Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

Doug Weller talk 15:34, 16 February 2026 (UTC)See archived discussion.

Well, in theory at least anyone can write an essay, though with a topic like this I'd not recommend anyone trying unless they are very familiar with both relevant policy, and with long-running debates over the issue. Any volunteers? I'd offer, but I have my doubts that some in the community would accept my position on this.

Given that some have found reasons to object to the phrase, it would probably be better to avoid actually using 'Jew tagging' in the title. And maybe it might be better to try to broaden the scope out a little: Wikipedia:Ethnic and religious tagging? The problem isn't confined to content on Jewish individuals only, though some of the worst examples can be found there. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:47, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

I was thinking about writing one, but Real Life caught up with me and I haven't had the time to devote to doing a good job with it. I like Andy's suggestion for a title and focus, since it's a broader problem and shouldn't single out a particular religion or ethnicity, any more than it's permitted in articles, but I don't think we should completely expunge the term or minimize the observable fact that it's the most troublesome example. I've noticed a recent uptick in malicious tagging, and a relative decline in what I would term benign Judeophilic descriptors. If I start one I'll link here so others can participate.

I would welcome examples of similar phenomena with other religions or ethnicities to cite - I've seen some tagging of Muslims, for example, in India-related topics.

There's also a parallel issue of nested nationalities, such as English/British, that has caused strife, especially if the subject is perceived as a different ethnicity. I'm not prepared to work that out. Acroterion (talk) 15:56, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

I didn't intend to propose omitting the term 'Jew tagging' entirely, just not using it as a title: sorry if that wasn't clear. And I'd think that any essay on the topic should clearly include a link to Edward Kosner's Wikipedia-focussed article with that title in Commentary , as a useful outsider's perspective. An essay clearly needs to distinguish between relevant and proportional discussion of a subject's ethnicity and/or faith and the context-free, reductionist/stereotyping bald-assertion-sentence 'X is Jewish' tagging that Kosner and so many others object to, and I think that Kosner's piece expresses it better than most of us could. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:09, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

The Jewish version of this tagging does have it's own specific issue. The tagging is done by either those who feel the Jewish identity is being hidden, and those who want to (((tag))) Jewish people. This is opposite to the issue found in most articles, where people attempt to exclude individuals from a given ethnicity. Of course the solution is always to follow the sources, but that regularly differs from the POV of editors. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:01, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, but if you really think that with the exception of Jewish subjects, 'exclusion' is the only issue, I don't think you've been looking very hard. And no, 'following the sources' isn't necessarily sufficient. It is entirely possible to engage in the most egregious tagging while using an impeccable source. Which is one of the reasons why it can be difficult to deal with. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:13, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

How is including a factual detail that "impeccable sources" say "the most egregious tagging"? PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:57, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Often, it isn't the 'what' but the 'how' that matters. As an example, I once got into a dispute with arch Jew-tagger User:Bus stop (now CBANNED) because he wanted an article to merely say 'X is Jewish' in a biography, rather than actually going into any detail regarding the subject's attitude to his faith and ethnicity, which was in my opinion much more enlightening for the biography. Bus stop seemed to see Wikipedia as a Jew-tagger's database, refused to countenance any content that might suggest that the Jewishness of any individual was anything but objective fact, even if the individual concerned was equivocal (which isn't that rare), and routinely resorted to the most ridiculous arguments in order to justify his obsession. In my opinion, any article that has the sentence 'X is Jewish' in it, without further context, needs looking at as potential tagging. You just don't see that in biographies elsewhere. It is reductionist, if not outright stereotyping, and reduces a human being to a mere label. At best it is bad writing. At worst, it is obnoxious. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:29, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

This is a more general issue with "tagging" (possibly better described as "labelling"), in that often an effort to get a specific word into prose is the end in itself rather than expanding the context or even writing the same thing in a less provocative style. CMD (talk) 05:38, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

See WP:NOTEVERYTHING. Something must be stated in sources in order to qualify for inclusion, but it's up to editors to determine what is or is not relevant and represents the most neutral presentation of facts. You don't need to mention someone's ethnicity any more than their weight or hair color unless it's directly relevant to the rest of the article - for example, the weight of a professional wrestler might be listed, as might the ethnicity of a prominent rabbi - but not for a botanist. Would you include "Caucasian" or "Anglo-Saxon" for every generic white person? ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 05:34, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Well, it's not only rabbis who can have their Jewish identity be relevant to their life and biography. There are indeed many people whose biographies mention their ethnicity as a relevant biographical fact. Some of them are even botanists. Andre🚐 06:18, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

And wrestlers aren't the only people whose weight is relevant. I just used obvious examples. If you have reliable sources that clearly link someone's Jewish identity to their prominence as a botanist, go for it - but the fact that they're a botanist who happens to be Jewish isn't enough. Keep in mind biographers can be biased too. ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 06:28, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

People can be notable for multiple things. Connecting their Jewishness to their primary thing isn't the standard. It's whether multiple reliable sources have something to say about that biographical fact. For example, Aaron Aaronsohn or Otto Warburg (botanist). They were botanists and also other things. A notable wrestler could also be noted for being a Jewish philanthropist. Etc. Andre🚐 18:51, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't believe I ever said it had to be their primary occupation, but again both their other activities and the relationship between that and their heritage need to qualify as notable. Enough to discuss rather than just "tag". Again, I was keeping examples deliberately simple to make a point. ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 21:01, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

• As I said in the previous discussion, you can just write the essay yourself? Essays are cheap. But I would focus mostly on "how to recognize it" and "here are the relevant policies" (eg. MOS:ETHNICITY, WP:DUE), plus maybe some convenience links to previous discussions or external coverage of the problem. I don't think trying to get consensus out of the gate is a productive use of time for an essay - just write it, see what people say, tweak it if there are minor problems or quibbles, and if there are larger disputes or irreconcilable problems, someone else can just write a competing essay. --Aquillion (talk) 21:04, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

I see way more Jews online offended that we are "erasing Jewish history" by removing that people are Jewish, honestly. See, for example, , or objecting to our sort of compromise phrasing of "raised in a Jewish family" as also antisemitic. We can never win.

You're already not supposed to add it if it is not in a reliable source. I don't know what else we're supposed to do, hide that people are Jewish even if reliable sources say they are? Is that not ridiculously antisemitic? And sure, people often break that rule. But that goes for every guideline we have. Perfect enforcement does not exist here. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:55, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Is that not ridiculously antisemitic? I hope you don't mean that the way it reads.

This isn't about hiding anything. If someone's ethnicity or religion is a significant feature of their life, it should be mentioned, as long as it's backed by sources, in conformance with the MoS. What we're discussing here is the frequent tendency to substitute ethnicity for nationality in the lede, of qualifying nationality with ethnicity, or guessing about it with no sources or no relevance to the facts of a subject's life. I'd estimate that 75-80% of such edits are malicious. Frequent targets are people who've conducted themselves in a manner that draws criticism or negative attention, whereupon they get tagged as plainly as possible. This rarely happens when someone's Presbyterian.

An essay would be helpful in explaining all this to well-intentioned editors who wish to celebrate someone's ethnicity, and are disappointed or upset that it's not appreciated. It also helps cut off debate with the malicious who are cloaking themselves with the same ostensible motive.

And please, read Kosner's piece linked above on the subject. Acroterion (talk) 01:06, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I think systematic efforts to erase Jewish history in the sense where we would hide cited information would be very antisemitic. If that's not what is being suggested, then no.

Kosner's article is him personally objecting to the fact he is labeled as being born to a Jewish family, and speculating that this was added by antisemites. Judaism is not just a religion. Where was it mentioned that we're just talking about the lead? The discussion, or Kosner's article, say nothing of the sort. The case at issue in Kosner's had nothing to do with substituting "ethnicity for nationality in the lede, of qualifying nationality with ethnicity, or guessing about it with no sources or no relevance to the facts of a subject's life".

The issue wrt Kosner was a sentence in the body of the article cited to a scholarly article from the Oxford University Press's Studies in Contemporary Jewry, from a Jewish author, solely about Jews and journalism, which names Kosner as a prominent Jewish journalist, added to the article by a seemingly well-respected editor without nefarious intentions . And the article did not even say "x is Jewish", but that he was born to a Jewish family. If that is problematic Jew tagging then how is, by comparison, discussing anyone's ethnicity or background ever acceptable regardless of sourcing? PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:25, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes, erasing Jewish history would be worse than the problem we're discussing. I mention the lede because 90% of the time this is where it pops up, peoples' attention spans being what they are. Often it's in very short articles that are nothing but lede. Kosner offers a different perspective, the out-of-context or gratuitous insertion of ethnicity. Acroterion (talk) 01:34, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Again, if this is out of context or gratuitous then what mention of ethnicity or religion isn't? PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:48, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

One that treats the subject like a complex human being, not a series of entries in a database. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:07, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

And by that you mean what? If we're going to be making guidelines we need specificity about what behaviors are and aren't okay. What makes the portrayal of one as Jewish "complex"? In an ideal world every article would be perfect, but none are. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:39, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

We are discussing an essay, here, not 'guidelines'. As for what makes the portrayal of someone as Jewish "complex", mostly the fact that it is. Because people are complicated, whether they are Jewish or not. Ultimately what we are discussing here is good writing vs bad writing, and the need for biographical content aimed at portraying human beings in all their complexity. Or at minimum, to avoid reductionist labelling. Possibly it is too much to expect this in Wikipedia, but that's no reason not to aspire to it. It requires editorial judgement, which isn't something you can create rules on. Fortunately, at least some of us (probably most, if they bother to put in the effort) have at least a little of this. That's one of the things that distinguishes us from the chatbots. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:59, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

While I completely agree that ethnic identification is relatively complex, and no less so or not much less than Jews for the Scots-Irish or Basques or Cajuns or black Americans, especially in the age of 23andme, by the very same token, describing someone as Jewish is not reductionism. That descriptor contains multitudes. Andre🚐 03:06, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Depends how you do it. Would you consider a paragraph in a biography consisting in its entirety of 'X is Jewish' as appropriate? AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:09, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

No, of course not. But every once in a while, I do read a biography that doesn't at all mention whether a person is Jewish, or mentions it very minimally, despite probably that it should. I've also occasionally seen people removing it. That Jewish identity might be a large or a small aspect of that person's overall identity or their biographical outline. I'm just saying it's possible that the pendulum may have swung compared to where it was last. Andre🚐 03:18, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia contributors, even good-faith ones, can disagree over content. Which is why we try to encourage discussing things. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:39, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

@AndreJustAndre Very few articles say, for example, that "x is Presbyterian" when discussing a scientist or whomever and including many other detailsabout their life. Why mention Jewishness for those who happen to be Jewish?

We also don't normally mention left-handedness or eye color. David10244 (talk) 18:49, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Well, first of all, it's not really true. Consider Joseph Lister, Ian Barbour, more at List of Christians in science and technology. Second of all, Jewishness is not strictly a religion, but an ethnicity and a culture as well. So it's more analogous to saying a scientist is Italian-American. Andre🚐 20:04, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

We too often say a scientist is Italian-American, “Chinese-American” etc. while others are just “American”. MarkBernstein (talk) 20:13, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Well, it depends on the relevance of that identity to their notability. Enrico Fermi is an FA and he is an Italian-American scientist, and I think should be. We say John von Neumann is Hungarian and American in the first sentence. But " a wealthy, non-observant Jewish family." in the first paragraph of the background bio. Andre🚐 20:16, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Sure, everything is complicated, and we should strive to portray that. This goes for literally every topic we can cover. So what? PARAKANYAA (talk) 14:36, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

I think I agree with PARAKANYAA. I left my thoughts in detail on the previous thread, so I won't repeat myself too much. But I think PARAKANYAA raises several strong points, that I may or may not have touched on last time this came up. While in the past there may have been issues with people trying to identify Jewishness in an article for poor reasons, there are a lot of people nowadays who are more concerned with the erasure of Jewish identity or history, so it's a bit of a delicate balancing act, which is why I don't think a special guideline is a good idea. I can't stop anyone from writing an essay in their userspace or wherever, but in my view this is probably unhelpful at best. As PARAKANYAA points out, Jewishness is not only a group of religious groups, but an ethnicity (and a cuisine, a literature, an art, a music, etc. several of each, actually) The Kosner diff as noted is not necessarily bad faith and is well-sourced, so it comes down to the subject's personal preference? A related problem is subjects that don't like their bad photos. But the point is well taken that we already have a guideline, and that guidelines are routinely disregarded. So it's hard to see how this would help, except to give admins a clearer excuse to block people, which I don't think is a good idea either in this case. Because it is hard to know if someone is "Jew tagging" out of pride or philosemitism, or bigotry. Good faith would suggest we assume the former, and politely correct people who don't follow MOS:ETHNICITY adequately rather than blocking them for a proscribed activity. Andre🚐 02:26, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I can't see anyone proposing a specific guideline here. In fact I can't really think how one would even write such a thing. Essays advise. They don't mandate, and what we (or at least some of us) are advising is a little more care about reductionist labels, and a little more consideration for the complexities of real people. That, and being prepared to deal with those who resort to reductionist labelling to push their PoVs of one sort or another. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:05, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

You are right. Nobody is proposing a guideline, so that is a straw man that I am conjuring. However, it is also the case that Doug suggested in the prior thread perhaps this would help admins block more easily, so that is what I am alluding to. It's also the case that advisory essays can sometimes obtain a high level of community consensus. I don't think this one would, and inherently, the writing of thoughts isn't a harmful or discourageable activity, but there are also other things to do that could be more helpful. For example, as I offered last time, there are plenty of redlinked people that it wouldn't be inappropriate to call Jewish prominently. Andre🚐 03:08, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Well yes, there are no doubt many missing biographies, including those for people who's Jewishness is an entirely appropriate topic. I can't see how that is particularly relevant to the issue here though, which is what a fair number of us perceive as inappropriate tagging-style content in existing articles. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:13, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Everyone is free to spend or not their volunteer hours where they see fit and what interests them. I'm just pointing out that you could say as a community Wikipedia sometimes allocates more time to the litigation of teh drama than content creation. I noticed you mentioned tagging by Bus stop, a user that has been CBANned for over 4 years. Do you have any more recent diffs that show inappropriate Jew tagging? Or examples of articles where you think the old tagging has managed to stick around? Because my experience is that any such tagging is generally promptly dealt with, and there are also false positives in that area. Andre🚐 03:23, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

As you say, everyone is free to spend their volunteer hours where they see fit, and I see no particular reason to spend mine looking for diffs to support my position when you have provided none to support yours. We clearly see things differently as far as this issue is concerned, and it seems its not just me who still sees 'tagging' (not just in regard to Jewishness) as a problem. And please drop the 'litigation and dramah' hyperbole, since we have already established that we aren't advocating rules to litigate over. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:37, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Rather than diffs, how about a little searching exercise? Enter "is Jewish." (with the double quotes and period) into an article-space search. You have already agreed with me that a paragraph consisting solely of 'X is Jewish' is inappropriate. Here's the first three I found, in a couple of minutes. . There are also many more with the same phrase just slapped, context-free, into a paragraph on other things. Given that I've got better things to do with my time than go through all 3912 results the search throws up to find them all, I'll leave that to you. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:03, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree those articles and "paragraphs" aren't good, but they're all very short and borderline non-notable. For Judith Seidman, looks like the user who added that line was indeffed as a sock later but it at least has a reliable source which is a dead link but at least provides some context: Joel Sherman it was added in November by a temp account without a source: So potentially revertable. The third has a directory entry in the big book of Jewish sports legends. Frankly, all three could potentially be merged to a list or AFD'd. Anyway, I am sure that there are many articles where they do say that the person is Jewish, but it's not really a given that all of those the appropriate remedy is to remove the line, rather than to expand the context. Andre🚐 04:13, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I fail to see why being 'borderline non-notable' has any bearing on the appropriateness or otherwise of tagging. And if anything, an article being short makes it more noticeable. As for removal or expansion, as I illustrated with my User:Bus stop example, I'm quite prepared to support either, depending on what the source material available has to say - and in that specific case was arguing for more content. I may not always do so, but please don't make out that I'm advocating erasure. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:25, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

OK, well then I think we agree. These, and the other articles like them, are pretty bad articles, and those lines in those bad articles are also bad. They could potentially in some cases be fixed by expansion. If the eventual Jew-tagging essay says that, then I think it will be hard to criticize it from the angle I am currently taking. Andre🚐 04:29, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I just ran across some in the last few days, although I'm not going to attempt to find where it was. IMHO the purpose of an essay should be to help clarify when it IS or ISN'T appropriate to mention someone's religion, ethnicity, sexuality, etc as well as discuss the best phrasing. It should be expansive to cover various possible scenarios but with subsections for topics where it comes up frequently, such as said Jew tagging. Questions for editors to ask themselves would be things like "Would there be any reason to mention this person's ethnicity if they WEREN'T Jewish", and "Can I explain why it's is relevant to their notability?" If the only thing you can say (supported by sources) is a one sentence statement confirming that is their ethnicity it probably isn't appropriate to include. ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 05:58, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

The second question, yes. The first question, in my view, not so much. For example, there are people for whom Jewish ethnicity is relevant to their notability, but if they weren't Jewish, it wouldn't be. Andre🚐 06:06, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm not saying the answer to those questions has to always be the same, but that they're things to keep in mind. Sometimes the fact that they aren't Jewish might be specifically relevant, like someone who converted and whose faith is directly relevant to their notability. They're a religious Jew, but not ethnic, which means their faith has different cultural context, and that's probably something that ought to be discussed (and I hope would be covered by sources). Similarly for someone who's raised Jewish but converted to something else (again, if related to notability). If they only have Jewish DNA but the family has been non-observant for multiple generations then not so much.

It might be better to think of it as the first question helping to support the second one. "Their ethnicity isn't related to their notability, but I still think it should be included anyway" > "Would I still want to mention their non-notable ethnicity if it was something different?" The idea is to help people consider their bias and motivations to determine whether inclusion truly aligns with WP:NPOV. ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 06:24, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

The standard is whether reliable sources have something meaningful to say about that aspect of their biography. Andre🚐 18:52, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

You may not mean this but I don't think we should suggest that that journalist is a "self-hating Jew" (a term found in another journo's article, Ben Hecht) or "internalized antisemite". He just views it, and himself, as he sees it, which may be differently from any of us. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:25, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

In the past, every baseball player whose ancestors were Jewish was described in Wikipedia as a "Jewish-American baseball player", while those whose ancestors were not Jewish were described as an "American baseball player". (Black American players were separately tagged.). This is, of course, offensive. The euphemism "from a Jewish family" can be deployed to tag Jews whose families have not identified as Jewish for generations. It is a particular irony that Wikipedia continues to employ the Nüremberg laws to define who is a Jew. MarkBernstein (talk) 04:45, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Is that happening in 2025-2026 though? Andre🚐 04:59, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

If it isn't, it is presumably those objecting to the earlier gratuitous Jew-tagging (along with other ethno-tagging etc) who deserve thanks for cleaning things up. And it seems there are those of the opinion that there is still work to do: hence the proposal for an essay. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:11, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Maybe. I've been around for a while but there are some significant gaps in my contribution history. And I really wasn't tuned into this problem or editing in these areas in some of the older timeframes when it may have been happening. But a lot has changed on Wikipedia since then. I've been editing pretty regularly since returning in 2022. And I've definitely noticed that emphasis on reliable sourcing, BLP policy, due and undue weight, and other stuff like that is significantly greater than say, 2004-7ish. Plus the evolution of the contentious topics regimes that deal with a lot of political things. So that might have something to do with why so-called Jew or ethnicity tagging is less troublesome or dealt with more easily. I think there is also a shorter leash for tendentious and problematic editors. Which is for the good, in my view. That's why I challenged the idea that it is a current problem. I am aware of some concrete situations where a Jewish background was removed or omitted and I thought it should be there. But I'm not talking about celebrity actors or ball players, I'm talking about long-dead historical personages. At any rate, I wonder what MarkBernstein makes of the idea that the fix for it might be to expand, not remove, the mention of Jewish heritage. It is also possible that if a Jew-tagging essay is created, perhaps a counter-essay would be needed. I think Wikipedia, at least in its present-day incarnation, has a skew toward post-national, citizen of the world-type philosophy. That often means that mention of heritage or cultural context can not seem very relevant or important. I think in the last discussion, someone said they didn't believe it was ever relevant to a biography to say. Anyway, I just want people to consider both sides of this and check whether some perceptions of how prevalent this problem is or how it is handled might be outdated. Andre🚐 05:34, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Undenting a little, we're talking about an essay, not the sixth pillar, and people are free to ignore it. I am of the opinion that there is a recurring problem with editors, often, but not always, malicious, focusing on reductive descriptions of race/ethnicity/religion in biographies, in circumstances where that emphasis is dubious. We ought to have a somewhat standardized essay or guideline to point them to, so at least the persuadable can read it and understand why it's frowned upon in both practice and the manual of style, and the underlying reasons why putting people into ethnic boxes can be pernicious. It will not fit all circumstances. Perhaps I've seen too many ethnonationalist warriors or just plain bigots. In any case, I will start an essay in the next few days. I'm fighting a mild cold and am not feeling excessively smart at the moment, so when I'm feeling less fuzzy I'll give it a try and link it. Acroterion (talk) 14:42, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

There are two problems with “ethnicity/natonal labeling”… a) adding the label because the subject is “one of us”, and b) adding the label because the subject is “one of them”. Both are taking the wrong approach. The flaw is that the label is being added because the ethnicity/national identity is in some way important to the editor who added it, not because the ethnicity/nationality is important to the subject. Blueboar (talk) 15:00, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it boils down to editors who are primarily motivated to draw a line between "are they one of us" and "are they one of them." So in my mind it's a behavioral issue as much as anything else, and part of the theme I propose is examination of one's motives. Acroterion (talk) 15:08, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Re the “one of us” aspect of this… It is very difficult to convince those who care deeply about their own identities (and consider it “defining”) that the identity may not be all that important (defining) for someone else. Blueboar (talk) 15:22, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

And there are also cases where the ethnic or national or religious identity is deeply important and private and personal to the subject, and a constant thread throughout their lives. This is I think a blind spot that Wikipedians may have in thinking that this is less likely to be the case. Andre🚐 15:43, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Well, a very public biography is likely not treating it as personal and private. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:52, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

That depends if the subject is still alive. And if they have had a biography written about published about their life. Andre🚐 15:53, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

If they have a biography on Wikipedia, the X-most visited site in the world, they have a very public biography written about them. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:59, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

My point is that many Wikipedia biographies are not as complete as a 300 page book that a biographer researched and wrote about them over years. Andre🚐 16:04, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Why should something being 'private and personal' to the subject of a biography be a reason to include it? Aren't we supposed to build biographies around what secondary sources have to say on the subject, rather than trying to read the subject's mind and decide for them what we think they might want included? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:26, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I'm not saying to try to read the subject's mind. I'm referring to a situation where a subject's private life might not be known during their heyday, and comes to light later due to a biography being published at the end of their life or after their death. For example, I recently watched the HBO documentary about Mel Brooks, Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!. Not that Mel Brooks' connection to Jewishness is a secret or under-publicized. The article does mention it, mostly under the section called "Religious beliefs." But if you watch the doc, which is a roundup of Brooks' career, it talks more about his relationship to his Jewish identity and what that meant early in his career and as time went on, why he had an obsession with satirizing Hitler, etc. But you certainly might not have known as much about it in the 70s or in the 90s. Andre🚐 16:35, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia bases articles on published works. It does not base them on hypothetical content that might possibly be published later. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:49, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes, of course. But there are many articles where the published works have been published already. WP:10YEARSTEST tells us to take a long view. Andre🚐 16:53, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

If currently published works state that a subject's ethnicity/race/religion is an important aspect of their lives, we should include that with sources and with context.

If currently published works do not state that then we should not include it, with or without context.

If currently published sources are unclear about whether it is important to them, discuss the matter on the talk page and get consensus prior to inclusion.

I don't understand what the difficulty with this is? Thryduulf (talk) 17:18, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes, there's no disagreement or difficulty with that. Andre🚐 17:32, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

The key is to ask: do sources indicate that the identity is a defining characteristic for the subject? Do sources indicate that the identity is important to understanding the subject, or am I assuming that it is important - because it is important to me? If the latter, don’t include the identity. Blueboar (talk) 16:40, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, but many cases are not clear-cut. In the case of the French techno artist Gesaffelstein, real name Mike Levy, we mention he was born to Jewish parents. According to Hey Alma, "Though Gesaffelstein is a fairly private figure and hasn’t shared how he identifies, there are a few clues that he finds meaning in his Jewish ancestry. The name of his first album is “Aleph,” ... Canadian DJ A-Trak, ... referred to himself and Gesaffelstein as “Sephardic boys” and “Techno altjews” on Instagram." This source is cited in the article, but nothing about this is mentioned. Probably because it is personal and private to the artist and somewhat speculative. But one can imagine that if a biography is written in 30 years, it might have access to private correspondence. Looking at the page history, in this very month, there is a big edit war back and forth about this very thing. Andre🚐 16:52, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Feel free to imagine what you like. Meanwhile, since Wikipedia doesn't (or shouldn't) base content on the precognition of contributors, you'll have to do what the rest of us do, and argue on the relevant talk page that sources currently support your proposed text. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:11, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I think the number of issues brought up here indicates that this is something well worth having an essay or guideline about so we can all get on the same page, both literally and metaphorically. I think it would be good to set out when it is legitimate to refer to a person's Jewish religion or descent and when it becomes gratuitous. The guideline should give advice on how to distinguish deliberate bad faith Jew Tagging from everyday good faith mistakes. The guideline should also be clear that Jew Tagging can apply to people who are not actually Jewish but who are merely thought to be by deranged antisemites. I don't think that the guideline would need to be generalised beyond Judaism. As far as I am aware, there is no similar phenomenon affecting other religions but it would be just as egregious if there were and that might even merit a separate guideline if it were to become a comparable problem. --DanielRigal (talk) 17:57, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Sartre's commentaries are relevant to some of the bad-faith issues noted in this discussion: Anti-Semite and Jew. Acroterion (talk) 19:12, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

That's basically at the top of the list of philosophy essays I'd like all Wikipedians who work on politics to read. Simonm223 (talk) 19:13, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

But as David Nirenberg points out on p.475 of Anti-Judaism, even Sartre, in passionately defending a Jewish return to France, still engages in idealism and universalism in defining Jews in terms of antisemitic gaze rather than Jewish historical and cultural continuity. Sartre's worldview is that in a perfect world, the Jewish identity would disappear and be subsumed into a universal French identity. That's not realistic and not necessarily desirable either. Andre🚐 19:24, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Sartre felt that way about religion in general. However, that's a meta-discussion, we're only concerned with his views on anti-Semitism. Acroterion (talk) 19:33, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

My point is that Wikipedians might as a general rule, sympathize more with the postmodern, post-religious or post-ethnic viewpoint, that particularities or differences are less relevant than commonalities, a materialistic worldview that is just one view of things and may not be applicable to all biographies or other articles or situations. For a modern day American celebrity with limited information about any Jewish or other ethnic identity, yes. But let's make sure that we don't apply that also to cases where it shouldn't apply. Medieval individuals often lived a daily reality of different, such as residing in a ghetto or being forced to wear certain clothing or have certain special taxes and other restrictions. Andre🚐 19:50, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

At any rate, forms of "jew-tagging" was an issue in medieval European history, the hat, the yellow badge. We are post WW II, and the vivid example there, of making a racial list. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:53, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

I definitely do not agree that writing about whether someone is Jewish in their biography is equivalent to making them wear a yellow star. That is exactly the type of thing I hope is NOT written in an essay. Respecting and tolerating other cultures doesn't mean erasing or hiding them. We can embrace our differences. Andre🚐 23:32, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Again, it depends how you write about it. I've seen (and reverted) numerous examples over the years of biographies of individuals where some negative event or another (criminal charges etc) is followed by a rapid tagging of the three-word reductionist variety. Not quite a yellow star, but the motivation seems much the same: marking as 'one of them'. AKA antisemitism. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:08, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Believe me, it's not lost on me that making lists of Jews sounds worrisome, but Wikipedia has lists of every type of person, place, and thing, not just Jews. I don't doubt that there are antisemites who tag and list Jews just like the "triple parentheses" on social media. But as I'm sure you are aware, that has been reclaimed by some people. There are also many biographies about notable non-criminal, famous and successful Jewish people that fail to mention or even minimize their Jewishness, even though the subject probably wouldn't mind and might even prefer that, but more importantly the biography (the real ones, not the Wikipedia article) does include that fact prominently. As Thryduulf says, this should be simple, right? If it's an important, well-attested, reasonably comprehensive descriptor or identification that is relevant, it should be included. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to think of an article about a Jewish person who isn't known primarily for something related to being Jewish like rabbinics or academia, that gives more than a few sentences to their Jewish identity. Mel Brooks' Jewish identity could probably be an entire article. Andre🚐 04:24, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

If you want to respect differences, you would surely acknowledge that the Commentary essay linked above does not take such a sanguine view. Not everyone is going to see everything the way you do in every editing situation, especially something personal or private to them. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:33, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

A couple of recent examples I've run across: Margo Kaplan and Ron Castan, both people who have done something or have views that cause people to insist on pinning "Jewish" on them for, oh, no reason, it's just a fact that's very important to those editors. Magnus Hirschfeld is a perennial target. I'm working on an essay offline until I get something succinct together that doesn't look like a set of disconnected thoughts. Acroterion (talk) 13:22, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Is it just me or is it becoming more common? I feel like I've run into a bunch of such incidents just in the past few weeks (since I got back from a wiki hiatus), and in about two cases the users in question immediately lapsed into vicious antisemitism on their talk pages when challenged. AntiDionysius (talk) 14:12, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

It ebbs and flows. I think it's at a higher level since the new year. I've seen relatively little of the Judeophilic type, more of stubborn insistence and the occasional virulent anti-Semite. Since edit filters started to catch triple parentheses this is the best they can do. Acroterion (talk) 14:24, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and written a userspace essay: User:Acroterion/Jew-tagging. It solely reflects my own opinions and experience, and should not be confused with a guideline or a policy statement, or a Wikipedia-space essay. Acroterion (talk) 00:39, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for being thoughtful and balanced. Andre🚐 01:05, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

You're welcome. I was influenced by the discussion above, including your thoughts. Acroterion (talk) 01:25, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

That is evident, and I am grateful for that, not the least because it justifies the time I spend engaging on these issues. I feel much better about it knowing that my thoughts were taken into account, which I can tell, and that the essay urges civility, thoughtfulness, tact, understanding, and conscious engagement knowing that there can be reasonable editors reasonably disagreeing. If I had to add anything, I would add that there is nothing wrong with someone spending their volunteer editing hours editing on their own culture or heritage if that is the topic that they know about and are interested in, which necessitates some amount of distance and conscious effort at neutrality as well. Andre🚐 02:41, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

That was what I had in mind, well done, and thanks again. Andre🚐 04:15, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Well said. I think the question of erasure might possibly be clarified. MarkBernstein (talk) 02:21, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

Suggestions are welcome. Acroterion (talk) 02:41, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

Bookmarked for future reference. If this had existed last week, I would have pointed a certain editor to it. Which reminds me, categorization may also be a means of Jew-tagging, i.e., categorizing someone as "Jewish whatever" when the article only mentions Jewish ancestry without any discussion of the subject's religion or cultural identity. Donald Albury 17:09, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

• I thought about that, but it seemed a little down in the insider weeds for the time being. I will give thought to adding a very brief note, I don't want it to turn into a thesis. Acroterion (talk) 18:36, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

• User:Acroterion would you want to make shortcut WP:JEWTAG because I'll never remember where otherwise and not so organized with bookmarks. -- GreenC 17:48, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

  Must we? Andre🚐 18:00, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

I would prefer to have a more general consensus before we make a shortcut from WP space. Acroterion (talk) 18:36, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

Should we rename "Articles for creation" to "Pages for creation"? WP:AFC/C does not only apply to articles but to othe rpages in namespaces as well. ~2026-36939-5 (talk) 11:30, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

AfCs are for articles, but the fact that WP:CFC is a subpage of WP:AfC is interesting. SeaDragon1 (talk, contributions) 19:17, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

It might be more relevant to rename it "Articles for approval".

AFC exists because back in the day, we took away the ability of IPs to create pages, except for talk pages. So they'd post "I want to write about Alice Expert", or create a talk page, and someone had to help them create the article. It's really quite a different thing now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:51, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Huh. SeaDragon1 (talk, contributions) 14:29, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Uh... they're still not allowed to create Articles directly. Primefac (talk) 22:14, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Where does it say that? ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 05:22, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

WP:UNREGISTERED and WP:ACPERM. Primefac (talk) 12:15, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, but they were, many years ago, and when we took that away, Legal said we had to create an alternative route that allowed as many people to edit as possible, including creating pages. AFC was the alternative route. Pre-creation of the Draft: space (which is m:where articles go to die), IPs would post their content to a page such as Wikipedia:Articles for creation/2006-06-30, and a registered editor would copy/paste it to the mainspace for them. Sometimes people created articles in the Wikipedia_talk: namespace. Eventually, we created the original ArticleWizard and moved to a category-based system (around 2008?). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:10, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

IPs could create articles directly until 2017. Primefac (talk) 09:59, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

No, they couldn't. See, e.g., a 2008 version of WP:UNREGISTERED: IPs could only create pages directly in odd-numbered (talk) namespaces. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

My apologies, my brain forgot about non-confirmed registered users, who could create articles directly until 2017... Primefac (talk) 22:37, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Oppose. The disruption caused by renaming would be much greater than the benefit of having a more accurate/precise WikiProject title. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:10, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Oppose - meretricious. ChrysGalley (talk) 09:05, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Not really worth changing. Anyone who is making anything other than an article probably doesn't need AfC anyway. Mrfoogles (talk) 03:22, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Hello everyone,

I am the Project Lead of the international team for Wiki Loves Ramadan, and the local organizer of Wikipedia:Wiki Loves Ramadan 2026 on English Wikipedia.

I am writing to request community consensus to run a CentralNotice banner globally for Wiki Loves Ramadan 2026.

This year, the campaign includes:

• An international photo competition on Wikimedia Commons (with participating countries running local editions), and
• A global writing competition on English Wikipedia.

For English Wikipedia, the banner should clearly reflect the writing competition and link directly to Wikipedia:Wiki Loves Ramadan 2026, in addition to linking to the relevant Commons competition pages for participating countries where applicable.

For reference, the detailed CentralNotice plan (including banner structure and implementation notes) is available at: m:Wiki Loves Ramadan 2026/CentralNotice.

Before proceeding further with the CentralNotice process, I am seeking consensus from the English Wikipedia community. Feedback on banner wording, linking structure, targeting, and overall scope is very welcome. Warm Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 06:38, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

A central notice banner will go a long way to promote the project, Wiki Love Ramadan on English Wikipedia. Tesleemah (talk) 10:41, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

@ZI Jony Please make the central notices compatible with dark mode if you plan to run it on the English Wikipedia. The current designs appear to be very much incompatible with dark mode. Sohom (talk) 16:52, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

@Sohom Datta, our technical team already updated that code, hopefully CN admins will update at thier earliest convenience. Warm Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 18:00, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

I was going to suggest a different name until I saw meta:Wiki Loves X campaigns, which endorses the current name. My only suggestions are:

1. Comply with Wiki Loves X campaigns.
2. Cover any variations among different branches of Islam and among different regions.
3. Use the Arabic terms with English translations and transliterations.

I don't see any issues. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:14, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

@Chatul, thanks for thinking about a different title, and it does make sense to check how the campaign is positioned first.

Just to ground this in how the project is framed: Wiki Loves Ramadan exists as part of the Wiki Loves X family of campaigns and explicitly carries that name on Meta-Wiki, so sticking with it aligns with Wikimedia branding.

The campaign’s mission is to empower communities to contribute high-quality, freely accessible knowledge about Ramadan and the wider Islamic world, highlighting diverse traditions and practices for broader understanding and heritage preservation. Its vision is to build a comprehensive, multilingual repository of knowledge that celebrates both the diversity and shared aspects of Muslim heritage globally.

In terms of areas of focus, contributions are encouraged across:

• core Islamic topics - beliefs, practices, branches of Islam and regional traditions,
• the many facets of Ramadan - fasting traditions, prayers, Eid celebrations, and how it’s observed in different cultures,
• religious structures, landmarks, figures, and broader cultural expressions like art and cuisine.

Given that, your points about complying with Wiki Loves X campaigns, ensuring coverage of different branches of Islam and regional variations, and using Arabic terms with English translation/transliteration all sit well with the campaign’s goals. I don’t see any blockers either. Warm Regards, ZI Jony ^(Talk) 06:10, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Not a Muslim, Love the project. Topic: Ramadan in the Far North/Arctic Circle. All I know is that Canadian towns have different customs. ~2026-14035-61 (talk) 14:04, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

I do not give my consensus. Wikipedia should not be a religious Bleeding Kansas over banners about religious holidays. This site is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a chapel. ~2026-11404-95 (talk) 13:54, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

To clarify what i mean by "Bleeding Kansas", i am referring to when the Kansas territory turned into a battlefield over slavery. In this instance, the banners would end up turning Wikipedia, which is supposed to be an encyclopedia, into a battlefield for religious missionaries. ~2026-11404-95 (talk) 13:57, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

• (ec) The only people who are turning this into a battlefield seem to be those predisposed to distrust Islam (i.e., Islamophobes). It has been explained multiple times at the talk page of the project that a) Wiki Loves X is the standard format for projects of this type, and b) anyone is welcome to work to create a Wiki Loves Christmas, Wiki Loves Diwali, Wiki Loves Passover, or even Wiki Loves Festivus. That one project has been launched does not mean other projects are precluded. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 16:09, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

  If they want to plan Wiki Loves Christmas, it should be neutral like "Wiki Loves Holidays". Ahri Boy (talk) 17:44, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

  Not if it is promoting Christmas. If you call it "Wiki Loves Holidays" then it should treat all holidays equally. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:56, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I am not a Moslem. I've had issues with abusive and aggressive missionaries, but none of them have been Islamic. I see nothing in this proposal that is objectionable or in conflict with the umbrella Wiki Loves X campaigns. In the US at least, Moslems are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:54, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

While I'm okay with Wiki Loves X campaigns in general, may I suggest that ones focused on a particular religion not run as central notice banners, due to the possibility of it being seen as proselytism? Not saying that they shouldn't exist at all of course, just that it might be more sensitive to not have these particular ones as banners. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:05, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. I am not religious and have no issue with Islam as a whole, but I feel that promoting any particular religion or religious holiday globally is non-neutral and should be avoided for the same reason we don't allow religious promotion in public schools. Articles, discussions, and the project itself are of course perfectly fine since they support information and education without Wikipedia itself appearing to endorse anything in particular. Particularly considering that holidays among various religions overlap, and this would appear to prioritize one above others. ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 05:20, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

There appears to be no intention in this campaign of proselytizing or endorsing any religion or religious holiday over the others. For what it's worth, I also personally fail to see how this campaign is fundamentally different from (say) Wiki Loves Onam which promotes a Hindu festival in Kerala that has been running for the last 3 years without any accusations of proselytization or endorsement of hinduism and appears to already have the silent consensus of the community. If we were to treat this campaign differently due to concerns over the optics of bias and block it, that would actually risk introducing actual bias into the process. Sohom (talk) 05:52, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't mean to imply that it's intended, only that it might be interpreted that way.

Does Onam run a CentralNotice? That's the only thing I object to, not the existence of the campaign. If they do I haven't seen it, and my opinion applies to all religions equally - none should be singled out either by promotion OR suppression. If you were to compile a list of every holiday in every extant religion I'm fairly confident you'd have conflicts on every single day of the year. ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 06:57, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't see a entry in the calendar about Onam so my assumption would be that they did not run a central notice. Sohom (talk) 01:43, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

As a side-note, a hatnote in meta:Wiki Loves Ramadan 2026 linking to meta:Wiki Loves X campaigns would be helpful. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:54, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose any central notice banner that could reasonably be interpreted by readers as Wikipedia showing favoritism to any religion (or irreligion), as per Chaotic Enby and ChompyTheGogoat. BD2412 T 14:24, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose banner per @Chaotic Enby and @BD2412. I agree that this could be interpreted as endorsing one religion over all others. It also puts Wikipedia at risk of actually prioritizing one religion over all others - if there were WikiLoves projects for Hanukkah or Lent that made the same banner request but community consensus was against it, that could set a very bad precedent. PositivelyUncertain (talk) 01:52, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose per BD2412 Andre🚐 02:10, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm in agreement with PositivelyUncertain.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:20, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

• Meh, whatever decision we make here, we should be consistent and apply that result to other future religion-related Wiki loves X campaigns, because it would be weird if the community denied a banner for Wiki Loves Ramadan 2026, but in the future, approved one for hypothetical Wiki Loves Christmas, Wiki Loves Diwali, Wiki Loves Passover, or even Wiki Loves Festivus (to use Chris Woodrich's examples above). Some1 (talk) 02:38, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  I'm fine with that. Remind us when such a banner is requested, we'll help vote it down. Wehwalt (talk) 02:42, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  If I see it, I'll also say so. There is also no limiting principle to such a thing. If we allow this, how would we be able to deny a banner for the Church of Cannabis, or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? BD2412 T 02:46, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  I would be happier if we could get a general binding consensus, instead of doing it as a case-by-case basis (which may introduce systemic bias regarding who does/doesn't vote in specific cases). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:03, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  Agreed again. My position applies to any banners associated with any religion, and I think an official proposal to clarify that it applies universally is a good idea to prevent exactly what I'm concerned about. Perhaps there should also be a broader standard relating to banners for any contentious topics, or ones that might be. The individual campaigns are volunteer run so as long as they comply with guidelines I'm not concerned about their subject matter, but the appearance of an official endorsement needs to be considered for banners.

  
  

  I'm not familiar with the technical side of things, but perhaps these campaigns that might be disallowed from central banners under such proposals could be allowed to add something just to specific articles they agree are directly relevant? That allows the possibility of multiple running at once. It would need to be limited to ones that are clear such as "Holiday within X religion", not "Holy site significant to multiple religions".

  
  

  I don't have much experience with pump - should additional aspects like this be broken down in new sections, or are spurs expected to split off within the initial proposal? It seems to be a somewhat looser format than many areas. ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 09:48, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  It's a looser format indeed, but (at least at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) and here) it can absolutely be helpful to break down the discussion into separate clear proposals for people to discuss, while Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) is more of a completely open discussion. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:52, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  Wikipedia loved the Jewish Museum in the past, but I don't remember seeing a banner for it. Andre🚐 02:44, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

• Conditional agree This is, of course, a marvellous idea. However, there is the obvious rider, that this initiative must be balanced by extending the same courtesy to the many other areas that deserve the same consideration. Otherwise Wikipedia would be guilty of crass discrimination. The "Wiki loves Ramadan" initiative needs to be followed by other initiatives such as "Wiki loves Lent", "Wiki loves the Heart Sutra", "Wiki loves Passover", "Wiki loves the elephant goddess Vināyakī"... in fact we are just getting started, there are so many seriously overlooked areas: "Wiki loves black men", "Wiki loves elderly white men", "Wiki loves young brown men", "Wiki loves white boys", "Wiki loves young British working class girls", "Wiki loves cis white men"... Our time will be entirely taken up with all the things Wiki needs to love, and with posturing about how virtuous we are for being so virtuous. I guess there won't be time left for writing an encyclopaedia, but if Wikipedia keeps indulging this sort of stuff, there won't be an encyclopaedia. If Wikipedia is to survive the challenges of AI, it needs to focus on what it would take for Wikipedia to become a gold standard for epistemological reliability or truth so it can be a trusted resource as a core training ground for AI. That's a big ask, but if we can't take up that challenge, then there is no future for Wikipedia, and we may as well let it implode into sectarian ideological dementia. — Epipelagic (talk) 09:51, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  I think the underlying goal for campaigns of increasing and improving the quality of articles on underrepresented topics is admirable - but splashing a banner across the whole site to point it out is probably less so. ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 10:13, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

I see the potential for future misuse here, by projects whose main goal is simply to display their banner on Wikipedia for several weeks. To prevent that, there should be a clear time limit (around five days), and any future requests should need to demonstrate clear community interest in the project in previous years.Ponor (talk) 10:59, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

@Ponor, it's not in the English Wikipedia communities remit to decide how central notices are displayed on other Wikipedia. There are already multiple policies about central notices and how and when they can be displayed on meta. If you are interested in "further misuse" the correct place to engage is on meta. Sohom (talk) 01:56, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Where did they say anything about other sites? ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 02:08, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

I interpreted "on Wikipedia" as referring to other language version as well. Sohom (talk) 03:02, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

By "project" I meant all these "Wiki loves X" projecs, not other wikis. Religious, national, or political banners are too polarizing. People under a certain trillionaire's tweets read it as our endorsement. Ponor (talk) 02:08, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

So... you all know that every now and again, we get newbies saying "Why are there all these Featured articles on the Main Page always about subjects I don't care about, and there are never any FAs about subjects that I like? Wikipedia is soooo biased!" And we all tell the newbie that TFAs are based on what WP:VOLUNTEERS choose to write, so if they want an FA on their favorite subject, then they should improve the relevant article, get it through the FA process, and we'll cheerfully run it. We know this is basically impossible for the newbie to do in practice, but I at least don't feel guilty at all for telling them that there's no cabal controlling which articles get turned into FAs.

The same thing's happening in this discussion. Someone's done a huge amount of work, and we're all sitting here saying "Why isn't this banner on a subject I like? It's soooo biased!"

If you want a "Wiki Loves ___" banner on the thing you care about, then go create the program, get it through the CentralNotice banner process, and the CN admins will cheerfully run it. There's no discrimination based on subjects that some people don't feel an affinity for, or that your mother thought was inappropriate for a dinner party conversation – no "well, it's not polite to say anything about religion" or "we can't do anything about a specific nation" (though I don't remember seeing any similar complaints about m:Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month). We've even had contests that combine both religion and national sentiment (e.g., m:Twelve Apostles of Ireland Challenge). For "political" ones, we need look no further than Wikipedia:Wiki Loves Pride, which has run here without objection for a dozen years now (maybe it's only certain religions, certain countries, and certain politics that we can't stomach?). If you want to get Wikipedia's articles improved in a given area, then run a campaign yourself. Just remember that "improved" doesn't mean "favorable to". A "Wiki Loves Incompetent Politicians" campaign could easily result in articles being improved without any of the subjects liking the results. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:16, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

I doubt that "Wiki Loves Incompetent Politicians". After becoming interested in Cincinnatus, I started a list of honest politicians as a collection of such paragons. They were well-sourced and you can check their merits for yourself as it didn't get to be very long:

Anyway, Wiki didn't love the idea as it was renamed to list of politicians renowned for their integrity. It survived one AfD but not a second and so you now have to go elsewhere to find the details.

So, what does Wiki love? In my experience, its loves include:

• Wiki loves death – Deaths in 2026 is one of the most popular pages
• Wiki loves nationalism – it insists on pinning a national label onto everyone as their most important attribute
• Wiki loves war – WP:MILHIST is probably the most successful project

I could go on but you get the idea. These enthusiasms don't get promotional paeans because they don't need them. A banner that promotes "Wiki loves X" is, in fact, a sign that it doesn't love it so much.

Andrew🐉(talk) 21:05, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

That's an absurd comparison and you should absolutely know better. FAs run on a single page for a single day, and I've never seen one that I would consider to be contentious, although granted I don't pay much attention to them. Plus they're presented as just an interesting topic, no "Wikipedia Loves X" statement which is clearly non-neutral. Ramadan lasts for an entire month and the banner would run on all of English Wikipedia, precluding any others (religious or not). If someone submits a proposal to run one for Purim, who's going to decide whether Judaism or Islam takes precedence? Are you volunteering to moderate that discussion? What if someone starts a "Wikipedia Loves the United States of America" campaign and wants to splash that across the entire site? I know we have many middle eastern editors who do great work, and given the current situation they'd be entirely justified to take issue with what would appear to be endorsement of military aggression. Next thing you know WMF legal is getting involved and central notices get canceled altogether. Let's just head things off now instead of starting down that path, eh? ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 08:52, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-centralnotice-banners WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I also made it clear that I believe this should apply equally to all religious campaigns and in fact all contentious topics, to err on the side of caution, and that a proposal should be started regarding official guidelines to that effect so the community can try to ensure they're as unbiased as possible. Groups of editors promoting subjects they're passionate about is great AS LONG AS it's not at the expense of others. Campaigns themselves can all run simultaneously - banners cannot. ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 08:57, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

As did I, asking to be pinged when a similar request involving another religion was made, so I could help vote it down. I'm afraid the facts get in the way of the prose upthread. The project at issue is free to continue, just without a central notice (though I have noticed WIKI LOVES RAMADAN occasionally on my cell phone over an article). The consensus that was asked has not been given. Will no one close this to that effect? Wehwalt (talk) 14:32, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

@ChompyTheGogoat, what makes you believe that this banner would be precluding any others? That's not how it works.

At the moment, depending on the interface language you select in your preferences and your geolocation, there are supposed to be banners running for tax season donations in three European countries, three Wiki Loves events (Folklore, Africa, Ramadan), two campaigns related to International Women's Day and Women's History Month, and three WMF-sponsored conferences. None of these are preventing any of the others from being shown. There's an established system for limiting impressions (called putting a banner on a "diet"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:18, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

So if multiple religions all applied for one at the same time, users would see any and all of them? ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 20:22, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

And how is a Ramadan running one when this clearly isn't going to reach consensus? ChompyTheGogoat (talk) 20:23, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Wait… there is an option that gets central notices canceled altogether? Where do I sign up? Blueboar (talk) 17:06, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

The correct place to do that is by doing a meta RFC. Sohom (talk) 20:20, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Tough call. I find some of the opposition arguments above borderline ridiculous, but I'm also unsure myself. For a Wiki Loves X to happen, someone has to organize it. Anyone who wants Wiki Loves [something else] merely has to step up and do the work to make it happen. I'm delighted that ZI Jony and others on the team have coordinated to make Wiki Loves Ramadan possible, and I trust we will get some good photos and article edits for it. The question is about the extent of promotion. CentralNotice is, as I understand it, the most visible possible type of notice. Presumably, as it is in part a recruitment drive, it will be displayed to all users, logged in or not. There aren't very many banners, other than donation banners, which rise to that level of project-wide prominence and folks are right to think about rules. This would be, AFAIK, the very first such notice of a Wiki Loves X about a specific religion, and I share concern about any centralnotice focusing on a specific religion. We have, however, run events about cultures, and the extent to which religion and culture are separate is complicated to say the least. Culture/practices associated with Ramadan basically covers how 2 billion people live their lives, including multiple entire countries [practically], live their lives for a full month out of every year. It's a genuinely tough call. I think I'd have no trouble with a banner based on geolocations in primarily Muslim countries, or banners at the top of relevant articles, but for all of enwiki? I think I land neutral-to-weak-oppose, where I would be for any religion-specific event. Another possibility would be to have a year-long "Wiki Loves Religion" that displays banners at key times for various religions, but (a) that would be a huge amount of work that we may not have organizers for, and (b) Wiki Loves Ramadan is already a thing and already happening. This is a lot of words for a [more or less] neutral, sorry. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:59, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Can't we just ask that the organizers of all "Wiki Loves X" campaigns... pick a different slogan when advertising them on banners here? Full disclaimer: I don't like the naming scheme, never particularly have (it's twee and much too artificially kumbayah-ey), so any chance to get rid of it is fine by me. We'd still get complaints about any Islam-focussed campaign, the way we do about fashion designer TFAs and, more recently, Genshin Impact DYKs, but, you know what, you can't make everybody happy. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 06:39, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

"Wiki Documents Ramadan" maybe? Sohom (talk) 06:54, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

• Wiki Documents Pride
• Wiki Documents Folklore
• Wiki Documents Ramadan
• Wiki Documents Onam

You know what, I like it. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 07:46, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Personally, I think it sounds a bit more like corporate-speak than I like. If there is consensus to use a different phrase, perhaps something like "Wiki Explores Z", to summarize the reader experience from browsing articles related to Z? isaacl (talk) 15:55, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I really like Wiki Explores! Maybe Wiki Studies could work too? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:02, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I'd also like any of these!

@ZI Jony, as the organizer, would a change like this be something your project would be amenable to? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 22:52, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I would support "explores", "documents", "studies", etc. Unless I'm misunderstanding what these "Wiki loves X" campaigns are about, the word "loves" feels too restrictive. If a good-faith editor wants to start a campaign to improve and expand coverage of genocide-related articles on Wikipedia, they couldn't start one under the current naming scheme because "Wiki loves genocide" sounds... well... inappropriate. Some1 (talk) 01:21, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Also, 'Wiki loves [singer]'… ~2026-68406-1 (talk) 05:24, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Real " This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it" energy. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 18:53, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't particularly care that we're running banners for a wiki event on a religious topic, though I will not oppose the broad ban proposed above. I will note that as part of the Foundation's recent update to its banner and logo change policies, they prohibited logo changes (but not banners) for "primarily religious or political" holidays. This provides some precedent for handling these topics differently from others. I also like GLL's idea of changing the name of this type of event.

I do care about keeping the number and frequency of these banners contained. The recent mess with Wiki Loves Folklore (if that link breaks, search for "Let's review"), which had settings so excessive its banners had to be repeatedly reduced by CentralNotice admins, should not be repeated. I unfortunately see no indication of what settings (impressions per day for logged in and logged out users) will be used for this banner campaign on the page linked by @ZI Jony and the CentralNotice request simply says "To be determined by Central Notice admin". I must also point out that the linked page says "Once your local landing page is ready and the banner text is available in your language(s), the CentralNotice banner can be scheduled for your country", which seems to inappropriately presume a 1:1 correspondence between languages and countries. I would appreciate more information on what, exactly, would be done were we to support the proposed banner campaign here: What countries would this run in and on what diet settings? Toadspike [Talk] 10:02, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Courtesy link to meta:Requests for comment/Religion-focused CentralNotice banners. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 13:22, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Through excellent arguments in that RfC, I ended up changing my mind, and now support this running as a banner, provided it is made clear that "loves" does not refer to proselytism, but to a love of knowledge, a passion for practices and peoples. I am still open to "studies", "explores", or "documents" as alternative wordings. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 01:03, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Support. I am invested in this, but more as a cultural push then the religion. Some religions and cultures are so intertwined with each other that there is no way entangle them. Wordings can be updated accordingly if the community thinks that 'loves' is a word to be avoid in this instance, and possibly for consideration for future runs, if any. – robertsky (talk) 05:51, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't like the wording wiki loves x, but any change should be global; as long as the other articles are adhering to that nomenclature, Wiki loves Ramadan should as well. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:01, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Yep, that would be the ideal way to go at it. Like Some1 showed above, that same "Wiki Loves" issue also applies to other cases beyond religions. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:00, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

The global change should be done for future runs. A change for this run will be disruptive not just on wiki but also any outreach efforts off wiki. – robertsky (talk) 04:02, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Quick facts Scientific classification, Type species ...

Palaeotherium Temporal range: Middle Eocene – Early Oligocene 43.5–32.5 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N Da. S T Ypr. Lut. B Pr. Rup. Ch.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Perissodactyla
Family:	†Palaeotheriidae
Genus:	†Palaeotherium Cuvier, 1804
Type species
†Palaeotherium magnum Cuvier, 1804
Other species
†P. medium Cuvier, 1804 †P. crassum Cuvier, 1805 †P. curtum Cuvier, 1812 †P. duvali Pomel, 1853 †P. castrense Noulet, 1863 †P. siderolithicum Pictet & Humbert, 1869 †P. eocaenum Gervais, 1875 †P. lautricense Stehlin, 1904 †P. muehlbergi Stehlin, 1904 †P. renevieri Stehlin, 1904 †P. ruetimeyeri Stehlin, 1904 †P. pomeli Franzen, 1968 †P. crusafonti Casanovas-Cladellas, 1975 †P. llamaquiquense Casanovas-Cladellas & Santafé Llopis, 1991 †P. giganteum Cuesta, 1993 For subspecies suggested, see below.
Synonyms
Genus synonymy Paleotherium Cuvier, 1804 Paloeotherium Cuvier, 1804 Palaetherium Rafinesque, 1814 Paloetherium Rafinesque, 1814 Salaeotherium Roulin, 1829 Palacotherium von Meyer, 1838 Synonyms of P. magnum Palaeotherium girondicum Blainville, 1846 Palaeotherium aniciense Gervais, 1848–1852 Palaeotherium subgracile Aymard, 1853 Palaeotherium magnum parisiense Gervais, 1859 Palaeotherium stehlini Depéret, 1917 Palaeotherium franzeni Casanovas-Cladellas & Santafé Llopis, 1980 Synonyms of P. medium Palaeotherium brivatense Bravard, 1843 Palaeotherium suevicum Fraas, 1869 Palaeotherium möschi Stehlin, 1904 Palaeotherium euzetense Depéret, 1917 Synonyms of P. crassum Palaeotherium indeterminatum Cuvier, 1822 Synonyms of P. curtum Palaeotherium latum Cuvier, 1822 Palaeotherium buseri Stehlin, 1904 Synonyms of P. duvali Palaeotherium heimi Stehlin, 1904 Palaeotherium kleini Dietrich, 1922 Synonyms of P. castrense Paloplotherium magnum Ruetimeyer, 1891 Synonyms of P. siderolithicum Plagiolophus siderolithicus Pictet & Humbert, 1869 Synonyms of P. eocaenum Paloplotherium depereti Stehlin, 1902 Synonyms of P. muehlbergi Palaeotherium velaunum Blainville, 1848 Dubious species Palaeotherium gracile von Meyer, 1839 Palaeotherium parvulum de Serres, 1844 Palaeotherium commune Blainville, 1846 Palaeotherium primaevum Aymard, 1853 Palaeotherium gervaisii Aymard, 1853

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Hi folks! A proposal for providing zoomed-in fossil ranges focusing on a single period, with {{Period fossil range}}, was discussed on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology, which received broad support for being used in specific cases. It would show up in addition to the main range generated by {{Geological range}} (for example in taxoboxes or formation infoboxes). Some editors suggested querying broader input outside of the WikiProject, so I am asking here if anyone has feedback about it!

Here is an example to the right, suggested by User:IJReid! Beyond this one, all 12 possible bars can be found at {{Period fossil range/rangebar}}. Courtesy ping to people in the earlier thread: @The Morrison Man @Hemiauchenia @African Mud Turtle @LittleLazyLass @IJReid @Jens Lallensack Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:27, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

It feels like a useful inclusion for us at our WikiProject, but there is always the worry that by including additional "technical" details we could oversaturate the infobox with details that are in some way against the interest of informing those who aren't as knowledgable about the geologic time scale. Input on its appearance and intuitive use would be appreciated; does it make sense in the example infobox on the right here how the timescale bars are related among other things. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 03:40, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

I appreciate your reasonable concern about oversaturation, but the infobox on the right seems way shorter than the chemboxes that we currently have at pages like Calcium. LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 17:26, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

For the sake of completion I have modified it to include the entire contents, originally it was abbreviated to focus just on the upper region. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:38, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

(partial-contents permalink) I see; thank you for that! That does change things a bit: still shorter with lists collapsed than Calcium, but still long. We probably should have a mandatory maximum infobox size but thinking about it, that's a discussion for Wikipedia at large, not Wikipedia's taxonomy infoboxes in specific. LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 19:30, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Palaeotherium is a bit extreme in having such a long list of species and synonyms. Many fossil genera have only one species and few if any synonyms, and thus have very short taxoboxes. Giving a "see text" notice as with Dimetrodon is also an option when it simply becomes too much, or collapsing the list as at Titanosauria. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 19:39, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Quick facts Scientific classification ...

Horodyskia Temporal range: Middle Calymmian – Late Ediacaran 1480–550 Ma Pha. Proterozoic Archean Had. Paleoprot. Mesoprot. Neoprot. Calymmian Ectasian Stenian
The holotype fossil of Horodyskia
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	incertae sedis
Genus:	†Horodyskia

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Quick facts Scientific classification ...

Primates Temporal range: 65.9–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N Pal. Eocene Oligo. Miocene P P Early Paleocene to Present
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Clade:	Pan-Primates
Order:	Primates

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I've been playing around with this template in my sandbox and I really like the idea. Is there a plan to add graphical support for the Precambrian? I see that the template documentation says that Periods before the Cambrian are not formally subdivided into epochs or ages, and this template will not work on them, however, I feel like it could be possible to add this support, maybe on a different scale? As an example, I added an infobox excerpted from Horodyskia with the template added twice. The first bar is using the parameter Proterozoic (an eon) and the second bar is using the template Mesoproterozoic (an era). The bar appears to display correctly in both cases (the runoff is expected as the Mesoproterozoic ends midway through Horodyskia's range), just without the graphics. mdm.bla 18:00, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Yep, now that I think about it, that could also be a great addition! I'll try to see if I can set this up for the Proterozoic as a demo. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:25, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Additionally, not sure of the reason behind this, but the {{All time 250px}} template is wider than the Phanerozoic one (which is 220px). Should they be uniformized, or should I make a separate 250px wide template for Precambrian subdivisions? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:32, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

They can probably just be uniformized. Template:All time 250px also appears to display as a larger font than Template:Phanerozoic 220px. mdm.bla 18:40, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Added a slight fix so the bars wouldn't have runoff, and are instead displayed as open on that side if there would have been some. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:36, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

• In the first example, the meaning is not intuitively accessible from the display. I spent awhile thinking the longer green bar was intended for the upper line of geological periods, as its green bar is very small. Would it work if the second bar is below the zoom in? CMD (talk) 08:17, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

  That could work! Although I'm not sure of the effect of having the more detailed/technical bar first. Alternatively, we could have the green bar on the bottom side of the second bar, or even just space them up by a few more pixels? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:24, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

  I believe having it on the bottom of the second bar is what they were suggesting. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 14:20, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

  How would that work when there are more than two bars?

  Either some sort of highlight (surrounding circle?) when a bar is narrower than (some amount) to make it more prominent or (probably more difficult to implement) a link between the bars would be clearer imo. c.f. File:Vatican_Europe_Location.svg. Thryduulf (talk) 14:42, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

  From what I understand, there shouldn't be more than 2 bars per infobox if/when this is added to mainspace. mdm.bla 14:47, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

  Yep, that's also what I'm having in mind. The only case where nested bars could be possible is the one to the right (as both the Proterozoic and its eras have bars), but in that case we should just pick the most precise one that fully covers the range (in this case, the Proterozoic as a whole, as the Mesoproterozoic one sees half the range be cut off).

  A link between the bars could also be possible, I'll have to look into it. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:01, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

  I mean, theoretically you could have era-level bars for the Phanerozoic as well (see example for Primates with the parameter Cenozoic), but at that point you might as well just also create Template:Era fossil range. mdm.bla 15:11, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

  Honestly, it makes sense for the Cenozoic as its periods are already quite short and you're likely to see ranges overlapping (especially between Neogene and Quaternary), but in that case, you wouldn't want another period-level range below it. Also, given the already broadened scope, I'm open to renaming the template something like {{Detailed fossil range}}. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:21, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

Quick facts Scientific classification ...

Palaeotherium Temporal range: Middle Eocene – Early Oligocene 43.5–32.5 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N Da. S T Ypr. Lut. B Pr. Rup. Ch.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Perissodactyla
Family:	†Palaeotheriidae
Genus:	†Palaeotherium Cuvier, 1804

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• For comparison, here's the sandbox version with the zoom-in and the bars on the lower side. Not especially a fan of that alternate design, although if the community prefers it I'd be happy to go with it. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 13:16, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  On second thoughts, that design is starting to grow on me, especially on a full-width infobox where it doesn't look too busy. Still torn between both, personally. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:18, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

  I do think the addition of the zoom-in makes this a favourable version, could help with any confusion as to how the bars relate to one another. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 16:32, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

I very much like this template as an idea, and quite like the current implementation. Although the template could use much better documentation. I also prefer the version with the zoom-in and bar on the lower side (can we just call it option 2?). However, in the case of the zoom-in on option 2, I'm uncertain that it is sufficiently visible. Likewise the colors used to demarcate stages and epochs are very close to each other.

• I could not decipher the Pre-Cambrian sections, but by my count it has the following (very useful) possibilities: 5 period-to-stage level zooms for Paleozoic, 3 period-to-stage zooms for Mesozoic, 1 era-to-epoch level zoom for Cenozoic, and 3 period-to-stage level zooms for Cenozoic as well.
  • Courtesy of Monster lestyn in a convo on Discord: the Pre-Cambrian sections are 2 eon-to-era for the Archean and Proterozoic Eons, and 3 era-to-period for the Proterozoic's eras. That far back, it doesn't need to get more granular.
• I will note that there are not era-level zooms for Paleozoic and Mesozoic, whether to the better-known periods or the epochs (like Cenozoic has); I do not deal with Paleozoic or Mesozoic paleontology often enough to say whether those who do edit in that area would find those useful.
• The unofficial, but frequently used, split of the Carboniferous into the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian periods is not treated at all. I have no opinion on whether there should be two extra for these but am mentioning it for others' sake.

Personally, I have an issue with the Quaternary-to-stage bar, because in the Quaternary, the stages are more commonly called the Early/Middle/Late Pleistocene than Gelasian/Calabrian/Chibanian, and the rigorous adherence to having the sections proportionate to the time span means the Holocene doesn't show up at all. I would ask that the names be amended and the sections more evenly proportioned.

Overall, I thank Chaotic Enby for their hard work and support widespread implementation of this template. SilverTiger12 (talk) 22:30, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I saw this on the WP:Palaeo Discord and overall, I really like the concept! While I do agree that oversaturation could be an issue with it, having it in tandem with the overall timescale is nice. I prefer the second method (the one with the zoom in) because in my opinion it helps connect the two and explain the concept to the layperson. My only gripes really are with the Quaternary period. the ages like Chibanian, Gelasian, and Calabrian aren't commonly used in literature, it is much more common you hear the unofficial terms "Early Pleistocene" = Gelasian & Calabrian, "Middle Pleistocene" = Chibanian, and "Late Pleistocene" (not official recognized, but very commonly used. I really think for the Quaternary, you should have one range that separates into the Early, Middle, Late Pleistocene, as well as the Holocene. Its unfortunately not as neat as the official terminology, but it is much more widely used in literature and by the public. All, in all, I really like the proposal and am more than happy to support it once some of the kinks are worked out --Montanoceratops (talk) 22:32, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks both of you for the feedback! @SilverTiger12, I can't really change the proportions as the bar length is proportional to the time length. For the stage/epoch demarcation, I've been using the official ICS colors from {{Period color}} – I've been thinking of adding one-pixel dividers between them to make the demarcation more visible.

The Mississippian and Pennsylvanian are a bit of a mess. They're not on the main timeline, so adding them as a zoom-in might be confusing (especially since the Pennsylvanian uses a similar color scheme to the Carboniferous itself), but I'm open to still offering them as an alternative.

For the Quaternary: thanks @Montanoceratops, I didn't know about that! I tried to follow the official one (which is why the L for Late Pleistocene is in italics), and, while I'm worried that the timeline would be visually very unbalanced if more than half of the period was a single subdivision, I could do it if that reflects the sources better than the "official" version. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 01:21, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, unfortunately there really isn't a perfect solution since there's a lot of variation in the geologic timescale. While I do think having half of the Pleistocene as one period is a little silly, I would like to definitely prioritize the most common terminology used in scientific literature if possible, since, from my experience, most folks in Quaternary research use/are familiar with the early/middle/late terms over the "offical" ones (based on both my research into formations myself for Wikipedia and my friends' book, as well as my discussions with folks interested in Pleistocene research and paleomammology). And at least for the Chibanian, that's already what Wikipedia redirects to. Unfortunately really no matter how its split there's compromise involved, because there's a lot of nuances in the international timescale, as well as the many, many local scales that sometimes get utilized over the international ones (this is thankfully becoming increasingly rare, except for maybe land mammal ages). Still, I do think this template is really great and it will be a very useful addition to extinct species pages (as well as many straight up geology formation pages which also use the same template). I do hope you add an arrow icon for specific date. For example, if something is exactly 47 Ma, it doesn't display anything, but sometimes dates can get really precise (down to a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of years).

Additionally, I personally think its fine not distinguishing the Mississippian from the Pennsylvanian too heavily. The colors already imply it, and most modern resources usually say Carboniferous first and foremost over Mississippian or Pennsylvanian.

All in all, great work! Montanoceratops (talk) 04:56, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

{{Infobox officeholder}} is not clear about the usage of term dates, which leads to situations such as Kristi Noem, where users have added not only dates in the future, but labels such as "TBD". Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 175#RfC: Interim use of successor in Infobox officeholder implied that Wikipedia should not be including dates that have not happened yet, and precedent supports that assumption, but it leaves open the TBD issue.

Should the term dates in {{Infobox officeholder}} be strictly limited to dates that have already passed, excluding non-specific labels? elijahpepe@wikipedia (he/him) 02:08, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

Background: Indonesian government blocked the login/registration authentication subdomain in Indonesia since Feb 25th.

• (Indonesian) Kemkomdigi Batasi Fitur Login Wikimedia
• https://en.tempo.co/read/2091029/contributors-urge-indonesia-to-unblock-wikipedia-login-access
• https://voi.id/en/news/561350
• https://www.techinasia.com/news/indonesia-limits-wikimedia-access-after-registration-delay

The communities from Indonesia have written a statement together, and proposed to put up a banner:

• (Indonesian) https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pernyataan_resmi_komunitas_Wikipedia_bahasa_Indonesia_terhadap_pembatasan_akses_auth.wikimedia.org_di_Indonesia
• Place to discuss this statement in English
• Banner (ongoing) request in Meta.

I would like to invite English Wikipedia to put a banner as well, to be displayed through March 10, 2026, with Indonesian geolocation (according to stats.wikimedia.org, in February 2026, English Wikipedia has 58 million page views from Indonesia), explaining the restriction and link to the community statement.

Wikimedia Foundation statement can be found in Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2026-03-10/In_the_media#Logins_blocked_in_Indonesia

Banner content (feel free to copyedit):

Since February 2026, registration and login access to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects has been blocked in Indonesia. At this time, these sites remain accessible to read, and to contribute to as logged-out users.

read more →

Cheers. Bennylin (talk) 06:30, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

A banner is probably a good idea to inform editors/users of the situation as it will impact some users, but the second sentence directly communicating with the Ministry does not seem necessary for this. May as well include a link to that Signpost which seems to explain the situation, unless we want to spin up a separate information page. CMD (talk) 07:04, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Feel free to edit the banner. We were thinking of tagging the ministry in social media and such. Bennylin (talk) 07:22, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

A separate information page wouldn't be a bad idea. It could focus specifically on how it affects readers and editors and what actions they can take, with a link to the Signpost for more information on the background. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:12, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I would combine then with a few tweaks like so, with the signpost link as a placeholder for a specific information page:

Since February 2026, registration and login access to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects has been blocked in Indonesia. At this time, these sites remain accessible to read, and to contribute to as logged-out users. CMD (talk) 03:46, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis maybe this link instead? Wikipedia:Open letters/Official statement from the Indonesian Wikipedia community regarding the restriction of access to auth.wikimedia.org in Indonesia. – robertsky (talk) 04:03, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I would not link an open letter from another Wikipedia so prominently unless endorsed by the English Wikipedia community. CMD (talk) 05:31, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I've incorporated CMD's version. We can still discuss where to link the "Read more" to (or none at all). Thanks. Bennylin (talk) 08:51, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Support. Also in agreement with CMD. – robertsky (talk) 07:11, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Support. Jack Wylde (talk) 08:30, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Agree But, as mentioned by CMD, instead of directly urged by "us", should we use the literal translation from Indonesian copy that encourage our readers to do so? Or, is it intentional in English?

So, what do you think if we go with: "Since February 2026, registration and login access to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects has been restricted in Indonesia. We [encourage you to] urge the Ministry of Communication and Digital Technology [Affairs] to revoke this restriction so that we can continue to disseminate knowledge together!" William Surya Permana (talk) 13:25, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I have incorporated your changes. Thanks. Bennylin (talk) 17:31, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

WMF's statement: At this time, Wikimedia projects remain accessible to read and contribute to as logged-out users. should probably be added to the notice too. Some1 (talk) 13:44, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

That would be obvious because they're able to visit that wiki page, no? Bennylin (talk) 17:32, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Support a banner with whatever wording the community agrees upon. This should be the response when Wikipedia is forcefully censored. It's frightening how common it's becoming, and it's even more frightening that, to this point, a portion of the community has been so resistant to protesting when it happens. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:09, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

You have a sentence or two at the top of this page for where to post for various kinds of topics, but nowhere (accessible) do you have an explanation of the steps in the proposal process or of ways to help shepherd the proposal to approval or even to get an acknowledgement of awareness by people who make decisions on proposals.

The lack of the explanation does not properly acknowledge people's efforts in making a proposal, and it can result in just a waste of time for the proposer and anyone who reads the proposal and especially comments on it. This ultimately discourages people from making proposals to try to improve Wikipedia.

Thank you for your consideration. ~2026-90420-1 (talk) 16:21, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

Proposals are posted here and discussed by those interested in doing so to reach a consensus. For high profile issues, a mass message drawing attention can be sent out, though we try not to pester people, either.

The best thing that someone can do to persuade others to support a proposal is to explain what concern/issue the proposal is trying to remedy and why the proposal is the best way to do that.

I'm guessing you've wanted to offer proposals but have felt discouraged? Please offer one now, if desired. 331dot (talk) 17:02, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

I actually already made a proposal, which did include the reasons for the proposal -- appearance and sustained readability. It was discussed on various points, people went out of their way to contribute some helpful graphics and other things, *there was no controversy to draw many comments*, and then nothing more happened, and it went to archive (227).

My point in this proposal about the explanation is that I have no idea how the proposal is supposed to get the attention of actual decision makers. I have no idea what progress would look like or what the criteria are to help the proposal go in that direction. And then there's no demonstrable justification for the proposal to just fade away.

That comes across as Wikipedia saying, "We just don't care. And we don't care that you put time and effort into proposing something, and that other people put time and effort into noticing it and commenting on it (and more). We just don;t care about the efforts of anyone who was involved in this proposal."

"And given that we don't explain anything about the process ahead of time, we don't care if you waste your time again in the future." I think that Wikipedia probably does care; that needs to be demonstrated. ~2026-15808-31 (talk) 19:10, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

There is not a single Wikipedia voice. The people who make decisions on proposals are you, me, and anyone else who comments. In practice, in order to get anything accepted, it needs someone (who may be the originator of the proposal) to run with it and ensure that consensus is enacted. You, too, can be that person. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:14, 12 March 2026 (UTC)

More than 15 years ago looking at coding of mathematical expression in Wikipedia with the background of Computer Science (parsers, compiler theory, ...) I perceived the mix of XML-tags for the MATH-tag and LaTeX inside the XML-tag as big technical challenge while the rest had a simple Markdown like notation for the source text editor. Now I can appreciate those decisions:

• user-centric approach Editors are used to LaTeX for mathematical expression in their work, so for a least a part of the community members it is much more convenient to uses the source code editor even if WYSIWYG editors are available.
• interoperability - Web libraries like MathJax, TexMath extension for LibreOffice use LaTeX, so it allows interoperability for creative commons content.
• Code chunks in Wikipedia KnitR package or Jupyter notebook use syntax mix, to create executable code that calculates the values of mathematical expressions while there is syntax highlighting for programming code that shows equivalent code for processing mathematical expression (e.g. numerical analysis)

Now I see a transformation away from the MATH-tags towards a template driven rendering of mathematical expressions. Is there a best practice or are there recommendations/proposals how to keep coding examples and corresponding mathematical expression in MATH-tags in sync with the syntax highlighting tags to be displayed on Wikipedia article?--Bert Niehaus (talk) 09:03, 13 March 2026 (UTC)