery's was a little more recent. HiLo48 (talk)
My great-great-grandparents and great-grandparents came to America, but that doesn't mean I don't have a connection to their experience and a bunch of stories and traditions that were handed down to me. There isn't a statute of limitations on how far back your family history can be relevant. If you go around wearing a kilt and eating haggis and telling people you came from Scotland, and then release an album of traditional Scottish folk music that hits the top charts, I'm willing to bet that RS will call you a Scottish American. Andre🚐01:42, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In re "Almost every time I am told by Wikipedia that someone is Jewish, I fail to see any connection between that claim and anything else": Okay, you admit that you don't understand how this affects people's lives. That's okay; not everyone understands the implication of every little detail in an article.
I, for example, don't understand why the overly long lead for Trump needs to mention that he went to university. Maybe there's something I'm missing there, like it's a subtle slam on the "very stable genius" that he only got a bachelor's degree, or that he didn't get into a more prestigious school? Or it's meant to reassure people that even though the US hasn't elected a president without a graduate degree since the 1980s, he at least finished college? Or to irk the Vietnam vets, because graduating in 1968 probably meant that you were trying to avoid military service? But apparently it means something to others, because it's still there.
However:
I don't understand how Trump's college experience affected his life – but that doesn't mean that it didn't do so. Similarly, your lack of understanding of how someone's ethnoreligious status affected their lives doesn't mean that it actually didn't affect their lives.
I don't find meaning in Trump's college experience – but that doesn't mean that other people don't find meaning in it. Similarly, you don't find meaning in knowing someone's ethnoreligious status – but that doesn't mean that all other readers also find it meaningless.
"I fail to see any connection" means you have an opportunity to educate yourself on that subject. Of course, you may not want to (so many things to learn, so little time left to do it in...), and that's fine, but we shouldn't limit Wikipedia to things all editors understand or value. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Alan, I'm going to respond here to your initial response to me above, since the intervening discussion and outdent makes it impractical to do so elsewhere. If I'm honest, I'm confused by your question of who my thoughts were directed at. Admittedly, I could have placed them in a different spot rather than where I did in relation to Bishonen's point. Most of the substance of my post was not meant as a response to her; rather I wanted to acknowledge that her mentioning that little turn-of-phrase adopted by the alt-right hate-mongers was a significant reminder of the reach of our content, and something to keep in mind when we make any decisions in this area. But the rest of my thoughts were only tangentially related to her observation. That said, I think the general thrust of my comments are broadly applicable to the inquiry being made here. This discussion began with the question of whether we should have advisory guidance on the issue of when to include reference to Jewish heritage for BLP subjects, and when and how to determine if such content is problematic. At least, that is my interpretation of Doug's question and elements of the discussion which followed. My position is that we should go incredibly softly along that path, particularly if it involves departing at all from our standard approach on references to ethnicity. Because we can start out with the best intentions there, intending to short-circuit bigotry, and yet end up playing right into the objectives of antisemites, by unintentionally implying that Jewish heritage is something that should typically not be acknowledged. While that would clearly never be the intent of any essay or PAG we promoted on this project, using too heavy a hand on this matter carries with it real danger of: 1) giving the impression that being labelled as Jewish is an undesirable thing, 2) reducing the overall profile of the Jewish people in our content, in a way that would not happen if we didn't lose sight of the forest for the trees by trying to "protect" Jewish individuals and our content about them, and 3) fuel the ever-mutating, ever-accelerating ecosystem of conspiracy theories about how the Jewish race is covertly infiltrating positions of influence in global culture and manipulating the levers of society. Now, so far the discussion about what we might do in this area has been incredibly vague, and so my concerns were equally generalized. Nevertheless, I think they are on point and involve factors very important to consider here. Does that clarify why I made the observations I did? SnowRise let's rap03:34, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. My question was who your observations were in response to, and as you say, it was not in response, although it was formatted as one.
At any rate, imo, having an Essay is 'going slow'. Not only does an Essay not require a broad consensus, an essay can be edited by you and others, interested. Essays often have the purpose of applying policy/guideline to particular issues, and here we have a particular known issue. Nor are essays often kept that go against policy, and essays can elucidate ways to better policy, through the lens of particular concrete issues. WAID, for example, has laid out an approach -- to understand that approach, it would likely be good if it is elucidated in an essay, and especially an essay addressing this concrete issue. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:38, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are you also all aware that it is the High Holy Days and observant Jews who edit are probably not going to edit Wikipedia or participate in discussions? This discussion inasmuch as it leads to any proposals or actual changes should at least wait a few weeks. Andre🚐18:21, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
User:Doug Weller, yes an essay is a great idea. It serves a couple purposes: define the term. Examples of use. Links to previous discussions (including RfCs). Summaries of arguments. If it's good, it will inform a new MOS guideline. -- GreenC05:49, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We already have WP:BLPCAT and WP:CAT/R, which contain such good advice as to only include religion/sexual orientation where the person seld-identifies as a member of a particular religion or orientation, and (my emphasis) they are notable because of their religion/orientation, and... they're rarely adhered to. I've not knowingly added or removed Jewish categories from any article, that I can recall, and I've been able to keep Category:Irish Roman Catholics manageable, but the objections and reverts when I dare to remove Category:American Roman Catholics when I also remove Category:Irish Roman Catholics from an Irish-American or dual-citizen actor or musician... So yes, an essay may well be useful, emphasising the BLPCAT guidelines. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!11:23, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Essays are cheap. You don't need to ask anyone before writing one, you can just write one and see if anyone cares about it or likes it. If you're not sure, put it in userspace. Anyway, I think that such an essay might be useful if the specific behavior it describes is common enough, especially to highlight how to identify it - it's the sort of thing that could slip under the radar, so being able to point to an essay that lays out what it is, how to recognize it, why it's an issue and so on has some value. Or even if people are just talking about it, an essay has some value for clarity. I think the discussion above shows that it might end up being a controversial essay, but so what, essays are allowed to be controversial; giving people who assert that it's happening in any particular case an easy essay to link for easy reference rather than repeating their explanations and arguments every time still has value. But you'd have to think hard about what exactly the essay covers, because just based on the discussions above there's a lot of confusion. Also, for anyone who's confused, for for background, see [28], which led to a signpost article with more details. And of course the relevant policy is MOS:ETHNICITY - all of this could reasonably be summarized in an essay. --Aquillion (talk) 15:44, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One good thing such an essay might consider addressing as context, is that with BLP's, especially, but often other bios, we are perhaps in a sense 'flying blind'. We have no single RS biography to follow (or at best a very brief RS biographical note), let alone any in depth RS biography, instead we collect info from here and there (often from journalism or tweets, etc.), and put it together ourselves. Perhaps, we should stress again what a serious undertaking and responsibility that is, that we are the only publisher of someone's biography, especially a living someone (highlighting the care we need to have for people, their self perception, their privacy, in such a circumstance). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:05, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal to Delete Geostubs in Myanmar
We have gone back and forth about mass deletions of problematically sourced stubs on supposed settlements. Generally there has been enough resistance to keep this from being done, with some few exceptions. In the case of Myanmar, however, the problem is particularly acute. Innumerable settlement stubs which are sourced either to Maplandia or to GEOnet. Neither of these I would consider a reliable source, and the detail they offer is minimal. What we have found is that a high percentage of these cannot be verified against mapping tools such as GMaps: there is nothing but forest at the location given.
I have been systematically going through reviewing similar articles in the US, where such articles were entered starting from GNIS entries. This database also presents us with issues, both in their own entries and in our interpretation of them as settlements, which you can read about in WP:GNIS. At the moment I am going through Indiana, and I estimate I'm somewhat over half done, and I have nominated over 350 articles for deletion in the year and a half I've been working on the state, and I've probably looked at twice that many articles or more. At present I appear to be the only person doing such systematic review; in the past we've had multiperson efforts directed at some states (most notably California). And I largely have to leave articles I don't nominate in their original, often poor state; there's just not time. Many articles I do nominate are kept and improved, but it takes the threat of deletion to get that work done. And inevitably we have people new to the effort who show up and want to keep everything on principle if for no other reason than that they are unaware of the problems, and it takes time to explain it all to them again and again.
I think this is a bad way to go about this, particularly where we know things are bad. It just makes more sense to start over from scratch and create non-crappy, non-stubby articles in the first place on places that we can verify rather than have to wade through each of these places and put up individual discussions on the failures. I have to hope we can find a listing that is better than what was used for this. Therefore I am proposing to delete all the Myanmar settlement stubs which have no other citation than to Maplandia and/or GEOnet. Mangoe (talk) 04:52, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You need to give more detail about what the actual problems with Maplandia and GEOnet (in relation to Myanmar) are and link to discussions that show the community agrees with you that these are problems that deletion is required (or the best way) to fix. Problems with articles about places in a different country and/or based on different sources are completely irrelevant to this proposal yet that's what the majority of the above is about. Thryduulf (talk) 10:17, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They are not completely irrelevant, because a great deal off the issue here is the effort actually doing the work. And I've done this already in another country (Somalia), and I never finished because it was too much work and because I felt it was more profitable to work on US locations, for various reasons. And also, frankly, because there was so much opposition in principle against the clean-up.
I will take some time and give a sample of how bad the data is. Maplandia and GEOnet are both repackagers and not original secondary sources, so they are only as good as whatever they are using, which I suspect is GNS and maybe even us. We have had some recent discussion of this here and there has been off-and-on discussion over a long period, but really the place for a discussion is here, now, because no matter what was said in the past, it's going to get relitigated here. Mangoe (talk) 14:26, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to make a strong proposal for this, then I think you'll have the most success if you start with a narrow, 100% objective, bot-detectable set of circumstances. A few examples of "See, they said it's a village, and here's the OSM and Google Map links: there's nothing there" will be necessary. You will also need to be able to produce a complete list of the articles in question.
In terms of criteria, try something like "is in this country/region, was created by this user (or in this time span), and contains only these unreliable sources". You could add other things, e.g., nobody else has added content, or it's not linked to articles at other Wikipedias. If you're uncertain that this would be accepted, then getting a declaration in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources that those two websites are WP:GUNREL would probably help a lot. (And if RSN surprises you by saying that it's actually reliable after all, then maybe a blanket approach isn't desirable.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Edit the article on pregnancy to make it clear not everyone capable of pregnancy identifies as a girl, woman or mother.
If we're going to respect trans identity at all, we should go forth and update other articles. The same goes for prostate cancer and men.
Rather than add explanatory sentences that lengthen the article, it would be easier to change "woman" (ambiguous) to "female" (exclusively refers to biological sex). And so on. Cremastra (talk·contribs) 01:45, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I commented at the RfD, and I disagree with the nom's interpretation. I think "biological female" quite unambiguously refers to people with two X chromosomes with female reproductive organs. How much more specific do we need to get?
Actually, we could just say "Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestates inside a uterus". That's unambiguous, and would work. It's also simpler than a footnote. Cremastra (talk·contribs) 21:53, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that others disagree with you in good faith indicates that it is not unambiguous - for starters there are people who are biologically female but whose chromosomes are not XX. Thryduulf (talk) 22:21, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to argue with you right now. Comment at the RfD rather than deliberately sidetracking discussion here.
I don't have a particular opinion about the redirect. I do however have a strong opinion that niether answering a direct question of yours, nor correcting your misstatement of fact in response to my reply, is "sidetracking discussion". Thryduulf (talk) 23:37, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
By proposal I meant my suggestion of removing any "woman/female" qualifier and just saying "pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestates inside a uterus". Your commenting on what is the domain of the RfD discussion as opposed to the specific phrasing being workshopped here is definitely sidetracking the discussion here. Cremastra (talk·contribs) 16:07, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Sock-the-guy I very much understand that this is a sensitive topic and have no wish to needlessly offend people. However, as pointed out above, the word "female" can also be ambiguous. This is a biology article that clearly discusses physical sex rather than gender, and biological terms are going to be used.
Do you think my suggestion above of removing the qualifier and just saying "Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring gestates inside a uterus" would be more appropriate? Cremastra (talk·contribs) 16:02, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are a half dozen discussions of this in the article talk page archives, none having resulted in a consensus to change the article lede. This is, of course, an issue that far transcends pregnancy, as I have also seen discussions of whether similar reference to people other than "women" should be included with respect to menstruation and abortion. The sense broadly expressed across these discussions is the same, and should be articulated on a policy page so that we have language to which to point when it is perennially raised again. BD2412T01:58, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Separately, a handful of us spent about a million bytes of discussion in 2022. The following things were learned:
The 'real world' has only one agreed-upon standard: When healthcare providers are speaking directly to individual patients, the providers should adopt the patients' preferred language. That means that if you're a midwife or obstetrician, you will talk to your first patient of the day about whether "Mummy" can feel her "baby" kicking yet, and you talk to your second patient about whether "they" can feel their "fetus" kicking yet, and you treat both of them as if their preferred language is the most natural, obvious, normal thing in the world.
There are multiple valid and traditional definitions of the word woman, including:
adult human whose perinatal testing or external genitalia caused her to be assigned female at birth
adult human of the female sex (=produces ova instead of sperm during reproductive years)
These are the models discussed in reliable sources:
gender-specific (e.g., women or trans men, but not females or people; usually woman-centered)
sex-specific (e.g., females instead of women)
gender-neutral/gender-vague wording
gender inclusiveness through strategic vagueness (e.g., write people or patients, and assume readers will glork the meaning from context)
gender inclusiveness through biological reductionism (e.g., people with a uterus, the uterus contracts)
gender-additive (e.g., women and other people who menstruate)
varying language (e.g., some sentences are gender-specific and others aren't – this is common in Wikipedia articles, even if editors aren't trying to do this deliberately)
separate content for trans people (not really feasible for Wikipedia)
Some gender-neutral models are criticized for being dehumanizing (e.g., reducing people to their body parts) or ignoring social factors (e.g., illegal workplace pregnancy discrimination is frequently motivated by beliefs about "correct" gender roles, so it happens to women, not to females). Others are criticized for being confusing (40% of women in one survey weren't sure what a cervix is, so a statement like "People with a cervix should get checked for cervical cancer" is unclear to about 40% of the people who should get checked for cervical cancer). Most models are criticized for erasing cisgendered women.
Almost no research specifies the gender identity of trial participants, so when a study says "women", it almost always means an adult human whose body is of the type expected to produce eggs instead of sperm, regardless of gender identity, expression, role, or anything else.
Nearly all requests for gender inclusiveness (both on wiki and in the real world) involve making content about the female reproductive system not mention the word women. Almost no requests involve making content about the male reproductive system not mention men. For example, compare these lists of discussions on wiki:
Should something (maybe a paragraph or two summarizing the 2019 RfC and related discussions) be added to MOS:GNL so that there's something to point to when this topic comes up again? Some1 (talk) 02:52, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would it not be sufficient to merely state that in a paragraph, and then state that the rest of the article uses gendered language for clarity? Sock-the-guy (talk) 05:43, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Many people who are not women, such as Trans men can also be pregnant. For clarity, this article uses gendered language, which is not meant to imply that anyone who may experience such things is a woman. For more about queer reproductive issues, see <insert article here>. Sock-the-guy (talk) 03:52, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A footnote is the best response to this. It would be undue and not adhering to NPOV to change the language entirely because most RS do not use that language either. EvergreenFir(talk)16:37, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a reasonable direction, provided we stick closely to verifiable, reliable sources and keep the tone neutral. Medical and public health guidance already acknowledge that pregnancy is possible for some transgender men and non-binary people with a uterus, and that trans women (and others who retain a prostate) remain at risk of prostate cancer.
Proposed inclusive wording for the pregnancy article :
Pregnancy is the period during which one or more embryos or fetuses develop inside a uterus. People who can become pregnant include women (both cisgender and transgender) and other people who retain a functioning uterus, such as some transgender men and some non-binary people.
Suggested clarifying sentence for prostate cancer articles :
Prostate cancer affects the prostate gland; people who currently have a prostate — primarily cisgender men, and some transgender women or other people assigned male at birth who retain a prostate — are at risk of prostate cancer.
This way, we respect trans identities and follow WP:NPOV and WP:V by basing wording directly on high-quality medical sources (NHS, ACOG, CDC, Prostate Cancer UK, ACS).
Those sources may be appropriate to an article titled Pregnancy in transgender men, but the article on general pregnancy should use general sources. A definitive treatise is Williams’ Obstetrics (McGraw Hill, currently 26th edition), which uses the words “woman” and “women”, unqualified, liberally. It would be extremely undue weight to devote lead space to explaining a niche medical edge case (occurring in perhaps ~1000s of patients) in a broad topic article about ~billions of patients. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 07:32, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks — that’s a fair point about relying on mainstream, authoritative textbooks for a broad article. Williams’ Obstetrics is a major reference and should certainly be cited where it supports general statements about pregnancy. At the same time, my concern is strictly factual accuracy: a small, sourced statement that some people who are not women can become pregnant is not advocacy, it’s a narrowly targeted factual clarification backed by clinical guidance and case literature. I think we can satisfy both priorities — respect the mainstream textbook view in the lead and keep the lead concise, while avoiding a technically incorrect blanket statement by adding a short, sourced clarification in the body.
WP:V/WP:MEDRS : For medical topics, we should rely on high-quality sources. Cite Williams’ Obstetrics (or other standard obstetrics texts) for the general physiological statements, and cite NHS/ACOG/CDC/peer-reviewed clinical reviews for the factual point about pregnancies occurring in people assigned female at birth who now identify differently.
WP:WEIGHT/WP:DUE : The lead should reflect what the best sources say about the topic as a whole. If mainstream textbooks describe pregnancy in terms of women, keep the lead framed around that majority. But WP:SUMMARY and WP:UNDUE don’t require us to erase documented clinically relevant exceptions from the body of the article — a short, sourced sentence in an appropriate section is an appropriate place for a minority but medically documented phenomenon.
Readability & Accuracy : The lead’s job is to summarise; the body’s job is to provide necessary nuance.
Yes, however it was read carefully by me multiple times to ensure it's not a meaningless wall of text.
Since I added the disclaimer on the usage of AI on the first reply, and you replied after reading it, I thought it would've been repetitive and redundant to do so again and again. I can discontinue if you want, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the proposal itself. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 12:05, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would prefer to talk to you directly; we can all ask AI for its opinion elsewhere. Regarding factual accuracy, you could also argue to put a footnote on the words “inside” or “uterus”, so as to be inclusive of ectopic pregnancy, a condition with incidence multiple orders of magnitude higher than trans-man-pregnancy - but I would argue this is also inappropriate, as we shouldn’t clutter the lead with details of rare edge cases. As another example, take a look at the lead sentence of Human. We could put a footnote against the word “bipedality” clarifying that, actually, some humans only have one leg. But none of this would serve the reader. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 21:38, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are aspects of that language that we cannot use in a neutrally worded encyclopedia. I don't think we can say Many people who are not women can become pregnant because this implies a more substantial number than sources agree on, and takes a stance on a political dispute in Wikipedia's voice. I think we can say that A number of people who identify as not being women can become pregnant. BD2412T13:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I still think just saying "pregnancy is the period during which one or more embryos or fetuses develop inside a uterus" is the best plan. It's concise, WP:DUE, verifiable, correct, and avoids stuffing up every article with undue tangents. Cremastra (talk·contribs) 13:57, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm assuming that people who want to replace instances of the word woman in the Pregnancy article (and other human sex-specific articles) want to do so throughout the whole article, not just the lead sentence. (e.g. [31]) Some1 (talk) 14:31, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The body of the Pregnancy article already says "Women as well as intersex and transgender people who have a functioning female reproductive system are capable of pregnancy."Some1 (talk) 15:47, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the change away from "mother" is a necessity in that case. A "mother" is the person with the egg that got fertilized, regardless of their gender identity, which isn't relevant here. As I commented at the RfD, It is common for conservative activists/writers etc. to misunderstand the sex/gender distinction, but it's very disheartening to see it from a progressive.Cremastra (talk·contribs) 16:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The US pro-choice movement strongly objects to calling pregnant women "mothers". Worldwide, most pregnant people are indisputably mothers (because most have already given birth in the past), but there are gendered and social implications to "mother", and they find that a statement like "A woman should be allowed to get an abortion" gets a different emotional/visceral response than "A mother should be allowed to get an abortion". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but I think this is a niche objection. We're a global encyclopedia not, as it happens, an American pro-choice brochure. We can use the word 'mother' the way we choose. (For the record, I am pro-choice, but not American.) Cremastra (talk·contribs) 17:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Phrases like "people who are not women can become pregnant" are only true if the only definition of "women" is "person with a feminine gender identity". To write a sentence like that is to imply that the One True™ Definition of Woman is "person with a feminine gender identity", and that all other POVs are wrong.
Not every subject that uses words like "men" and "women" needs to be turned into a primer on gender studies. The trans community makes up somewhat less than 1% of the general population, some subset of which can become pregnant, and then some subset who do. It's rare enough that we mostly don't seem to know the prevalence. In at least one Australian study, you're looking at a few dozen trans people annually, compared with more than a quarter million annual births nationally, or something like 100th of 1%.
The current CC image license tags (e.g. Template:CC BY-SA 4.0) are very, very barebone, providing little information to the reuser. This would change them to the following:
to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.
This is just a mockup (I was a bit lazy to subst all the int statements) - I plan to create templates like c:Template:Cc-by-sa-layout on enwiki, obviously with a bit of reworking to remove unnecessary i18n. I also think width: 100% could be used, since we don't need to narrow width for a short license statement, unlike text. Please reply with whether you support or oppose the change along with comments. Thanks, —Matrixping mewhen u reply (t? - c) 20:06, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose - I'd rather editors who aren't familiar click through and get the official short and long license explanations, rather than duplicating it here and possibly misleading. But that's just my opinion right now, it could change. SarekOfVulcan (talk)20:11, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we have a CC image on en.wiki, it should be moved to commons, so I would not worry too much about our templates here Masem (t) 20:12, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm coming here to reconsider how to solve (what I perceive) a problem with sidebars so filled with content and links that they are essentially navboxes. Attendants to the previous proposal discussion have given alternative proposals or (mostly) outright rejected that this is a problem.
So as I see it, this first question should be answered before trying a reform or a proposal:
Is there a problem with excessively long sidebar templates, such that they end up resembling vertical navboxes?
If there is a consensus of NO, then we can forget any proposed reform.
If there is a consensus of YES, then I think the next question has to be answered:
How do we deal with this problem?
My answer to this question is that we should only allow side-bars which essentially serve as an ordered reading list of articles, such that the reader can gain a broader context of the subject by starting at the first article, continuing through the intermediate articles, and finishing with the final article. Others have proposed that we delete sidebars entirely, and I think this is too extreme because sidebars can still be very useful for this purpose of guiding the reader directly. ―Howard • 🌽3313:19, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to guess that you've never heard of Wikipedia:Getting to Philosophy, a sort of "game" we talked about back in the old days. The idea was, if you didn't use the Search tool, how many articles did you have to click through, to get to the article you actually wanted (in the game, the target article was Philosophy).
One of the purposes of general sidebars is to help people to get where they want to go. They do this by typically providing links to more general articles (e.g., you are reading Si̍t-chûn Movement, and you want to get to Philosophy, which is correctly not linked in that article per WP:OL).
Removing these sidebars makes it harder for people to get to the articles that they want to read.
I think that the scenarios you should be considering are:
Some individual sidebars are too long. These should use collapsing features or be edited to remove the some items. (This will probably result in creating more sidebars, as templates get split rather than half-blanked.)
You personally dislike them. We can give you some .css code so that you won't see any of them (as long as you're logged in).
I have never supported deprecating side-bars altogether. I think this is an extreme position. I have only tried to figure out a way to slim down sidebars to prevent them from being excessive and navbar-like. ―Howard • 🌽3310:13, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to see more data. I usually ignore sidebars and infoboxes as a reader. As an editor, they annoy me because they make image placement harder. I don't see a difference between the two types of sidebars the OP is talking about. But I'd like to hear from sidebar users what they get out of them. —Kusma (talk) 13:41, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, you know what, they’re such a waste of time and attract so little positive use that I think it would be better to get rid of them entirely. Almost no sidebars are done properly. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:07, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am coming around to this too. They are meant to collect linked articles, implying they apply to the topic of a whole article, but they are discouraged in the lead. They are meant to be BIDIRECTIONAL, but enforcing this would conflict with infoboxes and images that might fit on some of the included articles. There are some tightly knit topics where I've seen what I think is technically a sidebar which work, such as derivations of Template:Campaignbox, however the common implementation of an infobox imitator with an image and fancy presentation seems to take up valuable space that could be used for more curated linking (eg. an image with a caption which includes links to the most relevant items). CMD (talk) 12:43, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:LEADSIDEBAR. (Advocating inclusion in a section is not how I read the discussion, where by my reading proponents sought inclusion in the lead but below an infobox, but the text has stood for a few years now.) CMD (talk) 13:24, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They are almost never used in accordance with guidelines; technically they aren't even supposed to be included in the leads at all. My biggest gripe is that they take up so much space and mostly include items that don't link back per WP:BIDIRECTIONAL, or even WP:SIDEBAR. And if you try to make it compliant with the guidelines, it is like pulling teeth, against a tide of people who constantly add terrible additions on pages nobody besides you watches. Navboxes sometimes have bidirectional problems too, but since they're not massive eyesores that take up a quarter of the screen or create horrible alignment issues on short articles it is much, much, much easier to fix. I have seen like 3 sidebars that comply with the guidelines. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:02, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the background data, which you can read or ignore as you choose:
In any given week, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion has between 250 and 700 separate nominations, with an average around 400–450.
During the last five years, nobody has ever created more than 135 nominations in the same week (averaging 20/day). Only 9 editors ever created more than 70 nominations in the same week (10–19/day; representing 20% of noms in those weeks), and most of them only did that once. Only 46 editors created between 36 and 69 nominations in the same week (5–9/day; representing 10% of noms in those weeks), and most of them only did that once.
About 15 editors created 10+ nominations about once every 10 weeks. For example, during the last five years, @Bearcat has created 10+ nominations in the same week on 28 weeks [out of 265 weeks] (range 10–29; average 14), and @Piotrus has created 10+ nominations in the same week on 34 weeks (range 10–36; average 15).
My question is:
What number of nominations would you personally consider to be someone "flooding" AFD, or otherwise taking up more than their fair share of the community's attention at AFD at a given point in time?
Note particularly the words "at a given point in time", because having one person create a thousand separate AFDs on the same day is a big problem, but if the nom divided those same thousand AFDs up so that only three were posted each day, that would probably go unnoticed, and still get all thousand through AFD this year.
I'm looking for practical, common-sense guesses about what's functional and what's too much. Helpful responses probably sound something like "A hundred on the same day is too much, in my personal opinion" or "It should be measured over a week, and I think 7 in a week is plenty for anyone – just save the rest for next week" or "Newbies should be limited to two nominations a week, but WP:XCON editors should get 20 a week, and admins and WP:NPP should have no limits".
For clarity: I'm not trying to reach a settled consensus at this stage. I'd just like to get some idea of the general range most people have in mind. If we tend to cluster in a given range, then I'll probably turn that into a proposal later. If we're all over the map, then I might drop it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:52, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would think it would have to be seen as contextual. The "limit" would undoubtedly be higher for an established editor who's got a solid record of knowing what they're doing, and lower for a newer editor who appears to be making frivolous or tendentious nominations. There are also sometimes projects that clean up significant batches of problematic articles in a collective sweep (e.g. tourist information radio stations that failed WP:NMEDIA a few years back), which would undoubtedly generate a significant number of AFD discussions in a relatively short timeframe. So I don't necessarily have a specific number in mind, because it would depend to an extent on each individual editor's history and record. Bearcat (talk) 20:01, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To reduce the number of AfD nominations, maybe we could prohibit non-Extended Confirmed editors from nominating articles for deletion? (An exception could be made for WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE-type AfDs, but the BLP subject could always post a request on WP:BLPN and an experienced, extended-confirmed user could nominate the article on their behalf). Some1 (talk) 20:13, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have no interest in reducing the total number of AFD nominations from its current level. Think of the story this way: We normally get 50–75 nominations each day. Imagine that someone decided to go on an article-deleting spree. They have a list of thousands of articles they believe should be deleted. How many can they post today/this week/this month/this year, without the AFD process getting overloaded due to sheer volume? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If someone has 5000 artisanal cage-free AI-free pristine-BEFORE AFD noms ready to go, they should post them. We should at that point thank them for their tireless work and work out a schedule/triage for getting them through AFD, and or a new x series criterion.
If someone did that same 5000 articles with a hallucinating AI or skimping on BEFORE, then it's disruptive due to the need for others to rigorously check the work. At that point we might call it a good defense of editor time to kick it all out and not waste the resources.
If there are clusters of similar articles in either case, well-managed bundling should be used to get the pages through. This seems likely in a lot of worlds where someone has a glut of AfDs they'd like to run. If you have 3000 stubs on Canary Islands footballers, and the first dozen afds come back with unanimous not notable, deletes, then bundling the last 2988 into a single discussion should work fine. Tazerdadog (talk) 07:51, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I completely disagree. Nobody should be stacking up that much BEFORE effort before posting AfDs, because every nomination needs to be rigorously checked regardless of whether it is AI-generated or not, and thousands are massively beyond editor's capabilities to do that and just because you were right about 12 articles does not imply you are right about the next 1 let alone the next 3000. If you want to delete that many articles about Canary Island footballers, start and RFC and get consensus that Canary Island footballers are inherently non-notable and articles about them should be speedily deleted. Thryduulf (talk) 10:27, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Important to note that the data we have is only of the number of afd subpages created. If someone made, say, 9 multi-article afd nominations each proposing fifty articles for deletion, they wouldn't even show up on the list. Data for that is much, much harder to collect. —Cryptic20:33, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ideally, I'd want to tie any variability into, not whether someone's an admin or a NPP or whatever, but how consistent their record is. If you make 40 nominations in a week and 30 of them are kept or moved or merged, I'm more inclined to think you flooded AFD than someone who made 80 of which 60 are deleted or redirected. (I see now Bearcat made much the same point already. —Cryptic20:52, 14 September 2025 (UTC))[reply]
What you're nominating matters. 30 nominations in a week by the same person, all of Algerian football players, is more of a flood than if they'd nominated 10 Algerian football players, 10 American companies, 10 Armenian villages, and 10 fictional characters.
If we assume that the ideal is for every article nominated at AfD to be given sufficient review to accurately determine whether
the nomination is correct
whether we should have content about this subject (primarily but not exclusively notability), and
if so, whether the content we do have is good enough (quantity and quality) to be worth keeping and/or merging.
Then there needs to be sufficient editor time to carry out that review and assess the article. Editor time is finite so we have to ensure that nominations are too. Unfortunately this is not easy because neither nominations nor editors are homogenous; as Cryptic notes the pool of editors reviewing nominations related to Algerian footballers is different to the pool of editors reviewing those related to American companies (pools do not overlap, but both editors and articles can be in multiple pools but the more different they are the less likely this is). Different pools are different sizes giving different capacities - there are far more editors interested in contemporary American baseball players than there are editors interested in indigenous religions in Africa.
Additionally the amount of time and effort a review takes varies immensely - for example it's almost inconceivable that a contemporary American rock band could be simultaneously notable and unknown to Google, however it is highly plausible that an 19th century Korean poet writing in Hmong could be widely regarded as the greatest of his generation but essentially unknown to the English-language internet.
Finally what matters is not how many articles per day are nominated by a single editor, but how many nominations related to a single topic are open concurrently - and relists make calculating that harder. Putting this all together means that 100 concurrent nominations related to contemporary US politicians in a week is significantly less likely to be problematic than 10 concurrent nominations related to 1920s Uruguayan authors. Thryduulf (talk) 22:11, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
IMO the number of articles per nom is always relevant in the sense that there are limits to how many articles a human editor can do a decent BEFORE check on in a given time period.
It's also relevant in that no one editor should demand too much of the community's time. AFD is for everyone more or less equally; it shouldn't become "WhatamIdoing's AFD playground", with a large percentage of noms only from me.
The number of articles per nom obviously becomes relevant if the nom is User:My_Secret_ChatGPT_Deletion_Bot, with a new nom every three minutes round the clock.
It sounds like you're leaning towards 100/week as potentially okay, but not 100/week on a narrow/difficult subject. Maybe the community would like to encourage editors to limit both total volume and also subject concentration (technically forming two severable pieces of advice). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:52, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
there are limits to how many articles a human editor can do a decent BEFORE check on in a given time period. this is entirely true, but that's not an issue of flooding AfD. In a topic area with a large capacity, say contemporary US television, the limit of one person's ability to perform a proper BEFORE is lower than the community's capacity to properly review nominations. In a topic area with a low capacity, the community's capacity to review could be lower than an individual's capacity to do BEFORE checks (especially given the repeated objection to mandating a meaningful BEFORE search).
It's also relevant in that no one editor should demand too much of the community's time. yes, but that's not really core to the issue - what matters in terms of flooding is the total number of concurrent AfDs related to a topic area. If the community capacity for AfDs related to say Spanish places is 30 concurrent discussions it doesn't make a difference whether they're initiated by 1 person in one day or 30 people over 7 days. Ideally no single person should use the whole capacity, but unless someone is doing that regularly it's not really a major problem.
It sounds like you're leaning towards 100/week as potentially okay, but not 100/week on a narrow/difficult subject. No. Any limit needs to be expressed in terms of concurrently open nominations in a given topic area (remember that some discussions are relisted multiple times and others are speedily closed). 100 concurrently open nominations is an extremely large number and will only be viable in topic areas where AfDs are frequented by large numbers of experienced editors. 100 concurrent nominations related to UK railways would completely overwhelm the available editors and that's hardly a narrow or difficult subject. Remember also that the effort required to determine whether sources exist can vary considerably between nominations, even in the same topic area - a nomination consisting of a single article about a contemporary UK local councillor takes much less effort to review than a nomination of 5 articles about cotemporary UK local councillors, which takes more effort than a nomination of 5 articles about UK local councillors active in the 1980s for example. Thryduulf (talk) 16:58, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As an editor who has stumbled across an article about an (IMO) non-notable UK local politician, how am I supposed to:
(a) know what the community's overall capacity for reviewing this subject is and
(b) find out how many other articles are currently at AFD in that narrow area?
I think that a limit per nom makes sense, because I know how many I've nominated. I have no idea what other editors have been doing. There is no WP:DELSORT for minor politicians in the UK during the 1980s. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(a) You can't. Although it's safe to presume that mainstream topics that are easy to google have the highest capacity and obscure topics where the majority of reliable sources are offline and not in English have the lowest.
(b) Sometimes this is easy by e.g. looking at deletion sorting lists, sometimes it's near impossible.
Together this is why it is not possible to put any firm numbers on what constitutes flooding. A limit per nominator is easy to measure, but just because something is easy to measure doesn't mean that measurement is useful. We want to avoid things like "It says I can start 30 nominations in a week, I've only started 29 therefore my behaviour isn't problematic", whatever limit we set becoming a target and rules lawyering about whether X is a different topic to Y.
If anything is needed, it is to explicitly state that editors must not overwhelm the capacity of AfD to fully and properly review their nominations. If other editors are complaining that they can't keep up, slow down. If your nominations are not getting any attention or are only getting perfunctory comments, slow down. If someone asks you to slow down, slow down. Editor capacity varies, the amount of capacity a single nomination uses varies. Thryduulf (talk) 18:02, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure if there can be such a thing as too many AfDs. They can wait for few weeks to backlog to clear. I'd say creating over a 100 noms for more than one week in a row would be too much. Anyway, ironically, while I have not been creating many AfDs recently, I may breach 10+ this week, as someone just reverted my PRODs and redirects on a number of unreferenced novels... (and I am unaware of how to use a gadget to move noms into a single one, so they'll have to go separately to AfD). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here00:20, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who's been a fairly prolific nominator you really can't bludgeon your way through AfD. Since the default outcome is Keep, you have to convince other editors to spend their time assessing the articles and they're unlikely to do so if they feel there's too many to give a good look at or the effort put into the nom is too low. If I nominated 40 or 100 or 1000 articles at once, we'd get well-thought-out responses to the first 5 or 10 and the rest would be procedurally kept or, worse, kept based on low-effort responses like "There must be sources out there somewhere, I just can't be arsed to find them." And there's a good chance that if I came back later with small batches, they'd all end up being deleted because folks had enough time to give them sufficient attention. When someone tries this I think they learn pretty quickly that it doesn't work.
I'm curious whether "flooding" is a documented problem that's causing ongoing issues due to editors who do it repeatedly, or if we're just talking hypotheticals here. We had to scramble the Top 10 list of prolific article creators because 'all' of them were huge time sinks for the community - Can we say the same about the list of deletion nominators that's taking shape? And if there is actually an overwhelming number, can't we just relist and work through the backlog like we do at AfC? –dlthewave☎01:40, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your record (in the last five years, various caveats apply) appear to be 29 in the same (calendar) week. But that could have been four a day/otherwise spread out.
I linked to the 'origin' of this question in the first sentence, which started with one (1) AFD in which the newbie nom used an LLM to generate the nom statement. However, this led to discussions about a situation that is AFAIK still hypothetical, but foreseeable: a AI-based bot/semi-automated script that finds articles, writes nom statements, and submits them to AFD. There was some interest in an anti-flooding rule. We've also previously had conversations about indiscriminate AFDs of poorly sourced WP:LUGSTUBS articles about Olympic athletes, in which editors expressed a desire not to have hundreds of AFDs at once. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:59, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps 10 nominations per day would be acceptable. Then the nominator may have had enough time to properly evaluate whether there adequate sources. If LLMs are used to find or nominate pages, then a BOT approval would be required, and I would say do not approve such a bot. Also bulk nominations of large numbers of pages in one nomination is ill-advised as the nominator probably did not check properly, and later participants probably won't have time either. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:20, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I can agree that the community doesn't "need" to have this rule (yet). But if the community did decide to create such a rule anyway, approximately where do you think the limit should be? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:07, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As someone who is consistently cranking out the AfDs I think when a real problem shows up I think we can invoke the inverse of invoking WP:IAR and just tell them to stop without having a specific number in mind. I see the peak I ever did was 42 in a week, which is probably in excess of six on one day; I think someone might have complained. The problem already shows up when we get a big group nomination, and those tend to get closed and resubmitted one at a time.The big mass edit problem continues to be creation, precisely because it takes too much work to run up all the deletions. Mangoe (talk) 17:19, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we can count on everyone pausing their noms just because someone asks/complains/tells them to stop. That was not the case, e.g., a few years back when a couple of editors were starting 10 RFCs at a time. Mere "requests" are not enough for a small fraction of editors, especially when they take a rigid view of rules and seem to be perseverating on the wrongness of these articles existing. "Hey, the rules say no more than X noms in a week" or "Hey, the rules say no more than Y articles in the same subject area in one week" usually works for that group.
(I think all of RFC's frequent flyers eventually ended up blocked. Since then, though, the "rule", which is really just advice to leave a note on the talk page before starting more than two or so simultaneous RFCs, really has prevented overuse by others. "Enforcement" generally requires nothing more than a chat on the user's talk page.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:41, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If an editor tells you, in good faith, to slow down, slow down. If they tell you to stop doing something, stop doing it. If necessary, start a discussion about it.
Yes, we can take it to a relevant noticeboard, where another rules lawyer will inevitably say "There's no written rule against flooding AFD with a thousand noms per day, so therefore flooding AFD is permitted."
There's no written rule against flooding AFD with a thousand noms per day, so therefore flooding AFD is permitted." so what we do is make it a rule that flooding AfD is not permitted. We don't put a number on it (because that's not possible, per my previous comments) but note (with clearer wording than here) that there should be sufficiently few nominations that the editors interested in AfDs in a given topic area have enough time to do a proper review of all nominations within 7 days of a nomination; and what factors impact what the capacity of a topic area for new nominations is (popularity, discoverability of sources, ease of access to sources, number and complexity of concurrent nominations, etc), and examples of signs that a topic area is saturated with nominations (e.g. calls to slow down/stop, comments that time is lacking to review all nominations, rushed engagement, etc). Thryduulf (talk) 04:35, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that it is possible to put some numbers on it. Above, you say that thousands at once is unacceptable. Another time, you say that 100 per week is "an extremely large number" that will usually not be viable. Elsewhere, you say that 5 or 10 on a narrow subject could be an upper limit for a niche subject.
This leads me to guess that you would normally accept more than 10 noms per week (just not necessarily on the same niche subject) and be concerned about more than 100 noms per week (especially if on the same subject). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:44, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's correct if you're just cherry-picking the numbers out of context, but when you read what I'm writing in full it should become clear that you're grossly simplifying things. The context is necessary and unavoidable because what would be grossly overwhelming in one topic area would be a barely a ripple in others. I shouldn't (but apparently do) need to stress, again, that the limiting factor is the combination of editor availability and the cumulative total complexity of all concurrently open nominations in a given subject area. Both of these factors are constantly varying, and both are the sum of multiple other constantly varying factors. In the same subject area 10 nominations might overwhelm editors if all nominated today but nominating 20 in a day in a fortnight's time could be fine.
An editor posting circa 100 nominations today spread over 25 very different topic areas is less likely to be problematic than the same editor posting the same number of nominations but in only 4 topic areas. However if those 4 topic areas are say contemporary US politics, 20th Century British history, 2010s Australian sportspeople and mathematics then it's again less likely to be problematic than if the topic areas were Chilean, Argentinian, Peruvian and Bolivian soccer teams. We cannot speak in absolute numbers, only generalities and relative probabilities of disruption. Thryduulf (talk) 19:04, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that whether "User:Expert" is on holiday for a fortnight should affect whether an article should be sent to AFD, or even ten such articles. I think that we can speak in absolute numbers: It's always okay to send 10 articles a week to AFD. It's never okay to set up a thousand separate noms in one week. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's always okay to send 10 articles a week to AFD. It's never okay to set up a thousand separate noms in one week. except neither of those are true. If there are 10 open, low-quality nominations about an obscure topic that takes a lot of effort to properly review then another 10 nominations is not unlikely to overwhelm to available capacity, especially if this is done week after week. On the other hand a single instances of 1000 well-researched nominations across a very broad range of easily-researched topic areas following extensive pre-AfD discussion is possibly manageable, especially if the concern is something other than notability. Thryduulf (talk) 10:41, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There shouldn't be anything at AFD that for which the primary concern is "something other than notability".
Nobody is ever going to get sanctioned for opening 10 AFDs in the same week. They may get yelled at for "low-quality" part (that can, and does, happen even for single AFDs, and therefore has nothing to do with the volume), but not for the "10" part.
The average day at AFD has about 60 nominations. I assure you that even if you post 1,000 absolutely perfect nominations in the same week, you will get complaints about the volume. This would more than triple the usual volume (your 1000 plus the usual ~400) and it would do the opposite of winning friends and influencing people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At this point I'm going to stop because it's clear you're determined to try and put a single number on something that absolutely cannot be reduced to a single number, regardless of what I or anyone else says, so further discussion is not going to be productive. Thryduulf (talk) 19:05, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Much of the time, serial AfD noms have not done appropriate levels of WP:BEFORE eg. searching inside books at archive.org and Google Books. Signing up for Wikipedia Library, doing broad searches across commercial databases (GALE etc). And of course Google Search, though that is usually the least reliable method - what's active on the web on any given moment is random and changes. These noms prefer to leave the work for others. They nominate quickly by gut instinct and glancing at the article itself. I say this based on years of experience at AfD observing behaviors. There is no consequence for BEFORE, the policy might as well not exist. The reason is plausible deniability. -- GreenC19:23, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mass creation of under/badly-sourced stubs is far more a presenting problem, and at least one editor was brought to ARBCOM and quit rather than face a case. If someone's bad noms were a real problem, I expect AN/I and ARBCOM could be brought to bear on the problem editor. Mangoe (talk) 20:58, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But even if we all agreed that we needed to run a million articles through AFD, the fact is that AFD can't handle a million articles at once – or even ten thousand. What do you think AFD's carrying capacity is? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:02, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I imagine that someone would make a fuss at AN/I, the whole nine yards would be reverted, and if the person tried again, they would be blocked. But the worse we ever have had has been a bunch of combined nominations, and those just get closed procedurally and people renom the articles one at a time. We don't need anything extra to deal with a problem that hasn't happened and which we can think of a straightfomward solution. Mangoe (talk) 23:27, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the issue is just that you feel AFD's carrying capacity can't support dealing with individual AFDs for mass-created articles, the correct thing to do is to suggest alternative mass-deletion options to reduce that pressure; then we can point people to those instead. Just banning mass-nominations at AFD without providing an alternative is obviously not going to work (otherwise, what exactly should people do if articles are inappropriately mass-created?) I think it's obvious that situations exist in which we may need to delete hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of nearly-identical automatically or semi-automatically-created articles at once, so the real question is what the best way to do that is. --Aquillion (talk) 04:05, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm more interested in the situation in which the articles aren't mass created.
@Tazerdadog says "If someone has 5000 artisanal cage-free AI-free pristine-BEFORE AFD noms ready to go, they should post them. We should at that point thank them for their tireless work and work out a schedule".
I think:
What if we can't figure out whether they're AI-free? Most nom statements are too short for AI-detector websites to be reliable. We've got an outline of a fully autonomous AFD nom bot higher up on this page. If it had fairly good accuracy and posted one every 15 minutes or so, for eight hours in a row, with short nom statements, you'd never know that it was a bot instead of a dedicated human.
Why should we "work out a schedule" after the fact, instead of telling everyone up front that 5000 AFD noms is too much at once, and to encourage them to work out a human-scale schedule before hand?
Re: AI. Distinguishing AI generated text from human generated text is in general a HARD thing to do. If one of us had a reliable way to do it, we should patent it, build a small wrapper website, and rake in the millions. Realistically the best we can do is ask the prolific posters what their workflow is, and then assume they're honest about it until/unless we get significant evidence to the contrary, such as a hallucinated source or a "as a large language model" that slipped into a nom.
Obviously best practice would be to post the discussions as you finish with them instead of in a batch. That said, if someone is offering us high quality work, we should not decline it because it's too much, but rather adjust our processes so that it can all be addressed.
One big point is that a lot of the times when someone is proposing dozens or more articles for deletion at about the same time, it's because they are substantially similar. Having a functioning process for such batched nominations is important. No opinion on if that should be the current process, a RFC, or a hybrid or something else entirely. Tazerdadog (talk) 17:14, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Meh… Doing just about anythingin bulk is considered disruptive behavior. Even when we are following (or enforcing) “the rules”.
We all have different thresholds before we call something “disruption”, but ultimately we know it when we see it.
And we have warnings and procedures to deal with disruptive behavior once the line has been crossed. I don’t see a need for yet more “rules” to deal with disruptive behavior. Blueboar (talk) 21:17, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It depends. If there are zero responses then it's treated as an expired PROD because they could've just PRODed the article in the first place. If there are responses but no consensus then the article is kept.
In practice, editors who feel like they can't keep up with the number of AfDs will usually voice their objection at each one rather than let them be deleted due to lack of responses. That's what I meant when I said you can't bludgeon your way through AfD.
I'm fairly certain that even the AfDs that get zero responses are at least being glanced at by other editors, and hopefully closing admins would notice any red flags or odd patterns. –dlthewave☎17:02, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Since the default outcome is Keep – what??? In sports we routinely have editors mass copy-paste simple rationales like "Fails SPORTCRIT" on dozens of articles on accomplished foreign and pre-internet athletes – without any indication of WP:BEFORE whatsoever – and they almost always get deleted/redirected unless me or a handful of other users put in ridiculous levels of research to prove that the obviously-notable subject is indeed notable. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:42, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What happens at the end of an AFD discussion? If there's a consensus, we do whatever the consensus says. If there's no participation, we treat it like an expired prod. And if there's participation but no consensus, we keep the article. I call that last one "the default outcome", since it is the outcome that applies when editors can't agree on what to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is imv a rare issue that I am only marginally concerned about. Consensus seems to be that it crops up rarely enough that it's not a huge issue and we don't need special rules for it. You may want to look at previous discussions like [32][33][34]. I think that for certain kinds of editors there should essentially be no limits to nominations. An NPPer patrolling the queue without filtering by topic area should be allowed to nominate very many AfDs per day/week since they're spread out over a many topic areas. (Maybe 50 and 200 respectively? Those numbers are definitely on the high end; I'm curious what the record of someone like Onel is.) The real issue is when a lot of noms are in one topic area, which overwhelms the editors in that area, especially when the noms could be bundled. Good bundling (first doing a "pilot" or three, then bundling the rest) could reduce a lot of pressure on AfD. Toadspike[Talk]16:34, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
More generally, a decline in quality participation is a real issue. I previously suggested expanding the circumstances under which soft deletion is allowed as a potential solution. I also think we should come down harder on editors who have a history of erroneous AfD noms, even if seemingly made in good faith, with strongly worded messages directing them to other areas of the project or tbans. Toadspike[Talk]16:35, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the last five years, @Onel5969 has created 10+ AFDs 53 times, so about once every five weeks. Half were 10–14 nominations in the same (calendar) week. Only five times were there more than 20 noms in the same week. Those weeks had 22, 31, 40, 54, and 63 noms in them. At a glance, all of these happened in the second quarter of 2023. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:53, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is looking at the issue the wrong way. The real issue is editors not doing the work to make sure only articles that should probably be deleted have AfDs. If the system is working correctly most articles that have AfDs should be deleted, as only articles likely to be deleted should be nominated. If an editor's AfDs can be shown to be problematic and they won't learn from there mistakes, then they should be taken to ANI and tbanned for deletion discussions. The solution to "to many AfDs" is more editor participation. That editors who work in areas that will result in more AfDs raise more AfDs is just a truism. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°17:03, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
+1 as the kids say today. Given the overall number of articles this project has, the number of articles that are nominated in a given week, month, or year is exceedingly small. Astronomically small as a ratio, even. And the overall volume is certainly far, far beyond the threshold of all the articles that are fit for deletion. We could lose a hundred non-GNG complaint articles on footy players alone each month and still not see the end of that problem for decades, for example. So the question of optimization of AfD as a whole should not be seen in terms of what a reasonable bottleneck should be, but the identification of the right articles for deletion. Now, to some extent that latter inquiry is consistent with what WAID is getting at. But I also sense here (as with many broad strokes discussions about AfD) that there is a sense that the main reason we should be concerned that due diligence is observed in the nomination process is that we presently have to high a potential for the wrong articles (and for too many articles in general) to be deleted, or for the process to be exercised inefficiently. And I'm not entirely convinced that has ever been the case: at least, not at a level which accords with the amount of agitation that contention engenders. Basically what I am saying is that we could stand to have 25x the deletions we currently have in a given week and it would probably not be a problem as a per se matter. And anyone who feels instrincly that this statement is wrong should probably stop to question themselves about whether they are really concerned that "just the right articles get nominated" or if they are using that concern as a pretext to justify trying to slow down the whole machinery because they have broad concerns about a "deletionist" agenda. None of which is to say that we don't have editors who habitually do take an overly liberal, injudicious or lacking in caution approach to nominations. But as AD says, those can typically be identified and handled through individual scrutiny, rather than trying to form a one-size fits all set of metrics to judge all editors who nominate far above the average by. SnowRise let's rap07:09, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we could guarantee that every article nominated at AfD should be deleted (not merged, redirected or any other ATD, actually deleted) then I would agree that the number of nominations at AfD would not be problem. However we cannot guarantee that, or even anything close to that - only 48% of discussions on 2nd September resulted in a straight delete, speedy delete or soft delete outcome (32 of 67); 33% (22) were withdrawn or had a straight keep or speedy keep outcome. If we assume this is typical (and I have no reason to suspect it isn't) then unless we are happy to delete around a third of notable articles (and if you are then you really need to reassess whether you actually have the project's interests at heart) then we must ensure that there is an opportunity for every article nominated to be fully reviewed. Unless and until there is a consensus that AI can reliably do this job (to say the chances of that happening are infinitesimal is probably overstating the likelihood) then this requires human editors and human editors have a finite capacity. So there needs to be some limit on nominations. Thryduulf (talk) 12:02, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what the current numbers are, but we used to delete about three-quarters of articles at AFD, which would suggest that September 2nd might be an atypical day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:36, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even three quarters is way too high a rate of outcomes other than deletion to allow for unfettered deletion without adequate review. Even if only 1% were non-delete outcomes, that would still equate to around 5 wrongly-deleted pages every week (calculated based on the number of discussions currently listed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#Old discussions (open) which works out at around 75 nominations per day or 525 per week on average; I've not attempted to determine how representative this period is). 25% non-delete outcomes would be around 131 wrongly deleted articles per week, 33% would be circa 173 per week. Thryduulf (talk) 15:49, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Snow Rise, I don't think we actually can stand to have 25x the deletions we currently have in a given week. I say this not because I've any particular love of keeping articles, but because 25x the nominations would need 20x–30x the editor participation, and we can't magic up several thousand extra editors.
For context, in 2023, about 26,500 registered editors participated in at least one AFD (as contrasted with 7,100 editors at all village pumps combined). There were about 21,000 AFD noms that year, or 400 a week. 25x would be 10,000 noms in one week. The "regulars" wouldn't be able to expand their participation, because there aren't enough hours in the day. We could predict that the total number of editors would go up (if the typical AFD participation is one nom, one article creator, and two other editors, we'd still expect the article creator to appear), but we wouldn't realistically expect enough extra editors to appear. A lot of those AFDs would probably end up being closed as "no quorum" (usually soft delete) or "no consensus" (straight keep). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:53, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You also can't necessarily extrapolate that each new article nominated would result in one new unique editor, because some will have created more than one article that has been nominated and not all of them will be both aware of the nomination and available to comment on the nomination in the given week. The latter is true even for very regular editors - back in early 2005 when I was still a new editor I created an article to make a point (see this comment). That was nominated for deletion) while I was on holiday (and had apparently even noted this on my userpage) so was entirely unaware of the nomination until after it had been closed. Thryduulf (talk) 16:27, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I don't disagree on the manpower logistics here; my previous comments were about the propriety and due care of nominations in the abstract, and the advisability of putting our thumb on the scale because of perception of potential harm from the deletions themselves, rather than the feasibility of handling a given volume. But let's just be clear about what we are saying. Are we suggesting that there should be a limit on nominations of even those articles which are unambiguously proper deletion candidates, for purely workload throughput reasons? Because that's a different discussion from most of the previous. And a position I would have various reservations about, though I admit it is hard to argue with the numbers under our current volunteer hour scarcity crunch. SnowRise let's rap19:48, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are we suggesting that there should be a limit on nominations of even those articles which are unambiguously proper deletion candidates, for purely workload throughput reasons? Yes. It is of topmost importance that deletion is done only after proper review and is seen to be done only after proper review. If that means articles that are not actively harmful (and all articles that are actively harmful can and should be speedily deleted) hang around longer than some people think is ideal then that is a tiny cost to pay. Thryduulf (talk) 22:40, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I do think that there should be a limit on nomination volume, regardless of the righteousness of any particular nomination.
I think this for workload reasons (my primary reason; there is a maximum number of AFDs that is practical at any given point in time, and having AFD collapse helps nobody) and also for social/community reasons (no fair taking up more than your fair share of the community's time. In the case of AFD, I think 'your fair share' might occasionally be ~20% of noms in any given week, or 10% over the long haul, but it's probably not >50%). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But then how do we build into any guidance we develop the flexibility to match the upper limit to the availability of volunteers, given the fluctuations we should expect over time? It's one thing to suggest a percentile value as you do above (which I agree makes sense), but that's probably too awkward a system to implement for a policy. And if we fix a specific number, it stands to become too onerous if volunteer numbers go up, or too permissive if they go down. SnowRise let's rap07:56, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One option is to offer a fairly wide range: "10 a week is okay, but 100 a week is usually too much."
(Pros: It's concrete, and everyone reading it will come to the same conclusion. Cons: Perhaps it will encourage someone to make exactly 99 noms every single week. The numbers might need to be changed in the future.)
Another option is to offer a vague principle: "Don't flood AFD. If you believe a large number of articles should be deleted, especially if they are on similar subjects or subjects that are more difficult for editors to research (e.g., people from non-English-speaking countries; subjects more likely to be discussed in offline sources), then spread them out over time."
(Pros: The principle is the "real" rule. Cons: Someone will cry "flooding" over two or three articles, and others will claim that 200 is just fine.)
There are other things that can be done to support AFD's health. For example, we could check stats for the regular noms to identify people with below-average deletion rates to be more selective (or to stop using AFD for merge/split/redirect/content-dispute purposes). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:29, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The vague principle is only one that can work. If there is disagreement about whether something is or is not flooding, stop nominating and discuss it with other editors until there is a consensus about whether it is or isn't. 2 and 200 are both going to be OK in some circumstances and not OK in others. Thryduulf (talk) 17:31, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that makes sense for another reason as well: there has historically been a number of scenarios where a problem editor mass-created a large number of articles which all had similar issues which militated for the presumption that they were mostly policy non-compliant, but they didn't qualify for speedy deletion under some technicality or another. Keeping an emphasis on flexibility and contextual considerations would prevent any limitations put in place to control nomination volume on the average day for AfD volunteers from becoming a needless WP:BURO issue whenever the community has to clean up some sort of expansive mess. SnowRise let's rap22:53, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see AfD as a community effort to cull bad articles. An editor who makes 100 nominations in a day isn't creating work for others or monopolizing our time; they're doing the good and thankless task of finding content that we don't need and bringing it to our attention. If one editor is taking on 1/4 of that work, good on them!
That being said, if we find ourselves unable to keep up with the workload, I think that setting up some sort of queue would be a far better option than limiting input. I'm not exactly sure what that would look like but perhaps efforts like Articles for Creation or Page Curation would be good models, focusing on working through the queue and bringing in help to address the backlog. –dlthewave☎00:10, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It would be better if we could find ways to discourage people creating articles that need to go to AfD. Every academic nowadays writes themselves a Wikipedia article as part of their standard social media management, along with their LinkedIn profile. The major theme of the Teahouse is "writing an article without secondary sources won't work", "do you really want to write about yourself?" and suchlike. I can't see how we can limit AfD without the flip-side of making it harder to get rid of articles that are basically COI promotion. Elemimele (talk) 16:07, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anti-flooding concerns as a way of "limiting" AFD. It's more of a way of "smoothing out the rate" at AFD. 50 non-notable BLPs a week for 10 weeks is better for the AFD process than 500 this week and nothing for the next 9 weeks – even though in both cases, we're talking about sending 500 BLP articles through AFD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I specify "better for the AFD process", because if someone's real goal is deleting the articles (e.g., articles they've judged to be "basically COI promotion"), then they might not care about whether AFD gets the right answer, so long as AFD deletes the articles they dislike. Even notable subjects can engage in "COI promotion", and AFD's job is to determine the subject's notability. AFD isn't actually supposed to be protecting Wikipedia's purity against COI promotionalism. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:49, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's fair comment. I definitely think it's unhelpful when people create too many AfD's simultaneously. For example, on all the associate profs who make a wikipedialinkedin page for themselves, you're quite right: the correct thing is for someone to check whether they meet NPROF based on how well-known and well-cited their work is, but that requires good judgement and a bit of research from someone willing to look into typical citation rates in their field etc., which takes time. Maybe I'd support the idea of an informal guideline. Elemimele (talk) 14:35, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's the kind of problem that's concerning. Delete them all, if they're all non-notable, but send them through AFD at a pace that isn't going to strain the process. I'm not skilled at NPROF assessments myself, and I think I'm typical of Wikipedia editors in that regard. So if we dump a huge number of associate profs in AFD at once, then what we're really doing is dumping a stressfully large number of AFDs on a very small number of competent respondents, or we're indicating that we don't actually care if they're evaluated fairly. Just spreading them out would help a lot.
In this discussion, I feel like we've identified two main themes. One is that too many at once is too many. AFD usually gets ~400 AFDs in a week, so you shouldn't nom hundreds or thousands in a week. The other is that in niche areas (e.g., athletes from the same developing country), the supply of competent respondents is low, so even if you're going to start 100 AFDs this week (←not a recommended practice), spread things out and nom 10 Olympic athletes from Ruritania, 10 associate profs from Canada, 10 plastic surgeons from Mexico, etc., instead of 100 professional cricketers from Pakistan.
Do these sound reasonable to you?
As for a process, I was thinking this morning about something I've seen a couple of editors do, mostly for new articles. So lets say that you want to kill 500 articles on associate professors. It's not fair to nom them all at once, so what do you do? One option is just to make a hit list (in your sandbox or on your own computer; it doesn't matter) and nom 5 or 10 articles a day until you get to the end.
Another, when you're dealing with really large numbers of articles with a really high likelihood of deletion, is to try escalating measures. For example:
Make a list of subjects you believe are non-notable. (Optional: Tag them all with {{notability}}.)
Use Twinkle to {{subst:prod}} some of the articles in your list.
Check back later to see how many prod tags have been removed. Send those contested prods to AFD (or remove them from your list, if it looks like they're probably notable after all).
Continue trickling your list through the PROD process, and then, as necessary, sending the survivors to AFD.
I'd suggest this process to anyone who wants to get rid of articles about, say, minor local non-profit organizations. For something like an athlete, you could do the same general kind of thing, except with a proposal to merge/redirect to their team instead of WP:PROD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I want to reiterate the argument I have made at the mass-creation RfC: while the rate of nominations can sometimes be a problem, the defining characteristics of a spate of AfD nominations that are bad are not usually rate alone: it's usually a lack of a valid reason for deletion, a misunderstanding of notability, or a bad-faith attempt to remove an article. None of these problems will be addressed by limiting the rate of nominations. There are cases in which we may wish to limit the rate: when we change one of our notability guidelines, for instance, a large number of articles may need to go to AfD, and need to be reasonably spread out in time. But I see no evidence that that hypothetical scenario has been a problem, and I see no other scenario in which this is a problem that needs solving. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:57, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.
If one user submits a 109 PRODs in an hour, and persists in similar behavior after a warning, we ought to TBAN that user from PRODs, because that is disruptive behavior. I don't see how a community-wide rate limit will help in any way. I am also fundamentally opposed to a numerical rate limit on deletion unless a numerical rate limit on creation is instituted. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:23, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That discussion does not establish a rate limit on creation, only a requirement of community support for "large-scale" creation, and does not limit manual creation in any way. No rate limit exists for manual creation besides the very generous ones tied to account flags. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:13, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note that that's in part due to historical accident. Mass creation was originally considered in the context of automation, and therefore, until fairly recently, WP:MASSCREATE was part of Wikipedia:Bot policy. Attempts to institute a limit on manual creations failed in part due to the fact that Wikipedia:Bot policy is not suitable for regulating the actions of human editors. Part of the reason we finally evicted WP:MASSCREATE from the bot policy was because we got tired of people trying to bend the definitions of "bot" to cover some kinds of fully manual editing so they could apply WP:MASSCREATE (and others bending it back wrongly to try to counter those arguments). I don't think there has been a discussion since that eviction to see whether consensus has changed with respect to restricting the rate of human mass creations, now that "WP:Bot policy can't regulate human behavior" is no longer a relevant concern. Anomie⚔18:04, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AfDs on current event articles
AfDs like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Erika Kirk tend to be quite messy, with both !keep and !delete votes making comments about what future sourcing may or may not exist (it's hard to talk about lasting significance when anything is breaking news). What if we had a moratorium for proposing an article for deletion for a week until after a {{breaking news}} template is removed? Clovermoss🍀(talk)16:52, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I had a similar suggestion to that of SFR on Discord, as a way to reduce BLP violations as editors create dozens of articles using non-vetted information that is prone to be wrong on multiple levels. As a compromise, maybe we could have a moratorium focused solely on BLPs, so that articles focused on the victims or suspects would only be allowed after 7~14 days had passed. Isabelle Belato🏴☠️18:01, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm trying to think how to make that work... the vast majority of current events type articles (killings, airplane and traffic accidents, assaults, kidnappings) are going to mostly have of content related to BLPs, just by design - the shooting and the Jan 6 attack are actually pretty good examples of that. Even articles about natural disasters (the other brand of current events articles) still sometimes have substantial BLP-content relating to disaster management, political blunders, and missing persons. Circling back to the main proposal, while I get the idea behind it, the issue really isn't that it's an article about a current event - it's that it's an AfD of an article that was in the news, getting viewed a lot, and which people, in their normal, non-Wikipedian lives, have very strong opinions of. (See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Killing of Austin Metcalf and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Killing of Iryna Zarutska) I'm going to explicitly disagree with JPXG's idea that here that like if you look at any of the breaking-news afds they are just like this, as it's been my experience that most AfDs about current events, even if a bit unclear, are a lot calmer. (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2025 shootings of Tremonton police officers and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2025 Vienna Township Cessna 441 crash for a couple of AfDs that have an average amount of PVP, and still ended up being pretty uncontentious)If nobody minds me bringing up two more examples, I'd strongly opposed any rule that stopped somebody from starting Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cristo Rey Jesuit High School shooting, as it was both a little gross and spread misinformation. Ditto, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Syrian Air Flight 9218 was about as in the news and current-eventy as you could get, created in good faith, and it was snow-deleted within about 18 hours of its creation due to not being, well, real. But neither of these examples were clear, they needed an AfD to solve. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋20:02, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Reposting my incipiating go-off, for those who were not scorded enough to see the origin of this:
i really do think there should be some special case breaking-news notability process thing that isn't afd, because afd is basically totally worthless.
the closer for an afd about a breaking-news thing often has to just disregard the first four days of votes, because they are arguing about stuff that became completely untrue
like "nobody knows whether he was even really the guy!" or "this is a one-day news item that will be never be talked about again and instantly forgotten!" and then it isn't, or "this is a big deal that will have lasting significance" and then it doesn't
ostensibly, the purpose of an afd existing at all (since it uses a gigantic amount of editor time to run it versus doing something else) is so we can have on record a high-quality discussion for the notability of a topic
which you just can't do for something that is happening right now
like if you look at any of the breaking-news afds they are just like this, maybe by the end of the week people are making useful comments based on having enough info that it might be useful in 5 months time
so i don't know if there is a concrete suggestion lying underneath this. afaict there are a couple things, one being a "the afd has a 7-day preliminary where there's a notice and maybe a discussion section but either way you can't cast keep/deletes"
or maybe no discussion section at all, just like, "this article will be assessed for notability in one week" and then a blank afd
the only thing i can think is like, maybe there are some cases when blp (or just common decency) demands we not have a page at all, and then due to this we have to have it up for 14 days and not 7
but idk i think that if it's genuinely super bad people can speedy it or sth
To some extent it does and that's why it's often done, but it doesn't resolve the fundamental problem of it's hard for everyone to come to a consensus while the dust is still settling IRL. No one can accurately predict the future. Forcing everyone to wait would save a lot of editor time, prevent no consensus closes, and prevent "Wikipedia is trying to censor X!" fearmongering from people looking for the latest scandal to grasp onto. Clovermoss🍀(talk)19:39, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the goal is to avoid wasting editor time, quick deletion of an article that is going to be deleted may be better, because it prevents editors from wasting a lot of time working on the article itself. I wonder what the ratio is of time spent on article vs. AFD in these situations, and how often these articles are kept vs. deleted. -- Beland (talk) 19:53, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Though AFD consensus takes 7 days unless there's a SNOW decision, right? Which puts the end of the process into a timeframe where the long-term significance of a topic is a lot clearer than the beginning of the process. Beland (talk) 19:56, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
True, but if the article being a BLP violation is blatant enough, it might just as well be SNOW closed (even if the numbers are not overwhelmingly in favor, but the policy-based arguments are). And, conversely, if the outcome is no consensus (again, considering the strength of the arguments – useful to keep in mind given the influx of !votes from new editors), then the content likely wasn't of the "blatant BLP violation" type.Speaking of, I'm not sure how "no consensus" closes for BLP articles whose existence is a potential BLP violation operate – usually, no consensus defaults to keep in AfDs (but to delete when considering inclusion of material inside an article), and WP:BIODEL only mentions it defaulting to delete on request of the subject, which surprises me given how conservatively WP:BLP is written. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:27, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it sounds like maybe just letting the normal AFD process play out results in the right thing happening? I am listening right now to the On Point hour about the Erika Kirk AFD [35]. I was also quite alarmed at people on Fox News and podcasts and whatnot screaming things to their audiences about Wikipedia editors like "you are reprehensible, disgusting, evil people who are trying to cancel her and get rid of her because you are leftist" because one person dared to nominate a biography of one conservative they thought might not be well known. But then the host clicks through to the talk page and reads through the discussion and sees that people are mostly having a non-political conversation about reliable sources and Wikipedia notability policy. And sees that the overwhelming number of editors here were in favor of keeping the article, and that was the final decision. I can only expect that many of the conservatives who came running to the AFD because of angry partisan commentators experienced a similar teachable moment where they learned more about how Wikipedia actually works and that it is generally not evil as certain clickbait commentators make it out to be. Maybe we don't need to change the way we do things because certain loud people are disconnected from reality? Maybe people in general will get tired of running to Wikipedia only to find someone was crying wolf yet again? Maybe simply providing people neutral, accurate articles and having transparent editorial discussions will engender trust from anyone interested in learning more about reality? Looking at survey results like this 2019 survey, it seems more people already trust us than trust e.g. US conservative opinion-shouters. (And I do mean shout - one of the shows quoted is called "Louder with Crowder" which I just find hilarious.) And comparing to Gallup polls, a lot more than nearly every other institution in society. -- Beland (talk) 23:07, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the question is about the existence of the article as a whole being a BLP violation? Say, an article about a person connected to a suspect/alleged criminal, whose existence might give the impression of guilt by implication. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:30, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, and what about a (now deleted) paragraph-long, sourced, article about a teenager allegedly in a gang who shot somebody, and a large percentage of the article is a sourced quote from said teenager and a claim that he laughed while admitting to shooting them? But looking at the sources, some present it exactly as the Wikipedia article did, but other draw a distinction between the two events and make it clear that they got the quote in a "An official representative of the police said that somebody in the police heard the suspect say X"-type manner? While I clearly view that as problematic, I also have to concede that it wasn't blatant or revision deletable. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋20:48, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It would be a bit weird and not a great look to say "administrators can completely delete revisions or articles with no discussion if they feel justified by policy, but nobody is allowed to suggest deleting or object to deleting based on policy for several days". -- Beland (talk) 23:12, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Something I have been thinking about recently was how to interpret WP:LASTING. We've seen editors arguing to delete recent articles on the basis that lasting coverage isn't present yet, as well as editors arguing to keep recent articles to give them time to see whether coverage lasts or not. Currently, this situation falls into a policy grey area, and I believe holding a broader discussion to clarify it would be more than welcome. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:47, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GreenLipstickLesbian: I mixed up the shortcuts, what I was looking for was WP:SUSTAINED (although WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE does mention it). The only warning it gives is this may be difficult or impossible to determine shortly after the event occurs, as editors cannot know whether an event will receive further coverage or not, which doesn't read that clearly as warning against applying it strictly, but only about it being hard to ascertain – which could be a reason for either "keep and wait to renominate it" or "delete and wait to recreate it". Both of these frequently happen as !votes citing WP:SUSTAINED on AfDs about recent events, and having more explicit guidance in the guidelines could help avoid holding this recurring debate every AfD. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:09, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chaotic Enby Ah, that makes sense. And really? I've always read that as a warning - not a strict prohibition again invoking it, sure, but a comment at that something will be difficult/impossible to figure out is a sign that it can't be applied strictly - but it's interesting to hear a different perspective, and you're quite right that SUSTAINED doesn't seem mention it. And yes, trust me, I'm familiar with event AfDs [36] and how inconsistently SUSTAINED/CONTINUEDCOVERAGE gets applied at them. I don't find it to be that bad outside of high-profile cases, honestly. Sometimes I end up rolling my eyes ("no, a paper you found on research gate that somebody said they were submitting to a journal is not a good source") but I find the regular closers to be quite good at disregarding "it's sad/I saw this on the news/this was in a rural area, who cares/no European sources talk about it"-type !votes. And even when they don't, there's often a valid reason (sheer number of !keep votes, poor attendance, or genuine disagreement over whether the event had a LASTING impact). Again, I get that the people here who mostly only participate in the high-profile event AfDs are going to have the complete opposite experience to mine. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋22:29, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GreenLipstickLesbian, closers might be reasonably good at ignoring various unhelpful !votes, but I do think there's a real tension between "we're not a newspaper, we're an encyclopedia" and "one of wikipedia's key contributions to the public good is neutral coverage of ongoing events". In my own opinion as a closer, I would say that I find most participation in event-related AfDs to be rather poor, and I think it leads to keeping many more events than we actually "should" according to our stated guidelines. But in a media ecosystem where Wikipedia is the place to go to get real and complete information about ongoing pandemics, disasters, and hot-button political events... -- asilvering (talk) 20:27, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Asilvering Yes, there's a genuine tension - but I don't entirely think it's always between the notnews crowd and the "we need good coverage of ongoing events" crowd; it's deeper than that. For example, the main reason I don't like event articles reliant on sources published within a few months of the event itself is because it's impossible to know you're writing a balanced article about them, right? The significance of events is something that's bounded by time, no amount of careful writing is able to overcome the fact that we can't see the future. And it's a really bad idea to write an article mostly based off your own interpretation of primary sources, for like... so many reasons. And yet we have situations where several very experienced editors look at event articles based on breaking news sources and conclude that that the actual article is of such a high quality that it's one of our best.
Tropical Storm Carlotta (2018) relies entirely on one government report, lots of daily weather reports, and newspapers published while the event was ongoing. Passed a modern FAC (I haven't done a proper BEFORE, no clue if it's notable)
Pan Am Flight 214 - 29 sources, 14 of which were published within a week or two of the event, mostly the 72 hours following the crash. (These are what most of the article is nearly entirely based on). 2 were published before the crash. 2 are government reports/musing from the FAA about what the FAA learnt from the crash. 10 sources remaining; [37] is a self-published blog by amateur history buff. [38][39] are fluffy, very local stories published on the event's anniversary, and can't support much in the article.[40][41][42][43][44] are primary news reports on the CAB hearings; you find these for every single airplane crash under the sun and don't really give a good perspective on the impact of the an event [45] is what I consider to be an okay source; it's a book about several crashes, this one being an example, but it was published a year out from the event - that's not much distance at all, and it was written/published before the actual ramifications of the crash (none) were known and the conclusion of the CAB hearings. With no lasting impacts, under NEVENT this is borderline notable at best, and certainly shouldn't survive a good NOPAGE argument - passed a modern era FAC easily.
The issue doesn't become any better when you look at Category:GA-Class Thunderstorm and tornado articles or Category:GA-Class Tropical cyclone articles. And yes, technically GA and FA are different from the notability criteria - but as the too-often invoked WP:FAOWN reminds us, these articles have been checked to make sure they rely on high-quality sources, which is also what NEVENT is meant to be checking for. FA criteria 1B also says that it's meant to place the subject in context; that's what the NEVENT continued coverage requirement is about (though we make an exception for recent events that look like they're going to have a lasting impact). If anything, they should be stricter - but then again, an experienced editor I like and trust told me once they thought an old revision of Victoria Roshchyna was almost ready for GA, well before her body had been returned, investigations started, charges filed, or actual facts known. I don't dispute that the !votes at event afds tend to not be all that useful (have I mentioned how often I end up rolling my eyes at some !votes?); I just believe that that the root cause is notnews versus must document current events, I think the disconnect is over the notability of events, period. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋23:05, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hurricane Hector wasn't deleted; it was merged and redirected to 2018 Pacific hurricane season. It looks like editors decided it had a few noteworthy characteristics, but there was enough fluff that it could be trimmed to fit into its parent article.
It seems like 1.) perfectly notable things are being complained about as if they are non-notable, and 2.) complaints are being made about the normal editing process not limited to current events. Enthusiastic contributors are always adding too much detail to one article or another, and there's a constant trimming somewhere on the project to suit a general audience. I don't really see that as a problem; it may generate stronger sourcing or more accurate summaries. -- Beland (talk) 23:27, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Beland And there's another slight disconnect - are very selective merges and delete different? The article went from 42k btyes to just over a thousand. That's not technically deleted, but the vast majority of the content was deleted and far greater merges get fought at AfD because they resemble a pure deletion too much. Similarly, you said it was all fluff - but if it's so objectively fluff, then how does it make it through quality controls that should be much higher than AfD? Agree with you that regular editing can deal with these; some of the dislike of current event articles seems (to me) poorly targeted, yet also the proposed moratorium on AfDing them would be damaging. I still like the idea of a more prominent "wait and see" option for recent events, but I think we have to trust other editors if they voice a PAG-based reason why we shouldn't. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋23:45, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, not many ramifications currently documented in secondary sources, you're quite right. The vast majority of that entire section is the author's summary of the CAB/FAA discoveries, about the CAB/FAA discoveries, supplemented with a the odd newspaper article about the hearing. (The FAA is better than many investigations; but as a rule, I try to avoid trusting government agencies for accurate summaries of their own impacts. It doesn't really allow you to place to events in context, and when I want to read an FAA report, I'll just go read the report) The final paragraph is better sourced- which might give it notability, but isn't really passing a NOPAGE argument. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋23:30, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm an engineer with an interest in system failure; case studies are invaluable for learning about how to design safely. Wikipedia articles on plane crashes are generally a lot more digestible and discoverable than government reports, and link together to identify trends and contrasts. We don't need an article on every one, but the idea of deleting this one seems harmful, given that this sort of thing is of interest both across engineering disciplines and as a matter of public policy and good governance. How the government handled this crash, for example, is a good case study to think about when considering self-driving cars. -- Beland (talk) 00:02, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's true - but, no offense Beland, but I don't know you, I don't know how qualified you are, and I don't know how qualified any other editor on Wikipedia is. So yes, I'd like the article, as plane crash articles as what I read... probably the most of, and I actually do like reading about how governments respond to disasters - but I'd like the article to be based on better sources, and I'd like Wikipedia to not be how we identify trends. (My area's of interest isn't quite as fancy as yours, and I often end up reading an article written by a non-expert based on news reports, going "well that's a lot of crap/that's a myth/ffs you've conflated two very different groups of people here in a way that's very offensive", then moving on because, well, the article went through GA/FA process and fixing it is too much of a headache; I can only assume it's similar in other disciplines) GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋00:10, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see a lot of badly written articles, but generally they have not gone through GA nor FA. Articles that are the subject of high-profile news events tend to be some of the best, simply because there are so many eyes on them and active participation in improvement. We have a backlog of over half a million articles missing citations, going back to 2007, so articles that actually have verified citations to reliable news sources for all substantial content, are doing very well compared to that backlog or the large mass of low-traffic articles that haven't even been tagged for missing sources, or have sources that haven't been checked. -- Beland (talk) 01:22, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this, one thing I've noticed a lot with AFD votes in this area is that votes often seem to come down to editors' gut feelings on whether there will be more coverage in the future, which is not a super helpful way to determine if an article should stay. 🌸wasianpower🌸 (talk • contribs) 00:11, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It would be much better if we waited a few weeks or months for the dust to settle before creating such articles in the first place, but that's not gonna happen, so I just don't know what to do about it. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:01, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'll note that WP:RSBREAKING is already a guideline, and it advises "wait a day or two after an event" for better information. I think this is a better time window than 14 days, during which time potentially millions of people have checked Wikipedia for in-depth information about a current event. I find Wikipedia often does a very good job of compiling news sources into a more comprehensive narrative than any individual news source does. This works on short notice simply because so many editors are paying attention and are highly motivated to update. I think it's harmful if articles are created with bad information because of poor sourcing or addition of spurious information from otherwise good sources in the minutes and hours after an event, which is why we have RS:BREAKING. But for a current-events article to be created that's simply not notable to kick around for a month or two...that seems fine. I think we should probably actually err on the side of inclusion because if we make a mistake in the other direction we'll simply miss the opportunity to inform the vast majority of an article's potential readers. And to recruit new editors who are brought in by a subject of interest they can improve right away. -- Beland (talk) 23:20, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I said to maintain the existing law for 'Breaking events'/'Breaking-related deceased beings' which was perhaps lost in the words -
"No need to wait (for 14 days) for article creation".
But Wikipedia suggests to take some extra caution for living beings, while at the same time a large portion of these living people related to the 'Breaking events' might also loose significance down the line. Hence the suggestion in line with WP:NOTWHOSWHO -
"Wait 14 days for 'Breaking-related' living beings."
Yeah, 14 days is far longer than the 1-2 days the news media needs to debunk spurious allegations against a living person, and far shorter than the months needed for the legal system to exonerate someone. -- Beland (talk) 19:47, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Refer to WP:BNS. We don't need to rush to publish everything. There are some things for which news websites are present.
Also, if the said allegations are so 'spurious' that they got debunked within 1-2 days, I don't think the event would be notable enough for an entire article to be created around it.
As for the person involved, he might or might not already have an article writen on him in wikipedia, which won't be built just based on/because of the 'spurious allegations' on him. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 20:41, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We already don't "rush to publish everything". Most news events aren't ever mentioned in Wikipedia at all.
Debunking an individual allegation doesn't mean the whole event is non-notable. You would hardly advocate that we delete September 11 attacks, right? And yet there were all kinds of allegations about 9/11 that were debunked within one or two days.
Exactly. I remember some events when people were confused about the number of shooters because it's unclear if what was seen by two different witnesses was the same person or two different people. Sometimes people are confused about the number of bullets or explosions because of echoes or other loud noises that happen. Often the number of people killed is over-reported because people are double-counted. Once authorities can get on scene and take photos and assign names to victims and properly aggregate witness accounts, mistakes like these get eliminated. -- Beland (talk) 22:38, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've already suggested to include breaking events instantaneously.
For 'Breaking' events/'Breaking-related' deceased beings :
No need to wait for article creation.
As for the individuals having spurious allegations against them, if such allegations don't get debunked within 14 days, then we can surely consider including the person. However, baseless allegations on a person which gets debunked within merely 1-2 days shouldn't and doesn't warrant an entire article on him/her in Wikipedia. It's to stop such low value articles we're having this discussion at the very first place.
This discussion actually started with the opposite problem: people nominating high-profile articles that should be kept immediately after being created. The "wait 14 days" idea not only doesn't solve that problem, it makes it much worse, inviting more accusations of censorship. -- Beland (talk) 07:09, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So deleting an article after the expiration of the moratorium isn't censorship, but waiting for 14 days for its creation is?
WP:NOTCENSORED : Content will be removed if it is judged to violate Wikipedia's policies (especially those on WP:BLP).
WP:GNG : "Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject merits its own article. A more in-depth discussion might conclude that the topic actually should not have a stand-alone article—perhaps because it violates WP:Not.
WP:Sustained : Brief bursts of news coverage may not sufficiently demonstrate notability. However, sustained coverage is an indicator of notability, as described by notability of events.. If reliable sources cover a person only in the context of a single event, and if that person otherwise remains, and is likely to remain, a low-profile individual, we should generally avoid having a biographical article on that individual.Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 08:44, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The situation which generated cries of censorship was the threat of deleting an article that is widely considered appropriate. The "speedy keep" proposal would quickly end that threat for future articles editors think appropriate. I expect deleting an article that is widely seen as unnecessary would not generate much complaint. Delaying the deletion of a non-notable article is also unlikely to generate complaints. In contrast, I would expect preventing the creation of an article that is widely seen as appropriate would generate complaints of censorship. -- Beland (talk) 16:56, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
More importantly, nobody would follow that rule.
The English Wikipedia's rules are derived from actual practice. If the page has a {{policy}} or {{guideline}} tag at the top, then that page is meant to be documenting existing reality – not imposing new things on the community. Waiting 14 days is never the community's practice for anything. We should not create a rule that tells editors (all three-quarter million registered editors each year) to do something completely different from what they're already doing. And if we're stupid enough to create such a rule, we should expect the community to ignore the rule and do what they think is best.
I think a simple *mandatory tab* which asks whether the new 'Article Being Created' is related to any 'Existing Wikipedia Article' , would make enforcing the 2w waiting period a lot easier.
The existing 'Existing Wikipedia Article' should definitely have the 'date of occurance' of the mother event.
Deleting articles after creation risks demotivating and driving away a lot of new good-faith editors, who would've otherwise voluntarily decided to wait out the 2w stay period. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 10:33, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Many editors often rush to create articles on living beings related to 'breaking news' , a lot of which lose relevance down the line, and get deleted.
A waiting period of 2w will allow the dust to settle down, and seperate important people from the unimportant based on sustained coverage, causing a lot of these editors to lose interest on such unimportant people through a more level-headed assessment, who would then refrain from creating such articles. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 15:58, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If "many editors" create articles about "unimportant" BLPs related to breaking news, then how many of those happened in the last 24 hours? Have a look at Special:RecentChanges. You can filter for page creations. Come back with a list. If this is happening "often", then you should have more than a few links to share. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:01, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think you should ask this question to @Clovermoss since she added the topic.
The primary purpose of my reply was clearly not to depict how frequently this problem occurs, but to give a potential solution to a problem. So my wording was loose there.
Even then I said "Many editors often rush to create" not "Often many editors rush to create".
I'm very confused by this requirement. Isn't every new Wikipedia article related to some other Wikipedia article in some way? Is this trying to prevent creation of articles about events that aren't mentioned in other articles? Is it trying to prevent creation of multiple articles about the same event? -- Beland (talk) 14:05, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Only preventing articles on 'Breaking-related' living beings.
You don't have any particular reason why you suggested asking editors whether there's a related existing article? I'm opposed to the waiting period in general, so I'm not advocating an alternative implementation of this idea. I'm just trying to understand it in case it's getting at problems I wasn't aware of or something? -- Beland (talk) 17:55, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Already covered under the 3 policies I mentioned earlier.
Your suggestion would open the floodgates for hundreds of low value articles, a large chunk of which would inevitably get deleted down the line. This will demotivate and drive away a lot of new good-faith editors, who would've otherwise waited out the the 2 weeks period if notified prior. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 10:01, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't being forced to wait 2 weeks (or realistically, not waiting 2 weeks and having their article deleted immediately without debate) also drive away a lot of potentially valuable new editors? -- Beland (talk) 14:00, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe they'll be able to make a more level-headed assessment after the dust settles down a bit in that 2 week period.
A lot of them would refrain from creating such low value articles, which they would've created otherwise based on hype.
Regardless of what's done in the short term, AFDs of events that are long since over (like, a month or so) where there have been no significant updates to the article nor non primary sources to support updates, should be handled far better. Those not-votes arguing the burst of initial coverage meets notability should be ignored, because in the long run we are looking at enduring coverage, not a flash of news. Too many AFDs of events with no long term impact are kept because of this argument. Masem (t) 21:07, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is your complaint that enough editors don't go around nominating articles for deletion a few months later when events turn out to be non-notable, or that a few months later other editors simply disagree with you about notability, or something else? -- Beland (talk) 23:22, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not Masem, but I think current event articles are largely based on primary source coverage, so they're not notable in the first instance, and not particularly encyclopedic. I think the issue with deletion discussions is that AfD closers give equal weight to !votes that are "keep, this received coverage in the two weeks after the event" with !votes that point out that GNG actually requires secondary coverage, not a bunch of press about a particular event in the two weeks after it. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:03, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Something two weeks after can be secondary coverage; whether it's reliable or shows lasting notability is a different matter. (It would be lovely if the FA and GA reviewers didn't say articles were quality when they only relied on coverage from within a couple weeks of events, but hey, I think that proves it's not just an AFD closer problem). GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋00:12, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The optimal solution is: stop editors from creating event articles that have no clear indication of long-term significance in the first hours or days of the event breaking, since the bulk of the news at that time is going to be primary sources, which will not satisfy long-term notability (per WP:N/NEVENT). We do want articles like 9/11 and Jan 6 to be created in the hours that they happen, they clearly had significance near immediately, but many local crimes, traffic accidents, and other things get created too quickly before significance is well known.
That optimal solution is near impossible, we cannot easily stop article creation (even with AFC and drafts that only slows it down). And from a AGF aspect, once created, we shouldn't rush to delete, unless there is clearly a problem (such as its based on unreliable sourcing, is a major BLP issue, etc), and give the creators and editors time to expand. Sometimes, as with the Erika Kirk or the Killing of Iryna Zarutska articles, more context may reveal its notable. However, I'd say at least (if not more) 50% of the time, that just doesn't happen.
So a suboptimal but reasonable solution to weed out event articles created in the rush of a flurry of news that ends up going nowhere is via AFD some time after the event, like at least a month, with a good BEFORE search to verify the event has not had any further coverage nor is likely to have further coverage. What ends up happening moreso right now is that during the AFD for these cases is that editors argue the rush of priamry news coverage at the time of the event satisfies notability, and these articles are kept, making it near impossible to delete. We need to fix that part of the process. Masem (t) 00:20, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Gotcha. Personally, I think 90% of my edits are either cleanup or adding facts based on news sources. They kind of straddle the boundary between primary - when a reporter is on scene and describing what is happening - and secondary - when the NYT does a roundup of the known facts the next day based on both original reporting and talking to witnesses and government officials and synthesizing everything with context.
I was curious how much our existing articles rely on news sources, so I hit "random article" ten times and looked at references 4 were all news sources, 4 had a lot of secondary sources (books or specialty web sites), 1 was referenced to a species wiki, and 1 was referenced to YouTube. This implies to me that rigorous enforcement of "secondary sources define notability" and defining news sources as primary would cut out ~40% of our content (larger sample size needed), and the majority of AFD participants in practice don't agree with this rule. I would prefer our rules be changed to match what people actually think should be in Wikipedia; changing our content to match the above interpretation of our rules would ditch a lot of valuable material. -- Beland (talk) 02:18, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On one hand, I don't really think this is feasible to implement — and on the other hand, I don't think it would be a good idea even if it were. I am sort of an optimist about these things: I think that, even if a Wikipedia article is total ass by our own standards, it almost always manages to outpace basically all live news coverage for current events (for free). Typically, when something is in the news, you have two options: a) to read everything about it on Twitter the second it happens, which is time-consuming and involves wading through giant piles of crap, or b) to read the newspaper, which will generally be hours to days behind your unemployed friends who do a), and costs a ton of money, gives a very limited perspective (e.g. what a single reporter/editor care about) and generally isn't very comprehensive. The Wikipedia article on any big event is, in almost every case, vastly superior.
I think this is a genuinely useful thing we do for society. Even if these articles do attract the worst and most pugnacious editors, and even if editing them is a cruel and unusual punishment, I personally benefit a lot from it, and I think it does a lot to help people online figure out what the hell is going on in an increasingly confusing world.
I kind of feel like destroying this would be like when AT&T had the opportunity to buy the entire ARPANET in 1971 and they just said "this is new and weird and we don't get it so nah". jp×g🗯️23:47, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We need some guidance for AFD nominators so that they can assess whether to leave the article alone or to try to delete it. They should consider international reporting, time scale of event as well as political response. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:26, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think our articles that are created as events unfold are, on balance, a strength of Wikipedia. Overall I'd be inclined to add a speedy keep criterion for articles that are within X days of a major event around the subject of the article, so that we can have the discussion with some knowledge of the discussion or lasting impact of the event. X should probably be small, maybe 7, with no prejudice against a renom once it's up. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:00, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can't view the article, but from context I would evaluate CSD criterion G3. Depending on the speed of the sources coming out and how clear what really happened came out we could also keep the article for the week and edit it to reflect the situation as the sources are reporting it at the time. Tazerdadog (talk) 00:19, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was watching that article at the time and when it went to AfD, and even edited it; it wasn't G3, it accurately reflected what was written in reliable sources. But it should never have been an article. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋01:11, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think I see...AFDs would be allowed to be opened, but "Speedy Keep: Event less than 7 days in the past" would be an option that editors would actually have to advocate for. If people looking at the article actually say "Speedy Delete: G3", bad articles less than 7 days old could still be deleted. Presumably if there was a strong dispute early in the process and no consensus for either speedy keep or speedy delete, a full AFD would run 7 days and we're no worse off in terms of wasted time and reputational risk than we are now. I like this idea. -- Beland (talk) 02:23, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely like the idea of requiring all articles on breaking news events to be started in DRAFTSPACE (and automatically draftifying those that are prematurely started in Mainspace). This would allow editors to contribute, and yet also avoid NOTNEWS situations. It would give us time to sort the wheat from the chaff of news coverage. Blueboar (talk) 23:47, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which leads to a possible specifically new space, News: where current event articles should be created, which should follow all of the core policies outside of the NOTNEWS/NEVENT factor, and which then would have approval processes to move such articles into mainspace after they have been prepared properly for an encyclopedic treated. Maybe require articles to have no more than 14 days to remain in this News: space after which they are deleted if not moved to mainspace by some approval process. There's more gotchas there, but that's a possible route. Masem (t) 00:23, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So, a sort of intermediate between draftspace and mainspace? In my mind, the question is really whether this space should be reader-facing (and part of the encyclopedia itself) or focus on being a drafting area. The first one might require a (much less strict) notability criterion to avoid it being flooded with local blips in the news, but, in that case having content be deleted after a few weeks wouldn't be ideal.This News namespace actually reminds me, not of Wikinews, but of Wikispore's Event Spore, which could be a good staging area before making them full-fledged encyclopedia articles (or leaving them there if there isn't enough lasting coverage). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 00:34, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the worry about negative press is driving this, then for draftification I would worry about: "I'm a conservative and I went to Wikipedia to start an article and was told any article about current events had to go to a special hidden place for liberal editors to decide if readers can see it". And also about the general negative burden bureaucratic procedures put on editor retention. -- Beland (talk) 02:29, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve said a couple times that there should be some WikiProject or something where articles w only primary sources are draftified, listed, and worked on while they wait for secondary coverage, like an incubator. Drafts are usually just written by one person, part of the motivation to publish early is to put it on someone else's plate Kowal2701 (talk) 13:36, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The idea of requiring waiting periods and special procedures just won't work. This is a de-centralized wiki. We have a culture that encourages editors to WP:Be bold. People can and will do whatever they think helps Wikipedia, even if a bunch of us sit over in a Village pump – a set of back pages that 83% of WP:XCON editors have never posted to, BTW, which suggests that most editors will never see or care about the views expressed in this conversation – and say "Well, how dare anyone be interested in plebeian things like the biggest news story of this month. Wikipedia editors should have high-minded, refined, academic interests, like art and mathematics, instead of all this vulgar money and grubby politics".
It just won't work. We can issue all the edicts we want, on purple vellum with gold leaf, but the community won't bear it. They'll WP:IAR their way around any restriction on creating articles on subjects they believe to be appropriate. The only thing we have a chance of affecting is whether we keep an AFD open during the first days. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think telling people to put stuff in draftspace would work. My own experience with this, having created a few of these articles myself, is that a lot of people want to be the one to do it. The minute something happens, a bunch of people will rush to create drafts, and then the second news coverage ticks over into an actual published article that you can cite for GNG, one of them will get moved into mainspace. But, in reality, people will tend to just move a premature draft into mainspace to get the jump on all the other drafts: it's just human nature. Even if you think this is a dumb situation, the only reward you get for diligently waiting is that you lose!
All of that to say, I think the only way that this would actually work — and this would be an actual good idea — is to redirect the mainspace title back to the draft, or salt it, or something. This way, it would simply not be possible for anybody to "jump the gun", and meanwhile the article would be clearly identified as a draft during the hectic first hours or days when not much is known about an event.
I think this might even go some way to improving the public perception of Wikipedia, since a clearly-identified draft article doesn't carry with it the implicit guarantee that most of our pages do (and it conveys pretty clearly the idea that it's not perfect and will change a lot prior to things being settled). jp×g🗯️23:55, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the problem this is highlighting is in need of solving, but GreenLipstickLesbian's comment above does a good job highlighting situations where AFD is necessary for breaking news articles. In general, the proposed solution would probably be difficult to implement without a flood of WP:NOTNEWS articles that get created and then can't be deleted for a week. Draftifying for a set amount of time does seem like a good solution for current events of mid-to-low importance, but a bad solution for major news articles. Assassination of Charlie Kirk is a recent example of an article where it would've been detrimental for us not to have an article before a week after the event. I think it would help to have a stronger emphasis on the "wait" option at AFD. The best current event AFDs are snow closes, so we don't have a ton of eyes on an article with a deletion tag, and in an ideal world, we could just snow "wait" or "delete" every borderline current event article. That's more of a cultural change though, not something easily changed through policy. 🌸wasianpower🌸 (talk • contribs) 00:36, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I really like that idea of more prominent a "procedural close/wait" option, actually; if a borderline article goes through AfD while the event is ongoing as is kept, then that makes second AfDs more complicated. My main worry with a "consensus to move out of draftspace" idea is that the poor-quality arguments will still be made, but in greater number and with more fervor as people try to read about events they've heard about (tiny earthquakes felt by major American cities, small airplane crashes in South East Alaska, North American weather), and most closers will not ignore them. Then it will become much harder to delete the article in the next 18 months when we discover that coverage didn't persist after all. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋02:08, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think a "procedural close/wait" option should exist, and go in the direction of keeping the article. Neutral, well-sourced articles on current events are one of the things that our readers value. IMO we shouldn't be trying to delete them in the first three or so days. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:53, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we shouldn't be writing "news articles", in the sense of original reporting based on first-hand reports from Wikipedia editors, Wikipedians interviewing witnesses, presenting information that has never been published anywhere else ("news", as traditionally and humorously contrasted with "olds"). But also, we don't do that.
We instead write encyclopedia articles about historical events, some of which are still developing events. I think it's important to look past the WP:UPPERCASE and read what that policy says: "all Wikipedia articles should contain up-to-date information. Editors are also encouraged to develop stand-alone articles on significant current events...Wikipedia does have many encyclopedia articles on topics of historical significance that are currently in the news...breaking news should not be...treated differently from other information". Excluding "breaking news articles" would be "treating it differently", which the policy forbids. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:59, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have the same experience. Special:Homepage lists some stats on page views, and it's discouraging. I fix a template somewhere, or blank some trivia, and suddenly my "impact" is all about some celebrity I've never heard of. But work that I think will actually matter, like telling readers whether "We're at the hospital with the baby, and the doctor says it's scaryitis" is good news vs bad news, that doesn't get picked up by the metrics. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You can set filters in Special:NewPagesFeed to get all the articles from one day. It lists 601 non-redirect articles that were created on 8 September 2025. Are you aware of any in that list that's about a current event that no one cares about today? I only saw articles about past events when I scrolled through. (Which reminds me: Erika Kirk is an article about a person, not about an event.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:36, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Reaction sections are perhaps the worst offenses when it comes to most event articles today. Most reactions that are included are, for all purposes, empty words said in the short term that give no indication of any possible action or response to the event at hand (that is, stuff that is akin to the "thoughts and prayers" after a shooting in the US). They are easy fruit to pick from the news sources and fluff out the article to make it appear longer than needed (and then we often get MOS:FLAGS spam when international reactions are added). With the Kirk shooting, there are several valid reactions that actually have created actions and responses (Trump's antifa EO for example). Reactions based on long-term analysis of an event to place it in context are also fine, but we're not going to know those in the first few days/months of an event; those are usually going to come from academics far down the line. Masem (t) 01:01, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure whether we need a new guideline or to best better enforce current ones, but some exceedingly trivial reactions do get added. As an example, following a plane crash (possibly Med Jets Flight 056) the local high school sports team posted a generic condolences message on what used to be Twitter, and that got added to the article. That was one of the most extreme I recall, but generic "thoughts and prayers" type messages from random politicians and celebrities with no connection to the event beyond being alive when it happened accumulate in reaction sections more often than not. Thryduulf (talk) 01:56, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, then maybe the thing to do is for anyone who is unhappy about the detailed reactions is to trim on sight, or better yet search for "Reactions" in section headers and trim systematically. -- Beland (talk) 02:01, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that a whole guideline would be overkill, but we should have a paragraph somewhere that discourages congratulations/condolences/thoughts and prayers/nice sounding stuff said by politicians and celebrities.
After a disaster, what we want is "Paul President deployed the military" or "Near Neighbor sent a team of experts". What we don't want is "Sal Slacktivist said something saccharine on social media". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:47, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Something like this might fit at NEVENTS, that sections that catalog short-term reactions that lack any actual action (planned or completed) should be avoided/minimized as such info doesn't contribute towards the long-term notability of an event. But I also can envision a better guideline on how to write event/breaking news articles that doesn't focus on notability. Masem (t) 03:54, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe if we make sure there's something about this (with an example?) in each of these three places, then eventually the good advice will get found by people working on these articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:40, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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.
WP:CSD U5 kind of sucks. It's vaguely worded, and a yearslong history of its contents being deleted-by-script by a since-desysopped admin left most userspace patrollers under the impression that basically any page in userspace by a new user is eligible. A significant percentage of all nominations are of drafts, even though those are explicitly excluded from U5, they're often nonetheless deleted. Of what remains, a not inconsiderable portion is just userpages saying "I'm John Smith from New York and I work in finance", which are also exempt under the WP:UPYES clause, but likewise get deleted all the time. (Also, let's be honest, more often it's "I'm Ashok Kumar from Delhi and I work in IT"... there's a noticeable region-based bias in what gets tagged.) Links to people's profiles on other platforms, also generally allowed under UPYES and thus exempt, also deleted all the time.
Importantly, these aren't all mere procedural issues. We want people to use their userspace for drafting, and we want people to introduce themselves to us and make themselves feel at home in the editing community. WP:UP lays out these expectations, but U5, both as written and as enforced, doesn't honor them.
Based on discussion with a few others at User talk:Iridescent § U5 in the modern era, it seems to me that there are two reasons we want some kind of userspace cleanup mechanism:
Some people use their userspace to host things that are obviously completely unrelated to Wikipedia. This is things like creative works, persuasive essays, full-length résumés or CVs, a page about how great their cat is, etc.
Pages left idling in userspace indefinitely, while individually mostly harmless, add up to significant problems overall. I've deleted decade-plus-old userspace pages that accused living people of murder or rape. Or such pages can be used to passively promote some entity, although it's not clear how much benefit this actually brings someone who tries it.
What I'd like to brainstorm is a split of the criterion. Handling the second half seems like the easier part: something like
[CSD U6] User subpages of users who have never made a good-faith edit outside of userspace, which have not been edited by a human in at least six months. Promising drafts may be moved to draftspace as an alternative.
This would create a simple procedural mechanism, similar to G13.
This does leave a loophole for users who draft on their top-level userpage. Such drafts already confound userspace patrolling, and make up a considerable percentage of what I decline in CAT:U5. I created {{draftified userpage}} to semi-formalize an informal practice in dealing with them, but it remains, well, informal. So I would propose pairing the creation of U6 with removing the "usually" in "Work in progress or material that you may come back to in future (usually on subpages)" at WP:UPYES, with a footnote explaining that any user may move a draft from a top-level userpage to either a user subpage or to draftspace and replace it with {{draftified userpage}}, and that reverting such a move is an indication that the editor wishes for the page to be treated as userpage content rather than a draft, and thus subject to WP:UPNO.
Which brings us to the second half, basically some kind of less vague U5. This is where I'm less sure of what to do, and a big part of why I'm bringing this to VPIL. What I'm currently thinking is something like
[CSD U7] Pages in the userspace of users who have never made a good-faith edit outside of userspace, which are not formatted like an encyclopedia article, where all content on the page falls into one or more of these categories:
Creative or persuasive works unrelated to Wikipedia
Lengthy descriptions of any person's professional accomplishments
Lengthy content about the user's personal life
Links to websites that are primarily commercially-oriented
And where the issue could not be remedied merely by shortening the page or reverting to an earlier version, or where the user has resisted such attempts.
Re U7: Maybe "not intended as an encyclopedia article" rather than formatted? I can see both pros and cons - for example, it would eliminate excuses like "it doesn't have an infobox or references like a real article!" or "there's only one linefeed between paragraphs, so it all displays like one big conglomerated mass!"; and it does technically require mindreading. —Cryptic17:00, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This seems far too misinterpretable too. We don't want to be able to say that "This page, which is formatted as and clearly intended to be an article, is about something no self-respecting encyclopedia should cover. Like the author." (See also my back-and-forth with CFA starting here.) I think the idea we should be shooting for is something like "written in an encyclopedic manner, or at least not in the first person". Which of course is no more usable as proposed wording. —Cryptic01:19, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do really like this idea – having more specific speedy deletion criteria is always great, especially when splitting the more vague ones like U5 or G6 that often get misapplied. I also like the "no good-faith edit" criterion, although I do wonder how it would apply to, say, someone writing a promotional draft for their company (in draftspace) and following up with pasting a major CV on their user page.Regarding Cryptic's note, those are good points, but, in both cases, I'm expecting that experienced editors tagging/deleting these pages would have a much stricter view of what counts as an "encyclopedia article" than newcomers writing them. The first case I have in mind is a newcomer wanting to write an autobiography in good faith, but not at all familiar with our guidelines on the topic – where can we draw the line (in style or in intent) between this and lengthy content about the user's personal life? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:06, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the Draft is for Bob's Big Business, Inc. and the CV says "I'm Bob, president and CEO of Bob's Big Business, Inc.", then how could it not constitute a paid-editing disclosure? (The hypothesized scenario is "someone writing a promotional draft for their company".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In that case yes, but that's only a subset of CVs. If someone's CV indicates they're a retired mid-level employee at Bob's Big Business, a widget supplier based in Kentucky and they write a draft about a 20th century Russian chess player, that is not at all a paid contributor disclosure. Thryduulf (talk) 18:05, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, this is closer to what I had in mind – something not focused on simply disclosing their paid contribution, but instead discussing their personal accomplishments at great length and with a clear self-promotion intent. The issue that WhatamIdoing points out is still relevant, as a good-faith user might want to disclose all their potential COIs in advance, and it might be hard to decipher the difference in intent. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:20, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we should put too much effort into "deciphering intent". No matter what the intention was, if the objectionable CV demonstrates a COI, we should keep that. They can call it "building my personal brand" if they want to, but we should call it "COI disclosure". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:55, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
True, especially if we're considering the bigger picture. We shouldn't assume that newcomers will be familiar in advance with our specific way of wording things, and we shouldn't fault them for doing something that also happens to be helpful from our point of view.That does raise the question of what to do with WP:NOTCV – currently, it only allows for "limited autobiographical information", but, as you point out, we don't have a meaningful distinction (besides wording) between being transparent about your COIs and posting your résumé. It does in a way loop back to the original U5 criterion – posting a résumé for the sake of posting a résumé, without actually contributing, isn't helpful, but it becomes invaluable if the editor also contributes on topics they might be connected to.However, what about the case of the editor who creates a "user profile", then waits a few days before finding a place to contribute, only to see their userpage deleted, and is now scared away from the project? Ultimately, the cost of hosting a few vanity résumés in userspace is probably less than what we lose by spooking away potential contributors, so maybe that aspect of U5/U7 should be deprecated entirely? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 07:58, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In my experience dealing with the CSD tags, people are far too expansive on their definition of "a CV" when they tag (and admins when they delete), and I'd consider that a bigger problem. Lots of people do make good-faith userpages that twig a typical patroller's idea of what a CV is, but which would be pretty useless as an actual CV/resume. They are deleted, bitily. -- asilvering (talk) 16:18, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do think the first sentence of Chaotic Enby's last paragraph is especially crucial—but I do want to point out that I think calling CSD deletions of potential good-faith editors (which is most everyone) simply bitey is insufficient, mainly due to how diluted that term has become. It's not just a bite to find out your very first attempts at editing are getting speedily-deleted, it's a public humiliation in the form of an alligator devouring you while spectators watch. It's also a permanent scarlet letter that, without context, screams "this user didn't perfectly understand how Wikipedia worked" which can significantly influence how people approach initial reactions with that user later on (that is, it'll usually make people reach for the grab-bag of uw-templates instead of, Jimbo forbid, starting a conversation with them). Perryprog (talk) 16:28, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this. It's really easy to forget or understimate the new user experience when you're as established as we all are here.I sometimes edit non-WMF wikis; I typically start with a dozen or so typo fixes or spelling errors, then make a user talk page saying something to the effect of "(Hi, I understand how MediaWiki works, no need for a welcome template or whatever.)" and redirect my userpage to that with a summary like "Not much to say here, but I don't like being a redlink". The popups for "Congrats, you've just made your first/tenth edit, keep it up!" are always surprisingly encouraging, even though you'd think I'd be used to them by now. But about half of the time, my first interaction with another human user is an admin thanking me for my spelling fixes and then deleting my user and user talk pages with a log entry like "not necessary". Those wikis I never edit again. —Cryptic17:09, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That last point you mention is, in my opinion, one of the most important reasons for us to have strictly defined CSDs, with some amount of supervision through pages like WP:Database reports/Possibly out-of-process deletions, instead of the ability to delete pages for any reason. That way, we're shifting which parameters control these new user experiences. It isn't admin temperament, which is impossible to control at a large scale, even if we have selection processes like RfA. Instead, the parameters are community-defined criteria, for which we can discuss the specific interactions they might have with editor experience. Making these criteria more specific, and reducing the grey area in their wording, can only help avoid these kinds of bad experiences. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:25, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but you probably don't go looking through the User: namespace in the hope of doing Important™ Work as an apprentice Defender of the Wiki whose goals are truth, justice, and tidiness. But if someone believed that this dreadful page's existence sullies the wiki, then they might stop abusing CSD if we remind them that MFD exists, and that deleted via MFD is every bit as deleted as any other process. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:55, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do we need an explanation somewhere about what a CV looks like? That we're looking for a bare list of bullet points with schools, job titles, and dates, and that we're not looking for a paragraph of prose? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:18, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My first thought is that there needs to be some time frame in which someone can demonstrate that they are here in good faith before U7 would apply. We don't want to bite future good editors who start by writing a detailed userpage setting out their credentials under the impression that this is required before going on to edit constructively elsewhere. How long should this be? I don't know, but an absolute minimum of 7 days, maybe 4 weeks would be better? Thryduulf (talk) 17:42, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder whether the problem is "CSD taggers do the wrong thing" or "this CSD criteria doesn't do what we want".
If CSD taggers are regularly doing the wrong thing, we could set a bot to watch for obvious, objective violations (e.g., any five unreverted edits outside userspace), revert it, and leave a note for the tagger saying "BTW, that's not what this CSD is for. If you hate it, use MFD instead".
We could also re-write the U5 criteria to be clearer. I think the current wording (where the owner has made few or no edits outside of user pages, except for plausible drafts and pages adhering to Wikipedia:User pages § What may I have in my user pages?) might leave editors divided on whether this can apply to someone who has made (say) six edits to a plausible but declined draft, plus two more that are promotional stuff on the User: page, or if the six edits to a draft exempt them from U5 permanently. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The bot is an interesting idea and I might run it, but we'd have to consider carefully where to draw the bot's line to avoid too many false-positive reverts while still being useful. And probably give humans a parameter for {{db-u5}} and similar templates to tell the bot "a human has carefully checked this, don't remove" for when FPs slip through anyway. Anomie⚔18:21, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, CSD tags are reviewed by an administrator making the decision to delete or not, so we should already expect tags to be double-checked. A bot checking for a numerical requirement might be too strict, but maybe we could give more explicit guidance to deleting admins in the CSD tag's wording? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:22, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but part of the complaint is that admins are being overly generous with their acceptance of U5 tags.
The bot could flag the CSD tag rather than reverting it. A message like "A bot has determined this is likely an incorrect use of the tag. U5 is only acceptable for people who have made 'few or no' constructive edits outside the User: space, and the creator of this page has at least 23 non-reverted edits." WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:57, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Flagging could well be done too, I like that idea. The bot could add a parameter to the template (maybe |non-reverted-non-userspace-edits=42, suggestions for a better name welcome) and then the template adjusts its messaging accordingly. But what should the the lower limit? Should the bot add even |non-reverted-non-userspace-edits=0 so admins can differentiate "bot checked this and it's fine" versus "bot hasn't checked this one yet"? Should the bot update the parameter if the count changes, and if so when? 0↔1 sure, 1000↔1001 probably not, but where's the line?Or would it be better to go in a different direction, have the bot update a subtemplate with a {{#switch}} or JSON giving the edit counts for users with active U5 (or U6 or U7) tags, which the template can use to fetch the count? With that we could have the bot update the counts frequently without having to worry about flooding the history of the flagged pages. Anomie⚔13:05, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I dislike flagging the =0 or =1 cases because it's too easy for those counts to change. I'd probably flag only for accounts with ≥5 unreverted edits. Less than that, the default message could be a reminder to admins that this only applies to accounts with few or no unreverted edits, and that they'll have to check manually. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I worry about creating an incentive for someone to see a user with a number of edits close to the threshold and hunt for edits of theirs to revert. That would clearly be gaming the system, but it would not be easy to detect and I'm not sure it's something we can (should?) expect admins patrolling the speedy deletion category to check for? Thryduulf (talk) 19:03, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While this is starting to be a bit too elaborate, checking in which context each edit was reverted seems natural, especially as reversions might themselves be mistaken. Beyond that, while I believe that it is good to have a numerical benchmark to avoid out-of-process deletions, this incentive you mention could be avoided if it was a flexible range? For example:
... where the owner has made few or no edits outside of user pages. While there is no set number, a user with more than 5 unreverted edits will usually be exempt from this criterion. Below that, edits should be reviewed individually to make an informed decision.
That way, we have both a safeguard against CSD abuse, and a level of flexibility is retained (cf. Wikipedia:What U5 is not). The original discussion that led to U5 being enacted focused explicitly on SPAs as the source of the problem, and many users with only a handful of contributions are visibly not SPAs.An alternative possibility, which has the advantage of providing a better-defined boundary, would be:
... where the owner has made no edits unrelated to the tagged material outside of user pages.
This excludes occasional users with only a handful of (all constructive) edits, while including, say, a spammer promoting their product in both userspace and draftspace. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:46, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The hole that that leaves is someone who creates two distinct instances of tagged material: say, an autobiography on their userpage and a startup business on a subpage, without an explicit link between the two; and edits outside userspace exclusively related to one or the other, but never both. (WT:Speedy deletion/Archive 84#Quantifying "few or no other edits" in U5 is still fairly recent, and on-point to the first part of your comment.) —Cryptic20:10, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The reverse is what I'm concerned about: "Hi, I'm a neurologist who specializes in autism" with someone saying that good edits to articles about Autism are "related to the tagged material" and therefore don't count. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This wouldn't supersede the main U5 criterion requiring the material to be a WP:NOTWEBHOST issue, which a brief introduction isn't. Beyond that, I think the "relatedness" criterion should be defined more broadly. If you write a user page about your research in autism, editing about autism in general wouldn't be an issue (in fact, we welcome subject-matter experts!), but only editing about your own research and self-citing it would put that same user page under a different light. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:49, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty convinced that both taggers are doing the wrong thing and that the wording is insufficient. I mentioned in the contextual ANI Clovermoss linked below that labeling this criterion as "Non-contributor's misuse of Wikipedia as a web host" was a terrible idea, and I've only become more convinced of that since. Most of that title has nothing to do with the criterion itself, and most taggers don't look at anything but the title. And, also in that contextual ANI, I made the point that a fair number of the pages that get deleted as U5 that don't qualify for it (or any other criterion) should still be speedies. —Cryptic01:19, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this idea from Cryptic has some long-term potential. Maybe ==Fan fics, job applications, and similar content with no attempt to contribute to Wikipedia==? My idea is to name some of the most extreme examples, in the hope that people will realize that this is about the "oh, my goodness, you are hopelessly on the wrong website" situation and not the "eh, I think that's a bit too self-promotional for my own subjective, culture-b(i)ased tastes" one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Separately, the idea that "except for plausible drafts and pages adhering to WP:UPYES" could be read as an exception to the "few edits", instead of as an exception to what can be deleted, occurred to me too recently, during this deletion review (which is relevant to this discussion though not this particular point, and is worth a read-through). If I were truly confident that the original meaning of "any page plausibly intended as a draft can't be deleted" still had broad consensus, instead of "any draft that could plausibly be promoted to an article" or this nightmarish interpretation of "graduating from userspace and editing drafts too still doesn't get you out of newbie U5 vulnerability", I'd have already moved the clauses around. —Cryptic01:19, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I note users who have never made a good-faith edit outside of userspace leaves a gigantic loophole: a single typofix in a non-userspace page or a comment on a talk page outside of userspace would enough to invalidate the deletion. Even good-faith creation of a redirect that is deleted would invalidate it.I also note that the example a page about how great their cat is wouldn't fit under any of the things in the proposed U7, unless you stretch "the user's personal life" a bit. userspace pages that accused living people of murder or rape wouldn't fit under anything there either, unless you consider murder and rape "descriptions of any person's professional accomplishments" (and there are enough alleged murders and rapes to be "lengthly"), or maybe if the user is alleging that they were the one murdered or raped (in which case "the user's personal life" clause might fit, again if it's "lengthly" 🙁). used to passively promote some entity also wouldn't fit anything there if the entity isn't a person and they avoid it being just links to commercial sites. There are a lot of other things at WP:NOTWEBHOST and WP:UPNO that wouldn't fit the proposed U7 either, such as non-commercial linkfarms, non-Wikipedia discussion that's not "creative or persuasive works" (e.g. using a userpage as a forum or a dating site), playing games, 'publishing' original research, uploading files (e.g. base64-encoded text so they don't have to be in the file namespace), keeping enemy lists, descriptions of the personal life of people other than the user themself, etc. But maybe all that is ok to have to go to MFD? 🤷 Anomie⚔18:07, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good point - how much of this stuff (both what's proposed to be included and what Anomie highlights as potential additions) goes to MfD at the moment? Is there enough of this to meet the frequency requirement? Thryduulf (talk) 18:15, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If unsourced, yes, but if they included sources for each accusation (and avoided it being "legal threats" or "intended purely to harass or intimidate") then I think it wouldn't qualify. I don't know what exactly Tamzin was referring to when mentioning I've deleted decade-plus-old userspace pages that accused living people of murder or rape above. Anomie⚔18:27, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, my point about such pages is that they show why it's bad to let user subpages fester indefinitely. Sure, they may be deletable under one CSD for another, but only if someone looks for them, like I have by searching phrases like "is a rapist" or "is a murderer". So this isn't really about my U7 proposal but my U6. My idea is for most of all this to fall under U6, even a lot of stuff that could technically be U7, much like G13 sweeps up a decent number of pages that might be G1/G2/G3 or even G11. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 19:01, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The question isn't whether we should let these pages "fester". The question is only whether the route to deletion needs to be an undiscussed CSD nomination, rather than one of the other deletion options. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:00, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the page is "my cat is the greatest cat ever", that's fine. If the page is many paragraphs on how great the cat is, that's lengthy content about their personal life; actually as I was drafting the above I flirted with something like "or entities they are personally familiar with such as their friends and pets", and I'd be fine including that if it's clearer. If the page is many paragraphs and reads like an actual biography of the cat, it's a draft and can be handled under the proposed U6, or MfD in the less likely event that it's associated with someone who's actually contributed to the encyclopedia. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 19:07, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, it depends how far you want to stretch "the user's personal life". Having seen just how pedantic some people at WT:CSD can be about the definitions, I'd be inclined to write for the narrowest interpretation possible. Anomie⚔19:51, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's a lot to reply to. I'll start with changes to userpage policy (WP:UPYES)
1. Change Work in progress or material that you may come back to in future (usually on subpages) from usually on subpages to always on subpages.
2. Append (always on subpages) to User space archives.
3. Change Experimentation (usually on subpages) by changing usually to always.
And reword the rest of the policy as needed to be consistent with these changes.
Having work in progress on the main userpage is confusing to other editors who are looking for info about the editor in question and confusing to casual wiki users (I've seen those pages misrepresented as encyclopedic information). There's also no compelling reason to have work in progress on the main userpage. — rsjaffe🗣️18:46, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A second change to policy is to always properly template pages in userspace that look like Wikipedia pages. There's several templates that should be ok, including {{Userspace draft}}, {{User page}}, {{User sandbox}}, etc. The purpose of this is to avoid misunderstanding a userspace page as a Wikipedia page. This change alone would markedly increase what I would tolerate in userspace. — rsjaffe🗣️19:56, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd have your proposed U7 replace the current U5. It needs some tweaking--e.g., I'd change the no real edits provision to be something like "fewer than 10 non-userspace edits" (or something like this). That is, a real contributor. Also, I'd change the not formatted like a Wikipedia article to something like "not formatted like a Wikipedia article or not suitable to be a Wikipedia article". — rsjaffe🗣️20:02, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Not suitable to be a Wikipedia article" could be clarified a bit, as otherwise it might be too strictly interpreted as "not suitable for mainspace in its current state", which is not ideal. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:10, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
With the change to what's allowable on the main userpage (which is a bit more restrictive than what you proposed), I strongly agree with adding something allowing others to move a nascent article on the main userpage to a better location and to use the {{Draftified userpage}} template. Leaving a hard redirect on the main userpage is user-hostile, as it confuses visitors to the page (who may not notice they've been redirected) and prevents a naive user from properly utilizing the userpage as they probably won't figure out how to remove the redirect.
By the way, the preponderance of user reactions to moving the "article" from the main userpage has been gratitude, with I think one negative reaction (moving the page back). Many of the people starting a page there are just doing it because they don't know the right place to write it.
I even move somewhat inappropriate autobiographies from the main userpage to draftspace. This gives them a longer amount of time and more feedback to provide the case for inappropriateness rather than a lightning strike kill of the article. I think people tend to be more accepting when they receive feedback from multiple people over a range of time rather than a single no. It does waste some time of the reviewers, though. — rsjaffe🗣️20:20, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's really good to know! I was wondering about that and I do think it's worth considering, but I still contend that it doesn't really matter if it's something that's living as a userpage or as a subpage. It really just feels like a pointless distinction in my mind. Like, yes, it's not the "intent" of userpages but... so? If it's someone who sticks around for any length of time they will likely figure out on their own that they can have it as a subpage or in draftspace instead, and I feel like that is arguably preferable to having a weird process (and what will appear to newer users as them having violated some unspoken rule) being taken on their work for no clear reason. Perryprog (talk) 20:25, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you move it from User:Example to Draft:Example (to be deleted in six months) instead of moving it to User:Example/sandbox (no time limit)? Are you intentionally trying to get more of them deleted during the next year? Because your actions are actually resulting in more of them being deleted during the next year than if you left them alone or moved them to a user sandbox page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I did somewhat misread this—I had assumed it was moving to the user's sandbox or similar. In my opinion the only time that we should be moving to draftspace is once a page is submitted for AfC review, and it doesn't pass any quick-fail criteria. (I'd rather quick-fail it in their userspace rather than the place that starts a ticking clock on their work.) Perryprog (talk) 22:09, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Such an overhaul is long overdue - U5 is widely misunderstood and widely misapplied, and hasn't proven sufficient to handle the problems that could arise with userspace pages. I like U7 as written (it should be U5 though, if we're overhauling that?) and I would caution against introducing language like "non-encyclopedic content" or "not intended as an encyclopedia article", because not infrequently userspace personal info is people hosting material they want in a mainspace biography but that shouldn't be in a mainspace biography. I'm less certain about U6 - it strikes me as too narrow. Why does making a single typo-fix in mainspace allow you to incubate drafts indefinitely? We ought to tie it to editor activity and page activity. I'm less concerned about attack-page material - we have means of deleting those - and more about the leavings of young editors writing semi-anonymous bios that don't serve an encyclopedic purpose and could plausibly cause harm later. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:54, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Numbering isn't a huge concern for me, but I provisionally went with calling it U7 more for the practical reason that it'd require patrollers to go read the new rule after they see that {{db-u5}} throws an error, rather than be looped in piecemeal to the narrowing of the criterion. But again, not a huge deal either way. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 19:04, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: "Lengthy descriptions of any person's professional accomplishments" is a necessary addition, IMO, because really what we're trying to address is the use of userspace as an end-run around WP:NOTCV. That said, we're going to have to have a discussion about what "lengthy" means, because we have tolerated personal accomplishment tallies from experienced editors to a degree that we never would in a newbie. See, for instance, User:Marine_69-71, and the varied feelings expressed at ARBCOM over their use of userspace. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:07, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So you want to ban "lengthy descriptions", because you don't want people to have an opportunity to express their varied feelings about specific instances? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying we need to work out as a community what quantum of personal biography is permissible in userspace - how are you getting what you said from what I wrote? Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:52, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I understood your comment. You think it's necessary to ban "lengthy descriptions". Okay, why do you think that? Specifically, why would a rationale person think that length descriptions need to be deletable under CSD? The obvious answer is: if we don't delete them via CSD, then "we're going to have to have a discussion" at MFD, and I interpreted this as as you not wanting to have those discussions at MFD (i.e., the main opportunity for editors to express their views of each alleged NOTCV instance). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:07, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I have a whole lot of thoughts on this topic (which isn't really in response to the proposed criteria), but first some context—I tend to watch the page creation log for new users that aren't in mainspace which has led to me seeing a lot of the really weird stuff that goes on in userspace especially, and I've also seen lots and lots of, in my opinion, bad U5s (both nominations and deletions).
The first thing I want to point out is how inherently user-hostile Wikipedia is for newcomers, especially those who are trying to figure out how to write prose and not just typo fixes. Even with the visual editor, it is an immensely confusing and unfortunately unforgiving (in terms of how easy it is to get "yelled" at if you do a small thing wrong) environment. I think this leads to a large number of people figuring that their best place to learn is by clicking the bright red button that's their name (which says "Your user page" when you hover over it) and to start trying to figure things out. They probably don't know what to try writing about, so they write about whatever. Or, they assume it's the place to put information about yourself because... well, it's "your user page"; that's what you do on any other website that has accounts.
This will then very often lead to U5s, G11s, blanking if they (heavens forbid) wrote something on their talk page, and I don't think many editors realize just how honestly intimidating (and honestly terrifying for younger editors) getting CSD'd is. Your "talk page" (whatever that is) is suddenly slammed with a page and a half of text of contradictory text where you're both being welcomed and then yelled at with a scary red danger icon that you're fundamentally violating the purpose of Wikipedia?? Welp, time to log off never to return.
Anyway all that is to say my point is this—we should care way, way, way, way less about what people do in their userspace, as long as it isn't actively detrimental to the project or to any other person (or is blatantly G11, which I don't think is misapplied too often, though there are times I disagree with its use.) No beginner editor is going to know what the fudge a "subpage" or a "draft" is, and I think carving out exceptions based on stuff like that is a bit iffy due to how there's no way most new editors will have any natural understanding of how to go about accessing their "subpages" or "drafts", as well as understanding that they need to do that to avoid getting wall-of-blue-texted out of oblivion. Perryprog (talk) 19:57, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is basically my thoughts on it as well. I'm not sure the issue is with WP:U5 itself so much as that it's being constantly misapplied and we're not effectively preventing those misapplications. -- asilvering (talk) 20:18, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The bright red button since Vector2022 is worth emphasising. It is a prominent red link that is by itself in the UI. It is also one of the three tabs at the top of the Special:Homepage (the user talkpage is here as a redlink too). The design pushes new editors towards their user page, and I'm not sure what guidance is made obvious alongside this. CMD (talk) 04:45, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Could that appear only for redlinked userpages? Seems sensible if so. As for Help:Getting started, we probably need to look at that for other reasons as well. It doesn't seem to cover the newcomer homepage the WMF has created. CMD (talk) 10:14, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
After looking a bit deeper into it, we already have {{Base userpage editnotice}} that appears by default, but it mostly focuses on not drafting articles there, and the tone might be a bit too aggressive for new users – maybe a revamp is in order?I'm thinking a more newcomer-friendly version could be in the style of a Wikipedia:Dos and don'ts page, with clear, simple bullet points supported by visual cues and links. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:27, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We should rework it, but also when does it appear? It does not seem to appear when I enter the editing screen to create a userpage. CMD (talk) 12:13, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Probably doesn't help that it seems to have been broken, the {{#if:<includeonly>{{PAGEID}}</includeonly>|| check it had at the top would never output the content since {{PAGEID}} produces 0 rather than an empty string on a nonexisting page. I don't know when that may have changed, as presumably it used to work. I've fixed that now. Anomie⚔15:31, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The context behind and a yearslong history of its contents being deleted-by-script by a since-desysopped admin left most userspace patrollers under the impression that basically any page in userspace by a new user is eligible matters. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1171#Fastily was only ten months ago. Not everyone saw a problem with admins deleting pages outside the written U5 criteria. I think that if we want to change anything, we need to create an environment where challenging other admins is less toxic. The rules don't matter if people don't follow them. If people are deleting things that aren't U5s under U5, I don't see why creating a new criteria will fix that. Clovermoss🍀(talk)20:25, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
One of the key underlying principles is that we want to discourage WikiSquatting.
However, discouraging hosting is a difficult task, even if a new system managed to catch 100% of pages that were placed here for hosting there would still be all the preexisting advice floating around the internet that would continue to direct people here for years.
Community practice in this area has not been entirely consistent, but it's been established ever since Wanli that people who abuse the project as a free host can have their content deleted and be blocked if they persist.
There's mountains of coprolite sitting in userspace but vanishingly few cases where the persistence of anything there has been an issue.
Nonetheless many people simply do not like rubbish littering userspace, and none of it is worth getting into disputes over.
Unlike G13, the proposed U6 will require increased human review when a user has edits that need to be assessed for good-faith. It's not much at an individual level but in aggregate the work will add up. To what degree I'm not certain.
The proposed U7 is easily evaded by simply formatting the stuff you want to store as an article and a script to do that could be easily implemented not really that big a deal given the low-impact on everything else userspace has, but it should be considered.
Any new CSD if applied retroactively has the potential to overwhelm the CSD process. Even something narrow that covers say only unsourced BLPs over two years old would make many thousands of pages eligible for speedy deletion.
Retroactive application of the proposed U6 is not practical for the cases of users having edits because no one is going to review that. Even for the users that have no edits retroactive application is only achievable with a bot.
Could not be remedied merely by shortening the page ensures the proposed U7 could only ever be correctly applied after someone reverts multiple attempts to blank a qualifying page because blanking will almost always remedy the issue and in the rare case it doesn't the page probably already qualifies for G10 or oversighting. So if that is the intent the CSD should be reworded in a more straightforward manner, if it isn't the wording should be rethought.
Wow, this has gotten so much great feedback! I want to step back and distill some of what's been discussed above. People seem on board with the ideas of a procedural G13-like criterion and a friendly ban on top-level-userpage drafting. The main issues raised above seem to be:
The requirement of no good-faith edits outside userspace is subjective.
It is. But the only objective criteria we could use here would be something like "fewer than X edits to namespaces A, B, and C", which won't necessarily map onto what we want it to map onto. Meanwhile, the current definition is also subjective but is broader. So my proposed solution here is just to include a footnote defining "good-faith edit" very broadly.
The requirement of no good-faith edits outside userspace can be easily gamed.
See next.
A bot can't always determine if the criteria are met.
This and #2 somewhat cancel out. If we change no edits to "few if any", then a bot can handle the no-edits contexts, where more nuanced cases (e.g. a single typo fix, or 20 edits but they were all reverted as tests) can be handled by humans. Someone could put together database reports like "User subpages of users with 1 to 20 mainspace edits" or "User subpages of users whose only mainspace edits have been reverted".
Six months with no edits wouldn't cover the case of someone who returns once every month or several to add a bit more to their off-topic userspace subpage.
Actually I don't know if anyone said this, but I thought it. See next.
Penalizing off-topic content is inherently BITEÿ, and while we can all think of things that are clearly completely off-topic, patrolling editors will naturally tend to have stricter definitions than a good-faith new user.
This is the big one, and it's the one I've been thinking the most about. What really hit me is something from IP 184's comment... It's not like we need most U5 content to be truly deleted. If something is bad in a way that needs to be admin-eyes-only, it'll fall under one of the G-series criteria. While, say, someone's Kirk/Spock fanfic has no business being on Wikipedia, it's not doing any harm sitting in a page history, and it's not doing any harm on a user subpage that'll soon be deleted. So what I've come to feel is that there doesn't need to be any direct successor to U5. What I think we can do instead, which will also address #4, is allow U6 to be a bit toothier for things that don't appear to be drafts: make it 6 months from creation, not from most recent edit. Because there's still the time requirement, this subcriterion doesn't need to be ultra-precise in the manner of a U7/rump-U5 like we were discussing, but can still be clearer than the current U5 wording. Meanwhile, for top-level userpage content, we can just allow off-topic content to be blanked under similar rules if it violates WP:UPNOT.
Thus my revised proposal is this:
CSD U5: Deleted
CSD U6:
User subpages[a] of users who have made few if any good-faith edits[b] outside of userspace, which either:
have not been edited by a human in at least six months or
were created more than six months ago, could not be interpreted as a draft article (even a very bad one), and unambiguously violate the "Excessive unrelated content" or "Advocacy or support of grossly improper behaviors with no project benefit" sections of WP:UPNOT[c]
Promising drafts may be moved to draftspace by any editor as an alternative to deletion.
For users with few if any good-faith edits outside userspace, off-topic subpages more than six months old may be deleted under speedy deletion criterion U6b; top-level userpages that would be eligible for deletion under that subcriterion if they were subpages may be blanked by any editor.
Work in progress or material that you may come back to in future (usually on subpages)
Drafts, especially where you want discussion or other users' opinions first, for example because of conflict of interest or major proposed changes
Drafts being written in your own user space because the target page itself is protected, and notes and working material for articles (Some content may not be kept indefinitely).
Drafting on a top-level userpage is confusing, and any editor may move a draft away from a top-level userpage, either to a subpage or to the draft namespace, replacing it with {{draftified userpage}}. If an editor reverts such a move, they indicate that their userpage should not be viewed as a draft for the purposes of assessing compliance with this policy.
Notes
^See WP:UPNOT regarding off-topic content on top-level userpages and WP:UPYES regarding drafts on top-level userpages.
^A "good-faith edit" here is defined as one that was not obviously vandalism, promotion, testing, harassment, or edit-warring. An edit does not need to be constructive or even competent to qualify as good-faith.
^Note that merely writing about one's personal or professional life is not a violation of WP:UPNOT unless inappropriate or excessive or extensive[ly] self-promotional.
Continuing on the logic that we don't need most U5 content to be deleted, I'm wondering whether U6a is truly needed here. The discussion that led to G13 being enacted was less than unanimous, with the two main arguments in favor of deleting abandoned drafts being the lack of promise/potential, and the risk of objectionable and WP:NOTWEBHOST content lingering around. The first is less of an issue given the wider latitude given in userspace (in fact, some supporters of G13 explicitly opposed an equivalent userspace criterion), while the second will already be covered by U6b, so an additional process to delete userpages of low-edit count users seems both redundant and WP:BITEy.I very much agree with the rest of the proposal, and especially with the change to WP:UPYES. One additional thing I would like to see would be a default editnotice that editors would see when creating their userpage, explaining in simple words what can and can't be added. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:22, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this could work without U6a. A big part of reducing the amount of BITE is reducing overtly confrontational interactions over userspace content. Quiet procedural deletion both means that the user is less likely to feel like they've done something wrong, and that there's less of a reason for people to go poking around in userspace ragpicking, since most of the stuff will get cleaned up on its own, and manual tagging will only be needed for edge cases. I think G13 has been very effective at avoiding over-patrolling of draftspace in the same way. If we didn't have it, we'd need to figure out what to do about drafts that are probably-net-negative for Wikipedia to host, but nonetheless don't fall under any G-series criterion... whereas with G13, when someone says "Hey this draft is horrible, what do I do?" we just tell them "Chill out, it'll be gone in 6 months". -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 09:29, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's actually a very good point I didn't consider. I was mostly afraid that it could hurt editors taking their time with drafts – say, joining Wikipedia, starting some user sandbox, forgetting about it, and deciding to come back the next year only to see their project was deleted. But I figure the last clause ([p]romising drafts may be moved to draftspace by any editor as an alternative to deletion, which seems to only apply to U6a) will help with that?I wonder if tagging them as {{promising draft}} and leaving them indefinitely in userspace could have the same effect, as I don't see it interfering much with the anti-ragpicking effect of G13/U6a.Sorry for the nitpicking again, your proposal is certainly an improvement on the current situation, just trying to figure out the details before it goes for a full RfC. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:40, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, this is idea lab, nitpicking is good! Yes, there's some space for undesirable deletions here, although it's pretty narrow: The editor would have to 1) start a worthwhile draft, 2) make ~no edits outside userspace, 3) go 6 months without editing that draft, 4) not have the tagger or deleting admin decide to draftify, and 5) come back and want to resume it. This will happen occasionally I'm sure, but probably much less often than the comparable situation happens under G13. And when it does happen, there's still a straightforward process to reverse it. (I imagine we'd just add U6 to the WP:REFUND/G13 scope.) We could make this even less likely by adding courtesy deletion notices at the 5-month mark, something I have no strong feelings on in either direction.As to how to handle these drafts, I like moving to draftspace better, on the premise that the creator probably isn't coming back, and it's better to have the content at a title where someone is more likely to notice it and adopt it. But I'm not strongly opposed either to some kind of "U6-exempt" tagging system. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 10:24, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the feedback on my feedback! My only worry about moving them to draftspace is that someone else might just notice them there and delete them under G13, as it would technically have been six months without edits (except maybe if moving a page there resets the counter?) Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:03, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Continuing on the logic that we don't need most U5 content to be deleted, why don't we ...just not delete it? Like, not have U5 or anything else, and tell people if they really dislike it, they can simply blank it instead of trying to make it admin-eyes-only. If it needs to be deleted, then there are other available alternatives (e.g., {{db-attack}} or Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion). WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:13, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why so abstract?
It's a little wild to me how abstract this discussion is when we have lots of examples to look at. Let's choose one from Wikipedia:Database reports/Potential U5s/5, for example User:Sussybaka228. Is anyone arguing that we need to keep pages like this? Would it be helpful to start a miscellany for discussion thread about this page to re-establish the very clear consensus that we both do not want garbage pages like this and that having a seven-day community discussion about each and every garbage page that some user creates is unnecessary? We have speedy deletion criteria to avoid wasting the editing community's time.
What about a page such as User:முனைவர். ஆ.சம்பத்குமார்? We've typically held that on the English Wikipedia, where we've intentionally siloed pages by language, pages like this should be deleted. Is anyone disagreeing here? If you'd rather we use MFD for this, we can. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:11, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just noting for the record that the example related to non-English language has been deleted, as it is an unambiguous copyvio. (A quick google translate revealed the copyright statement at the end of the text.) Not commenting on the general concepts here. Risker (talk) 21:25, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at entries 2000-2009 in the database link and none indicated a need for deletion under a userspace criterion:
User:AuburnAsh - student project page (courtesy ping to Stevenarntson noted as the teacher). Shouldn't be deleted. The "Article evaluation" section would ideally be dated and on a subpage but it's doing no harm where it is
User:Jessica gacus - a short extract from the I Have A Dream article as it stood in April 2022 and a link to the speech on YouTube. Shouldn't be deleted.
User:Sainhimanshu01 - A short bio in Hindi that could also funciton as a COI declaration if it were in English
user:Ngabitsinze - a short bio that could also function as a COI declaration
User:Ridaashrafia - This is not a userpage, but I see no reason why blanking wouldn't be sufficient but others would speedy it under G11
User:Gaming Euan - I think this is python code, it should be looked at by someone who knows python. If it's harmless it should at most be moved to a subpage, if it's intentionally harmful then G3, if it's accidentally harmful then MfD would suffice.
User:G-man1535 - another student in the cass run by Stevenarntson. Shouldn't be deleted.
The Python code is a wrapper for the enwiki API, seemingly written by someone who doesn't entirely understand how the API works (or maybe for a school assignment that had specific constraints). If run, it would be in violation of WMF best practices because it spoofs a user agent, so I guess there's technically a slight harm that way, but probably not enough to make MfD a good use of community resources -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 09:18, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't think to check for copyright violation, but the linked website is not loading for me and the copyright report linked in the G12 template returns 0% so I'm not deleting it myself. Thryduulf (talk) 03:25, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad those userpages for my students don't seem problematic. I do want to follow up on the thought that some contents should be dated, or on subpages? Just curious what that might ideally look like. My only hesitation around modifications is that my students have pretty low digital literacy. Sometimes things that might seem easy are a heavy lift. Feel free to drop replies onto my talk page if it's off topic for what's being discussed here. Thank you! Stevenarntson (talk) 17:27, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes, if you see some notes on what needs fixed in an article, it's handy to also see a signature/date stamp, so you can tell whether those comments are likely to be relevant. Obviously, all this information is also available in the page history to anyone who thinks to look for it.
I don't think it's a big deal, and I don't think that anyone else thinks it's a big deal, but students are used to putting their name and the date on their class assignments, so if you wanted to do this optional thing, you might be able to tell them something like "Anyone can edit, right? So you might read the article and write your evaluation of it on Octember 32nd, and the next morning, someone might change the article completely. Your evaluation might look 'wrong' if we don't know when you did it, because we might compare your evaluation against the new version of the article instead of the version you were reading. So when you write your evaluation, put the date on it." WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We typically expect users here to contribute to the encyclopedia. Wikipedia is a free and open source encyclopedia for users to contribute to. We have user pages for encyclopedia editors to tell other users about themselves. In the case of User:G-man1535, this user has not made any edits to Wikipedia itself in over three years. Is there a reason we should indefinitely host their user page? There are so many sites where that would be happy to have content like this such as Facebook or LinkedIn. I'm struggling to see why Wikipedia is a suitable choice. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:18, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
According to WP:User pages "limited autobiographical content", "significant editing disclosures", "notes related to your Wikipedia work and activities" and "comments on Wikipedia matters" are all explicitly permitted on userpages. Everything on G-man1535's page clearly falls within one or more of those categories. Why do you think that is unsuitable for Wikipedia? What benefits would deletion bring to the encyclopaedia? Thryduulf (talk) 03:35, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're missing that user pages are for Wikipedia editors. If someone registers an account here and posts only their résumé on their user page, they are not an editor, they are confused and should be posting to LinkedIn or some other site instead. If you want to assume bad faith, you could say they're a spammer, which many new users are.
It is incredibly well established over decades that Wikipedia receives a lot of spam and other garbage. One of the editing community's roles is combating spam, vandalism, copyright violations, impersonation attempts, hoaxes, fake articles, etc.
Have you looked at a user page on a mobile device? It's incredibly difficult to distinguish a random User:Foo page and a real article. Many, many editors are creating user pages thinking that they are creating articles here. It's a very bad situation. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:55, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps this is a more realistic question. If I wiped out everything on my userpage except for the second-last sentence (" I am fond of cheap, trashy spy novels and just about any form of chocolate."), would it have anything to do with Wikipedia? Would it still be allowed or would it be subject to deletion? Risker (talk) 21:46, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You have over 28,000 edits. Compare with Special:Contributions/Sussybaka228. These are user pages of users with 0 edits outside of the User or User talk namespaces on this wiki. Any kind of "established" user, even one who just vandalizes an article, isn't getting reported on in this case. :-)
I will reiterate that we can use MFD but we determined it was a waste of time to have a community discussion for content like this: User:Sussybaka228. We can always go back to that. Should I nominate this page for deletion through the protracted process? --MZMcBride (talk) 03:05, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the community thinks its a waste of time to delete such pages, why do you think that it is worth the time finding them, assessing them and nominating them for deletion, speedily or otherwise? What benefits do you think it brings to the encyclopaedia? Thryduulf (talk) 03:23, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're misunderstanding. The community determined that it was a waste of time to have a weeklong discussion about these pages and so we established a process for speedily deleting these pages because it was so obvious that they were unwanted. The main idea is to prevent spam, copyright violations, and other garbage that comes along with being a wiki while also not wasting more editors' time reviewing the pages and voting to delete the obvious cases. That's what speedy deletion is, I think you already know this?
As I said above, there are plenty of sites that would be happy to host a résumé or other user-generated content. Wikipedia is not the place for that type of content, as has been very clearly established. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:50, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Copyvios and spam don't need U5 to exist, because they ought to be deleted as {{db-copyvio}} or {{db-spam}} instead.
Your userpage contains only a silly joke. Why should we keep yours, but not Sussybaka's? Why should we impose an unequal system, in which "we" get to do things that we prohibit "them" from doing? Do you believe that a system in which some editors are more equal than others is consistent with our values?
I've no worries about the hapless mobile user. The User: namespace doesn't appear to be indexed, so they won't find it at Google, and until you mentioned it here, the page had been viewed a total of 11 times since its creation several years ago.
You ask whether we should spend a week discussing it. The options are:
Spend a week discussing it at MFD, potentially involving half a dozen editors' time.
Tag it for U5, potentially involving two editors' time.
Blank the page, using one editor's time (10 seconds?).
Man oh man this place sucks. Earlier today I tried to log in from my phone and got blocked by a stupid "you need to check your e-mail" prompt. I said okay, I'll just reply without logging in and then the IP address I was on was blocked from editing of course. Please, tell me more about treating users equally.
Wikipedia very obviously treats different users differently, as does every society and community. That's how trust and reputation work. You're posting as "WhatamIdoing" and you've built a reputation here and people trust what you write as a result. You also have additional user groups here based on your good standing and contributions to the encyclopedia.
We're discussing users with no contributions to the encyclopedia. They are not Wikipedia editors, they are registered users who have made user pages and have not yet contributed to building an encyclopedia. It's a distraction to suggest my user page or Risker's or your user page or anyone else commenting here's user pages are relevant. If any of these users make even a bad edit to an article, we consider them an editor. We do not consider people posting their résumé or hoax articles or other spam to be editors.
Many community discussions over years and years resulted in deletion of user pages exactly like this, which is why a speedy deletion criterion was created for this purpose.
While you may not be interested in picking up trash at the park or beach, that doesn't mean it's a waste of time. Putting aside the trite Animal Farm reference, it's rude to tell a volunteer how to spend their time. Nobody's asking you to participate in helping keep Wikipedia tidy, but doing so, in the real world and in the digital world, has a lot of benefits. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:23, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What benefit does the world receive by deleting the user page for G-man1535 (the example you gave above), where that editor has written an evaluation of the problems with a specific Wikipedia article? How does the world benefit by us removing valid criticism of Wikipedia (e.g., that a Wikipedia article was unreferenced) from that user page?
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.
Editnotice
In parallel to the CSD discussion, I've been working on an editnotice to guide users creating their userpage about what should or shouldn't go there. Basically, a newcomer-friendly version of Wikipedia:Userpages, summed up in a few bullet points. It shows up as two columns ("do"s and "don't"s) at full width, but they stack up to still be readable in the more vertical format used by Visual Editor (or for mobile users).
There is already an existing editnotice that shows up for those pages, but it is harsher-looking and doesn't do a great job at summing up what user pages are actually intended for.
Recently I've been fixing a lot of pages with Bare URLs, but soon I realised that almost 80% of the Bare URLs are actually links to PDF files, which neither Citation Bot nor reFillα can fix.
I think the problem is that PDFs can be structured in a bewildering number of ways, so it is difficult to code a simple script that would parse even a significant minority of PDFs to accurately determine the title. It is an interesting problem to try and solve, though, and your question made me look at Grobid and wonder whether something like that might be helpful. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 09:47, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ideally we shouldn't be referencing things to PDFs very much at all, as PDFs very often represent primary sources rather than reliable or WP:GNG-worthy sourcing. There will, of course, be some exceptions, but those would be in the minority — more often a PDF source would need to be removed from the article entirely rather than having its bare-URL formatting fixed. Bearcat (talk) 15:56, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Primary" is not a synonym for "unreliable". And once WP:GNG is satisfied by some sources, it has nothing to say about the rest of the sources used. Even if a PDF really is a primary source, it may be perfectly fine if the statements are supported by it without a need for analysis or synthesis (and, for that matter, a secondary source might be insufficient if it doesn't support the statements without analysis or synthesis). Anomie⚔20:21, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say primary was synonymous with unreliable. However, primary is synonymous with non-GNG-building, and virtually the only acceptable use of primary sourcing, under any circumstances, is for basic information — such as a statement of where the person was born or where the company's head office is located — that isn't a notability claim. Bearcat (talk) 15:42, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You said PDFs very often represent primary sources rather than reliable [...] sourcing, which sure sounds like you're saying that primary sources are never reliable to me. And as I said that you ignored, "non-GNG-building" and WP:N in general is irrelevant once GNG is satisfied by other sources in the article.Personally I wish Wikipedia would drop the "primary" versus "secondary" distinction down to an essay, in favor of focusing on the actual matters that those are a heuristic for: GNG needs significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject (which are likely to be considered "secondary", but not by everyone in all cases); WP:OR requires not adding new analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources themselves ("primary" is just a heuristic for "probably doesn't have the kind of analysis we need for writing a good article on most topics"); WP:BLPPRIMARY seems to be concerned with advertent or inadvertent doxxing, difficulty in knowing that the "John Smith" in the source is the same "John Smith" the article is about without WP:SYNTHESIS, and probably WP:BALANCE; WP:DUE and WP:BALANCE, like GNG, would probably do better by focusing on reliable sources and independent of the subject over saying "secondary"; and so on. Anomie⚔16:03, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am seeing a number of academic journal articles now appearing on-line with both PDF and non-PDF versions available, with only the PDF version retaining the page numbers. Trying to cite specific passages in an article that is dozens of pages long, but does not have page numbers, requires citing section headings, which is awkward and often not very precise, so I usually link to the PDF version. Donald Albury20:41, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure where you get the idea that PDFs are more likely to be primary sources? When citing historical matters, official reports, books, and the like (which can be primary, secondary or even tertiary) often PDFs are the only format available online. I'm also at a loss trying understand why you think primary sources should be removed from an article for being primary? Primary sources are often more reliable than secondary sources for certain types of information (ridership statistics for public transport for example). Not every source is required to satisfy the notability guideline. Thryduulf (talk) 21:29, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have an invariable requirement to weblink all of our sources at all, so that's not an overriding concern. PDFs are also just as often (actually in my experience more often) people's own self-published résumés, or brochures, or corporate and organizational newsletters, or transcripts of committee meeting minutes, or other unreliable sources that shouldn't be in an article at all, and are very frequently used to reference bomb a topic around a lack of any WP:GNG-worthy sourcing. Also, I did say there can be exceptions where a PDF is a more reliable source than the norm — but the norm is very much that editors use primary source PDFs instead of GNG-worthy reliable sourcing much more than they use reliable source PDFs of GNG-worthy reliable sourcing. Bearcat (talk) 15:51, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your experience is completely different to mine. Unreliable sources should not be used, regardless of format. What format sources are in has not relevance on their reliability. And yet again, you are implying that all sources need to be GNG-worthy, which is absolutely not the case - as long as there are sufficient sources that do demonstrate notability it's completely irrelevant whether the other sources do or do not. Thryduulf (talk) 15:55, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, the rule is not that as long as some of the sources in the article are GNG-worthy, the rest of them are allowed to be junk — the rule is that we have to get as close as feasibly possible to basing the article entirely on GNG-worthy sourcing while keeping any use of non-GNG-worthy sources to an absolute minimum. If I had a Wikipedia article about me, for example, then the acceptable use of primary sourcing in it would be for basic life details (my middle name, my birthdate, where I went to high school, etc.) that were desired as background information but might not have made it into any of the GNG-worthy coverage about my work — and even then, if any GNG-worthy reliable source could be found that supported the same information, it would take precedence as a better source for the fact than anything primary. It could not, however, use primary sources to support any information about my career that was meant to be understood as part of the reason why I would be eligible for a Wikipedia article: it could not claim that I was a notable journalist just because I had a staff profile on the self-published website of my own employer, it could not claim that I was a notable community figure in my own city just because I won a minor local award that could be sourced solely to the self-published press release of the award committee instead of any media coverage reporting the award presentation as a news story, it could not claim that I was a notable musician just because my music's existence was sourceable to YouTube or Spotify, and on and so forth. We're allowed to sparingly use primary sources for strictly factual background information, but not as support for anything that's meant to be a brick in the notability wall and not as anything more than the smallest "as close to zero as possible" percentage of an article's overall sourcing pool that we can get it. Bearcat (talk) 16:21, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd much prefer to read about and discuss the topic that was raised: fixing bare links that are PDFs (at scale). -- GreenC16:35, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It requires me to download the PDF and put it in manually, defeating the purpose of not doing it manually. But then it doesn't do anything except for just showing me the PDF I just uploaded. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 18:20, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's anectodal evidence. In my experience, PDFs are usually journal articles or official reports from government agencies or respected organizations. Cremastra (talk·contribs) 16:40, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure this isn't a new idea but I can't find it. I believe en-Wikipedia is moving over to temporary guest accounts instead of IP editing. The first time someone edits without an account, they will be assigned an account (it will be a collection of numbers and tilde symbols), which becomes their username for 90 days, whenever they edit from the particular device they were using when they started. After 90 days, the account is automatically closed, and I assume if they edit on day 91, they're assigned a new guest account.
I was wondering, is there any plan to provide temporary guest account users an option to "upgrade" their guest account to become a real account, retaining its editing history? I could imagine a lot of people might start with a guest account, but find during their 90 days that they're enjoying editing productively. It'd be nice to let them simply carry on, rather than kicking them back to square one, and losing the connection between what they did previously and their new permanent activities. Elemimele (talk) 16:12, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Based on my shaky understanding of the technical things involved here, I think the answer is probably no, since I think temp accounts use a different framework and you wouldn't be able to transfer edit history to a new username like when you get your account renamed. Cremastra (talk·contribs) 02:38, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I've asked it there, in case it can be made technically possible, but I'm sure you know a lot more about the technical basis than me (there is probably no one who knows less...) Elemimele (talk) 14:47, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At a quick glance, it seems like prior to T333223 it might just have needed a rename and setting of authentication data (e.g. a password); now it would also need changing that flag in every wiki where the account exists too. OTOH, looking through T300273, it seems unlikely they'll ever actually implement it over concern that the temporary account for a shared public computer might have been used by multiple people and that non-CheckUsers might have saved the IP of the temporary account (and so now know an IP used by the registered account). Anomie⚔15:18, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Despite the technical issues making a direct "upgrade" impossible, a newly created account could link their previous temporary accounts on their userpage, if they want to keep some continuity in their editing history. I wonder if we could offer this by default to temporary account users creating a "real" account? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 13:39, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I checked at WMF and it definitely isn't possible and isn't going to happen, but xaosflux, that's absolutely true. It does also illustrate the futility of all this. At the moment if someone turns up editing as 123.1.2.3, creates an article about Helge Hexenhuthersteller (an expert on German hedgehog ecology), likes editing and registers an account as GermanHedgehogFan and continues to edit extensively on German hedgehogs and the works of Dr Hexenhuthersteller, it doesn't take much deduction to link the account GermanHedgehogFan to 123.1.2.3. When we get the nice new temporary accounts, if someone has managed to associate the temporary account with an IP as described above, when the temporary account holder registers as GermanHedgehogFan and continues to write about hedgehogs, we're in exactly the same situation. If, in any way, it's possible to link temporary accounts to IP addresses, there is surely no point in having the temporary accounts? Elemimele (talk) 16:41, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The primary benefit of temporary accounts is privacy enhancement, as we don't publish the underlying network addresses to the revision metadata. — xaosfluxTalk18:04, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This results from a few different kinds of errors — people mentioning categories in talk page discussions without disabling them via a colon or the {{cl}} template, so that the page erroneously gets filed in the category instead of textlinking to the category in the discussion; people erroneously using Wikiproject tracking categories on the article instead of the talk page; people posting full-on copies of articles onto the talk page; etc. — but by and large, people who work on cleaning up categorization errors can only catch these in a scattershot manner by happening to come across them, and could use a comprehensive report similar to the ones that already exist for other types of misfiled content.
This would not need to look for "Draft talk" or "User talk" pages, as those are already caught by the existing draft and user reports — and it should skip listing categories that have been tagged with {{Polluted category}}, as those are typically hidden maintenance categories where mixing types of content is not seen as a problem. But as noted above, it would need to look for Wikiproject categories, because those aren't supposed to be on the reader-facing article.
Also, if possible, it should be formatted more similarly to the user report, which features links to incategory searches for "main" and "user" content in each listed category, rather than the draft report which just lists the categories and requires the cleaner to manually search for the misfiled content. Bearcat (talk) 16:21, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
97494 is definitely the most useful in its current state, though it's still hitting a lot of hidden maintenance categories that don't really need to be cleaned up (e.g. "Redirects from/to...", "Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify...", etc.), so there may be a few more rounds of refinement to exclude types of categories that don't actually need to be dealt with.
97507 mixes draft and user and talk content, and thus isn't as useful in that exact form, though it does have potential. I've already got access to an alternative categorized-drafts report that I can update at will (I was given it as a stopgap last year when the regular draft report broke and wasn't updating properly, but the primary maintainer of the bot that updates it was away on vacation and couldn't fix it, and its on-the-fly updatability has actually proven preferable to waiting for the regular report to update just once a week), so I wouldn't actually need it to look for drafts at all — but since the userspace report only runs once a week and often has hundreds of categories to check (quickly approaching or surpassing a thousand if I happen to forget about it just one time), a way to help catch categorized userspace content faster than once a week would definitely make it a more manageable and less time-sucking job, and it definitely helps to find talk pages — but I wouldn't really need it to look for drafts, since there's already another tool for that. And as with 97494, Category:All articles covered by WikiProject Wikify is a category we don't really need to worry about and should probably just be excluded. So maybe, instead of one report that looked for all types of polluting content in the same place, maybe separate jobs that just looked for one specific type of content each?
I already do an incat search of Category:Living people a few times a day, given the total non-viability of finding misfiled content in that massive megacategory any other way — so 97508 wouldn't really be needed in this context, though of course it may be useful for other purposes.
Seems strange that it would take so much longer to find talk page content than draft or user content. Is it just a matter of the raw number of pages being so massive that just finding them all takes too long (which I suspect might be the case as 97494 is landing on a round "precise multiple of 100" number of pages that suggests a capped finding limit rather than there being exactly that many pages on the dot), in which case a concerted effort to get the current situation under control might make a conventional report more viable in the future by virtue of reducing the number of pages there are to find, or is there just something about talk pages that makes it naturally take longer than user or draft pages no matter what?
Specific categories can be omitted from each of these, given a list of names; or if there turn out to be a lot of them, either a pattern of names ("All categories beginning with 'Redirects from *'", for example) or something like "all hidden categories".97507 can be limited to only look for mainspace/talk, if you want, or can add another namespaces like Wikipedia:; my thought was that it would be easier than having to check separate reports for main+talk, main+user+usertalk, and so on. It takes the same (considerable) amount of time to check for them all at once as it does to check for just one.The reason it looks like it took longer to find just talk is that 97494 was deliberately set to find up to 1000 mixed categories, and 97507 just up to 200 - if you look at the sql in those, you'll see "LIMIT 1000" in the first and "LIMIT 200" in the second. There's no way to identify categories with members in mixed namespaces except to look at every category's contents and keep on going until it's ready to stop. Including not just talk but user, user talk, draft, and draft talk too found the first 100 in about four minutes, and the first 200 (as in query 97507's current version) in about fifteen. Looking just for talk, since there were only 700 such categories, it couldn't stop until it had looked at every category, which took half an hour. So if all of these were cleaned up, it would actually take longer to confirm that there weren't any mixed categories left, or just one or two or whatever, whether that means just main+talk or main+(long list of other namespaces).There are step-by-step instructions on how to register at Quarry and to fork (make your own copy of) and run an existing query here. It's been quite some time since I've registered myself, so the third bullet point may no longer be accurate, but it seems unlikely. Only other thing you'll have to change is to use one of these queries instead of 20320; 97508 is probably best to start with of these three, since it runs the fastest. Assuming no hiccups, I can walk you through how to change namespaces and omit specific category names, but user talk: is probably better for that than here. —Cryptic16:34, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, cool. I won't be dealing with this right away — a friend's moving to a new apartment this afternoon, so I have to head out shortly to help him unpack stuff — but I'll advise when I get on it, probably most likely tomorrow, and hit you up if I need assistance. Bearcat (talk) 16:43, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Parameter for regional restrictions in for web citations
Much content on the web succumbs to regional restrictions, namely US sources not available in Europe. When I open https://www.chicagotribune.com/ from a European URL, I just get "This content is not available in your region". Template:Cite web should contain a parameter warning readers of such restrictions, ideally also name the regions affected. Would this be technically possible? --KnightMove (talk) 09:25, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed that solves at least part of the problem. What if "regional" were introduced as a 4th parameter? This sounds like a much easier, if not complete, solution. --KnightMove (talk) 10:13, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say no, and think that limited would suffice in these cases, to indicate that readers may not be able to access that particular source.On an additional parameter to specify the regions, I think it's extremely unlikely that editors would be able to populate information into a {{Cite}} template parameter that is at all complete about the regions that a particular website chooses not to serve, and it would be terrifically difficult to keep this up to date. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 15:50, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here's my latest solution in search of a problem (SSP). We use the term so much, it needs an acronym for brevity and ease of use.
Edit summaries already support wikilinks. Why stop there?
Make it possible to create clickable external links using the same coding as used on a wiki page, with the same ability to specify the linktext.
Support some wiki markup, such as bolding. Since the edit summary is in italic text, the double-apostrophe technique should create roman. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 14:01, 30 September 2025 (UTC)Edited per discussion. 16:16, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Belated add: The edit summary text box is one line long, and I can never see more than 90 characters of it on my system. When I can see characters 91–140, I can't see characters 1–50. Meanwhile, the system supports up to 500 characters, so I have a 90-character window into a 500-character text field. Make the box auto-wrap so none of the text is ever out of view. This is basic user interface design. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 10:08, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. So how do we get the developers to bump the priority of a phab ticket? Without that, this seems unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 17:10, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Once it is reopened, you can try meta:Community Wishlist. Developers are primarily volunteers, so this is akin to How do we get editors to write new articles about some subject - you can try to recruit people with the skills and interest. — xaosfluxTalk10:45, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A sad state of affairs. We should be the developers' customers, not their subjects. En.wiki community consensus should mean a lot to them, by policy if necessary. Who invented this system? ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 15:12, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, do not make clickable external links. We do not need page histories and watchlists filled with spam or links to malicious websites that cannot be removed. Sure, we can delete edit summaries, but unless you have a way to double the size of the admin corps, making significantly more work for admins is unlikely to be an improvement. —Kusma (talk) 15:45, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then make edit summaries editable by anyone, the same as anything else. This provides benefits beyond a solution to your very valid concern, including the ability to correct an incorrect edit summary without the need for a dummy edit. Any problems introduced would be no different from what we're already successfully dealing with elsewhere. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 16:09, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Upon reflection, that's unworkable. We would need some way to track the changes to edit summaries, or we would lose context (see WP:REDACT). That would be an absurd Rube Goldberg contraption. So cancel the external link suggestion, leaving the markup suggestion. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 16:15, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What happens to all the old summaries that happen to have two or more apostrophes stuck together? What if they're specifically something like "<i>..</i> -> ''..''"? Would we have to support <nowiki> too? Plus, there are lots where the markup is unbalanced; example from the last few minutes. —Cryptic16:51, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it ain't perfect. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything on en.wiki that is. Never look just at the downside of something; instead, weigh the downside against the upside. The upside is that I could improve the clarity of my edit summaries, and this business is all about clear communication between editors. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 17:01, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like most of your edit summaries are "ce", I don't think this proposal will do anything to improve them. 😀 Anomie⚔01:27, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's right, make it about me. That usually works. My use of the first person is a communication/rhetorical device only. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 02:34, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The diff shows what you did, so that would be redundant in an edit summary. Edit summaries sometimes lie, so I always look at the diff. The edit summary is primarily for why you did it (for typo corrections, I would just say "ce"). If you change "Muslim" to "Hindu", I'm going to want a better edit summary than Replaced 'Muslim' with 'Hindu'. The software is not yet smart enough to identify a mere typo. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 10:50, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I used to think that some self-explanatory edits did not need an edit summary, but it can be worth saving others the trouble to click through to the diff when a good edit summary explains what you have done. —Kusma (talk) 14:32, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When you say that you "always look at the diff", you presumably mean that you look at diffs when you're going through Special:Watchlist or Special:RecentChanges. An edit summary that merely duplicates the diff is still useful when you're looking at the article history and trying to figure out which edit needs to be reverted. In that scenario, Replaced 'Muslim' with 'Hindu' is very helpful, and "copyedit" or even "correction per source" is not at all helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:32, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again: Since edit summaries sometimes I lie, I never trust them. Or, if you prefer, trust but verify, whatever that means. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 21:52, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. Now you need to figure out how long the words "The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion" have been in WP:V. There are about 7,000 revisions in the history page. Don't you think that an edit summary might be helpful in helping you figure out which diffs to check?
Trusting some individual editors doesn't help you figure out which one of 7,000 edits to that page is the one that has the change you're looking for. An edit summary might. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:28, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
An easier to use edit summary box would be great. I hate scrolling through the edit summary box when undoing an IP edit on my phone. —Kusma (talk) 07:57, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is there anyone at the foundation who can confirm that this attempt at contact actually happened? Or is the Nypost just making it up (as usual) Trade (talk) 22:17, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the nypost article and looking at the AFD, this nypost article seems to be a knee jerk to fan the flames of their dislike of liberal bias on WP. The AFD closed almost by snow to keep and they apparently did not look at that, only that it got nominated. It's a puff piece we should not worry about. Masem (t) 22:37, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There should be a place where if you're an admin, you can sign up to be on the list of talking heads who give comments to the newspaper. The news will always quote someone from the WMF awkwardly saying "we can't comment on that", which is boring, when they could instead have some monument of outspoken and brilliantly erudite witticism, guaranteed to impress and edify, from a brain-genius, of which I can easily name several, including of course myself. jp×g🗯️09:17, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this would be a bad idea. You definitely can't speak for me - we don't always agree afterall - and neither of us can speak for the WMF. But if there was that list then we would suddenly be official in ways we shouldn't be. There is COMCOM but I'm not sure how active that is these days nor am I sure what their turnaround is - they might not be able to get a comment out quickly enough for a New York Post deadline. Now, I do think there could be utility in a project page listing people who are willing to speak to reporters (and what they could speak about), but that feels like the extent such things could go. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:43, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Noting that I've passed on a link to this thread to a member of the WMF Communications team. I am on the committee Barkeep49 mentions above, but I also know that Comms does look to add to the ranks of people who are willing to participate in responding to media questions. Risker (talk) 16:02, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Our proposal in a nutshell: Temporary accounts offer improved privacy for users editing without an account and improved ways to communicate with them. They have been successfully rolled out on 1046 wikis, including most large Wikipedias. English Wikipedia has defined the criteria for Temporary Accounts IP Viewer (TAIV) right and granted it to 100+ users. We plan to launch temporary accounts on enwiki on October 7th 21st. If you know of any tools, bots, gadgets, etc. using data about IP addresses or being available for logged-out users, please help test that they work as expected and/or help update these.
Hello, from the Product Safety and Integrity team! We would like to continue the discussions about launching temporary accounts on English Wikipedia. Temporary accounts are relevant to logged-out editors, whom this feature is designed to protect, but they are also very relevant to the community. Anyone who reverts edits, blocks users, or otherwise interacts with logged-out editors as part of keeping the wikis safe and accurate will feel the impact of this change.
Temporary accounts have been successfully deployed on almost all wikis now (1046 to be precise!), including most large Wikipedias. In collaboration with stewards and other users with extended rights, we have been able to address a lot of use cases to make sure that community members experience minimal disruption to their workflows. We have built a host of supporting features like IP Info, Autoreveal, IPContributions, Global Contributions, User Info etc. to ensure adequate support.
With the above information in mind, we think everything is in good shape for deploying temporary accounts to English Wikipedia in about a month, preferably October 7th. We see that your community has decided on the threshold for non-admins to access temporary accounts IP addresses, and there are currently over 100 non-admin temporary account IP viewers (TAIVs).
Project background
The wikis should be safe to edit for all editors irrespective of whether they are logged in or not. Temporary accounts allow people to continue editing the wikis without creating an account, while avoiding publicly tying their edits to their IP address. We believe this is in the best interest of logged-out editors, who make valuable contributions to the wikis and who may later create accounts and grow the community of editors, admins, and other roles. Even though the wikis do warn logged-out editors that their IP address will be associated with their edit, many people may not understand what an IP address is, or that it could be used to connect them to other information about them in ways they might not expect.
Additionally, our moderation software and tools rely too heavily on network origin (IP addresses) to identify users and patterns of activity, especially as IP addresses themselves are becoming less stable as identifiers. Temporary accounts allow for more precise interactions with logged-out editors, including more precise blocks, and can help limit how often we unintentionally end up blocking good-faith users who use the same IP addresses as bad-faith users. Another benefit of temporary accounts is the ability to talk to these logged out editors even if their IP address changes. They will be able to receive notifications such as mentions.
How do temporary accounts work?
When a logged-out user completes an edit or a logged action for the first time, a cookie will be set in this user's browser and a temporary account tied with this cookie will be automatically created for them. This account's name will follow the pattern: ~2025-12345-67 (a tilde, year of creation, a number split into units of 5). All subsequent actions by the temporary account user will be attributed to this username. The cookie will expire 90 days after its creation. As long as it exists, all edits made from this device will be attributed to this temporary account. It will be the same account even if the IP address changes, unless the user clears their cookies or uses a different device or web browser. A record of the IP address used at the time of each edit will be stored for 90 days after the edit. Users with Temporary Accounts IP viewer right (TAIV) will be able to see the underlying IP addresses.
Impact for different editors
For logged-out editors
This increases privacy: currently, if you do not use a registered account to edit, then everybody can see the IP address for the edits you made, even after 90 days. That will no longer be possible on this wiki.
If you use a temporary account to edit from different locations in the last 90 days (for example at home and at a coffee shop), the edit history and the IP addresses for all those locations will now be recorded together, for the same temporary account. Users who meet the relevant requirements will be able to view this data. If this creates any personal security concerns for you, please contact talktohumanrightswikimedia.org for advice.
For community members interacting with logged-out editors
A temporary account is uniquely linked to a device. In comparison, an IP address can be shared with different devices and people (for example, different people at school or at work might have the same IP address).
Compared to the current situation, it will be safer to assume that a temporary user's talk page belongs to only one person, and messages left there will be read by them. As you can see in the screenshot, temporary account users will receive notifications. It will also be possible to thank them for their edits, ping them in discussions, and invite them to get more involved in the community.
User Info cardWe have recently released the User Info card feature on all wikis. It displays data related to a user account when you tap or click on the "user avatar" icon button next to a username. We want it to help community members get information about other users. The feature also works with temporary accounts. It's possible to enable it in Global Preferences. Look for the heading "Advanced options".
For users who use IP address data to moderate and maintain the wiki
For patrollers who track persistent abusers, investigate violations of policies, etc.: Users who meet the requirements will be able to reveal temporary users' IP addresses and all contributions made by temporary accounts from a specific IP address or range (Special:IPContributions). They will also have access to useful information about the IP addresses thanks to the IP Info feature. Many other pieces of software have been built or adjusted to work with temporary accounts, including AbuseFilter, global blocks, Global Contributions, User Info, and more.
For admins blocking logged-out editors:
It will be possible to block many abusers by just blocking their temporary accounts. A blocked person won't be able to create new temporary accounts quickly if the admin selects the autoblock option.
It will still be possible to block an IP address or IP range.
Temporary accounts will not be retroactively applied to contributions made before the deployment. On Special:Contributions, you will be able to see existing IP user contributions, but not new contributions made by temporary accounts on that IP address. Instead, you should use Special:IPContributions for this.
See our page Access to IP for more information about the related policies, features, and recommended practices.
Our ask of you, and next steps
If you know of any tools, bots, gadgets etc. using data about IP addresses or being available for logged-out users, you may want to test if they work on testwiki or test2wiki. If you are a volunteer developer, read the documentation for developers, and in particular, the section on how your code might need to be updated. If you know of tools, bots or gadgets that have not yet been updated and you don’t know of anyone who can update these, please reach out to us.
If you want to test the temporary account experience, for example just to check what it feels like, go to testwiki or test2wiki and edit without logging in.
Tell us if you know of any difficulties that need to be addressed. We will try to help, and if we are not able, we will consider the available options.
To learn more about the project, check out our FAQ – you will find many useful answers there. You may also look at the updates and subscribe to our new newsletter. If you'd like to talk to us off-wiki, you will find me on Discord and Telegram.
We would like to thank stewards, checkusers, global sysops, technical community members, enwiki functionaries and everybody else who has contributed their time and effort to this project. Thank you for helping us get here. NKohli (WMF) and SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 11:38, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
It's still not clear to me what would be allowed to discuss publicly.
Temp account X seems the same as Temp account Y
Temp account X seems the same as older IP editor Y
We should rangeblock IP adresses X to stop temp account A, B and C
Temp account X is a school account for school X / a government account for department Y / ...
...
Should all these only be had "behind closed doors" somewhere, or are these allowed in the same circumstances as we would discuss them now (SPI, ANI, ...)? Fram (talk) 11:53, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @Fram, first we wanted to emphasize, to make it just clear to everybody around, that temp accounts are just a different paradigm; they don't match 1:1 with IPs, and in some cases it doesn't make sense or there's no need to link them with IPs 1:1.
These restrictions only apply when you (1) use data from the IP reveal tool to make the link and (2) discuss publicly. All of the above can be discussed in a private venue where only TAIV users can see the information. Also if the link is only behavioral, then any user, including those who have TAIV, can make the link publicly. But if you do have TAIV and talk publicly, there may be an implication that you used the tool to make the link. CUs often get around this by declining to comment about IPs if they have run CU on a user, so they can avoid the implication that they linked the IP and user together using CU data.
Now to your questions:
This is OK if necessary for anti-abuse purposes, and you can even say "Temporary account X is using the same IP address as temporary account Y" as long as you don't mention the specific IP.
Not publicly, unless the link is made purely through behavioral evidence (i.e. edits).
Not publicly. You can, however, say "Please block the common IP ranges used by temporary accounts A, B, and C" publicly where the admin could use IP reveal to find which range you were talking about. Another option for non-admin TAIVs is to say "Please block this IP due to abuse from temp accounts" (without naming the accounts).
If you are using access to IP addresses to get this information, then probably not okay. If using edits, then okay.
Finally, a very important note just for context: on other projects, including large Wikipedias, we have seen a significant decline in IP blocks, indicating that temporary account blocks are often effective remedies for one-off abuse. Even if we agree that English Wikipedia is unique and whatnot, there is a pattern and hopefully discussions about blocking IPs won't be that frequent (phab:T395134#11120266).
Thanks. So access to IP adresses is treated as CU access basically? That seems like a severe step backwards in dealing with vandalism, sockpuppetry, LTAs, ... Curs both ways of course, we now also exonerate people with things like "the IPs used by that vandal located all in country X, but this new IP comes from country Y, making it unlikely to be a sock. This happens in standard ANI discussions and the like, not requiring any CU access, but will no longer be possible for most editors.
Your "Finally, a very important note just for context: on other projects, including large Wikipedias, we have seen a significant decline in IP blocks, indicating that temporary account blocks are often effective" seems like a non-existent advantage. We had many "single" IP blocks, these will be changed to "single" TA blocksn this is not an advantage or disadvantage of TAs. The issues are rarely with the simple straightforward cases.
A very simple example: when I look at the revision history of [47] I immediately see that the last three IP edits are made by the same person, using two IP adresses. If we are lucky, in the future, this would be one temp account. If we aren't lucky, then these would be two completely unrelated temp accounts.
Or take this edit history for a school. Since March, I see different IPs in the 120.22 range; it seems likely that this is either the school or the village or city, so no socking, unless these 4 were all from an IP provider in, say, France, in which case it's much more likely to be the same person in each case. From now on, no more means to raise such issues or notice them if you are not of the few (and if you are, you can't raise it publicly).
Or to make it more concrete still: we have this current ANI discussion where a non-admin raises an issue related to completely disparate IP adresses: "a certain editor who has been editing over several months from various IPs, all geolocating first to South Korea, then more recently to Japan. " If said IP disables or removes cookies, there is no way that most of our editors would be able to adequately see or raise such issues, they would just have to say "there is a range of temp accounts, no idea if there is any connection between them".
@Fram With respect to Your "Finally, a very important note just for context: on other projects, including large Wikipedias, we have seen a significant decline in IP blocks, indicating that temporary account blocks are often effective" seems like a non-existent advantage. We had many "single" IP blocks, these will be changed to "single" TA blocksn this is not an advantage or disadvantage of TAs. [sic] The point being made here is that even in larger wikis there has not a significant requirement to resort to IP blocks (which are still going to be allowed). It appears that based on the trends WMF is monitoring, there is evidence that most typical vandals are not shifting across temporary accounts by disabling or removing cookies. Sohom (talk) 15:08, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the point being made, and I don't see the importance of it. Most IP blocks that are now being made also don't require CU, SPI, ANI discussions, ... Basically, for the "easy" IP problems nothing changes, but the more complicated ones get harder to spot, discuss, ... "Most typical vandals" are not the ones I am talking about.
A report like this one from this month could no longer be publicly posted. In the future, the editor who posted it has temp IP rights, so he could notice that a group of temp accounts is from "This large IP range in Australia ", but wouldn't be allowed to post this fact. They link to an IP range edit log[48] which would no longer be possible in such a discussion, as that would disclose the IPs of the temp accounts. It would lead to such discussions being had in back chambers, out of view of most editors, and more importantly still impossible to be initiated by most editors. That kind of stuff is the issue, not the "one-off vandals will get a 31h block on the temp account instead of on the IP". Fram (talk) 15:19, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's also a lot of "appears to be a one-off-vandals" that with a quick check of some small ranges turns out to be someone vandalizing for months or years. That visibility will be gone, too. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:21, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ScottishFinnishRadish, @Fram You will still be able list temp-account edits by IPs and ranges at [[Special:IPContributions/<insert IP address here>]]. I don't understand how we suddenly be unable to make the requests that you are pointing to. Sohom (talk) 15:49, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I will not request the temp IP viewer right under the above rules. I have had one ridiculous outing block for coupring someone's handle to someone's real name, even though they were listed as such on their Wikidata page and they used both in combination elsewhere as well: I will not risk getting another block because I somehow "outed" and IP address I learned through that right but was not allowed to share with the masses no matter how useful that might be. And no admin c.s. will be allowed to show such IPcontributions list when they may not reveal the IP address behind the temp account name. Fram (talk) 15:54, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's on you, the above directive is pretty explicit that you can report "hey Special:IPContributions/192.168.0.0/16 (not exactly that, but you get the drift) is a bunch of school kids, can a admin block it" or "hey Special:IPContributions/192.168.0.0/24 appears to a bunch of temporary accounts with very similar disruptive edits to game engines". It's a change of vocabulary yes, but the kinds of reports you are talking about are definitely doable and not being explicitly disallowed. Sohom (talk) 16:05, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
""hey Special:IPContributions/192.168.0.0/24 appears to a bunch of temporary accounts with very similar disruptive edits to game engines". " That makes no sense. IPs are not temporary accounts. And in any case you restrict such reports and the checking of such reports!), now made by regular editors (see my link to such a report in the current ANI) to a much smaller group of people. By the way, the people with the right can see the IP address belonging to a temp account: but can they easily do the reverse? Fram (talk) 16:14, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
appears to be a bunch of temporary accounts sorry for the typo. (A IP range can map to multiple temporary accounts since a TA corresponds to a machine). Also, you do realize that almost anyone with rollback or NPR will be able to make the same report with no problems. The persons who will be able to take action (i.e. block, revert) is already limited and almost all of the folks who can respond will already have TAIV (or will be handed TAIV at PERM with zero questions). Sohom (talk) 16:28, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and when they state "Special:IPContributions/192.168.0.0/24 includes temp accounts X, Y and Z, two of which have been blocked already" or some such, they should get blocked for outing as making that claim publicly (linking IP to temp account name) will be disallowed. If we follow the WMF rules on this, people will need to be very, very careful not to accidentally break them. Even claiming "temp accounts X, Y and Z all locate to Perth, Australia, so are likely socks" is not allowed, as one can only know that through the IP adresses, and publicly stating anything learned by seeing the IP addresses is, again, not allowed. Fram (talk) 16:49, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So that'll add how many seconds to the average task that is done 10,000 times a month by a few dozen people? A ten second increase adds dozens of hours per month to an already overwhelmed workflow. Or this extra stuff doesn't get checked anymore, which is more likely, and everyone wastes even more time dealing with unmitigated vandals. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:44, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ScottishFinnishRadish, If your gripe here is "this adds 10 seconds to a existing workflow", I see that as a okay tradeoff to the other alternative, which is "WMF (and Wikipedia) gets sued out of existence by frivolous GDPR lawsuits" or "we lose legitimately a significant chunk of good contributions from IP addresses by blocking all IP editing". Sohom (talk) 18:10, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You forgot "there's not enough labor available to keep up with the increased workload and trying to keep up leads to administrator burnout and even less labor available for the increased workload which leads to increased burnout..." ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:14, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@ScottishFinnishRadish Admin burnout and not electing enough admins is a "us" problem. The fix is nominating folks at WP:AELECT, WP:RFA (the very same processes you are defending as set in stone) and fighting to make it easier for the community member to elect worthy candidates to adminship, not arguing against the implementation of a system that has been brought on to prevent us from being sued from existence and where WMF has put in significant effort into reducing the friction down to 10 seconds. Sohom (talk) 18:22, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Uh, the very same processes you are defending as set in stone, what?We don't actually know what the additional time required will be, and having worked with the interface to place over 13,000 blocks, I think 10 seconds is on the low end of the scale. Editor and administration time is not cheap and putting a system in place that will result in a huge increase in labor cost without looking at the available labor is probably going to be worse than what we've seen at ptwiki.We're routinely dealing with bot attacks that will require an IP block as well as a temporary account block that use multiple IPs a minute. The end result of increasing the workload of defending against these attacks is no one actually doing the work. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:34, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Uh, the very same processes you are defending as set in stone, what? - We are talking about the inflexibility of community processes to deal with TAs and why they might not scale.
We don't actually know what the additional time required will be, and having worked with the interface to place over 13,000 blocks, - While I respect your opinions here, I think you are overestimating the amount of time here, you see a bunch of edits across different TAs, a non-TAIV editor starts reverting posts on AIV that a bunch of TAs are posting similar edits, a admin looks at the IP addresses for a few accounts (two or three more extra click than normal), clicks on the IPContributions and widens the search space untill all the TAIVs listed in the AIV report are covered and blocks the IP range and we are done. (If a TAIV editor sees the same edits, they directly report the IP address range and a admin blocks). I do understand your point about friction but I don't see it in the vast majority of the cases we aren't adding anywhere the amount of friction where folks will "just not do it". (and I assume with time user-scripts will be developed to make process smoother and less clicks). Sohom (talk) 19:42, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is Autoreveal mode for users with the checkuser-temporary-account-auto-reveal right, which reduces friction for users who need to be able to scan a list of IP addresses of temporary accounts when viewing logs. KHarlan (WMF) (talk) 21:03, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. So if, there is an IP vandalizing pages infrequently over months or years, and once discovered, I would like to go back to check if their previous edits were also reverted, that would now be impossible? ARandomName123 (talk)Ping me!17:39, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That was my thought as well. Even if someone who cleans up/investigates copyvio has TAIV, the lookback seems quite limited so you would have to hope that each temp account is doing something obvious on a behavioral level to link them. And then that circles back to if you can name a CCI after an IP address & list the temp accounts there. @SGrabarczuk (WMF): I'm not comfortable with "it may actually be OK to document IPs" - there should be definitive clarification one way or other before the rollout occurs. Sariel Xilo (talk) 20:03, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even if we agree that English Wikipedia is unique and whatnot, there is a pattern and hopefully discussions about blocking IPs won't be that frequent (phab:T395134#11120266). I hope we agree that if EnWiki isn't unique, it's uniqiue in size (though I would argue that EnWiki, like all other large projects actually is unique in its practices and challenges, even if much is common). And so even if the number of range blocks decrease, the scale of exceptions may cause more problems than even other large projects. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:09, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this line of thinking (disabling IP editing) is short-sighted and will lead to a eventual demise of the the project (if we don't let people know we allow editing, we lose potential new editors/contributors). We should not' be making it harder for people to edit, instead we should be looking at ways to make it easier for folks to engage and edit our content (especially in the context of the fact that a lot of our content is being indiscriminately being remixed by AI). Sohom (talk) 13:07, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Bizarrely, the only major test we have had of this has not in any way lead to the demise of said project. Protuguese Wikipedia has disabled IP editing since October 2020 (according to the Temp Accounts FAQ, question "Would disallowing or limiting anonymous editing be a good alternative?" where the WMF claims "there is evidence that this came at the cost of a significant reduction in non-reverted edits, weakening the growth of content in the Portuguese Wikipedia, and potentially leading to other negative long-term effects."
These claims seem false or at the very least severely overstated (no surprise, sadly, to see this kind of thing when the WMF wants to promote what they want or suppress what they don't want), there is no reduction in the number of editor edits[49] compared to e.g. 2019 (2020-2021, the Covid years, are a bad comparison). The same can be seen for the number of new pages[50]. The number of new editors is stable as well[51].
So contrary to what the WMF claims and what you predict, there are no negative effects from disabling IP editing (on the one large wiki who has done this). Fram (talk) 15:33, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The number of new editors is stable as well The chart you linked to shows a slow decline/downward trend since 2020 to the present day (August 2023 was 9K, August 2025 is 7K). Again, this is not a Freenode style sharp drop-off we are talking about but a slow downward decline not unlike stack overflow. Sohom (talk) 15:55, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Er, August 2023 was 7894, not 9K. August 2025 was 7227. As comparison, enwiki August 2023 was 93052, August 2025 was 85195. So Pt is at 91.5%, and enwiki is at, hey, 91.5%. Frwiki 11989 / 10656, or 88%. Dewiki 5919 / 5594 = 94.5%. So it seems like the decline for ptwiki is exactly in line with that of other large Wikipedia versions in general, and identical to the enwiki one. Fram (talk) 16:07, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I misspoke, I meant June 2024, I think we can quibble statistics for a hot second, but there is a significant anecdotal and UX research behind the fact that you present people with a "sign up before doing the thing" screen, you see a steady user-attrition in that area of the funnel. If you are telling me that Wikipedia is somehow so special that this doesn't apply, I'm going to need a to see a lot more data than what you are showing me at the moment. Sohom (talk) 16:22, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So you have no evidence for your claims, you compared apples and oranges, but according to you it should happen as you predict and I somehow need more than figures of the past 5 years to prove that this didn't that didn't materialize, actually didn't materialize? Perhaps what you and your "sighificant anecdotical research" e.g. haven't taken into consideration, is that there may be many more editors who stick around because they no longer have to deal with lots of IP vandalism?
Anyway, "I misspoke, I meant June 2024"? Oh right, that month with 7880 new editors, that makes all the difference in explaining how you came up with 9K... Please don't make such a mistake a third time or I will have to consider it deliberate. Fram (talk) 16:37, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fram, your message above is extremely adversarial and abrasive. I will refrain from engaging in this particular thread any further unless you reword your statement because your point here appears to be engage with me personally rather than with the issue more broadly. Your comment implies that I'm trying to deliberately misrepresent information in some way, which I sincerely am not and is a asusmption of bad faith.
To explicitly answer your question, there is a clear slow decline visible and yes, I misspoke, I meant June 2023. Also, here is the other thing, we do need some kind of IPMasking, otherwise we open ourselves to lawsuits related to GDPR. I do not have access to any data about editor attrition due to IPMasking, but the whole reason the WMF is doing IP masking is to make sure admins and patroller have the tools they need to still continue doing anti-vandalism even with the legislation-required changes. Best, Sohom (talk) 17:30, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see no reason to change anything in my statement when you cherrypick one month and rwice fail to pick the right one to boot. June 2023 is also a thousand up from June 2022, so what´s that supposed to prove? One doesn´t check trends over 5 or more years by comparing one month from midway in the set with one from near the current end, unless one wants to prove some otherwise unsupported point. Fram (talk) 18:20, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If temporary accounts goes poorly - something that seemingly hasn't happened on other large projects - that seems like a logical response for the community to make. However, many people have been in favor of turning off IP editing for a while and so temporary accounts aren't forcing those people, or the community to that position. I have seen the value of IPs on their own merits, and seen the from Editor reflections many editors with registered accounts started as IPs and so we should be careful about turning off that gateway. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:25, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is what's known as the Brussels effect. Its why for example, caps on bottles are tethered in the UK, even though its required under EU law. Countries outside the EU may have this treatment, so that companies don't create a queue for EU and non-EU lanes. JuniperChill (talk) 18:18, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’m concerned that IP info will disappear after 90 days. This will make it difficult to address long term abusers with stable addresses, of which there are a significant number. Instead, we’ll be playing whack a mole every 90 days or so, unless we can somehow retain info on IP use. — rsjaffe🗣️15:10, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I’m thinking about this some more, one way to retain the ip record is to block the ip rather than the temp account when we suspect a long term abuser with perhaps a stable ip. If the block of the ip isn’t sufficient, then block the temp account. — rsjaffe🗣️15:33, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it, I as a CU cannot do this because the Ombuds have decided this is the same as the longstanding prohibition on connecting IPs to an account. But I hope non-CU admins could without jeopardizing the right. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:42, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even CUs can block on behavioural similarities, unless that's changing too. A bigger question is perhaps, if an IP is blocked, is that block visible on the temp account and can others see the reason for the block as they do now? CMD (talk) 15:45, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Correct. I could block a temp account based on behavior. But I can't do what SFR and rsjaffe are mooting: block the IP as a signal before blocking the temp account (or at least can't without obfuscating it in some other way). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:50, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the IP is blocked but not the temporary account: All temporary accounts on that IP address will be prevented from editing, because all IP address blocks apply to temporary accounts (even if the IP address block isn't a hardblock)
If the temporary account is blocked but not the IP: The temporary account targeted by the block will be unable to edit. Additionally, if autoblocking is enabled on the block targeting the temporary account then:
The last IP used will be autoblocked for 1 day (in the same way as autoblocking works for registered accounts)
Attempts to edit using that blocked temporary account will also cause an autoblock to be created
Thanks very much, hopefully this can all be collated somewhere. I suppose the remaining question is whether other users see IP blocks and their reasoning, and if so how. CMD (talk) 16:32, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Blocks placed on IP addresses will continue to be visible on Special:BlockList and other places that show blocks. However, a user wouldn't be able to see that a temporary account is blocked by an IP address block, unless they use IP reveal (TAIV) to get the IP address and then look for the block targeting that IP (such as opening the contributions page for that IP). WBrown (WMF) (talk) 08:41, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Really? If that is the case, how are admins expected to handle say vandalism reports of a temporary account where an IP is already blocked? Always block the temp account as well? CMD (talk) 09:58, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the IP address is blocked, then the temporary account cannot edit. Therefore, the admin wouldn't need to take additional blocking action on the temporary account. However, if the temporary account switches IP addresses then they will be able to edit.
Given that, if the target of the block is intended to be the temporary account the admin should block the temporary account. This will usually mean that it is better to block the temporary account first as opposed to the IP address.
We have seen that blocks of temporary accounts on other wikis have been enough to prevent abuse in most cases. Generally an admin would want to block the underlying IP address(es) if:
If this user has evaded blocks by logging out, waiting for the autoblock to expire, and making another edit
Multiple temporary accounts are editing for a sustained period on the same IP (therefore, it's easier to block the IP than multiple temporary accounts)
The issue I raise is vandalism reports, as given we now can't see if an editor is blocked multiple reports could be made. I suppose an admin could reply "Already IP blocked" and that wouldn't disclose the IP connection, but I suspect if multiple reports come in a dual block of teh temporary account as well will provide the clearest information. CMD (talk) 12:25, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, a dual block would be the most clear. Blocking just the temporary account should be enough for any user that has not used TAIV to view the associated IP address.
This is useful information. Is there any compendium of lessons learned so far? That would help reduce the disruption that I’m sure will occur as we learn over time how to address this new way of tracking unlogged-in users. — rsjaffe🗣️13:19, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Or rotate their IPv6 address by simply restarting their router. Autoblocks should inherit the block settings of the TA, and if they are using IPv6 addresses, they should apply across the /64 range as well. ChildrenWillListen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 20:04, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep49, I can't block the IP as a signal before blocking the temp account - I'm pretty sure you can, I'd like somebody else to confirm it but as far as I know, this happens on other wikis, it's a tradeoff Legal is OK with. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 16:17, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad to hear admins can. But (and I would hope @RoySmith or some other Ombud reading this corrects me if I'm wrong) the Ombuds have written that I cannot as a checkuser. They did so in a message sent to checkusers in March and when I wrote in reply I find the implication that CUs will have to take similar measures to blocking two connected IPs as we do to blocking a registered account and an IP address to be incredibly surprising. no one corrected me or said I was misunderstanding in anyway. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:32, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's great that we'll be able to block the temporary account MAB or Salebot is using, then spend additional time to view the IP and check if it's a proxy before placing the proxy block, and if we're lucky finish that process before their bot has moved onto the next temporary account on another IP that will require twice as many blocks and three times as much time to take care of. Or, as Barkeep points out, since we've gotten conflicting information I might have to block the temporary account, find an active checkuser or other trusted editor I can disclose the IP to, have them block it, and waste multiple people's time. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:49, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep49 I don't remember your specific comment, but I assume it was in response to the OC's email of 17 March, which is reproduced for public view at meta:Ombuds commission/2025/Temporary Accounts. I encourage anybody reading that to note that it's full of weasel words like "limited experience", "initial", "preliminary guidance", "evolving landscape", "current understanding", etc. I should also point out that just like ArbCom, the OC doesn't make policy; we (again, like ArbCom) just get blamed for trying to enforce it. RoySmith(talk)17:16, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, if an LTA comes back within 90 days on a new temp account and we can behaviorally link it to the prior temp account, and find that both are on the same ip, then we can go for a prolonged ip block. I think there’s going to be a significant learning curve to this as we figure out how to address chronic abusers. — rsjaffe🗣️16:02, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's also this: When it is reasonably believed to be necessary, users with access to temporary account IP addresses may also disclose the IP addresses in appropriate venues that enable them to enforce or investigate potential violations of our Terms of Use, the Privacy Policy, or any Wikimedia Foundation or user community-based policies. Appropriate venues for such disclosures include pages dedicated to Long-term abuse. If such a disclosure later becomes unnecessary, then the IP address should be promptly revision-deleted. (Source) SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 17:28, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You can configure your browser to reject cookies, and in that case, a new temporary account will be created for every edit you make. See this FAQ entry. Note that if you do this, you can edit only 6 times/day before you have to create a real account, per this FAQ entry. OutsideNormality (talk) 03:30, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! I want to note that we are not implementing any tracking cookies in your browser. Tracking cookies are used to track your browsing history and activities, typically across multiple websites. We are adding a cookie to attribute your edits to an anonymized username. And your data (IP address) will be stored for a limited amount of time and be exposed to a smaller group of individuals. We have a similar cookie for registered accounts, except that it lasts for a longer time period. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 09:32, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Cookies don’t anonymize edits, they de-anonymize them. They enable activity to be tracked across IP addresses. (Or whatever you want to call it that isn’t “tracking”—haha, gotcha! It’s totally not tracking because we defined tracking as something you do with muffins, not cookies!) This cookie has no other purpose and I don’t want it. 98.97.6.48 (talk) 00:51, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The alternative is the expose your IP address every edit. The purpose of temporary accounts is to de-anonymize your activities on Wikipedia (which must be done in some way so blocks apply to the same person) while hiding your real-life identity, the latter of which is what the WMF probably means by "anonymize". Aaron Liu (talk) 11:41, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some questions about temporary accounts:
Would there still be a way for an unregistered user to view all of their own IP's (post-rollout) contributions, or equivalently the list of their own IP's past temporary accounts?
Some questions about temporary account viewers:
If an unregistered user only edits constructively and without engaging in vandalism, trolling, or similar shenanigans, then would it be against the rules for a TAIV to check their IP address, or could they just decide to do it on a whim?
What's stopping a rogue TAIV user from programmatically checking the IP of every single temporary account that has edited in the last 90 days and dumping that list somewhere? Would there be ratelimits put in place or something? 98.170.164.88 (talk) 05:49, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To answer your first question about temp accounts, what do you mean by "their own IP"? :) This was a fundamental concern with how we handle unregistered editors. IPs can change, sometimes very rapidly. We cannot say IP 1.2.3.4 is always User ABC.
Contributions made before the launch of temp accounts will not be affected. So a user can see edits made by logged out editors an IP/range from before the rollout. Post rollout, a temporary account holder can look at their contributions from their temp account. If they have happened to have other temp accounts in the past, they'll need to remember which ones those are if they want to see their contributions from those temp accounts.
To answer your questions about temporary account viewers:
The policy lays this out so please refer to it. We tried to make it as succinct and clear as we could. If you have clarifying questions about anything outlined in the policy, please let me know. Happy to answer.
There is a log in place but we do not have any rate-limits. We trust that editors with this right will exercise their judgement and act in the best interests of the project. We also expect that admins will ensure users who are granted this right truly need this right to carry out anti-vandalism efforts.
Chipmunkdavis, Rsjaffe, and other interested parties: I have made an attempt to document the answers to questions in this discussion at User:Perfect4th/Temporary accounts. It's roughly topical; anyone who wishes to or has a better understanding than what I wrote is free to correct it, reorder in a way that makes sense, add further answered questions, etc. Happy editing, Perfect4th (talk) 18:23, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nice. Thanks for making this. Perhaps you should consider moving it to projectspace, or someone should create something similar to it in projectspace. I think a projectspace page to put tips, tricks, and notes on temporary accounts is going to be needed to help get everyone up to speed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:07, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just going to comment here that anyone who wants to see how temp accounts work in action can look at the other wikis, particularly Simple English for those who aren't bilingual (myself included). QuicoleJR (talk) 12:03, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'll admit I've for some time now been rather dubitante over this whole change, and my overall assessment is almost certainly irrelevant to the people responsible anyway, but I'm still not sure if it's ever been explained by the WMF or anyone else why masking schemes that preserve ranges were disfavored, if that has been explained somewhere a pointer would be welcome. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 21:17, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Will it be possible for editors on a temporary guest account to "upgrade" their guest account to a "proper" account during the 90 days, retaining their editing history? I an imagine quite a lot of editors might start as guests, but find they are making good progress, finding it fulfilling being part of the project, and want to keep going. It would benefit both the community and the individual if they can move seamlessly to a named account. That way, we have continuity in any ongoing discussions in which they're taking part, and in interactions concerning their edits, and they can still go back to their older contributions, which will count towards their extended-confirmed status. In fact if they get kicked off, start a named account, and immediately reinforce a view they've expressed somewhere controversial, we have to make sure they don't get instantly accused of socking. Elemimele (talk) 14:46, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Disclosing another's IP would run afoul of TAIV rules. I'm sure whoever chooses to use the process would be warned about the chance risks. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:43, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe that's possible, in the same way it's not possible now with an IP. But there's nothing to stop somebody from making an account and noting "I used to edit as ~2025-12345-99" on their user page if they want to. RoySmith(talk)14:51, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ChildrenWillListen, I don't think so; I was under the impression that the main point of having the temporary accounts was to conceal the IP of the person using them, so that they offer logged-out users a better level of privacy, consistent with the way privacy law is going. Yes RoySmith they can do so, but from a community perspective it still means we need to look back at a separate place for their edit history, and from their perspective they're back to square one for anything like extended-confirmed (not that that's tragic) Elemimele (talk) 17:46, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @Elemimele, I just wanted to confirm that it's not possible to "upgrade" into a registered account. Instead, temporary account holders will be (perhaps they already are, periodically) encouraged to create registered accounts. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 12:10, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just checking — The cookie will expire 90 days after its creation means that the cookie expiration is not refreshed by subsequent visits by the same browser? So an "IP editor" will get a series of user names – a new name per browser every 90 days? Which means that any discussions in the user's talk page will need to be linked or moved to the new account if the discussion is to continue? Is the cookie lifetime 90 days on all wikis? — GhostInTheMachinetalk to me15:35, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Since its not possible to delete an account on Wikipedia due to attribution issues, does it mean temporary talk pages will be kept after 90 days? Messages from IP users get deleted after a few years, but remains visible in the edit history. JuniperChill (talk) 18:13, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is up to each wiki to decide how they want to handle the talk pages of old temporary accounts (leave them unchanged, blank them, or delete them). I don't expect enwiki to delete them. jlwoodwa (talk) 23:56, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To the best of my understanding: 1. it is 90 days after the temporary account was created (globally, not locally), which is public information, and 2. it has the same effect as blocking it for the remainder of its lifetime (modulo a brief difference in autoblock behavior at the end, perhaps). jlwoodwa (talk) 01:06, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To answer your first question: When a temporary account has expired, this information is shown publicly on Special:CentralAuth. For example, at testwiki the temporary account ~2024-10120 is shown as having expired. I am not aware of an interface that shows when a temporary account is expected to expire (though you could estimate this by looking at when the account was registered and comparing it to the current date)
To answer your second question: Any block placed on a temporary account for longer than it's remaining lifetime will succeed. We do not prevent the blocking of temporary accounts for more than 90 days. One advantage with this is because there may be a need to track block evasion. For example:
A temporary account is editing disruptively and an admin decides to block the user behind the temporary account indefinitely (intentionally)
The admin communicates that this block is indefinite and editing the wiki again would be considered block evasion
The user ignores this and, after waiting till their old temporary account expires and waiting for any autoblocks expire, they edit again getting a new temporary account
A different admin receiving the report of block evasion can more easily see that there is still an active block on the first temporary account that applies to the user behind the account. Without a block longer than the expiry time of the temporary account, then the different admin would need to check that the intention was to block the user for more than the lifetime of their old temporary account
If there is no need to block the user behind the temporary account, then a block of 90 days as standard would be enough to always ensure that they are prevented from editing throughout the lifetime of that temporary account
"If there is no need to block the user behind the temporary account, then a block of 90 days as standard would be enough to always ensure that they are prevented from editing throughout the lifetime of that temporary account" Under what circumstances would we ever block a temp account without the need to block "the user behind the account"? Blocks (excluding some username blocks, which aren't relevant here) are always for the user behind the account, and not for the account itself. Fram (talk) 09:21, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree that blocks are intended for the user behind the account and so in probably all cases the best approach would be to block the temporary account indefinitely.
I mentioned the last point primarily from the point of view that some wikis have requested that we change the default blocking period for temporary accounts on their wiki to 90 days (T398626). Without a change in blocking policy to indicate 90 day blocks apply to the user indefinitely, these 90 day blocks would no longer prevent that user from editing under the blocking policy after their original temporary account expires. WBrown (WMF) (talk) 09:38, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps one nice thing about temporary accounts will be that they can be blocked like regular users, without special rules about block duration. There are many IPs out there that have only gotten 36 hour blocks or one week blocks, when a full account would have normally been indef'd. In other words, it simplifies blocking. (And of course the normal indef appeals process can be used. Indefinite is not infinite.) –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:47, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are blocks on previous temporary accounts only visible to admins, or are they visible all editors with TAIV permissions? CMD (talk) 03:14, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Chipmunkdavis the latter - TAIV gives you access to other temp accounts from the same IP.
To check the blocks on previous temp accounts from the same IP, use IP reveal, check the list of temp accounts using the IP, and then see if any have been blocked.
In addition (thanks to @WBrown (WMF) for this part), if the active temporary account is editing similar pages to other inactive temporary accounts, you could initially assume that these older temporary accounts are the same person as the active temporary account (especially if the topic isn't that active for editors). You could then confirm this by using IP reveal to look up the IPs of the temporary accounts you found and compare to the active temporary account.
Hey @ChildrenWillListen, yeah, I'm almost certain I've seen that question too but I'm not sure what you mean. A couple of thoughts:
How would you like to have them flagged, given that there are so many IP ranges? You can see different temp accounts using the same IP on Special:IPContributions (it will be blueified once temp accounts get introduced). You can read more about this page in the guide Temporary Accounts/Access to IP.
Definitely it's not possible to flag any connections publicly.
In the context of tracking abusers, we're trying to move away from treating IPs as the main identifiers. The connection between a person and a temp account, their editing patterns and other metadata is much tighter than that between the user and the IP. As an example, we expect that IP reputation filters will be useful in mitigating abuse without needing to target a specific IP address.
If the address is an IPv6, any temp acccount within the same /64 should be flagged. It is practically impossible for it to belong to someone else. We can filter by user agent here, particularly for IPv4 addresses since there's a possibility they're behind a NAT and the address is shared with multiple households.
Why not? We're just linking ~2025-3999-1 with ~2025-4002-3. No IP info is revealed. I'm not a lawyer, so I could be totally wrong here.
Currently, for people with TAIV access, you need two operations to find temporary accounts within an IP range, much like with the CheckUser tool. The more time you spend combating abuse, the less time you have to, well, build an encyclopedia. If this feature is introduced, a person can simply see at a glance that these accounts belong to the same network, and report/block if needed, which also reduces the number of IP reveals needed, improving temporary account privacy in the long run.
As for the connection between a person and a temp account, their editing patterns and other metadata is much tighter than that between the user and the IP, while this may be true in the short term, people can and will change their behavior, and sometimes technical evidence is the only way you can link them.
The answer to 2 is because you could link one temporary account to multiple IPs, eg. home and work. However, I agree with 3. Regarding How would you like to have them flagged, it would be useful if a temporary account contributions pages included any underlying blocks for IPs, and this could just include the type of block and reason without specifying the IPs. Similarly, any IP contributions page should on that page include blocks given to linked temporary accounts (presumably there is no need to hide the account name that way around). CMD (talk) 13:18, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The answer to 2 is because you could link one temporary account to multiple IPs, eg. home and work.: No, because no IPs are revealed in the process. All you see is ~2025-3999-1 and ~2025-4002-3 share the same IP addresses. Unless you use the TAIV tool to reveal the actual IP addresses, you cannot come to that conclusion. ChildrenWillListen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 13:21, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Has it always been permissible to link IPs to accounts publicly. For example, if an IP user gets blocked, and a new user does the exact behaviour (or vice versa)? Of course, CUs are not allowed to use the tool to link IPs with accounts. JuniperChill (talk) 00:41, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the behavioral evidence used to come to that conclusion is all public, then I believe it's always been allowed. Unlike things like a logged in user's IP address, there is no expectation of privacy for two accounts that behave the same and someone simply points out the similar behavior. WP:DUCK comes to mind. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:32, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@SGrabarczuk (WMF): This is definitely a welcome step, but I have a few more comments:
numbers are bucketed to protect privacy: 0, 1-2, 3-5, 6-10, 11+: How does this protect privacy? If the exact number of TAs is leaked, how would a bad actor be able to find the IP address of a temporary account?
We should *not* provide any details about which specific temporary account names are active on the same IP / IPv6 /64 range. Again, why? The whole point of temporary accounts is to prevent most users from seeing the IP addresses of anonymous contributors. It is not meant to conceal connections between different accounts operating under the same IP address/range. This information cannot be used to find the IP addresses of the underlying TAs.
Even if you don't agree with the above statement, it would be nice for people with TAIV access to be able to list the specific accounts with one click, since they would be able to do that manually anyway.
WMF, in the FAQ it is claimed in the section "Would disallowing or limiting anonymous editing be a good alternative?" that this is "unlikely" because at the Portuguese wikipedia "On the other hand, there is evidence that this came at the cost of a significant reduction in non-reverted edits, weakening the growth of content in the Portuguese Wikipedia, and potentially leading to other negative long-term effects." As I described above, these claims seem false, and the growth or decline of ptwiki seems exactly in line with that of other large Wikipedia versions. There is no significant extra loss of new articles, user edits, or new editors compared to these other Wikipedias. See e.g. the number of active editors[52]. So based on what numbers do you claim these statements to be true? Fram (talk) 16:30, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm very curious about this as well. Because the public research I've seen suggests it didn't harm ptwiki, but have had multiple conversations with various WMF staffers who firmly believe it did. While I expressed reasons other than this above why I supported keeping IP editing, that was before I realized that no matter what temp accounts reset after 90 days. So understanding what evidence we have about this would be important for me in any such discussion about disabling IP editing. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:47, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I too am interested in this question, and share Fram's concern that causal inference in statistics is very hard and at minimum a proper difference-in-difference model is necessary to attempt to capture the causal effect of disallowing IP editing on content, which we don't seem to have. KevinL (aka L235·t·c) 17:57, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! I want to first clarify about the metric. The leading metric we looked at for ptwiki is Net non-reverted content edits - defined as the number of content (main-namespace) edits that were not reverted within 48 hours, excluding bot edits, reverted edits, and edits that reverted other edit. We chose this metric because we felt it was most representative of the impact on the community's content health as a result of this change. Unfortunately this metric is not displayed by default on stats.wikimedia.org.
We have measured the impact of this change three times since the change was implemented: In August 2021, June 2022 and April 2024. Each time we saw a similar downward trend in Net non-reverted content edits. You can see how the numbers compare over the four years in the most recent report, Table 6. In Q1 of this year we saw a decline of as much as 36% compared to pre-restriction days. We also compared this trend with Spanish, German, French and Italian Wikipedias and did not see the same trend on those wikis.
You are right in noting that there have been many positive outcomes from this change as well - lower blocks, reverts, page protections -- all point to a decrease in vandalism on the project. The feedback from the survey was quite positive as well. However, we do not think the decline in net non-reverted content edits is worth the trade-off. @Benjamin Mako Hill and his team wrote about the Value of IP Editing to offer their perspective on this too in case you haven't seen it.
Lastly, I want to point out that before embarking on temporary accounts our team seriously considered turning off logged out editing as a viable alternative. Some of you might recall that we put out a call to communities that want to experiment with this change. The Farsi Wikipedia experiment was a result of this call. If this option did turn out to be viable, it would have been the easier way out - way less work than temporary accounts. Unfortunately the results from ptwiki and fawiki were not what we had hoped for. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 13:19, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I find it disingenuous that you never mentioned the only metric that matters: the editors of ptwiki are happy with banning IP edits, and they have no intention of going back. Moreover, the metric you do focus on, net non-reverted content edits clearly shows that ptwiki was already in decline before it. Tercer (talk) 14:43, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that editor happiness is the only metric that matters. I am here to serve our readers and so if our readers are being hurt by having old information, when new information would be possible, or (more importantly) incorrect information when correct information would be possible, that matters a great deal to me. It also matters a great deal to me about whether turning off IP editing harms the pipeline to gaining more new registered editors. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:30, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I generally tend to express my unhappiness instead of leaving right away if there is something I don't like, since I have invested a lot in the project. I imagine it's the same in other wikis Ita140188 (talk) 16:51, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you are a very dedicated editor that will stay no matter what, but you can't generalize this to everyone. Editors come and go all the time. I don't think there's really any doubt about whether unhappy editors tend to leave the project.
And in this particular case WMF has already been clear that it will push through regardless of editors' opinions, so "expressing your unhappiness" won't make any difference. Tercer (talk) 15:52, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, it's not a good look reputation-wise if readers are exposed to more vandalism or long-term abuse, which they most likely will be in the long run with the temporary accounts feature. Not all vandalism is reverted quickly. For instance, to pick a relatively low-stakes example, if temporary accounts had been active here in May, I would never have discovered this edit because of the 90-day cutoff for retrieving IP information (see this comment of mine for more context). If push came to shove I would absolutely support discontinuing IP editing ... but we're basically damned if we do, damned if we don't. When I was invited to participate in the WMF's let's talk program, one of the reasons I agreed to do so was to bring up my concerns about this cutoff. ButI well know why it's been implemented. Graham87 (talk) 09:17, 14 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the only big issue with this is that everyone's complaining about traceability, since this doesn't really affect the reverting vandalism side of things aside from tracing. And this whole TA thing is literally reducing traceability, so you can't really get around that despite any attempt to do so. The alternative would be to set no expiration or longer expiration to the cookies, but then it would be basically 'we replaced IPs with something that looks a bit better but functions like an IP' 2A04:7F80:6E:D2B:900C:A6A9:FD99:F70 (talk) 14:31, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Traceability is my main concern as well (see my comments above). In their FAQ, the WMF said that they are "open to extending" the 90 day period for IP retention. Maybe it should be increased?
In the same answer, they mention we could use "behavioral evidence or patterns of editing" but that's a bit hard to do for the occasional vandals with little edits. ARandomName123 (talk)Ping me!14:57, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I could also see cases where a range IP user that clears cookies could either purposely or accidentally sock in a low volume way that would be really hard to notice based on behavioral evidence alone. In a recent AfD, I encountered an IP who nominated the article and then later voted when their range changed slightly. I don't think they intended to be malicious but I was able to flag that I thought these two edits were by the same user. But there wasn't really anything behavioral that stood out to connect the two edits and in the case of temp accounts, I wouldn't have been able to identify them as being from the same editor. Non-admins who frequently close discussions should probably have TAIV. Sariel Xilo (talk) 16:28, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say the metric was already in decline before the date. It seemed to be just jumping up and down within the same range, but after that there was a very clear downward trend. Aaron Liu (talk) 11:47, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There were roughly 195k non-reverted edits in 2017, 132k in 2019 (the baseline), and 107k in 2023. The decline from 2017 to 2019 was roughly 47%, much larger than the 22% decline from 2019 to 2023 that WMF considers so disastrous.
I don't think these numbers can be correct. I just checked, and the last 5000 non-minor mainspace non-bot edits on ptwiki[53] go back 2 days and 3 hours, which equals some 70,000 edits this month. This would mean that about half of those edits are not counted as "net non-reverted content edits", despite the much lower revert rate since disabling IP editing (revert rate in 2024 was below 6%). Is there any explanation anywhere what they actually consider to be "content edits"? Fram (talk) 16:37, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Content edits are identified based on whether they are from a content namespace. This is the monthly average data (no idea why it's the heading of the first column instead of the last four); the numbers average all the monthly totals within that quarter instead of being a sum total. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:48, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I agree with We chose this metric because we felt it was most representative of the impact on the community's content health as a result of this change. If community systems are overwhelmed in a community that has IP editing (with or with-out Temp Accounts) the edits that stay unreverted may be, on the whole, a net negative to the project and to its readers. Put another way: if a community is overwhelmed then the net non-reverted edits are lower pre-change than policies and guidelines would suggest they should be and if they are then not overhwelmed afterwards, may be showing the true rate. I also am not sure I agree that it is the only metric worth looking at - as I indicated above statistics about overall community health in terms of editor registration, retention, and "moving up the ranks" - also feel worth examination. I would suggest English Wikipedia is not currently overhwelmed and so we do have a good baseline - something I don't know was the case for ptwiki - but I do worry that these changes will overwhelm the system because of the extra work that it is going to require to dealing with unregistered accounts. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:38, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep49 I did not mean to imply that this was the only metric worth looking at. Like you can see in the report we did examine multiple other metrics and also carried out community survey(s) to assess how the editors feel about the change. However this metric stands out as important to us because it indicates a sustained loss in high-quality contributions and has consistently been on a decline in ptwiki since the restriction was in place.
I would also like to add that our team has been continually working on delivering tools to assist with anti-vandalism work. hCaptcha, GlobalContributions, IP Info, AbuseFilter improvements (including IP reputation filters), UserInfo card etc to name a few. We strongly care about moderator burden and this is reflected in our team's priorities. If you have ideas for how we can do these better, your thoughts are welcome on the talk page. -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 11:15, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@NKohli (WMF) I did read the report and did see other metrics. In the most recent report the two other takeaways were favorable on disabling IP editing. The fact that the foundation has decided that the metric which showed a decrease is so alarming as to say it's a failure suggests that the WMF does think it's the only metric that matters. I appreciate you answer my question - I really do - but I think my original assessment the public research I've seen suggests it didn't harm ptwiki. needs to be amended to the public research I've seen suggests mixed results on ptwiki which does not, for me, justify the labeling the Foundation has chosen to attach to it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:36, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's also worth noting that @MuddyB: complained about the surge of vandalism on the Swahili Wikipedia (where he is an admin), following the enabling of temporary accounts, though as I understand IP editing may have been previously disabled outright on this wiki. [54]Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:32, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Temporary accounts are going to be "rammed" down everyone's throats as they are being made for legal reasons. For better or worse, office actions exist for these sorts of matters. (And curiously Swahili Wikipedia was another one that had Vector2022 imposed over the wishes of the community. That said, Vector2022 has also now become universal across all wikis, as temporary accounts will also.) CMD (talk) 10:18, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please read the thread before commenting. The subject is banning IP edits as an alternative to introducing temporary accounts. It would also solve the legal problem. Tercer (talk) 11:25, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are misunderstanding the implications of the proposal. Banning IP edits is not an alternative to temporary accounts, both actions are technically independent of each other. Temporary accounts are becoming implemented whether IP edits are allowed or not. Even if en.wiki responds by banning article editing by IPs, we will still have to figure out how to work with temporary accounts on talkpages. CMD (talk) 14:35, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it is an alternative. If IP edits are banned there's no longer a legal reason for implementing temporary accounts. Are you claiming that WMF would nevertheless implement temporary accounts? Just out of spite? I find that hard to believe. Tercer (talk) 14:49, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you assume that when people say we should ban IP editing they are only referring to mainspace? But, yeah, as a practical matter, anonymous editing exists (and thus temporary accounts also exist) and that's not going to change any time soon. So the community needs to figure out how to handle them. RoySmith(talk)14:50, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the WMF would implement temporary accounts because they already exist and have already been rolled out and will continue to be rolled out as a standard part of the underlying software for every wiki, whatever en.wiki does, rather than out of spite.I assume that in general the IP editing bans will be likely called for with the main space in mind because of the consistent raising of the pt.wiki precedent, as well as on-wiki precedent regarding how we currently handle protections and even weird situations like the ARBPIA ECP talk page restrictions. CMD (talk) 15:08, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair I don't think the latest surge in vandalism on swwiki is related to temporary accounts. WP:LTA/Wikinger decided to target swwiki in the past weeks/months on an almost daily basis. The LTA uses rapidly changing proxy IPs which is a burden to admins with or without temporary accounts.
I did a quick check and it seems to me that none of the swwiki admins enabled their access to temporary account IPs which also means they can't use features like IP autoreveal – and have no way of knowing (except based on behaviour) if a temporary account is a newbie or a potential LTA.
@Johannnes89 It's chaos—completely. Temp aacounts actors aee now on my blog, commenting gibberish. Good thing Wordpress can't comment without approval. Ditching them every now and then. Muddyb (talk) 13:21, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can’t see the blog comments but I bet all of them were written by WP:LTA/Wikinger. I don’t think the situation on your home wiki would be much different without temporary accounts (except that some tools currently require a few more clicks). Wikinger has annoyed different projects for years and unfortunately he currently chooses to annoy swwiki. You might want to check mw:Extension:IPReputation/AbuseFilter variables in case that’s helpful to fight against his proxy abuse (unfortunately many open proxy IPs are not known to IPoid). Johannnes89 (talk) 17:24, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What's the point of comparing different months in different years (August 2021, June 2022 and April 2024)? This will not eliminate seasonality effects. Maybe it's not that 2024 saw less edits, but that April has generally less edits than August or June? Ita140188 (talk) 16:49, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it inevitable that Wikipedia projects will disable anonymous editing in the future. As projects grow, the opportunity for anonymous editors to do anything productive continues to shrink. (1) The level of knowledge necessary to contribute positively to the projects keeps increasing. More policies, more guidelines, more standards, more templates. This growth in required knowledge is glacially slow but inexorable. (2) There is ever increasing lack of ability for editors to contribute in general due to the (ever unattainable, thankfully) goal of completing the project. The lack of productive work possibilities gives ever decreasing opportunities to anonymous users to contribute positively. (3) The ratio of administrators to the amount of work administrators need to do continues to worsen. Those are just a few of the factors in play that are driving this reality. Imagine, if you will, Wikipedia 50 years from now. There will always be growth to be sure, but the opportunity for anonymous users to do anything will be almost absent. There needs to be a long term strategy to reverse these trends, else new blood coming into the projects will die. We're already in a long term drought. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:52, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There won't be any wikipedia 50 years from now. What wikipedia does is harness the energy of many people to read books, newspapers, journal articles, etc, and distill them into encyclopedia articles. In way less than 50 years from now, AI will be good enough to make that an obsolete concept. RoySmith(talk)01:26, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, 50 years is quite optimistic. I can see the project lasting for another decade or two, but beyond that... I'm not so sure. Some1 (talk) 01:43, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AI will be good enough to decide what is true? Leaving this to AI (ie. most likely to a private corporation) will never be acceptable, no matter how "good" the AI is. Wikipedia works because it's based on consensus among people. Ita140188 (talk) 16:37, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think, let's see how it goes, but certainly keep this option open if it proves untenable, as I suspect it well might. I'm not tremendously impressed with WMF over this whole thing; there was a lot of pushback on the idea, so they came up with "We're legally required to do this!", but then when they were asked "By what law, where?", they wouldn't answer that. SeraphimbladeTalk to me08:46, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person’, including an online identifier that identifies the person directly or indirectly. Like an account identifier created just for that person that persists across IP addresses? I still think it's a lot of work to have gone through just to have communities disable IP/anon editing entirely. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 10:48, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the defense is that it is the equivalent of a anonymized, randomly generated username. The data is (for all intents and purposes) anonymized and after 90 days, and a "random party" will not be able to map your TA to you with any level of certainty. Sohom (talk) 16:01, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Seraphimblade, You are framing the events in the wrong order: "We're legally required to do this" (WMF does nothing for a while) -> "We had some light regulator scrutiny" -> "WMF scrambles to implement IP Masking" -> "Community outrage at the initial idea" -> "WMF slows down, spends a lot more time building some anti-abuse tooling around it" (and now here we are). Also, the reason the WMF is cagey about why they need to implement it is because it's typically bad legal strategy to publicly proclaim "we are currently breaking this exact provision of GDPR". (And, yes we are probably flouting multiple privacy laws including but not limited to GDPR's absolute stance on IP addresses and CCPA's slightly more nuanced take on IP addresses) It's frustrating as a volunteer but I think understandable from the point of the view of the WMF. Sohom (talk) 16:16, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It’s also bad legal strategy to publicly proclaim that you’re going to violate the ePrivacy Directive instead of the GDPR, by openly admitting in an FAQ that your cookies are not strictly necessary. But here we are. 98.97.4.79 (talk) 02:35, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This cookie is necessary iff you chose to edit. (If your argument is somehow "we should not ever set a cookie", I'd like to see you defend the concept of a session identifier.) Regarding the ability to refuse the cookie, you are welcomed to refrain from editing and the cookie will not be set at all. (And if you clear your cookies regularly, a new one will be set, every session). If you do edit, you will be given a anonymous identity that will be destroyed/expired after 90 days. I don't see how any of this violates the ePrivacy Directive. Sohom (talk) 02:55, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The cookie is not “strictly necessary for the delivery of a service requested by the user”, because the FAQ admits that editing will work just fine even if a browser discards the cookie. The purpose of the cookie is apparently to reduce the number of extra database entries created by the WMF’s own software, which is not a service requested by the user, so users must be presented with the option to accept or decline it. Sites can’t just say that cookies are “necessary” for their own private reasons; the law would have no effect if that were the case. 98.97.4.79 (talk) 03:14, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you have the explicit ability to click cancel on a edit or not edit at all which would be a declination to the cookie (and a declination does not adversely affect your reading experience). Also, the cookie is required not because of "the number of extra database entries" created, but rather for attributing the edit to a user, a service you request and agree to by clicking the big blue "Publish changes" (or the large "Reply" button). By doing that you are agreeing that the cookie essential for attribution is set on your device. Your argument does not make sense in this context. Sohom (talk) 03:29, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, to put things into context Wikimedia's infrastructure is largely open-source in a way that no other top-10 website is. The Foundation does not share any identifiers, and has a privacy policy that is much more detailed than any other top-10 site. If you are looking for technical privacy violations, you are barking up the wrong tree here. The search engine you used to get to this site probably collects a order of magnitude more data about you than Wikimedia will ever get from it's temporary account rollout. Sohom (talk) 03:38, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Access to specific website content may still be made conditional on the well-informed acceptance of a cookie or similar device, if it is used for a legitimate purpose.
Surely "the service as can be provided with a specific amount of labor" is the service? We could, in a strictly literal sense, serve pages as printed paper via FedEx, employing millions of clerks and envelope-stuffers, and this would require no cookies at all, but I scarcely think this would prove they were unnecessary all along. jp×g🗯️09:09, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So the take away here is that despite claims to the contrary, there is no evidence at all that the disabling of IP editing at Portuguese Wikipedia had any actual negative consequences (i.e. results not also felt at languages which didn't disable IP editing or which weren't present at Portuguese Wikipedia before the disabling)? It seems that Portuguese wiki flourishes just as well (or as badly) as other languages in all meaningful statistics, that they are not considering reversing their choice, and that they have a lot less vandalism to revert. I suppose the WMf will adapt their FAQ and other documentation to correctly present this? Fram (talk) 10:26, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The "Portuguese wiki flourishes just as well (or as badly)", I would not term a "reduction in good faith unreverted edits" in such a manner. Yes, editor morale is up, but there are less contributions overall potentially having less vandalism to revert but also potentially hurting the readers in terms of how updated the information is (or not?), make of that what you will. The answer is up for debate and to my understanding the WMF has decided to take the more pessimistic interpretation of data here (which is still valid within this context and does not constitute a misrepresentation). From your POV, you want to take the more positive interpretation due to your entrenched position/expected outcome of "turning IP addresses should not cause problems and instead will improve morale". What you have identified are a bunch of threats of validity, but these threats of validity are coming from a position of "I expected to see a different result" and the real answer is "there are indicators of a reduction in the number of edits but we don't really know for sure". Sohom (talk) 12:36, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They have taken the one metric which vaguely supports their position if you don't consider that the same trend was visible before IP editing was disabled. And from that, they decide "Would disallowing or limiting anonymous editing be a good alternative? Unlikely." But sure, my "entrenched position", which is not the "real answer", is the issue here. Your "we don't really know for sure" is not the same as stating "unlikely".
I do wonder how many of the "non-reverted edits" prior to the disabling of IP edits were just unconstructive edits which were not found because the other editors couldn't catch them all. When I e.g. think back to the time IP article creation was allowed on enwiki, I recall that while many poor creations were found quickly, we still had a much larger number of unacceptable new articles which lasted for longer than 48 hours. If the same applies to "non-reverted edits" on ptwiki, then the decline in that number is even less of a sign of a problem. It's too bad that this metric happens to be the one we can't compare for ourselves (unlike the other stats, which turn out to indicate no problems at ptwiki compared to other wikis). Fram (talk) 15:36, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying is that I think the data is up for interpretation, you are interpreting the data in a very specific way (that reflect your biases) and then heavily implying/making loaded assumptions about the WMF intentions based on that and trying to strong-arm that conclusion. (to be blunt) I think the WMF's interpretation of the data is also a valid perspective on the data (which does not invalidate other perspectives including yours). While I disagree with your heavily implied conclusion of "they cherry picked data", I agree that the WMF should have done a better job of distinguishing between subtle vandalism and good-faith edits, but I view that as a much more subjective metric that can be infinitely bikeshed and argued about, so I do understand why the WMF went with the specific parameter that they did. Sohom (talk) 16:06, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You should read again the FAQ entry. WMF wrote that "The results have been largely harmful", and "we cannot say that disabling logged-out editing on any project is a beneficial solution". Such strong conclusions simply do not follow from this ambiguous data. And yes, it does reek of ideological blindness. Tercer (talk) 17:20, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have read the FAQ, you are quoting editorialized text out of context. Most studies/report/research present a broad conclusion ("we found X"), while underlying that are always caveats and assumptions about other factors (X, Y, Z) possibly being (ir)relevant. If we decided to demand the level of rigour that you demanding from the WMF, such that no statement can be ever be stated unless every possible confounder (X, Y and Z) was fully resolved, we'd need to start revising a large majority of academic literature. Yes, the WMF should have done a better job of representing the other relevant factors but that does not detract from the fact the interpretation is valid within the data they had and you are within your right to disagree with that conclusion since you interpret the data differently. Sohom (talk) 17:55, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Trying to get my head around the WMF claims about why the Portuguese experiment is not successful. Their 2024 study[55] claims:
Revert rate decreased by 47%
Non-reverted edits is 20% lower
Non-reverted mainspace edits 22% lower
They compare 2019/2020 with 2023/2024, which is partially a bad fit because 2020, the Covid year, was an outlier in nearly all statistics. So let's compare 2019 to 2023. This[56] is the total number of edits by editors per month. Comparing 2019 to 2023, we get
January: 155613 vs. 183959
February: 137478 vs. 156183
March: 155340 vs. 174412
April: 139152 vs. 144277
May: 169299 vs. 155512
June: 160814 vs. 150569
July: 175301 vs. 148916
August: 162330 vs. 151748
September: 158192 vs. 146822
October: 151785 vs. 156850
November: 158451 vs. 139514
December: 139242 vs. 147410
Total: 2019 = 1862997, 2023 = 1856172. I hope I have not miscalculated anything, please check!
So 6 of the 12 months show an increase in edits, 6 show a decrease. In total we have an extremely feeble decrease of 6825 edits, or less than 0.5%!
But we have a 47% "revert rate decrease", which are at least 2 edits each time which are no longer being made (1 or more edits to revert, plus the revert), for which we sadly only have a percentage, but which dropped from 10% of the edits to 6% of the edits. Meaning that (4*2) 8% of the edits being made in 2019, some 150000 edits, no longer need to be made in 2023 (and of course this also means that 75000 vandal revert edit, which are "non-reverted content edits", no longer need to be made: perhaps these are the "missing" edits in the WMF reasoning?)
Overall, it seems that we have an actual clear increase in good edits on ptwiki between 2019 and 2023, instead of the decrease the WMF claims and uses as its basis to declare the ptwiki disabling of IP editing unadvisable. Fram (talk) 16:58, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Edits reverting vandalism were not counted as "non-reverted content edits":
Net non-reverted content edits are defined as the number of content (main-namespace) edits that were not reverted within 48 hours, excluding bot edits, reverted edits, and edits that reverted other edits.
Thanks. Then I understand even less where they have found such a drop, when the tital number of human edits is nearly the same and the number of vandal-revert couples clearly dropped. Fram (talk) 17:38, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello again, on behalf of the Product Safety and Integrity team. First, thank you for all the comments above and all the effort you are putting into making this a smooth change. We wanted to acknowledge all the discussions here and on Discord, changes to existing tools, updates to meta-pages, the mention in yesterday's Signpost, and other steps you've taken. We are grateful for your openness and curiosity about temporary accounts and new tools.
Technically, everything appears to be ready for deployment next week. However, we have decided to postpone the deployment to October 21st (by two weeks). We are going to take this time to hold more discussions – we want to meet with you to discuss the deployment and clarify anything about the tools you may still be unsure about. We will also put together some additional guidance and documentation to help you prepare to use the new system.
Taking this opportunity to look back at all the discussions, we wanted to comment on a couple of points:
Users who currently can block IP addresses will still be able to see and block IP addresses from temporary accounts.
From our deployments so far, we do not see evidence that volunteers are experiencing increased burden in managing abuse from logged-out editors. Since 2023, we've been working with stewards and other trusted volunteers to figure out what is needed to effectively handle abuse from temporary accounts. This appears to have been successful on other wikis, and we would not be proposing deployment if we were seeing evidence that this was going to increase community burden.
Since this project was first announced years ago, our approach has changed. Initially we called it IP Masking, which focused on just one problem – IP addresses being so visible. Now, it's called Temporary Accounts, which is not only about hiding IPs – it's an additional and separate layer, with new tools built specifically to allow more precise actions (per Wikipedia:IP addresses are not people).
Some tips on the tooling:
We updated AbuseFilter to support matching against the IP address of a temporary account, though this isn't technically bi-directional support.
Special:IPContributions allows viewing all edits and temporary accounts connected to a specific IP address or IP range. (Bear in mind that a temporary account may be using multiple IPs though.)
We expect that IP reputation AbuseFilter filters will be useful in mitigating abuse from logged-out editors, without needing to target a specific IP address.
The User Info card makes it possible for anyone to see the bucketed count of temporary accounts active on the same IP address range.
If you'd like to test some of your workflows with temporary accounts enabled or learn more:
We have set up a Patchdemo. Log in as user: IP Viewer, password: password321!. You may also patrol temporary accounts via Test1 and Test2 history pages.
We invite you to read the Access to IP page and suggest changes to it.
My primary ask is that you seriously consider extending the duration IP addresses are available (currently will be set at 90 days). Please monitor this experience closely, as I believe that erasure will cause us to lose some control over persistent threats. Among other things, we'll be unable to assess collateral damage from blocks as readily as we currently do, and we'll lose the ability to track periodic IP hoppers to identify the proper breadth of a range block. — rsjaffe🗣️21:01, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems highly unlikely that will happen. However, I could see it making sense to spin up a TAIV wiki, similar to checkuser-wiki, where TAIVs could maintain data on an as-needed basis. I suspect there will be some pushback to that idea, but consider that if we provide people with a secure and convenient way to store the data, they will use that. If we don't provide that, the data will still get stored, except now it'll be on post-it notes, files on people's laptops, Google Docs, and all sorts of other places where we have less control over it. RoySmith(talk)22:43, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We've said why multiple times in this thread, if you didn't take the time to read through it, please do before commenting. Sohom (talk) 02:05, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia Foundation Bulletin 2025 Issue 17
Here is a quick overview of highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation since our last issue on August 29. Please help translate.
Upcoming and current events and conversations Let's Talk continues
Wikimania 2026: The scholarship application for Wikimania 2026 is open. Apply now by October 31.
Wikimedia Research Showcase: "Readers and Readership Research" will be the featured theme for the next research showcase taking place on September 24 at 16:30 UTC.
Update to banner and logo policies: Feedback is requested on proposed policy and documentation updates regarding the use of banners and logos for advocacy purposes.
Temporary Accounts: Temporary accounts are now deployed to almost all wikis except the last 11.
User Info: This new feature displays data related to a user account when you tap or click on the "user avatar" icon button next to a username. It's meant to be useful for different users with extended rights as well as newcomers.
Newsletter highlights: The latest Readers Newsletter is now available. It includes considerations about Wikipedia's declining pageviews in the recent years, how the Foundation and communities may work on addressing this together, and the formation of two new teams — Reader Growth and Reader Experience.
Activity Tab Experiment: The Foundation launched an experiment testing a new Activity tab in the Wikipedia Android app to our beta testers. Instead of only showing editing activity, this tab also surfaces insights about reading and donation behavior.
Search Suggestions: To make it easier for users to find articles, logged-out users on both desktop and mobile will see suggestions of articles for further reading on English Wikipedia beginning the week of September 22. All non-English wikis received this update in June and July.
Paste Check: The Foundation is working on a new check: Paste check. This check informs newcomers who paste text into Wikipedia that the content might not be accepted to ensure it is aligned with the Movement's values. This check will soon be tested at a few wikis.
CampaignEvents extension: The CampaignEvents extension has been enabled for all Wikisources. The extension makes it easier to organize and participate in collaborative activities, like edit-a-thons and WikiProjects, on the wikis. To request the extension for your wiki, visit the information page.
Structured Task: The Add a Link Structured Task has been fully released at English Wikipedia. This release is an important step in making editing more accessible for new contributors, especially on mobile.
Tech News: Read more updates from Tech News week 36 and 37.
Multilingual Contributors: The Language and Product Localisation team is launching a CentralNotice campaign to attract multilingual contributors to specific Wikipedias. The campaign will feature regionally targeted banners to reach potential native speakers.
Open Indonesia: Reflections on Open Indonesia, an event in Bandung gathering communities dedicated to advancing open knowledge to build the country's Open Knowledge Roadmap.
UK Online Safety Act: The Wikimedia Foundation will not appeal the UK High Court’s decision to dismiss our challenge to the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) Categorisation Regulations.
August board meeting: Updates on board appointments and selection, CEO search, work to strengthen Wikipedia's approach to neutral point of view and updates on three pilots around more shared decision-making and shared accountability across the movement.
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!
In August George passed the wonderful milestone of being 100 years old, and he continues to contribute to Wikipedia today. Although we collect very little data about Wikipedia editors, our suspicion is that he’s the oldest person to ever edit Wikipedia. Wow! And I'm reminded of this comic from the Signpost: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-05-16/Comix. Some1 (talk) 04:02, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Requesting updates on recent legal cases
In the last year, we've had editors outed in relation to legal disputes regarding Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation (see WP:ANIvsWMF and WP:2024OPENLETTER) and Caesar DePaço (see Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 11#Office action: Removals on the article Caesar DePaço. I'd like to request a few updates. First, do we know what has been done with the PII in either case since it was released? To whom has it been released, and do we know if the lives of any editors have been disrupted at this point? Second, did we ever get a straight answer on what determines if the WMF complies with a government order (e.g. India and Portugal) or disregards it (e.g. Russia and Turkey)? If not, can we please have this answer? Third, do we have any indication whether content will ultimately be affected by ANI vs WMF? While the harm to editors cannot be undone in either case, I understand that the WMF is still trying to address the content side of the issues in the Caesar DePaço case and would like to know whether this is applicable to ANI vs WMF. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸20:10, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
First, do we know what has been done with the PII in either case since it was released? To whom has it been released, and do we know if the lives of any editors have been disrupted at this point? If nothing has happened that WMF is aware of, perhaps they could say that. But I would not expect an update to the extent that editors have been affected, because it would likely not be in the interest of protecting those very same editors for WMF to publicly proclaim this information. At least in the majority of cases, that is; occasionally, of course, shining a broader limelight can be part of a thoughtful strategy.Second, did we ever get a straight answer on what determines if the WMF complies with a government order (e.g. India and Portugal) or disregards it (e.g. Russia and Turkey)? If not, can we please have this answer? I suspect that the Foundation would say, justifiably, that publicly revealing this information (a) is impossible because it depends heavily on circumstances, and (b) even if possible would be a very bad idea to post publicly on this site where in fact the Foundation's legal adversaries do read. Best, KevinL (aka L235·t·c) 06:18, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My main hope here is that we can get an indication, in whatever form it make take, that the WMF is making an effort to change its approach to prevent outing its own editors for routine editing. I'm not asking for a guarantee, just some sign that we're not going to see a repeat of previous events every time someone sues. My fear is that these two instances of compromising editor safety has created a blueprint for every bad actor with a modicum of resources, and I'm hoping that the WMF can dissuade this fear. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸23:42, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm curious on the ANI-thing, haven't seen anything in media for quite awhile, and I was told that "The case was adjourned to be heard on 7 July after WMF's senior advocate Akhil Sibal requested more time." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:07, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Reader Growth team wants thoughts on changes to image browsing
The Reader Growth team is planning on experimenting with changing the way the users browse images. They've published a mockup of how the UI might look here. The project is in a early experimental stage and they want the community to answer the following question:
How should they handle images from other (smaller) Wikipedias?
How should they handle sensitive image/undesirable images?
Does the community has any particular stipulations surrounding image placement that the team should keep in mind when building this features?
The team welcomes feedback on these on the WP:VPT thread. Feel free to comment on the thread and provide suggestions.
Learning Clinic: The next Let's Connect Learning Clinic will talk about "Mastering the Capacity Exchange (CapX) Tool" and will take place on September 30 at 13:00 UTC.
Big Fat Brussels Meeting: The tenth in-person gathering of Wikimedians enthusiastic in free knowledge advocacy, Big Fat Brussels Meeting, will take place on October 3-4.
Wikimedia Research Showcase: "Celebrating 13 Years: Wikidata’s Role in Learning and Culture" will be the featured theme for the next research showcase taking place on October 15 at 16:30 UTC.
Search Suggestions: Upon clicking an empty search bar, logged-out users now see suggestions of articles for further reading on all Wikipedias, in order to make it easier for users to find articles.
Activity Tab now on Android: Beta users of the Wikipedia Android app can now try the redesigned Activity tab, which replaces the Edits tab. The new tab offers personalized insights into reading, editing, and donation activity, while simplifying navigation and making app use more engaging.
Wikipedia 25: Wikimedia Foundation is creating playful, celebratory interventions on the Wikipedia portal page, the Wikipedia app, and potentially any interested Wikipedias to celebrate Wikipedia’s 25th birthday. Please share your inputs and add your username on the Talk page if you think your community would be interested in participating.
National award: Wikipedian and current chair of Wikimedia Deutschland, Alice Wiegand, receives the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for her voluntary commitment to Wikipedia and the global Wikimedia movement.
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!
Ever since template {{Backwards copy}} was created in 2008 it has garnered only about 1,900 usages. Can that be right? Enwiki has over 7 million articles, a zillion views yearly, and is frequently copied in many ways (sentences, paragraphs, whole-cloth). Some of this is because we don't track backwards copies very well, but still, 1.9k out of 7 million pages beggars belief. Evidently, our Attribution-ShareAlike license is not being honored very often.
The victim is not WMF, who have little to gain through enforcement of licensing, other than a legal bill. Rather Wikipedia authors receive no credit for their creative efforts. The other victim, most seriously, is open knowledge, since the visionary idea was to create an ecosystem of open knowledge producers, consumers and re-users. Wikipedia has abundant producers and consumers, but re-users are not with the program. The open knowledge system exemplified by CC-BY-SA is not working well in practice. Violators face no consequence, and nobody is enforcing it anyway, much less monitoring and reporting.
Some may contend it is beyond the scope of Wikipedia to determine if an external website is in violation of Wikipedia licensing. But we can and do make copyright determinations, frequently, see WP:Media copyright questions for example. Yet, it's not being done for CC-BY-SA violators. There is no template to flag it. No noticeboard for discussions. (I think)
The other argument is this problem exists any place open knowledge is produced, this is true. But I think Wikipedia in particular has a reputation as de-facto Public Domain. Unlike, say, a professionally produced LaTeX document with a DOI and a CC-BY-SA license, is more likely to make reusers think twice about how they reuse it.
Personally as a content creator I love Wikipedia for many reasons as a place to publish my research. However it's a bit Hotel California. Easy to walk into, hard to get out of, and broadly fails to protect creators from those who disregard Attribution/ShareAlike. None of this mattered to me, at first, but looking back over decades of producing content, my oeuvre feels increasingly at risk by a lack of licensing compliance, enforcement, or monitoring. The obscure and little known maintenance template {{Backwards copy}} reveals something. -- GreenC06:44, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, "Some of this is because we don't track backwards copies very well". Still.. some people will use the template. They are not finding many instances of Wikipedia content being credited. -- GreenC05:27, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know of anyone who deliberately seeks out Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks these days, much less the one-off copies of an individual article. Maybe you do? The conclusion I'd reach is that most mirrors get filtered out of search results (so people are very unlikely to see them) and maybe even that small, credited uses (a paragraph in a news article that says "According to Wikipedia, a ___ is a...") aren't what we want to track either at all, or with this template (vs Template:Press). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I've come across my own work being used and not attributed or licensed properly. I don't actively look for it, but I come across it when updating my older work searching for new sources. I think most people would if they took the time, at least if you are producing good quality+ articles that are well sourced and well written. I've seen my work in a "List of .." article become the basis of a government research report in India - no attribution or CC license. I've seen my work about a food topic form the basis of a newspaper article in an English newspaper - no attribution or license. And why not? If you steal from Wikipedia and obscure it well enough, you can get your assignment done, get paid, and take the credit. -- GreenC17:04, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've had the same experience, both with my own contributions and with other people's contributions (usually via Wikipedia:Citation Hunt). But I don't deliberately seek it out.
Right welcome to the club! I bet this is true for every serious contributor. Partial re-use is usually what a backwards copy consists of. Per the template: where there may be potential for confusion about the copyright status of parts of the text due to its re-use in a mainstream news article or publication. Basically any part of the Wikipedia article that could be mistaken as a copyvio, is a backwards copy. -- GreenC18:27, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Funny enough this came up at Talk:Jane_Goodall#Copyright_violations .. I thought there was a copyvio, turns out it was a backwards copy! I found the supposed "copyvio" with the new Copyvio detection tool (history tab). In the end though, there is no place to report the website as violating Wikipedia CC-BY-SA. It would be useful to check other pages where this website is sourced, and build a picture of how reliable the source is for discussion at WP:RSN (a single known violation is not enough for RSN). -- GreenC17:49, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hear, hear. Wikipedians are regularly persecuted internally by copyright fanatics but no effort seems to be put into protecting our own copyrights and licences. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:38, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I had not thought of that. You are right, we tend to have very high ideals protecting the copyright of others, and almost nothing about our own. There is no noticeboard. No "list of examples". No articles in Signpost. No essay about it. Nothing. At the very least, it would be fun to brag when people steal your content. -- GreenC03:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some of my work on a medical article got "stolen" by an expert in the field, who re-wrote bits for a blog post (or something like that – it was many years ago, and I don't remember the details). It was actually enlightening to see how he agreed with most of it but disagreed with a few things. I don't remember if I changed the article after getting what amounted to an expert review/endorsement for it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:07, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This problem has already been encountered in Wikimedia Commons: files have even been deleted from there after being stolen and copyright claimed by the burglar. Maybe the Commons community can help with this, since they have already thought about measures to try to prevent this from happening. MGeog2022 (talk) 11:00, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe they've improved since, but one of the reasons I gave up on Commons years ago was because an admin there was blindly tagging such images for speedy deletion, and when confronted about it their reply was "this is not my problem" and suggesting that someone else would catch the error in c:Commons:Deletion requests despite them tagging it for speedy deletion instead. Anomie⚔13:54, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fortunately, I think Wikipedia is largely free from this deletion problem. When the history of an article, as is true in most cases, shows multiple editions by different users, until a certain revision (the stolen one) is reached, there is no credibility that such revision is a plagiarism of anything else. Of course, I really hope that when there is such a claim, article's history is carefully analyzed to discard the false claim. And, even if plagiarism in an article is falsely considered as plausible, the solution is as simple as rewriting in full the involved paragraphs, since copyright does not apply to ideas, but only to an exact, tangible expression of such ideas. This way, no knowledge would be lost from Wikipedia because of the theft. MGeog2022 (talk) 19:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On at least one ocassion when I found a WP article I had written copied verbatim without attribution in Facebook, I contacted the owner of the page (who had not posted the copyvio himself) and he pulled the article. On the other hand, this little problem illustrates the difficulty of doing anything about unacknowledged copying. Donald Albury14:52, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if we should make a petition to the Wikimedia Foundation to ask them to enforce our licenses (since we technically own the license to our work). Mikeycdiamond (talk) 15:05, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know, but what if we give them the right to enforce the license. I am sure they can set up a digital waiver that we could agree to (without giving up our identities). Mikeycdiamond (talk) 15:28, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd expect them to refuse, because corporate legal teams apparently can't represent anyone connected to their employers (apparently, it's a legal ethics requirement that applies to all US lawyers who don't want to get disbarred). However, it might be possible to do something like that, e.g., for the WMF to hire a DMCA takedown service, or for the WMF to give grant money to a chapter/affiliate that will then hire a DMCA takedown service.
I think that enforcement of licensing is maybe a waste of time.
I fear that we are nearly defenseless face to abuses like this. Therefore , I think that the better is to accept that it is like this even if the situation can't please to us.
Why try to defend ours legal rights concerning the work being used and not attributed or licensed properly ?
It can't be a question of money because we did refused to receive money as volunteers.
Is this a question of ego ? It can be not pleasuring to see that some people are not attributing or licensing properly ours contributions. But I believe that the most important is what we do to maintain this encyclopedia for humankind.
If we invest time to defend ours legal rights. We are not editing the encyclopedia during this time.
There are no money involved except in the hypothetical case that someone argue in a court that a work not attributed or licensed properly = A non-pecuniary damage and asking money for this.
Maybe someday , me or somebody else could write a "humorous" text about it as an "essay". If someone is interested by the idea , contact me on my user talk-page.
I like humorous essays like "Wikipedia:Cabals" , it is maybe the time for me to write one.
Personally , I don't care of this about these abuses. But I understand that it can make some people sad or / and anger to see contributions that are not properly attributed or licensed. You done a work and you're not being recognized for this. You did it for free , you gave something more important than money in my eyes. This thing that we call time. Anatole-berthe (talk) 17:16, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also think it is not worth trying to legally enforce the attribution terms of the licence. If you see a case, you can complain to the site yourself, but, without a willing response to your request, anything further will get expensive, with little prospect of any gain. - Donald Albury21:52, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations to Internet Archive
I'd like to congratulate Internet Archive from here, for 2 reasons: first, the lawsuit that could have threatened its existence was finally succesfully solved, and, second, next month, they will be celebrating the first trillion of webpages archived in Wayback Machine.
That said, I hope they are really able to preserve their archives, as they say, for future generations. There is no information about full copies of Archive out of San Francisco Bay Area, and that's a concern that has worried me for years, and that I try to mention whenever I can. More than 175 petabytes (source) is a really insane amount of storage space. I think that, with Archive's budget, not many copies of that can be kept. Ideally, areas with high natural risks should be avoided at all for hosting even a single copy, and, of course, at least 1 copy should be out of them. WMF is also based in San Francisco, but it hosts all content and backups far away from that area, and seismic risk is probably the main reason for it (and WMF has a far bigger budget and a far, far smaller amount of data to store). I hope I am too paranoid, I hope that they have an excellent earthquake-resistant infrastructure, that they keep secret full backups at safe places... but these are only hopes, there is no evidence that most of Archive's data can survive a really strong earthquake.
Internet Archive, and, especially, Wayback Machine, are a vital resource for Wikipedia, since they are the only possible way that defunct webpages used as citations in Wikipedia articles remain accessible. Wayback Machine is also the only way deleted (for example, merged) Wikipedia articles remain publicly accessible. Both things also apply to other WMF wikis. These are good reasons to worry about the risks facing Archive and Wayback Machine. I fear that, after the lawsuit is ended, people relax and think that Archive is fully at safe, now, when it isn't (and has never been). MGeog2022 (talk) 12:13, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All good points, but largely lost on a guy who gives this round of Western civilization about another hundred years (we almost lost it in 2008, and we didn't seem to learn much from the experience). We have created a world that we can't manage. Right now, there are smart people plotting how best to accelerate the collapse.Then Dark Ages II (Dark Ages I followed the collapse of the Western Roman Empire). Nothing like Wikipedia, or Internet Archive, or other types of computerized archives, will survive anyway. Just imagine a world without computers and internet, and that's just the start of it. Tell your grandchildren: "If you love your kids and their kids, don't have kids. Don't be selfish." Signed, Ted Kaczynski. P.S. This drove me crazy, to the point I was blowing shit up and killing innocent people. Two errors: I cared too much, and I thought I could change the course of history in a positive direction through violence. All I accomplished was to put myself in prison, where I later hanged myself. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 13:14, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When I read "The Coming Dark Age" in 1974 I got worried. I got into a sort of prepper mindset (although I never put much money into prepping). Anyway, Vacca discussed a lot of systems that were failing then, and his argument was very convincing. And yet, here we are, 51 years later, using all kinds of tech that even science fiction writers hadn't thought of then. Donald Albury15:14, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, apocalyptic thoughts are a constant throughout human history. At some moments during Cold War, many people believed that nuclear war was imminent, but it didn't happen (in fact, most of the world's population now live better than they lived then). When you think about how many supposed "ends of the world" took place in recent history, you realize that it isn't likely to happen in the near future. In fact, one of the biggest risks can be if most people think it will happen, and behave like it's just going to happen, so they don't care at all about the future. In 1929, Western civilization survived a financial crisis far worse than that of 2008, and it even survived World War II after that. There is no reason to believe civilization will collapse soon: current times can't be compared with Roman Empire at all. Recently, obesity surpassed hunger as a risk to global health: that is not what you would expect from a collapsing civilization. Let's care about people living 100 years from now having Wikipedia and Internet Archive, with all their contents well preserved, so humanity doesn't lose its cultural memory. MGeog2022 (talk) 19:05, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'll wager two weeks' Wikipedia unpay that you'll be proven wrong. I will come back from the grave to collect. (Of course, Wikipedia unpay will be worthless then, but wth.) ―Mandruss☎ IMO. Warning: May contain undeclared humor.00:55, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When you think about how many supposed "ends of the world" took place in recent history, you realize that it isn't likely to happen in the near future. I believe that's fallacious logic, similar to saying that the dice's next roll is influenced by the previous twenty. Or, that California's Big Quake isn't likely to happen in the near future because a whole lot of predictions (all of them) have been false alarms. Regrettably, I can't link to a Wikipedia article for support.FWIW, I'm speaking of the end of this round of Western civilization, not the end of the world. Much or most of this precedent you cite was about the total destruction of the planet, or at least extinction of the human species or its subjugation by apes. That's apocalypse; I'm talking about mere catastrophe. The species will survive, and after a few centuries will begin to rebuild, just as we did the last time. But it will have to re-invent all the technology invented since the end of Dark Ages I. Including, eventually, computers, the internet, and Wikipedia. And Facebook. We won't have gained any wisdom that survived Dark Ages II, so we'll make all the same human mistakes again (lust for money and power, etc) and Round 3 will collapse for similar reasons. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Rinse. Repeat until scalp is raw. Until we can genetically create wisdom and have the political will to do so on a global scale."Post-apocalyptic" is misused in my opinion, as in The Postman (film), simply because we haven't found a better word for it. "Post-catastrophic" wouldn't do. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 06:09, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand, but, unlike for California's Big Quake, I don't see a reason for that happening in the medium term. But I see a reason for a possible partial Dark Ages II: a strong quake destroying most of Internet Archive's collections, if they have no copies at safe places, and if their datacenters (including storage media) are not built to withstand any possible earthquake that may occur in that area. So we may partially agree, returning to my starting point :-) MGeog2022 (talk) 12:02, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't about the past rolls of the dice we have won, it is about the human perseverance and stubbornness that allowed us to win. It is in human nature to want to preserve what we have, and to seek better things. Western civilization isn't going anywhere, it will change but not collapse. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 17:58, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The dark ages was only in Europe, we retained practically all the technology, the rest of the world was vibing and the byzantine half of the Roman empire didn't really collapse, it was slowly conquered by other nations. Also wouldn't the wisdom from the internet archive help prevent or delay a collapse? Also on the genetic wisdom thing, we have a saying (an eye for an eye) that's from the oldest law code we know of (Hammurabi code). Ben edditing (talk) 18:39, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In my personal opinion, the plaintiffs come in talking big fines, so they can get better terms on the inevitable private settlement agreement. Nobody wants to actually destroy Internet Archive, including the judges. -- GreenC16:54, 22 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that (I hope) the WMF hosts at least one copy of everything worth preserving away from San Francisco (or any other single point of failure). It would be nice if the Internet Archive could afford to do so too. Certes (talk) 08:28, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ulsfo is an edge caching datacenter, not a data storage one (there are only 2 of this type: eqiad and codfw, and none of them is in a seismic area). MGeog2022 (talk) 11:54, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps more importantly, every place on the planet has some sort of natural disaster risk. For example, Eqiad is in Virginia; see also Category:Hurricanes in Virginia. Codfw is in Texas; see also Category:Tornadoes in Texas. The goal isn't "avoid the natural disaster that seems scariest" but "have backups". The m:Server switch exercise has really improved switching time, and even if one of the main centers goes down, whether due to a natural disaster or an unnatural one, editing should be feasible within minutes (not hours or days), and many readers won't notice it at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:23, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. Both WMF main datacenters are also in areas with natural risks, but there are backups at a very distant place (eqiad and codfw are really far away from each other). If we rely on public, verifiable information, that's not the case with Internet Archive, sadly. All main datacenters are in relatively close proximity (less than 30 km, I believe), so they could be damaged by the same natural disaster. MGeog2022 (talk) 19:44, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We are dependent on the Internet Archive because it preserves content that has been cited in articles but is no longer available on the Internet. There have been other archiving services, but some have gone under. If the Internet Archive were to go under and its archives lost, then a lot of content in WP articles would no longer be supported by sources that could be inspected. Donald Albury23:30, 23 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What can we do ? I don't know an alternative equivalent to Internet Archive ?
I know others archiving sites but they haven't the same performances.
Well, one thing we can do is to make ourselves less dependent on any archiving system, e.g., by citing more books and academic journal articles instead of ephemeral websites. Another thing we can do is to update articles with newer sources that say the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:53, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps WMF could openly discuss this with Archive, since Archive's Wayback Machine is a much needed resource that Wikipedia and other WMF wikis rely on for storing sources. Many web sources can't be replaced by paper ones, and for those that can, it would be a formidable work to search for the new sources (visits to paper libraries to find alternative sources for millions of citations, and for many of them there are no other source than the web one). It's not practical at all.
I tend to be paranoid and look for possible dangers, so risks can be identified. I suppose people at Internet Archive are not stupid at all: they still keep webpages from nearly 30 years ago without problem, and they claim to store all content for future generations, and, so far, they are accomplishing that. The proof of fire for this is the one that has not still happened, but, sadly, will happen at some point in the future.
Logic would say that they are well prepared for that (for example, in Japan there are datacenters, including equipment, that are built to resist strong earthquakes without problems, could Archive's ones be built in the same way?; or maybe they don't have primary datacenters out of that area, but they do yearly backups to tape and store that tapes far away), but there is no public proof about that, so it is a major reason for concern. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:40, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As can be read here, back in 2016, Archive's infrastructure was nearly as bad as it could be. They had meetings with Long Now Foundation, talking about preserving content for people living in year 10,000, they talked about forever and future generations... but they were storing only 2 paired copies of almost all content, a few km apart in a highly seismic area.
The worst part (it can be read in the comments section of the linked post): a person from Archive's staff happily talked about how they didn't make backups at all, and how even storing a third paired copy was impossible for them. If that person said that they were fully conscious about how extremely critical their situation was, and how hard they were working to improve it, I wouldn't be as worried as I am. But when risks (a simple fire in a rack would mean that petabytes of content would be left with only 1 copy) are underestimated in such a way, I must said (and I don't like at all saying this) that I don't trust them at all. If you want to preserve content for future generations, don't store so much content that you can't assure it will preserved for next year, let alone future generations. This seems something like diogenes syndrome.
WMF needs a solution for its links to online references. If Archive is now reliable, or it becomes reliable in the future, human, in addition to financial and technical, changes are very much needed. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:41, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To highlight the positive aspects about Internet Archive (I don't want this congratulations to end up being just a voracious criticism), I'll add that they do an excellent job in digital preservation for their partner institutions, through Archive-It service, and also providing easy access to Common Crawl archives. The contents preserved by both Archive-It and Common Crawl are very likely to remain there indefinitely, for future generations (both of them are well backuped, and it's publicly known). So IA is vital for the long-term preservation and availability of some content, but, at least for the moment, there is no reason to believe that this applies to all the content they offer. From the available evidence, the vast majority of the content, while very useful for use at the present moment, can't be truly considered as preserved, and that matters if you want the references at Wikipedia articles to be verifiable in the far future. MGeog2022 (talk) 10:20, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We need our own archive
As much as I love (trust, respect, etc) IA, we really need to have our own archive of documents we use as sources in our articles. While the obvious risk to IA is physical destruction due to an earthquake, there's also external factors to worry about. While it may be unthinkable that some outside entity might buy IA and destroy it, the unthinkable happens. Biodiversity Heritage Library is just climbing out of an existential threat caused by the Smithsonian deciding to no longer host them. MySQL (not to mention Java) is now owned by Oracle. Freenode got eaten by a hostile entity. Deja News got bought by Google. These things happen. They're rare, but they do happen, and for a resource we are so dependent on, we really need to have a better plan than hoping it will never happen to IA. RoySmith(talk)12:58, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
IA is a non-profit, I think that the situation you talk about is almost as unlikely for IA than it is for WMF. For example, MySQL and Java belonged to commercial companies, that were bought by Oracle (and, despite that, they still are free and open source software). I think that risks where evil ones are present are often overperceived, and those without evil ones are often underperceived.
WMF doesn't seem to want to store non-free content as it would be needed for such an archive, and it relies on Internet Archive for that (in fact, I believe there is some kind of cooperation between them about it). The matter here is how reliable IA is in the long term (it could already be fine, but nobody outside of IA knows it). MGeog2022 (talk) 13:17, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
IA, like the Foundation, is dependent on donations (I have donated several times.) My impression is that they are not as secure financially as the Foundation is. Non-profits get bought up by for-profits all too often as an alternative to going under (pretty much the norm for hospitals in the US, for example). That is why some people have called for the Foundation to explore helping support IA. Donald Albury15:02, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like we don't need our own version of IA so much as we need a backup on a hard disk somewhere so that if the worst happens we could always rebuild. Bawolff (talk) 18:36, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Having a backup of the data is a necessary first step, but anything as large as IA has lots of moving parts. There's a web front end, databases, tools, APIs, indexers, backups, infrastructure, config files, and all sorts of chazzerai that make the difference between a pile of bits and a working system. Not to mention the institutional memory of how all the pieces plug together.
WMF practices data center failover twice a year (I think the last one was just a couple of days ago). If you're not doing that, when the time comes that you need it, all you'll have is a pile of bits and a world of hurt. RoySmith(talk)20:56, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When someone asks me how to support Wikipedia, I tell them to donate to the Internet Archive. I am less concerned about someone buying them, but lawsuits are a nontrivial risk and have made the IA worse already. —Kusma (talk) 21:19, 24 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we need one (which isn't clear to me), it's probably simpler (and cheaper) to buy one than to build one. French Wikipedia has long used Wikiwix; it is a very small company, and if we want to go that route, maybe we should just buy them. You could ask over at French Wikipedia about how they like it there (try: WP:Questions techniques). Or maybe just ask knowledgeable and friendly French admin Jules* what the general opinion of Wikiwix is by French users. Mathglot (talk) 09:40, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It would be a great idea if the same source is archived at multiple archive sites at the same time. But bear in mind that neither archive.today nor Ghostarchive publicly disclose who is behind them, so they could close tomorrow without previous warning. That's why I am so concerned about this: the most reliable archive is Internet Archive, and, probably, it isn't reliable. MGeog2022 (talk) 12:42, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's true that an archive provider can close tomorrow. But I think that we have to think to others risks even those that seems unlilkely like a WWIII (Nuclear or not) or a war implicating many countries in Europe or elsewhere.
Nothing and nobody would survive a large scale nuclear war. As for a war implicating many countries in Europe, with NATO having 3.5 million soldiers and personnel, and more than half of global military spending (and growing), it also seems really unlikely.
There has been no such a big asteroid incident in recorded history (Tunguska event would be the most similar case), so the earthquake risk is highly likely to hit Internet Archive far before that kind of incident ever happens. And, even before that, other archives with unknown owners may also close because of an unknown reason. MGeog2022 (talk) 13:34, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of a large scale nuclear war. It's obvious that there would be no survivors.
Nevertheless , we can imagine a limited nuclear war.
Fictious example n°1 : "nuclear country 1" decide to attack "nuclear country 2" with a bomb or two with a low-power (For a bomb of this kind). Instead of replicate , it decide to enter in negociation with the other side. In the real world , a scenario like this seems very highly unlikely.
Fictious exemple n°2 : Like in the first fictious example with only one difference. "Nuclear country 1" decide to attack "non-nuclear country 2".
We can also imagine a non-nuclear war.
Concerning the number of soldiers and personnel for countries members of NATO.
We should not forget that countries have the power to mobilize civilians to become soldiers or another role.
Today , a scenario of a conflict like this seems very unlikely.
Tunguska event is in my eyes a good example of an astronomical event that leads to destruction.
Let's remember we have history of this. For a long time, the major on demand alternative to the Internet Archive was WebCite. Then it stopped accepting archive requests which was fine. Then there was a long period where even existing archives didn't work. IIRC, there have been attempts by the Internet Archive to obtain all WebCite's data but these have failed because WebCite asked for payment beyond what the Internet Archive was willing to pay. Even so, I'm guessing this process was made a lot easier given that who was behind WebCite has always been known. It's possible WebCite will still be at least intermittently working 10 years from now. It's also possible it will be completely dead and everything they have archived potentially lost forever. If people submit archival requests to other archives at the same time, that's still a good thing. But that should never be at the expense of submitting them to the Internet Archive IMO since that will be worse. Nil Einne (talk) 10:46, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Edit farming
Hopefully, this wouldn't be a bad time to discuss this, but...
Edit farming! What does it mean?
Edit farming means that you are artificially editing pages, sections or talks on Wikipedia to indirectly increase your edit count for gain of relevancy. It is also to help people maliciously gain notoriety as a user or to be given barnstars. Each edit one by one should be unnecessary (especially by me). Instead, just think of one thing that is relevant, reliable and legitimate. Just put your heart into it to just edit one proper section in a better quality and size. Not a small portion one by one to make yourself notable. Not right. Rather than low-quality, why not make an edit here on WP high-quality? That's what I learned.
Think about. Edit one page with only one statement, but then... "oh, I forgot to add sources to reference", then you add a reference, but it's from a non-reliable source after you publish it. Then, you revert the edit? No, you re-edit it again without reverting it. Then, you got to another article and then edit it with a reference, save it. Go back edit with another after another one by one. You think, there's nothing wrong? Guess what, it its.
The repeating low-quality, artificial and low-end edits cannot be overlooked. The edit-farming problem on here, Fandom and Miraheze (which holds the AVID Wiki) can be a serious online struggle for us users and editors. It can lead to serious consequences such as vandalism, bad faith and banishment. So to any user who thinks that edit farming is appropriate here, they are wrong! Be careful!
Maybe we should look into edit farming one day and review. If my discussion isn't good enough, then I could be lying.
Different editors have different styles. There was a time when I got into the habit of making many small edits to an article because when I tried to make a single long edit, my log-in session would sometimes drop before I could finish the edit. That is not a particular problem now, but I still find myself having to go back to make several small edits after a major edit, because I'm terrible at proof-reading my own writing, and some errors (SFN cites, for example) do not show in a preview, but are glaring after saving. Gaming is occasionally a problem, but tends to be obvious to experienced editors. Edit-count is a very rough indicator of contribution levels, and my opinion of other editors depends much more on the quality of edits I see them make, rather than the quantity. Donald Albury19:36, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I use to see S.E.'s as normal until I saw the "farming" problem on Fandom. But if any Wikipedian felt like I was wrong for bringing this here, then I owe you all an apology. It wasn't in good faith, it was a bad opinion. Even so, I had no business bringing that up out of spite. I know I keep messing up. Darrion N. Brown 🙂 (my talk page / my sandbox)04:12, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You were not wrong for bringing it up. You saw something that you perceived as a problem, and you raised it in an appropriate forum. I happen to see the situation differently, but that is not a criticism of you. Wikipedia is supposed to be a collaborative effort, with good faith assumed until proven otherwise, and disagreements settled by discussion, hopefully leading to consensus. I have proposed or backed a number of ideas over the years that have been rejected or just ignored by the community. That's just the way we work. Suggestions and complaints are not a problem unless and until they are pushed long after it is clear that the community is not interested. Donald Albury13:50, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While what Donald Albury said is overall right, partly contra to him I want to add that for editors that edit mainly in a controversial topic area (or even worse, pivot to a controversial topic area suddenly), making each of their early edits into several smaller ones can be a red flag for malicious intent. Loki (talk) 20:23, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, making several smaller edits make instead of a massive article revamp lets people revert problematic individual edits, rather than have to untangle 2% shit from 98% quality. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}21:21, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@DBrown SPS: If it is done in good faith, there is nothing wrong with making many small edits instead of one large edit. In your example of doing this editing in order to gain some user rights or awards, then that is covered by WP:GAMING. RudolfRed (talk) 22:02, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with point 1, that "consensus" doesn't really work well at a community else of this size. I won't lower myself to commenting on the other eight theses except to say that grovelling bothesidism in articles isn't a good look. Cremastra (talk·contribs) 01:14, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What would you replace consensus with? Consensus is messy, but what would work better? Off hand, I think any other system will either lead to anarchy, or to getting mired down in more bureaucracy than the community could stand. I certainly think Citizendium has shown us the perils of putting too much control in the hands of an elite of experts. Donald Albury01:36, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sangar has started and moved on from other projects since leaving Wikipedia. I fully expect that the only consensus he could ever fully agree with is his own. His idea of what a neutral, his idea of what is balanced, not working with other people to come together and decide on such matters. His latest musings only serve to solidify that opinion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested«@» °∆t°15:21, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My super brief, and polite as possible, summary: We're hostile to fringe and other views that are not documented in reliable sources, including to those editors that try to promote those views. But in reality, fact-based knowledge is left-leaning, and by that nature are going to be highly suspect of right-leaning views, publications that primarily deal in promoting those views, and editors that try to push those views. Or more fundamentally, it's proposing we should cover all sides of a topic with completely equal weight, which we know just doesn't work over several years of work. Masem (t) 01:36, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I must object to the statement that fact-based knowledge is left-leaning. My politics are very definitely left/libertarian or left/progressive, according to the on-line political tests I have taken, but I have known professed leftists who were not really committed to "fact-based knowledge". I think it is counter-productive for the future of Wikipedia to tie support for fact-based knowledge to any particular political belief. Similarly, we should not try to tie Know Nothingism to all politically conservative groups. Donald Albury01:59, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, though I would say most of the time I see the type of arguments (like, being "neutral" by presenting both sides equally) are common talking points with the right, and some of the other aspects, like identifying the major contributors, are ideas frequently raised by right-leaning politicians and also mirrors aspects like the ADL. I agree that some of those points can be raised anywhere on the political spectrum, but most often is coming from those that want to push right-leaning concepts onto WP. Masem (t) 03:37, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The way I would put it, instead, is that Wikipedia is aimed at being academic, international, and mainstream. Large swaths of the modern right are to some extent or another hostile to all three of these things. Nationalists, for instance, will rarely be happy with what we say about their nations. People who place their religions on the level of sacred revealed truth and who believe that they should be treated that way in all contexts are likewise going to have trouble with an approach that reduces them to just another primary source. And anyone with an anti-intellectual mindset or who believes that academia or the mainstream media are biased as a whole are going to be unhappy with what we say, since we largely summarize these things. We strive to be neutral but our definition of neutrality is derived from our main purpose as an encyclopedia, and is not going to align with everyone's views; if someone's idea of neutrality is to listen to what the two main political parties in their country say and to try and find a midpoint between them, they're naturally going to be unhappy here. But that's inevitable! That approach is, simply put, not encyclopedic - certainly not when writing an international, academia-focused encyclopedia like this one. It's worth pointing out that our articles do reflect plenty of right-wing ideas (especially on economics or when it comes to more libertarian views), in contexts where those views are treated seriously in academia. And I don't think it's a surprise that those are also the right-wing views that are the most international in character and the least tied to one specific religious faith or the like. --Aquillion (talk) 16:45, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) IMO it's not so much "fact-based knowledge is left-leaning" as it is that, in current Western politics, groups on the right have set themselves up in opposition to fact-based knowledge (and been politically successful by doing so) far more often than those on the left have. Anomie⚔02:05, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you there. When I was growing up in the 1960s and 70s it was the conservatives who placed most emphasis on facts, but now it is the left. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:24, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Encyclopedias are traditionally left-leaning. Recall the Encyclopédie: Because of its sometimes radical contents, the Encyclopédie stirred up controversy in conservative circles, and after the publication of the second volume, it was briefly suspended by a royal edict of 1752 accusing it of "destroying royal authority, fomenting a spirit of independence and revolt, and ... laying the groundwork for error, for the corruption of morals, and for irreligion and atheism." Sound familiar? Our current rulers want to return to the good old days of the Ancien régime, the French Rrevolution was a travesty, and everything since has been a disaster. The few need to rule the many, authority never questioned, and rulers stay in power for life. A lot like China and Russia today, is what they want. -- GreenC20:07, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So, TL;DR, this entire piece is just a reframing of Sanger's prior complaints about Wikipedia where the fact that we don't allow fringe conspiracy nonsense and false claims to be stated in Wikivoice is the height of impropriety in his view. Especially when it comes to not pushing a conservative POV on everything. SilverserenC02:50, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The mitigations for that are even worse. Using AI for this is a bad idea, as anyone who's seen the volume of promotional text inserted into articles alongside an edit summary likely "Made text compliant with Wikipedia's neutral point of view" would know. Asking users to verify with their credit card or ID is a bad idea especially given that we had a massive data breach only a few months ago. At one point this asks for someone to invent userboxes. Gnomingstuff (talk) 03:00, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The March incident is actually probably more relevant. The "leak" was all of info that was at some point public; there was no actual security lapse on the WMF's part, although it's a good cautionary tale that sometimes OSing old revisions can increase visibility rather than decrease. On the other hand, with the account compromises, a big part of why that wasn't a huge deal was that there wasn't much PII for attackers to glean from the accounts they compromised: just their emails (which they probably already had), their watchlist contents (usually not that identifying), and in a minority of cases their timezone. 35,893 compromises would be massively more consequential if there were credit cards or IDs tied in there. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 02:08, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. The average person on the internet is, frankly, a fucking idiot. We already have to put up with a deluge of IPs and new users who don't have a clue how Wikipedia works and just want to complain that it isn't how they personally want it to be. I don't see why we'd make that worse. — Czello(music)14:06, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, don't articles already have pseudo-ratings? Like, A-class, stub-class, good-article, featured-article etc.? Mr. Sanger seems to be suggesting something that already exists. Besides, most articles would never get rated if it was done this way. Gaismagorm(talk)15:27, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
He wants either populist ratings (i.e. open to offsite vote brigading), or ratings by "experts" (presumably hoping a significant proportion of those "exports" will agree with his viewpoints), or rating by AI (???). Anomie⚔17:29, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
From the one person who could make me thankful that we got Jimmy Wales. Just remind me; which of his projects in the last 20-and-a-bit years has had even a small amount of success? Phil Bridger (talk) 08:43, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thesis 6 is a devastatingly bad idea. Given the amount of hostility already directed towards Wikipedia (particuarly where politics is concerned), requiring the most prominent Wikipedians to self-dox is, frankly, dangerous. — Czello(music)14:11, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say thesis 2 is a close second, having multiple "versions" of articles where people POV-push their own points is such a bad idea I found it absurd to read it and think someone honestly thought that would be good to introduce, especially written so matter-of-factly. Sophisticatedevening(talk)15:16, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thesis 2 would actually be great in an ideal world where the reader would be able enough to decide the truth for themselves and both sides did not regularly engage in 500 page flame wars 95.5.189.54 (talk) 21:34, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You know, I'm not the hugest fan of Larry Sanger, but #9 makes a good point. It can be a little bit tricky to figure out what is policy and what is opinion. I'm not saying we need some giant codex of rules, but making them easier to access and find would be a really good idea. It's also be nice to have some way of storing major consensus agreements somewhere. All too often, I'll have to skim through a few dozen pages just to figure out how to capitalize something, or whether we should spell something one way or the other way. I don't really like the rest of the suggestions, but #9 at least makes a decent point. Gaismagorm(talk)15:31, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely would support a template for talk pages of P&G to list out all major RFC that impacted the P&G. Often I see key ones highlighted separately from page archives, but realistically a simplate with a collapsible list of all such RFCs could help navigate the past discussions Masem (t) 15:50, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When I learned that Sanger had found Jesus[57] I wasn't expecting him to unironically go full Martin Luther nor to forget what a questionable figure the historical Luther was (although to be fair half remembering history is very much in Sanger's wheelhouse)... One wonders whether the new 95 thesis will be followed by the new On the Jews and Their Lies? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:47, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
the WMF should convene a constitutional convention to create an editorial charter and assembly - Dang I didn't realize it was 1787 still, maybe we should get Thomas Jefferson on the phone and save our crumbling encyclopedia apparently. Sophisticatedevening(talk)15:50, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's also worth pointing out that people have, in fact, tried to produce online encyclopedias based on different definitions of truth and neutrality, including the ones Sanger advocates here - nationalist ones under the auspices of individual states, religious ones that enshrine the revealed truth of individual religions, etc. The reason why Wikipedia has won out (and the reason why people like Sanger target it in the first place, rather than just retreating to Conservapedia or wherever) is because our approach works - it has produced the most useful encyclopedia in the world. Wikipedia is freely available to everyone who follows its license; if Sanger's ideas had merit he could create a fork of Wikipedia at any time and govern it the way he wanted. Like, he says he wants competing versions of articles, but nothing actually stops him from creating a competing version of Wikipedia as a whole! Except that it would fail, of course, because nobody outside of his bubble would trust it or find it useful. The teeth-grinding thing to people like Sanger is that Wikipedia is useful to almost everyone, and is therefore broadly trusted. Our policies work. --Aquillion (talk) 16:46, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
He did, Citizendium. Which still exists, although he left it years ago. A good chunk of these theses seems to be trying (again) to get Wikipedia to adopt the policies he tried to implement there. Anomie⚔17:36, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For the interested Larry hasn't said anything interesting in decades and has been completely disconnected from the community ever since its inception. Save yourself the time and hassle, go read something more edifying, like a chicken noodle soup recipe. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}17:06, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, might as well state my opinions on, this. I'm not gonna call it nine theses because that's pretentious.
Point 1: No lol. Consensus is vital to Wikipedia. The idea of a single committee regulating all articles issues would slow Wikipedia down due to beaurocracy. Could it make stuff more clear and very slightly more precise? Maybe. Will it drastically slow progress down to a halt. Absolutely it will. I have no doubt about that. The cons outweigh the pros.
Point 2: Absolutely not. This might be the weirdest idea here. We don't want people to go to Wikipedia and turn on a switch so they only see stuff that validates their preconceived notions on a topic. Our goal should be to remain objective and report on the facts. Also, the idea of the article's original author choosing who can write it might be the worst idea I've heard when it comes to Wikipedia (well, at least the worst one when it comes to opinions by major editors).
Point 3: Nope. For starters, it discusses sources like Fox News, which isn't even blacklisted. Pretty much all sources that are blacklisted are sources that have absolutely zero place on this Wikipedia, or any wikipedia. We report with facts, not some website made by a conspiracy theorist.
Point 4: Probably not. I'm gonna be honest, I do think the NPOV policy could do some work, but most of it is at least interpreted in a way that seems fair. Sure, it should be worded better, but I think it's important to make one thing clear. Wikipedia reports on the facts. The only side Wikipedia should be taking is the objective truth. Sometimes, however, that means that WE DO HAVE TO TAKE A SIDE. Sometimes, the facts might disagree with a side. We can and should take a stance towards misinformation and false claims, and label them as such. We should declare the objectively false as the objectively false.
Point 5: no. The ignore all rules rule is great. It allows progress here by making it clear that you can do something different, so long as it's good. That's, like, pretty sweet and wholesome. I do agree, that it probably is sometimes cited incorrectly, but all rules are.
Point 6: NO. Well, I do agree that it would be cool if Wikimedia provided help with those who are being harassed, so I like that idea. But that's the only good idea here. I mean, come on. Revealing the names of wikipedia's top brass is a horrible idea. Especially in this climate. Also, paying them? Excuse me, but I thought we wanted less corruption. part 5 of this point is reliant on the others. Point 6 is horrible. It'll just be people complaining that people are reporting on bad things they did. Also, it's disgusting for him to list these people, and tell them to reveal themselves. This is honestly horrible, and I think an admin should go ahead and delete that chunk from that point. It's doing no good, and is just gonna cause problems.
Point 7: It's already done. There are article ratings. It's not a normal voting system, but that makes it more immune to campaigns to rate articles low or high.
Point 8: Maybe. Honestly, I think that making it a last resort could make sense. Larry makes some good points. But some people need to be indefinitely blocked. But, honestly, this isn't a terrible idea. But only if done for just immature vandalism. Things like harassment, racism, stuff like that should be grounds for a perma-ban.
Point 9: Sure. It should have it's limits, but I often struggle figuring out what the policies for a certain thing are, and I could see this kinda being helpful.
.
One final note. Do not use AI in wikipedia. Just no. Any suggestions made by Larry involving AI is terrible. End of discussion.
.
These are just my thoughts from skimming through the essay. I obviously am not reading all of it, but overall, pretty bad ideas. Except, like 2 of them. Gaismagorm(talk)23:28, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On point 2, I think there was wiki-encyclopedia that had that as goal, it would look at your browser history or whatever and give you the version of, say, the Barack Obama article you were ideologically comfortable with. I don't remember the name, might have been Infogalactic. Also, we sort of have this sometimes, what you do is that you change to another language version. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:28, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
IIRC it was the Croatian project, not the Serbian project, that was subject to extensive project capture. Azerbaijani Wikipedia has also had documented issues with coverage of the Armenian genocide. signed, Rosguilltalk15:24, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Croatian WP went very far, but there are other stuff that has been commented on in media, like Japanese WP on some WWII-topics, and how different languages write the history of the airplane [58] (for quite natural reasons). To quote one journalist, "Unlike many Wikipedias in languages with a global span, like English, Spanish or Arabic, Hebrew Wikipedia resembles its Polish or Hungarian counterparts in being more of an "Israeli Wikipedia." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:38, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Monitoring our practices on this fundamental policy across the language editions is what we have to do in the future. — 魔琴 (Zauber Violino) [ talkcontribs ] 12:28, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The best way to describe this is if someone walked into McDonalds and demanded that they start serving Italian food. With this many demands that change the entire nature of the site, I think you want a different website, not this one, especially because the metaphorical McDonalds is doing just fine serving burgers, and opening up an entire restaurant-within-a-restaurant serving spaghetti will only confuse visitors. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 12:37, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In March 2025, an AFD was submitted for Electroimpact, and the article was deleted. On 29 September 2025, a new account pops up, and on 30 September 2025, the new account files a request at Deletion Review, saying that they have developed a new article in their sandbox, and asking to review the sandbox and overturn the deletion. They knew what Deletion Review is, and didn't know that DRV should not be used to request review of draft articles that replace previously deleted articles. An editor at DRV said that the article was not salted, and that the submitter should go ahead and create a new article subject to possible AFD. Another editor at DRV moved the sandbox to draft space and submitted it for AFC review, noting that this was probably what the submitter wanted. A third editor at DRV said that the draft appeared to have been written by artificial intelligence. The submitter then blanked the draft.
What was the purpose of this request? (I am not asking about any of the three DRV editors, all of whom acted reasonably.) Why did a new account pop up to request Deletion Review if they didn't want the sandbox reviewed? Was this an attempt to game the system? If so, what were they trying to game?
Robert McClenon (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like the submitter was trying to get the deleted Electroimpact article restored without going through the proper new article process I think that was why the submitter created a new account probably to avoid the history of the original deletion, filing a Deletion Review request asking reviewers to look at their sandbox, why???? Essentially, they were trying to use Deletion Review to bypass AFC and get the article reinstated.
That is what I sort of thought. Requests to DRV to look at new sources are common. That isn't how DRV is supposed to be used, because the draft should either be moved into article space subject to AFD or reviewed through AFC, but usually the requests seem to be in mistaken good faith. The blanking of the draft did not seem like good faith. This seems to have been an attempted end run, but an end run is something that I would rather see on television when I am watching American football. Deletion Review is working, in that it isn't allowing the system to be gamed. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:15, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that's true. Once you have a finding at AFD of non-notability (as opposed to, e.g., a {{db-nocontent}} speedy deletion), you really aren't supposed to recreate an article on that subject. Wikipedia:Deletion review says "Deletion review may be used...if significant new information has come to light since a deletion that would justify recreating the deleted page", and "Look at these new sources" can constitute "significant new information".
Therefore, if an article was deleted at AFD, and (months or a few years later) you find new sources, you are allowed to go to DRV and ask someone to look at your new sources. If DRV agrees, the old article can be undeleted and you can expand it. There is no requirement to use either the Draft: space or AFC.
I don't think that we should look at blanking a draft as "not good faith". Thilio's probably correct that it's a sign of them accepting that the draft is unlikely to be accepted. That's not gaming; that's communication, and what it communicates is that you should see whether {{db-author}} applies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I respectfully disagree with User:WhatamIdoing as to whether this was a case for Deletion Review and as to their interpretation of a deletion for non-notability. They are referring to WP:DRVPURPOSE3, which does say:
Deletion Review may be used … if significant new information has come to light since a deletion that would justify recreating the deleted page;
.
Yes. That provision has long been interpreted in different ways. However, it is clarified by not provision 10 below, which adds:
Deletion review should not be used … to ask for permission to write a new version of a page which was deleted, unless it has been protected against creation. In general you don't need anyone's permission to recreate a deleted page, and if your new version does not qualify for deletion then it will not be deleted.
I think that contradicts their statement:
Once you have a finding at AFD of non-notability (as opposed to, e.g., a {{db-nocontent}} speedy deletion), you really aren't supposed to recreate an article on that subject.
You are allowed to create an article on the subject, as long as it isn't the same article. DRV does get a lot of requests to review new sources, and tells the applicant that they can either submit a draft for review or create a new article in article space subject to AFD.
This disagreement illustrates that our guidelines on recreating articles after deletion need clarification. Reasonable editors interpret them differently, and that is a problem. I asked one question, and discovered another question that needs to be addressed. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:46, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AFD normally deletes articles because the real world doesn't have sources. Therefore "as long as it isn't the same article" is irrelevant; AFD is essentially banning "the subject", not "the sentences and paragraphs most recently used to describe the subject".
So here are the options I can see. The first is creating the article:
The article is deleted at AFD in September because it is non-notable/the real world doesn't have the right sources.
Excellent new sources appear in October.
I create a "new" article with those sources – and get accused of editing against the current/recent consensus.
The second is involving DRV:
The article is deleted at AFD in September because it is non-notable/the real world doesn't have the right sources.
Excellent new sources appear in October.
I go to DRV because (a) it says to ask them about "significant new information" that came to light after deletion and (b) I want to make sure there's consensus – and they yell at me for wasting their time.
It looks like I can't win: If I don't ask for permission, I'm "editing against consensus", which is a blockable offense. IF I do ask for permission, I'm "wasting their time". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:21, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The solution here, is to go with 1, and when "accused of editing against the current/recent consensus.", asssuming the article was deleted for notability reasons, to point to the new sources that weren't present in the article. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}18:23, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Two-Part Question
So I have a two-part question. First, is WhatamIdoing correct that Once you have a finding at AFD of non-notability (as opposed to, e.g., a {{db-nocontent}} speedy deletion), you really aren't supposed to recreate an article on that subject.? I have never heard that as a principle, although that doesn't mean it isn't correct. I see attempts to recreate improved versions of deleted articles all the time.
The second question is: What is the proper procedure if an article has been deleted by AFD, and an editor wants to recreate an article? Should the editor make a request at DRV to review the new sources, or should the editor simply create a new article in article space, subject to AFD? WhatamIdoing is concerned that the editor will be editing against consensus if they recreate the deleted article, because there was a consensus that the topic is not notable.
So maybe a third question is whether the AFD close of Delete means that the topic has been found not to be notable, or only that the article does not establish notability.
Robert McClenon (talk) 03:24, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Robert McClenon According to my knowledge and understanding on how Articles for deletion works the first answer to the first question simply its yes and no because it depends on what exactly the AFD decided. Lemme demonstrate....
A Delete close at AFD usually means there was consensus that the article as it stood did not demonstrate notability not necessarily that the topic is intrinsically non notable some AFD discussions do conclude that the subject itself is not notable regardless of article quality also In those cases recreating the page without significant new evidence is considered against consensus.
So WhatamIdoing is partly right its not a blanket rule but recreating an AFD deleted article without substantial new sources or arguments can indeed be seen as ignoring consensus.
What is the proper procedure if an article has been deleted by AFD, and an editor wants to recreate an article? Should the editor make a request at DRV to review the new sources, or should the editor simply create a new article in article space, subject to AFD? according to my understanding like If you have new significant sources that were not available or considered in the original AFD you should (a) Write the draft in Draft space or your sandbox. (b) Then submit it through Articles for creation or (c) Request undeletion at REFUND or DRV if you think the sources could change consensus. If you just recreate it in article space surly another editor may speedily delete it as a G4 recreation of a deleted AfD article thats the rule against recreating substantially the same article deleted via Articles for deletion, unless circumstances have changed… So probably DRV is the correct venue if the new evidence changes the situation. so In that way consensus can be reassessed formally.
whether the AFD close of Delete means that the topic has been found not to be notable, or only that the article does not establish notability Simply means... (a) The article failed to establish notability... (b) It does not necessarily mean this subject can never be notable... And also (c) AFD decisions are about the article as it was presented though sometimes the closer will state that consensus was that the subject itself lacks notability. Thats why G4 requires that the recreation be substantially the same if you bring new strong sources its no longer the same article. ThilioR O B O T🤖talk18:04, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the top of DRV needs to be clarified, so that people won't do the right (but not necessarily required) thing and then be told by editors that they're doing the wrong thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:40, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you mean that DRVPURPOSE3 should be reworded somehow, I agree. I remember that a few years ago, I expressed a concern about it. I think I wanted to delete it, but that it was kept. I don't know exactly what sort of "significant new information" is envisioned other than new sources, and NOT point 10 applies then, that it isn't necessary to ask DRV for permission to create a new version of the article with new sources. What is DRVPURPOSE 3 meant to apply to? What is it about? Robert McClenon (talk) 00:46, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's not how WP:AFD or WP:DRV work at all. AFD doesn't automatically forbid someone from re-creating the article; if it did, we would salt every article as a matter of course. DRV is for a page was wrongly deleted, or should have been deleted but wasn't, or that a deletion discussion was improperly closed. Meanwhile, If an article was deleted for lacking content or for having inappropriate content (which applies to most speedy deletions) and you wish to create a better article about the same subject, you can simply go ahead and do so, with no need for review. This includes eg. lacking sources. You're not even strictly required to go through WP:AFC - but if you skip it, you're essentially taking your ass in your own hands and saying "I think it's so clearly obvious that the issues from the AFD have been addressed that nobody will reasonably say this is going against that consensus." And if you're clearly wrong (if you're blatantly just ignoring the consensus) you could get sanctioned! If you're unsure, that's when you go through AFC. No editor should ever go to DRV to request recreation of an article because something has changed, though. DRV is for assertions that there was something wrong with the deletion itself (ie. it should never have been deleted), and is process-heavy and has a high standard as a result; it also, note, strictly forbids people from re-litigating the underling case regarding notability, which means that you are not allowed to go "here's a bunch of new sources I feel demonstrate notability." AFC is the process we use for, among other things, when an editor wants to create a new article whose creation may be controversial (eg. recreating a previously deleted article and they're not completely confident that the fact that things have changed since the AFD is obvious.) But, like... if an article about a journalist gets deleted as not-notable, and then they suddenly win a Pulitzer out of nowhere or something else that would unambiguously establish notability, there's no need to go through any sort of process, you can just recreate the article. --Aquillion (talk) 01:20, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Aquillion, Wikipedia:Deletion review says "Deletion review may be used...if significant new information has come to light since a deletion that would justify recreating the deleted page".
Do you believe that the discovery of excellent new sources is not "significant new information...that would justify recreating the deleted page"?
What exactly is "significant new information...that would justify recreating the deleted page", if it's not newly discovered sources? Does anything except sources justify the (re)creation of any article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:20, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What User:Aquillion says about DRV is exactly how I have understood and observed DRV to work. But both User:WhatamIdoing and I are asking the same question about Deletion Review Purpose 3. What are any examples of "significant new information" that would be the basis for an appeal to Deletion Review? WhatamIdoing is one of numerous editors who are confused by that provision. The "significant new information" is not new sources, and not point 10 makes it clear that DRV is not required to create a new version of an article either in draft space or in article space. I think that purpose 3 should either be revised or be removed. What sort of "significant new information" should be the basis of an appeal to DRV? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:38, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I don't get any feedback within a few days either here or at WT:DRV, I will launch an RFC asking whether to delete DRV purpose 3, leave it alone, or replace it with something clarified. In the next few days, is there another forum that I can use to try to get feedback on this question? We know that RFC is volunteer-time-intensive, but I think that this confusingly worded provision needs to be explained or clarified. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:37, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think one of the things to understand is, when AFD's conclusion is outdated due to the discovery of newer sources, should the process be:
AFD deleted it
You find new sources
You start a completely new article.
or
AFD deleted it
You find new sources
You get a WP:REFUND of the old version of the article, which you expand (at least to the extent of citing the new sources, even if none of the actual words in the article need to be changed).
Yup. Note also the bit about 'Macrohard' at the end of the article. Musk regularly announces all sorts of things that never see the light of day, and sometimes it's hard to distinguish from trolling. If and when 'Grokipedia' ever appears, it might be worth taking notice of, though I can't see it being much of a threat to Wikipedia: different intended audience. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:35, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, I'm kinda curious is conservapedia suffers from an AI problem. On one hand, a lot of AI has a slight left-lean in politics, but on the other hand conservapedia also seems like the place to have a ton of tech bros. Gaismagorm(talk)17:57, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Who wants to volunteer to help Musk make even more money? It would be worse than having banner adds on Wikipedia. It's creepy. Then there is the problem of Copyvio. Few sue the MWF over copyright violations because it's a non-profit, no money changed hands, and the responsible party is a single anonymous editor who is not worth suing. However Musk has 100 billion dollars and it's a for-profit entity, any AI-generated copyvio has measurable damages (page views), it will be a honey trap for every lawyer in the country. -- GreenC18:26, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think Musk's plan includes volunteers. He's expecting Grok to produce articles unaided. And I don't think that copyvio is going to be the only legal issue if he does that, given the (now mathematically proven to be unavoidable [59]) pattern of hallucinated content LLM's generate. The thing is essentially guaranteed to generate libellous statements at some point. Maybe not often, but enough to make the whole thing problematic. If, that is, this isn't just more of Musk's trolling, and he is genuinely planning to release it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:36, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Musk is a guy that doesn’t shy away from throwing money. He rarely if ever aborts projects. The project not being closed and instead continuing to exist for at least the next hundred years seems more plausible. Also maybe Grok will also do vandalism reverting and maybe we will geta fully automated wiki 95.5.189.54 (talk) 21:19, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You americnas are weird, though I looked at the list and it seems to be largely matters not related to money, and not all of them seem to be promises. I stand corrected 95.5.189.54 (talk) 07:51, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. I wonder though, where do these LLMs get their info from? Oh that's right, they either get it from Wikipedia making them reliant on us or they get it from every website making them a complete mess. Gaismagorm(talk)21:28, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Besides, we already have a vandalism bot. We are fine. I also doubt many people would trust grokipedia, cause, you know, it's grok, an AI somehow worse than Gemini. Gaismagorm(talk)21:33, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is a possibility he is also trying to "flood the zone" with cheap garbage to dislodge Wikipedia's search and AI-training dominance. -- GreenC18:35, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"yo grok copy wikipedia but no leftist woke bullshit and stuff and say that im really dope"(Yes, this is kind of stolen from a dude on the Polish Discord.) Brickguy276 (talk) 18:57, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Brickguy276 For #1, the total includes disambiguation pages. There are 370,648 disambiguation pages plus a further 120,848 set index articles (so just under half a million total). Identifying a count of lists is a bit trickier, but I would guess somewhere in the range of 50-100,000 - it is muddied because there are a lot of things that we would generally consider "real articles" that are also categorised as lists in some way, because they contain a list element. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:50, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They'll be counted in the estimate for lists. Again there's some difficulty identifying them clearly from the category, but maybe a thousand? Andrew Gray (talk) 08:34, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Brickguy276 and Andrew Gray: As for counting lists, I just realised that there's a table at Wikipedia:Content assessment#Statistics that's relevant. At the time of writing, it says that there are 383,190 articles assessed as lists, not including 2,460 featured lists, giving a total of 385,650 articles assessed as some kind of list. In addition to the caveats listed in the above message about counting lists, not all articles are assessed, as noted in the table. Furthermore, the table at Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists lists 213,096 pages, for what that's worth. All the figures noted here would include lists of lists. Graham87 (talk) 09:02, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Very interesting! I didn't think to check the talkpage assessments. Will dig into that one tonight, as it's a surprisingly large discrepancy.
@Graham87 So I had a look into this. The content assessments list has some double-counting - note that it says we have ~8.3m articles overall. After deduplication, I think it's a total of around 343k. It still seems very high, though! Category:List-Class List articles (lists project, lists rating) is 164k; their count of all pages includes a good few categories etc.
It looks like list-classed articles include a lot of borderline things - eg pages like Chief of Naval Operations or Electoral district of Canterbury which is are combination of a detailed article plus a list of officeholders, and some less developed articles like Beer in Africa which are just a disorganised list of entries but might get reclassed if someone worked on it. There's also some set index pages, all the day/year articles, and timelines (about half of which are categorised as lists, half aren't).
Ultimately it feels like it's just a very fuzzy thing to define - we've no clear cutoff for what constitutes "A List", unlike a disambig page - and I guess we seem to have two sets of people approaching it in different ways... Andrew Gray (talk) 21:11, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Input needed: Lady Gaga Rio concert attendance figures
Hi everyone, there is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Lady Gaga regarding the reported attendance of Lady Gaga's free Rio concert at Copacabana Beach. Some reliable sources (CNN, Guardian, etc.) cite "2.1–2.2M" from City Hall, while others (Pollstar, Billboard, Variety, Rolling Stone, etc.) report "2.5M" based on organizers (Live Nation). We’re debating the best way to reflect this in the article. Additional input from uninvolved editors would be appreciated. CHr0m4tiko0 (talk) 13:47, 1 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
utm_source=chatgpt.com
We have over 4000 links that match a search for insource: utm_source=chatgpt.com ([60])
We could. It would least eliminate the edits where the editor thought that they were doing the right thing by posting LLM-generated content, but the worst edits are those where the editor knows it is wrong but still persists in doing them. In that case (I don't think I'm revealing any beans here) the editor can simply change the URL. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:54, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We have filter 1346, but it only adds a tag. (I haven't gone through these search results yet because I'm more focused on finding the AI text that isn't already obvious.)
I think we should. Many new editors seem genuinely unaware that LLMs hallucinate citations, and the edit filter could warn them about this. Helpful Cat {talk}13:22, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Much as I'd like to see LLM-generated stuff to be nuked at the door when it comes to WP, I believe many of these tags are merely leftovers in reference links that were found by using ChatGPT as a search engine. Which naturally still comes with a certain baggage, but the beast does perform more commendably as a search engine than as a prose generator, so it's probably not quite as much an indication of dark deeds as it may seem. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:02, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that these tags are more useful than not having them. If there was an automatic "please remove the tag", or such tags led to automatic reversion and therefore actively brought about removal, then all that would mean is less ability to track the edits. CMD (talk) 14:36, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You may be interested in T387903 which summarizes some investigation (mostly by @Chaotic_Enby) into what these particular parameters could be used to work out. Basically (at the time): only chatgpt of the major LLMs was adding similar parameters, and only when you were using it more-or-less as a replacement for google search. If you actually asked it to write you an article to copy in, the links it included wouldn't contain the parameters. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 02:58, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping. I haven't checked if it changed since, but, to second what other editors said, we shouldn't try to remove these tags. They're not harmful by themselves, but useful evidence calling for a closer investigation of these edits. Like you said, they come from ChatGPT's search function (which is by itself less prone to hallucinations, as it searches through existing links), but can easily correlate with relying on ChatGPT to summarize and potentially misunderstand these same sources. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 03:06, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how I feel about this one. Obviously using ChatGPT for citations is problematic, but the URL tag is a good indicator of an edit that needs an extra pair of eyes or a user excessively using LLMs for editing. Removing the tag would make it harder to identify these. Rosaece ♡ talk ♡ contribs13:24, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The British National Archives contains records created by the House of Lords.[1]
^"Parliament". The National Archives. June 30, 2025. Retrieved October 2, 2025.
it seems like I'm doing exactly what we want editors to do. I used a tool to research a topic and find reliable sources, and then I cited one of those sources in an article. The only thing I did "wrong" was fail to chop off the silly utm stuff in the URL, which honestly is something our automated referencing tools should just do automatically. Sure, we don't want people copy-pasting LLM output into articles, but why is utm_source=chatgpt.com in a reference URL evidence they did that? RoySmith(talk)15:23, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're doing what we want editors to do, the problem is that when people use ChatGPT to "find sources" they often just plop the ref in there without checking whether the text they are adding/referencing is actually backed up by the source, possibly without even reading the source. Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:19, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not evidence, just a warning sign -- it will have false positives, but even if e.g. 50% are false positives, the other 50% will be actual problematic cases. Mrfoogles (talk) 22:27, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Mrfoogles: BTW, it is evidence, it's just not proof. For instance, I asked ChatGPT to create "Give me the biography of Joseph Bruh, operator of the sole lighthouse of Nebraska with three sources used as references, in the manner of a Wikipedia article, include URLs in the references", and I got this
“
Joseph Bruh (born 1969) is an American eccentric, local historian, and the self-appointed operator of the Nebraska Lighthouse, the only lighthouse in the landlocked state of Nebraska. Constructed in 1997 in a cornfield outside Broken Bow, the lighthouse has become a minor roadside attraction and symbol of Bruh’s lifelong dedication to maritime traditions despite the absence of an ocean or navigable coastline in the state.
Early life
Bruh was born in Grand Island, Nebraska, and developed an interest in lighthouses after reading Beacons of the World at the local library at the age of nine.[1] Though his family had no ties to seafaring, Bruh became fascinated with the discipline of lighthouse keeping, often staging “beacon drills” using a desk lamp and sheets hung from his bedroom ceiling.
Nebraska Lighthouse
In 1997, Bruh obtained a building permit originally intended for a grain silo and used it to erect a 45-foot lighthouse tower in a soybean field outside Broken Bow.[2] Declaring himself the sole lighthouse keeper of Nebraska, Bruh began maintaining daily logs of weather conditions, visibility reports, and “ship sightings,” which typically included trucks on Highway 2 and migratory geese. Despite early complaints from farmers that the lighthouse beam disrupted livestock sleep patterns, the structure has since become a quirky tourist attraction, drawing visitors curious about Nebraska’s “inland coast.”
Legacy and cultural impact
Bruh established an annual Harbor Days Festival featuring paper-boat races in irrigation ditches, lectures on maritime history, and folk music inspired by sea shanties.[3] Scholars of Americana and regional folklore often cite Bruh’s work as an example of “imaginative place-making” in the Great Plains, blending maritime tradition with Midwestern landscape. To this day, he continues to operate the Nebraska Lighthouse, stating that “a prairie is just an ocean with better crops.”
You literally proved our point. It isn't about style, it's about ChatGPT confidentiality making up sources and how people aren't going to check them. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 20:40, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We need to have an edit filter for the ChatGPT url tag that makes the edit in question a proposed edit, which would allow another editor to check the edit's factuality. Mikeycdiamond (talk) 20:43, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the 'warning' should be say something like 'Please check this URL to make sure it works before you post this. If it's broken, please find a new source'. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The issue isn’t only that it might be dead, though: it means the rest of the text is likely chatgpt written and the author may not have checked the sources to see if they actually support it. Mrfoogles (talk) 20:32, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would appreciate some uninvolved editor input at Talk:NCIS: Sydney for an RFC about what to list as production company for this series and whether that has any impact on what should be listed as country of origin or multiple countries of origin. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. newsjunkie (talk) newsjunkie (talk) 01:36, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitration committee election commission – call for candidates
@Thilio, this message says "you can nominate yourself". Nominating yourself is the normal thing to do.
For newer folks, it may help to know that while none of these things are officially mandated by WP:ACERULES, in practice, nobody ever gets elected unless:
This is a call for volunteers to serve on the electoral commission, so the edit count for arbitrators isn't a relevant factor. I can't recall off the top of my head if there have been any non-admin electoral commissioners, but there have been non-admin reserve electoral commissioners. The selection process is low-key and only collects support statements, so having a track record of being trustworthy and exercising good judgement is most useful. Typically, yes, if admins volunteer, they'll get the most support, but I wouldn't say you have to be an admin to garner support. isaacl (talk) 21:53, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Display newcomer homepage. However disabling it also disables your homepage. isaacl (talk) 00:08, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard § Addition of abusefilter-modify-restricted right to EFMs. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 09:18, 4 October 2025 (UTC)
View all 21 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, the User Info Card now displays currently active global lock/blocks. [14]
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