Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 74

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History Viewer User group?

Hello all. I've been working on a bit of a proposal with some admins, which I've included below.

While the viewdeleted bundle of three userrights: browsearchive, deletedhistory, and deletedtext are currently only accessible to administrators, that does not necessarily comprise the only group that would derive a benefit to workload in having access. For example, those working in copyright, edit filters, SPI, and many other areas dealing with content likely to be deleted due to disruption or other reasons would benefit immensely from having direct access to deleted revisions. It also includes a swath of people who simply do not wish to be an admin, for whatever reason, but would benefit from this in anti-abuse workflows. I propose that a process be established to grant some viewing permissions to those qualified to be able to view deleted revisions, but not necessarily needing the full admin toolkit. I'm aware this is unbundling, though I believe it avoids the perennial proposals of unbundling by not touching the delete, block, or protect tools at all, and instead focusing on its intended purpose.

Thus I propose that a History Viewer group be added, with the following permissions:

  • Search deleted pages (browsearchive)
  • View deleted history entries, without their associated text (deletedhistory)
  • View deleted text and changes between deleted revisions (deletedtext)
  • View log entries of edit filters marked as private (abusefilter-log-private)
  • Enable two-factor authentication (oathauth-enable)

The group would be grantable/revokable by admins and the process for requesting the permission would be to post onto a dedicated PERM page, with a request that remains for a period of at least one week. The discussion must be advertised to AN, VPR, and BN. If the administrator closing the request finds that there is consensus to grant, they will add the permission to the requesting user. Editors applying should have a minimum of 2,500 edits and at least 6 months tenure.

EggRoll97 (talk) 22:28, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

How is this compatible with the views expressed by our overloads the WMF at Wikipedia:Viewing deleted content? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 22:54, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
See Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_269#WMF_reply_about_userrights, particularly the response from Joe there, I think the general consensus is that the issue is trust. An RfA process with community votes implicitly proves that the user has this trust from the community. While the risk of deleted content containing extremely private information is low, it is not zero, and as such we'd not be comfortable allowing users access to this without first proving they have the trust of the community. I believe this process would be adequate to ensure trust of the community. EggRoll97 (talk) 23:31, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
If you want to view deleted content then you need to either pass RFA, pass an equivalent process (e.g. an admin election) or be granted the permission by arbcom. So a request for this new right would require the support of a majority of those commenting and at least 25 supporters. I don't see the benefit in creating a new process when we already have RFA and AELECT. Thryduulf (talk) 23:30, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
Over the last few years, we have made relatively large strides in making adminship more accessible to more members of the community. I suspect that many of the people who could pass an RfA-like process which would be required to gain access to a permission like this could just go straight for RfA or AELECT and get the full toolset anyway. We want to encourage that too: I fear a permission like this could negatively affect admin recruitment if people feel like they need to go through this intermediate hoop first. Mz7 (talk) 23:48, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
I disagree, your argument could be applied to any user right because an admin has it. Most admin candidates have some form of advanced permissions anyway. Tenshi! (Talk page) 16:18, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
Well, and this is mostly before my time, but I believe that there is a correlation between removing rollback from the admin bundle and an increase in RfA standards. I believe rollback was removed from the admin bundle in early 2008? Compare that to the chart at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship by year. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 21:16, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
Possibly, but at that time we had more editors than we do now, which has also been dropping since 2007. Tenshi! (Talk page) 21:36, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
Well, don't think you can deny the correlation- but yes, that in an equally valid hypothesis as well. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 22:44, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
You made an excellent observation, and I think it is the correct response to Tenshi’s argument: indeed every user right that we have unbundled from the admin toolset over the years, from rollback to template editor to page mover, has made adminship a little less desirable for the people who would have benefited from the rights we unbundled. If we unbundle the ability to view deleted page histories too, then that too will also negatively impact admin recruitment efforts. Mz7 (talk) 19:06, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
This permission is a core sensitive spot for why adminship is turning into a big deal. A while back, I tried to unbundle everything except this userright to make a patroller permission - IIRC the primary objection was that it wasn't technically possible. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:58, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
deletedhistory is security through obscurity. It's available to anyone through the API. (Example.) —Cryptic 00:12, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
Without deletedhistory you can't add drvprop=comment to that query. deletedhistory also lets you see revision-deleted user names and comments. Anomie⚔ 01:02, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
Is there a reason why edit summaries are hidden but the rest of the metadata (including the sha1 of the wikitext) is shown? Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 00:38, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
Comments in T51088 indicate that WMF Legal wanted them omitted because sometimes admins don't bother to revision-delete RD-able material if the page is being deleted anyway, since historically both had the same end result of hiding the content from non-admins. The sha1 doesn't tell you much unless you already have the content to compare to. Anomie⚔ 01:20, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
... and that's a bug, right? I didn't know this was a thing. I would be surprised if that were intentional. Otherwise why not write a user script to make deletedhistory trivially available to everyone? Mz7 (talk) 13:45, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
There are already user scripts, User:SD0001/deleted-metadata-link and User:DreamRimmer/DeletedMetaData. Tenshi! (Talk page) 13:49, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
No, it's not a bug. This goes back to 2019, bringing parity with access available in Toolforge since 2013. And as I noted above, you need deletedhistory to see comments (edit summaries) of deleted revisions and to see revision-deleted usernames and comments. Anomie⚔ 20:26, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
Okay, huh. TIL, I guess. Mz7 (talk) 01:01, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
I've been monitoring this section for a while. I for one don't think information about how to access metadata on deleted edits should be so obscure simply because it's so counter-intuitive as noted above). I knew that the limited info was accessible via Toolforge but not the other methods. To this end, I've made this edit to Wikipedia:Viewing and restoring deleted pages, incorporating comments mostly from this discussion by Cryptic, Anomie, and Tenshi Hinanawi. Any tweaks would be greatly appreciated, of course. As for the proposal at hand, I'm generally supportive of unbundling ideas, but I think more concrete examples of how this new right would assist affected users' workflows would be helpful, especially situations where the available metadata about deleted edits wouldn't be enough. Speaking strictly for myself, in my unique situation on enwiki as a non-admin importer who does wiki-archaeology, the usefulness of a usergroup like this would be greatly enhanced by adding the ability to delete/undelete edits (which I know is off-limits in this proposal because it touches on the "core" admin rights of block/protect/delete. For me 90% of my questions about deleted edits can be answered using available tools (or at least I can make educated guesses based on the information I have) and a very small percentage (maybe 1%?) of requests related to deletion/undeletion can be resolved by just checking deleted text. Graham87 (talk) 10:16, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
Why the requirement to advertise at VPR? I don't think any other permission has required that. Tenshi! (Talk page) 12:33, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
I wasn't particularly sure where to put advertisement requirements, since it would need to be widely advertised to satisfy the WMF. I guess maybe a watchlist notice would suffice, similarly to RfA? EggRoll97 (talk) 06:10, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
It doesn't really seem clear about that part what the WMF wants, though it might be better to advertise at WP:AN and WP:VPM instead? Tenshi! (Talk page) 11:21, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
I think that would suffice, yeah. EggRoll97 (talk) 02:07, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
Whom do you envision needing this ability, and whom the community says is trustworthy enough to have this ability, and yet is unable to pass WP:AELECT? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:13, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
For example, those working in copyright, edit filters, SPI, and many other areas dealing with content likely to be deleted due to disruption or other reasons would benefit immensely from having direct access to deleted revisions. EggRoll97 (talk) 14:09, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
If those people need access to deleted revisions they should stand for adminship. A demonstrated good track record that they would need for this new right will be exactly as good at demonstrating suitability as an admin. Note that being an SPI clerk, edit filter helper/manager, etc. doesn't require adminship and also aid chances when standing at RFA (and presumably AELECT but I don't recall whether anyone in those groups has stood using that process yet). Thryduulf (talk) 14:19, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Then you would have a single-purpose admin who only looks at deleted revisions? Tenshi! (Talk page) 15:28, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Carrite. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 15:42, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
As for your comment about anyone in those groups standing in AELECT, I have. EggRoll97 (talk) 15:51, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Someone working in copyvio needs the delete button, too, so they really should be admins. I don't understand why someone "working in" Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations would need access to deleted materials (more than any other editor who encounters a suspicious editor).
viewdeleted is an incredibly sensitive user right. It allows people to see not just copyvios and vandalism, but sometimes things that should be oversighted (e.g., personally identifying information). We need to be able to trust people who have this user right to not spread what they see elsewhere. The real world struggles with this, so we have to be careful here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:56, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: Some people need access only to the content of deleted revisions of copyright-violating content (e.g., VRT agents). Someone who wants viewdeleted access to help with copyvios on English Wikipedia would not be suited for this right. JJPMaster (she/they) 21:24, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia:Education program a net benefit to the encyclopedia?

I just came across an article that was the subject of a student editing program and the student, who I’m certain was acting in good faith, made an absolute mess of the article due to what had to have been simple ignorance of what a Wikipedia article is and how it is written. I think I’ve brought this up before, and I remember seeing this problem way back in my earliest days as an IP editor. The noticeboard has a concerning amount of evidence showing negative impacts of the program on the quality of the encyclopedia (mostly students creating junk articles). I also seriously doubt there’s any long-term editor retention from these projects. With all that in mind, is there any positive impacts of the program for Wikipedia that justifies keeping it? Are the students getting some kind of unique benefit that couldn’t be provided any other way? Or is it just a time sink for both parties? Dronebogus (talk) 02:31, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

I can definitely say that there seems to frequently be little follow-through on these classes. I've seen a number of students put the WikiEd template on the talk page of articles I've made, worked on, or watchlisted and then...nothing. I've checked back in on their userpages and on the class pages for some a year or so later and it seems like the class started setting up to do things and then just...never did? No idea what happened with the Wikipedia part of those classes. Did the teacher give up before even having them do much of anything other than making accounts and choosing articles to work on, work that then never happened? SilverserenC 02:35, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
I'd imagine a fair amount of these cases stem from students signing up for a class, doing the first few homework assignments, and then dropping it right before the drop deadline a few weeks into the semester. signed, Rosguill talk 02:41, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Except it's not just the one student. Unless everyone in the class dropped it? SilverserenC 02:43, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Is there enough material for how to edit on wikipedia for folks? Especially students? The UI does take a bit to learn. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 19:06, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
I had the same experience recently. They made a few small changes on Feminist views on transgender topics, put a template on the talk page, and then never responded to my questions. I wonder if there are some students who are just coasting through it or not doing the work. Katzrockso (talk) 02:42, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
I mean, if I was a student in one of these projects, I probably would view it as something to get through for the sake of the assignment and not something I actually cared about. Dronebogus (talk) 02:43, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Sure, but if the programs are encouraging/permitting students to exert such minimal effort, there is your original question of whether the program is worth it. I looked through the course that was involved on that page and it raised more questions than it answered.
I think this whole question is a non-starter, though, from what I understand the WMF pushes this very hard and would not take kindly to community efforts to interrupt it, but that could be an incorrect perception on my part. Katzrockso (talk) 02:50, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Why is WMF pushing this so hard? Are they getting paid or something? Dronebogus (talk) 02:51, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
I think one of the ideas is that with more knowledge/experience of Wikipedia, the students might become editors later on. Katzrockso (talk) 03:01, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
I’d like just one example of that ever actually happening Dronebogus (talk) 03:16, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
I'm one! I originally created my account for a WikiEd course back in 2018. I didn't do much editing for a couple of years after the course ended, but then I dusted off the same account when I started getting interested in editing more seriously in 2021. I'd had some interest in Wikipedia even before taking the course in question, but I think going through WikiEd helped give me a baseline level of Wikipedia confidence that empowered me to come back later and start editing independently. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 18:22, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
I think another goal is also better understanding of Wikipedia by students. My gut feeling is that bad courses will produce (generally) bad results, good courses will produce (generally) good results. Designing/running a good course requires, among other things, the instructor (and course designer if different) understand what a Wikipedia article is, how it gets written, what talk pages are and how to use them, and at least a basic understanding of Wikipedia culture and basic policies. My experience as a trainer for Wikimedia UK has taught me that these things are not intuitive to everybody (possibly even most people), and also that (strange as it may seem to those of us here) not everybody is interested in being a Wikipedia editor - they don't care how the sausage is made.
I expect a lot of the poor outcomes are a combination of disinterested students, disinterested and/or clueless teachers and clueless course designers. We do need to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so (to mix a metaphor) we need to somehow separate the wheat from chaff. Unfortunately I don't have any good ideas how to do that off the top of my head. Thryduulf (talk) 03:18, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
[…] these things are not intuitive to everybody (possibly even most people) […] not everybody is interested in being a Wikipedia editor exactly. That’s why student editors seem to me a lose-lose for everyone since they don’t produce good work or become regular editors and I highly doubt they actually learn anything from these assignments. Dronebogus (talk) 05:22, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
I don't think the WMF "pushes" this at all. They're not really involved in it, except to the extent of funding some of it (Wiki Education Foundation for the US, and chapters for almost everywhere else). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:31, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
This question strikes me as a bit odd, because I don’t see WikiEd as the source of student editors; I see it as an attempted solution to student editors. (Rather like AfC is not a source of COI editing, but an attempt to contain and address it.) I personally do think student editors writ large are a net benefit (if nothing else, we have to convince the next generation they can edit if we want some to discover they like to edit), but we don’t really control whether student editors exist. Since they do, I think the net positive of WikiEd is clear. Given the many ways a completely well-intentioned class could get themselves into trouble, it is much better to have specialized resources and staff to guide and monitor their efforts. I see it as a sign of WikiEd’s success that most student editors are harmless to the encyclopedia, and a real triumph that some make genuinely valuable contributions. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 05:11, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Most student editors are harmless to the encyclopedia um, citation needed? My evidence that student editors are generally damaging to the encyclopedia may be purely anecdotal, but you can’t refute it by saying “actually they’re generally harmless and even useful” with zero examples of constructive work done by student editors. Dronebogus (talk) 05:18, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Honestly, I agree. The idea of student editors is great, but most don't know how to write in Wikipedia's style and their teachers don't encourage them to because they have their own requirements. Shocksingularity (talk) 05:41, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Does any newbie know how to write in Wikipedia's style? Were all of your first edits perfect? Mine weren't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:23, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Yes, but student editors rarely if ever advance beyond newbie, and on top of that are tasked with making massive edits to articles immediately, with tight deadline, instead of starting slow and doing things at their own pace. Dronebogus (talk) 06:27, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Have you looked at the numbers in Template:Registered editors by edit count? All new editors rarely advance beyond newbie. This is why I've estimated that we need 100,000 people to go through Special:CreateAccount to replace me when I die. Student editors get further than most, but 70% new accounts don't make even the first edit, and half of the ones who do make any edit don't come back to edit on a second day.
Student editors are rarely tasked with "massive edits", and never "immediately" or with a "tight deadline". Most of them create an account in September, do WP:The Wikipedia Adventure in October, pick an article in October, write a draft in November, and (if they get that far) post it in December. The Wiki Ed Foundation has a step-by-step curriculum.
Another area in which we see a big difference is blocks:
  • Typical newbie: 15% chance of block in the year after their first edit.
  • Typical student: 0.2% chance of block in the year after their first edit.
I think the bottom line is that all newbies struggle, but student editors actually struggle less than the typical non-student newbie. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:43, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
1: How many of those new editors are trolls and people here just to goof around, vs. serious good faith editors? 2: of course students rarely get blocked, they’re here for a single purpose that doesn’t fall into any frequently blocked category (aforementioned trolls/goof-offs, POV warriors, spammers, etc.) Dronebogus (talk) 07:18, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Yes, and that's part of what makes them better newbies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
This is a situation where confirmation bias is hard to resist, since of course you never see the harmless student editors. (Note that "harmless" is different from "positive".) The default curriculum for WikiEd guides students away from ever editing in mainspace at all (using draftspace instead), for example. Compared to the volume of programs being run, the traffic at Wikipedia:Education noticeboard is quite low, and it's a virtue that volunteer editors don't have to be on the hook to resolve the problems that do arise. As for positive examples, well, if you poke into one of the most recent problems on that noticeboard (a UC Davis class on fish), a previous student in that class went on to create multiple GAs. But confirmation bias also means that you're unlikely to know that a successful editor was originally a student, since that won't exactly be advertised alongside their good edits. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 16:07, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Cosigning @LEvalyn's comment above. There are hundreds upon hundreds of classes using Wikipedia every term. The fact that only a scant handful of them ever end up on your radar is all the evidence you need that most are not problematic. -- asilvering (talk) 11:35, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
This is my view as well. Unless we have indications that WMF is expending massive amounts of resources on this, it seems appropriate to provide a channel for educators to use Wikipedia for courses in a way that is easily monitored and which gently steers people towards less problematic activity. Anecdotally, outside this program I’ve seen professors with less than 100 edits think that they’re “experienced” and ready to teach a Wikipedia course, and then react poorly when their methods are challenged by the community. In general, they seem to respond much better to steering and guidance from the WMF than volunteer editors. signed, Rosguill talk 16:25, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Foundation does not run education programs. That's mostly the completely separate Wiki Education Foundation. WikiEdu gets some grant money (as of a few years ago, less than half their budget and declining) from the WMF, but I don't think they're even technically an m:affiliate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Notified: Wikipedia:Education noticeboard. Thryduulf (talk) 03:22, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Davidson College/Bio320 Plant Adaptations (Fall 2025): 52.5k words added and in a quick skim the quality seems legit. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:35, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Hi all, I'm LiAnna -- I am responsible for edits coming from m:Wiki Education Foundation's Wikipedia Student Program, in which we support college and university instructors in the United States and Canada to assign students to edit Wikipedia as a class assignment. There are student projects here on English Wikipedia that aren't under our auspices (instructors who don't know our support exists, instructors in other countries supported mostly by Wikimedia affiliates in those countries, some secondary/high school classes), but most are part of our program. As a few of you have noted (thanks!), our program brings about 12,000 new editors to Wikipedia each year, so while there are definitely some students who we all agree aren't producing good content, the vast majority in fact are adding value to Wikipedia. Most of us supporting this program on the Wiki Education staff are Wikipedians, and none of us would do this if we felt like it was a net-negative (or even anywhere close to that) for Wikipedia.
Let me specifically address a few points in this discussion:
  1. Each term, we onboard around 300-400 courses who are planning to teach with Wikipedia see this term's here. About 20% of these will not actually do or finish the assignment, and there's myriad reasons for this. Sometimes a class is canceled by the university; sometimes once they get into editing they realize it's more work than they have time to give, so they stop; sometimes the students are unenthusiastic and the instructor doesn't want to force students who aren't going to do good work to edit; etc. Most of the classes that do complete the assignment also have one or two students who just don't finish the assignment (this is true in most college classes for all assignments, not just the Wikipedia assignment).
  2. We provide extensive training modules for student editors to complete; the specific ones are tailored to the assignment they're given. We also offer a variety of support for instructors, in assignment design, office hours, etc., such that we do our best to ensure their plan for the course will produce the right kind of content for Wikipedia. Instructors and student editors in our program get extensive guidance and support; we've been doing this for 15 years and have a very good sense of what works and what doesn't in terms of producing good content for Wikipedia, and we steer away anyone who is not following our best practices.
  3. Of course, not every student follows directions, and some will produce bad content. While you as a Wikipedian are of course welcome to interact with student editors as you would any other new editor, we do not expect any volunteer to clean up any bad work added through our program. Instead, please feel free to leave a talk page message for or ping User:Ian (Wiki Ed) or User:Brianda (Wiki Ed), our two Wiki Experts. Ian and Brianda are both experienced editors who will jump in and make the edits necessary while communicating with the student and instructor as needed. If there's a more class-wide problem, feel free to bring it to the WP:ENB, and we will intervene with the instructor.
  4. Our organization's focus is not on retaining student editors as long-term contributors (although a handful do stick around on their own). Instead, we focus on retaining good instructors, who then bring another group of students each year. For example, review this instructor, whose behavioral ecology students have made a huge impact on species articles for a decade. But given declining youth brand awareness of Wikipedia, I do think our work is a helpful effort to (as Thryduulf says) have students better understand Wikipedia, when to use it, and when not to use it.
  5. In terms of the specific article referenced above (I Am Not Your Negro), the instructor reached out to us yesterday about this case. The instructor agreed the student editor's work had some problems, including with tone, but felt like there was some good content in there. Both the student editor and instructor were taken aback that the edit was reverted without any comment on a talk page or indication in the edit summary of what was wrong. We recommended the student post on the talk page, and then add back in more fact-based and less essay-like information in smaller edits. If there is additional problems with their contributions, please engage with the student on the talk page about specifics of what they need to do to fix it.
As always, I'm happy to answer any questions about our work. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
I don’t really think “declining brand awareness” is a problem; if the top reason provided (“other sources are better”) is accurate, then that’s exactly what we want, because it’s true. Wikipedia (and all encyclopedias) are inherently inferior to other sources due to their tertiary nature. Obviously we should still improve content, but people should also be going to other, better sources anyway. We don’t need to maximize the number readers like a for-profit needs to maximize the number of customers. Dronebogus (talk) 19:09, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Tertiary sources aren't inherently inferior. They are worse for some purposes and better for others. If you want to get a quick summary of a subject is, then an encyclopedia is a better option than, e.g., original scientific journal articles.
We don't need to maximize the number of readers, but there are consequences to losing readers. One of those is that readers are the primary source of future editors. If the next generation doesn't read here, then they won't edit here either, and then Wikipedia will eventually die for lack of editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:03, 19 November 2025 (UTC)
Most students editors don't understand WP:NOTESSAY (for fairly obvious reasons) and WP:NPOV (most humanities courses explicitly teach people not to be neutral with regards to injustice, etc.) Also keep in mind that most students are incentivized to pass the course, not actually contribute to the encyclopedia, which results in AI use and copyright violations.
As for getting younger people to interact with Wikipedia, social media promotion should help, especially short-form video content in platforms like TikTok or Instagram. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 17:27, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
Some random WikiEdu contributions:
Juvenile incarceration in the United States: Fails WP:NOTESSAY, fork of Youth incarceration in the United States, WP:UNDUE content in lede (though this is mostly because it's written as an essay), broad generalizations (e.g. see #Daily life while incarcerated with https://worldschildrensprize.org/adayinthelifelockedup), unreliable sourcing (refs 2, 3). Better to delete this entirely since we already have an existing article about this topic.
Incarcerated firefighters: Has questions in lede What Do Incarcerated Firefighters Do?, cites a YouTube video. This article is mostly fine and can be fixed with some copyedits.
NoFilter: This hashtag is often misused, so it has been abandoned in recent years... fails verification, International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking is a predatory journal, However, now it is used as a trick. Many people do not believe the posts that use this hashtag; research shows that this hashtag is nothing but a lie because of being heavily misused. violates WP:NPOV and not supported by sources. It is no longer as impactful as it used to be in the 2010s and #NoFilter was used as a form of resistance. The goal was to encourage people to show their true selves and get rid of the pressure to be perfect. are not sourced at all. NoFilter started as a positive thing, inspiring people to be who they are. However, people started misusing the hashtag. They still used the hashtag on images that were tweaked and deceive others. [...] As a result, #NoFilter has become a gimmick and has lost its credibility. is the last straw: since nearly all the additions fail verification, this edit should be reverted.
Wenatchee High School: Adds promotional material about the school (providing long term benefits that will help students before they graduate, ...where they help students get a jumpstart by providing many opportunities in giving them a career pathway and academic journey... while citing primary sources or none at all. The encyclopedic value of this information is low to nonexistent. Their previous edit adds stuff like The College Mentor Program is also looking for Volunteer Mentors to help serve Seniors in Wenatchee High School to help them guide towards their future paths. The program is looking students who can volunteer as Virtual Mentors, Writing Editors, Guest Speakers, or Networkers and have forms for students to fill out. Overall, these edits are a net negative and should be reverted (and I fail to understand how this article relates to "Online Communities.")
Starbucks Reserve Roastery (Seattle): Most of their edits are fine, but they have edit-warred to add a "Sustainability" section when repeatedly told it was promotional. However, I think their contributions are a net positive here. Their report makes me think they may have used some AI help for this assignment, but the resulting content looks fine.
Women in the Middle Ages: No concerns, net improvement to the article.
Victoria Spivey: The majority of the content is unsourced (e.g. Scholars also note that she helped define the themes and vocal approach of classic female blues, and her recordings continue to be discussed in studies of African American music and women's history, The Black Perspective in Music notes that her lyrics reflected everyday life and the experiences of African American women, showing both independence and emotional depth.), duplicated (Victoria Spivey was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1986.) or fails WP:NOTESSAY. Some of the content is fine (e.g. most at #Recording Career (1920s-1940s)). The unsourced sections should be selectively removed from the article.
Lemonade (2016 film): Consists entirely of plot summary changes. Plot summaries don't need sources, but content like Being underwater is a crucial environmental factor of this portion of the video, for she is attempting to get rid of the weight that now lies on her because of her relationship, hinting as the transition from denial into greater feelings of anger, the ring of fire, more specifically the image of her sitting directly in the center of it, gives watchers a sense of the trapped feelings that she experiences being stuck within the fire of her rage., shifting the attention from solely on Beyoncé to other black women and girls., etc. veers into analysis. Transitions like Off into the next chapter of healing. are unencyclopedic. I've reverted this. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 19:22, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
This is the big problem I see in student edits: they frequently use Wikipedia as an essay host for their obviously very amateur essays and then almost inevitably abandon this essay-cruft in articles once the assignment is done, to the detriment of readers and other editors. If I have one constructive recommendation to give for WikiEd it’s that instructors need to teach students how to write Wikipedia articles or partner with people who actually can, and grade the results accordingly. Dronebogus (talk) 22:13, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
@Dronebogus, there's nothing any teacher can do to prevent the existence of poor students. Teachers can grade accordingly all they like, but that doesn't make a C-level student's work any better than C-level work. Part of teaching is that sometimes students fail. No amount of training, sternness, or support will eliminate C-level output. -- asilvering (talk) 01:49, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
@Asilvering: Agreed, but C-level output doesn't reach the outside world in most courses. The WikiEdu program is definitely improving some articles; perhaps automatically blocking anyone whose grades drop below an 80 would help refine this (they can do alternative non-Wikipedia assignments instead.) I also suspect that electives, especially ones in the humanities, are more vulnerable to having such students, but I currently don't have the data to substantiate this claim. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 03:22, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
perhaps automatically blocking anyone whose grades drop below an 80 would help refine this what. how on earth do you expect this to be enforced? Please remember that this is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, not the encyclopedia that only students with good grades can edit. People who aren't very good at building the encyclopedia are nevertheless part of our whole process. If any student is creating work so deranged that they need a WP:CIR block, we can simply CIR block them. -- asilvering (talk) 05:16, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
@Asilvering: The problem is that most regular people won't really be making these big edits for fairly obvious reasons. Let's take me for instance, I have limited experience with content work (I'm currently working away at Grammatical tense), so I were to create a 4000 word article about something, it probably won't look good, and of course, this will change with experience. However, these student editors have to write these articles and make these edits to get class credit, and while they generally do some great work here, there are always some who do not want to put in the effort and resort to using LLMs or plagiarizing minutes before the assignment deadline. And this is not unique to the Wikipedia Education program, this happens in every education institution everywhere around the world and I'm sure we've all seen (or been) people who engage in academic misconduct at some point in our lives.
As for WP:CIR blocking, that's not possible since most of them only edit a single article, and blocking someone requires chronic/persistent behavioral issues. The damage done by these types of students is inconsequential on its own, but may eventually add up. Even the people who run the education program revert some bad edits, and volunteers revert many more (see my analysis above). Incidentally, a similar initiative did get most of its participants blocked due to excessive gaming and sockpuppetry, so I think WikiEdu is doing a much better job vetting instructors in this regard.
In hindsight, I agree that automatically blocking anyone whose grades drop below an 80 would help refine this is not a good statement to make and was a bit of a knee-jerk idea to try to minimize the negative impacts of this program. I think we all should audit student editors' contributions and see which variables affect output quality the most (institution? course? instructor? subject area? training status?) and perhaps take it from there. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 06:09, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
That report seems to be a student assignment, I've run into at least one course where all the students had to write/"write" something on that topic. Gnomingstuff (talk) 03:48, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
Surely these reports fail WP:NOTWEBHOST. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 04:03, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
See also User talk:Salinafiaz § Reliable sourcing, Manual of Style, and more for another example. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 17:53, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
The user has proceeded to revert back to their version and add yet another vague sentence. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 21:42, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
@ChildrenWillListen: Reverted. You should probably just report them at this point. WP:IDHT and WP:CIR apply. Dronebogus (talk) 21:46, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
I did think of leaving them alone for a bit and seeing if they come back to fix the issues, but they seemed to have abandoned the article after reverting it. They may, however, show up right before the assignment deadline like many people do with their coursework. As for WP:CIR, as I mentioned above, ANI and the like only deal with chronic behavioral problems, not student editors failing to do a good job on their first few tries.
Interestingly, Salinafaiz has completed all the Wikipedia exercises, unlike most other student editors in their class. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 22:01, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
I'd argue that this isn't an issue exclusive to student editors; as a generalisation, all new editors are going to need guidance on MOS and tone, and the problem is just as great (or even greater) with non-student editors. Nil🥝 19:37, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
I’ve said this already, but student editors have to jump into major edits relatively quickly whereas general newbies can take as much time as they need doing incremental work or learning rules. They’re also doing it because they have to, not because they want to. Dronebogus (talk) 22:08, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
If you haven't previously looked at it, you might find it interesting to examine the WikiEd trainings for yourself, or the assignments in one of the currently running courses. Personally, I think the program is appropriately incremental. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:47, 20 November 2025 (UTC)


Apparently, Wiki Education is quite effective: Wikipedia and its little-known ally, Wiki Education, have quietly enlisted and trained more than 140,000 college students to build an army of activists Media Research Center, at your service. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:55, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång: Well, yes, one of WikiEdu's stated goals is to fix our systemic bias problem, which the Media Research Center mislabels as "activism." However, it is obvious that courses like these tend to be the most problematic, since they invite essay-like social critique and undue content in articles unrelated to social theory. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 03:38, 22 November 2025 (UTC)
Effective at what? Owning the righties? Or building an encyclopedia? Because a bunch of anti-intellectual conspiracy theorists hating a collaboration between colleges and Wikipedia because they already hate collages and Wikipedia separately isn’t useful nor relevant analysis. Dronebogus (talk) 10:53, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Per source "building an army of activists" apparently. If you can do that with whatever Wiki Education gets in funding, it does sound pretty impressive. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:57, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
“Building an army of activists” per a bunch of anti-intellectual conspiracy theorists. These are the sort of people who think gonzo in a dress is woke indoctrination turning kids trans. It’s nothing but scaremongering to fuel the conservative hate on Wikipedia/higher education. Provide an actual reliable source that shows Wiki Ed is doing something useful and I’ll be more receptive. Dronebogus (talk) 11:04, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
If you were under the impression I was receptive to this... view of reality, that's wrong. But I think it's interesting and Wikipedians should know it exists, MRC writes this because they want people to believe it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:55, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
I never was under any such assumption, but MRC thinking it’s true/wanting people to believe it doesn’t mean anything. Anti-vaxxers want people to believe them and can cherry pick and exaggerate all they like, but that doesn’t somehow make vaccines as dangerous as they claim. Dronebogus (talk) 12:34, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
  • It really depends on how many become editors down the line. In my experience the immediate effects on articles is usually negative. It might be better if they had to pick a stub and work on it, but a lot of them pick high level articles that are already well developed and just add stuff to be removed later. GMGtalk 18:41, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
    Yes, having students develop stubs would probably solve a lot of problems. At best we get a genuine improvement; at worst the poor content is sequestered in an obscure part of the encyclopedia that wasn’t in great condition anyway. Dronebogus (talk) 21:28, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
  • Using Education Noticeboard as evidence screams negativity bias. You don't hear much if the class goes smoothly. But you sure hear about them on EN, ANI, CP (copyright problems) or some other place if the class goes poorly. OhanaUnitedTalk page 19:12, 24 November 2025 (UTC)
    At a certain point I think something can just create enough and serious enough problems that the benefits don’t matter. Dronebogus (talk) 06:16, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
    It seems like we may just have incompatible views of WikiEd, but I do want to reiterate that WikiEd does not create undergraduates. WikiEd just creates the noticeboard where you can ask staff to deal with undergraduates for you. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:53, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Merging OSM and Pushpin and custom maps into one radio-button element

Hi, I propose in articles like Bushehr or Dubai, OSM map and Puhspin and satellite maps be merged into one item, which can be set by an argument named "mergedMap", that its value is like value of pushpin map except it can accept OSM and custom maps, like this:

| mergedMap = OSM#custom1#UAE#Persian Gulf#Middle East#Asia
| custom1 = Dubai_by_Copernicus_Sentinel-2_in_false-colour.jpg

or 

| mergedMap = UAE#OSM#custom1#Persian Gulf#Middle East#Asia
| custom1 = Dubai_by_Copernicus_Sentinel-2_in_false-colour.jpg

would create a radio-button which contains OSM, pushpin and satellite maps in the order mentioned. Zoom, marker, shape and other setting of OSM is like previous.

Using radio-button, we have fewer maps in Infobox. Please discuss. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 12:40, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

@Zackmann08@Joy Hi and sorry again for pinging. I think this idea would reduce much code about "onByDefault" parameter and codes such as "mapframe=yes". Additionally, it makes Infoboxes neat. Please discuss. I am a volunteer to implement that with a pretty design using interface. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 06:45, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
User:Hooman Mallahzadeh while I applaud the idea, I think you GREATLY underestimate how complicated such an endeavor would be. Recent work I've done with Module:Infobox mapframe has shown that the littlest change has enormous reach and affect. I don't object to the principal of what you are trying to achieve, but I am skeptical that such a feature could be implemented in an editor friendly way...
That being said, I'm 100% open to being proven wrong. My advice would be to try to create a working sandbox version of what you are talking about. A proof of concept (even if it has a few bugs in it) would go a LONG way to convincing me (and I would imagine others) that what you are describing can and should be done. Then you would definitely need an WP:RFC to enact such a major change... Just my 2 cents. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 06:51, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
@Zackmann08 You said:

I think you GREATLY underestimate how complicated such an endeavor would be.

To be honest, I believe that if Wikipedia follows "Software design patterns", and have a correct software design, then no need to worry about such coding. Even no need for much test them. Believe me! I try to create a "working sandbox version" as soon as possible. Thanks again for your response. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 07:06, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
To be clear, not saying it isn't possible, I just think you may find it to be more difficult than you image, but I certainly wish you luck with it! Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 07:09, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
Even no need for much test them isn't a good idea, no matter how the software is designed. There are many experienced software developers, well-versed in modern software development techniques, who attest to the value of adequate testing. (Automated regression testing is a key strategy to facilitate software development.) isaacl (talk) 07:30, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
Yes, you are right! Even the best codes segments might have naughty bugs that may appear 1 to 100 billion times of running. But by Software design patterns, we can reduce the testing effort so much, because they improve maintainability and reduce rigidity of code. Additionally, even when we encounter bugs, we can correct that conveniently.
This is true for this code segment also. If it is implemented well, and according to patterns, we would need much less testing than rigid codes. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 07:46, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
To be frank, your comments make you sound inexperienced with production software development. (And there's no need to link to the design patterns article again, and really no need to repeat your previous comments.) Testing is about ensuring the specific specifications for which a component is designed to meet are upheld. Good software design (which is often aided by following design patterns) helps ensure that changes can be more easily made in a decoupled manner. Good design will make it easier to make changes that will pass testing. It does not reduce the amount of testing required. isaacl (talk) 08:09, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
@Isaacl Yes! Definitely, it "reduce the amount of testing required." If we have correct classes, then only Unit testing and an Integration testing would be required. Unit testing has been done greatly, but we need only integration testing.
In this case, I propose this scenario:
  1. Define an interface and a class for mergedMapClass
  2. Implement rendering function for mergedMapClass that is different for OSM, Pushpin and custom maps (this needs too much testing but it has been done previously, just copy and paste these rendering codes).
  3. Make a Radio-button element that recognizes mergedMapClass as the main item
  4. Force this radio-button to call different rendering functions for each text "OSM", "custom1", "UAE" etc.
And that's it! How much test would be needed? Only some mapframe settings like size may cause problem.
I think integration testing for such scenario would not be too much to finally reach a stable code. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 08:31, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
I don't understand why you're continuing to argue against best software development practices, when it doesn't inhibit you from proceeding. Modern software development practices have increased the amount of testing, covering more levels of the software system, and focused on automating it. isaacl (talk) 17:23, 20 November 2025 (UTC)
Dear @Isaacl . I was talking about reduction of Unit testing due to reusable components provided by good design. I am trying to implement the above scenario as soon as possible. When finished, I will ping you to together test that code segment as much as we can, and also do some automated testing, because I am not familiar with that. Thanks for your idea. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 11:46, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
Please, no pings on this topic. It's not an area I'm interested in collaborating in. "I'm going to design this so well that less testing is needed" is an old fallacy in software development. A key reason for improving modularity is to design for testability, adding more unit testing than can be done without it. It's OK if you're not interested in gaining more understanding of software architecture, but if that's the case, I suggest not persisting in making statements that are counter to best practices. isaacl (talk) 18:18, 21 November 2025 (UTC)
Ideally we shouldn't overinvest in keeping the old location maps alive, and instead fix the equivalent functionality that's supposed to exist with mapframes, cf. Template talk:Infobox mapframe#switcher zoom/center?
I do see the sense in having a generic switcher template, though, that ability might be useful in general, potentially for any sort of content and not just maps. --Joy (talk) 12:36, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

@Joy: Yes, and thanks for your comment. A "generic switcher template" that is "queried simply" is very nice. For mapframe zoom switch, I propose this method for mapframe switcher:

|mergedMap = OSM1#OSM2#OSM3#Asia#UAE#Custom1
|OSM1 = {{Infobox mapframe |id=Q4948020|geomask=Q30}}
|OSM2= {{Infobox mapframe |id=Q4948020|geomask=Q100}}
|OSM3= {{Infobox mapframe |id=Q4948020|geomask=Q120}}
| custom1 = Dubai_by_Copernicus_Sentinel-2_in_false-colour.jpg

That is rendered in radio button switcher in order. Do you agree? Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 14:37, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

@Joy@Zackmann08 Hi again. I implemented the idea at Template:MergedMap/sandbox and if you place that template at for example Tehran article in preview mode, OSM would be an item of radio button. This template still needs more work, but because I am student, I would complete that at my free time. If someone likes to contribute in this project, I would appreciate him.
This proves the possibility of implementation of such idea. In fact, radio-buttons accept div element no matter it is OSM, Pushpin, image etc. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 05:23, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Template:MergedMap is ready!

@Joy and Zackmann08: Hi, and really sorry for pinging. I created Template:MergedMap and early tests were successful. Just call {{MergedMap}} in a city or place and set its mapQuery argument to something like: 

{{MergedMap|OSM#Iran#Asia}}

And OSM and pushpin maps will be merged in one radio button.

Additional arguments like customMap1 to customMap10 and OSM1 to OSM10 can be set for other images map and mapframes. Like by setting these arguments:

{{MergedMap
|mapQuery = OSM#customMap1#Iran#Asia#customMap2#OSM1#OSM2
|customMap1 =Tehran 51.41504E 35.69272N.jpg
|customMap2 = Tehran_district_map_(blank).svg
|OSM1 = {{Infobox mapframe|id=Q3616|zoom = 8}}
|OSM2 = {{Infobox mapframe|id=Q84|zoom = 8}}
}}

Certaingly it is full of bugs now and I am ready for correcting them. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 19:28, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

I have also merged maps of Tehran article for test. Please inspect that. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 19:28, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
@Joy@Zackmann08@Hike395 Hi and really sorry again for pinging. Please inspect these test cases:
  1. London
  2. Dubai
  3. Madrid
  4. Tehran
  5. Shiraz
  6. Bushehr
I think this template is now in the stable version. This method reduces the number of maps in Infobox, making it more readable and useful. If these it is Ok, please do something to make «Template:MergedMap» the preferred map of Infoboxes over Template:Mapframe and Template:Pushpin map and normal maps. Thanks again. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 15:57, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
@Hooman Mallahzadeh: I don't have time to dive into this right now. I looked at London and Dubai. Have to say this shows a TON of potential and thus far I am very impressed.
That being said, I would strongly advise against adding it to any more articles. Instead I would make a list of testcases at Template:MergedMap/testcases. I would also post on the talk page for {{Infobox settlement}} and give people at least a week (it is a holiday week here in the US) to really look this over.
As I said I'm thus far very impressed, but this has the potential to changes literally hundreds of thousands of pages. Let's make sure we iron out any issues before you put it in any more articles.
Good work! Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 16:07, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
My final proposal is that because this template is general-purpose, Infoboxes should customize that. At the end, users should work only with "mapQuery" and all other settings like mapframe-marker and pushpin-marker should be set automatically. Even satellite maps can be extracted form Wikidata. For example, I propose Template:Infobox Airport creates a new argument named "mapQuery", that takes values like "mapQuery = Iran#OSM#Satellite#Asia" and produces maps in its order while all setting except "mapQuery" should be done automatically. Thanks again. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 07:10, 27 November 2025 (UTC)
For that to be equivalent to current functionality, we need it to support passing in all the various parameters of location maps and mapframes, so there's no regression from switching.
Also, while we're at it, before moving this to production, we should also review these tags between the hashtags, as well as the naming style (camel case). I'll bring this up in new threads at Template talk:MergedMap. --Joy (talk) 12:19, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

User Configured Content Warnings

I know that Wikipedia is not censored and we don't force content warnings, but maybe some people don't want to suddenly see things like gore/nudity without a clear warning. Maybe people can choose what they do or do not want to see in their settings? VicAsksWhy (talk) 17:02, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Even if that was feasible (are we going to have a setting for spiders? I don't want to see spiders), most readers don't have accounts so they can't set any preferences. Schazjmd (talk) 18:19, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, the thing about the accounts is a good point. I was thinking fairly broad catagories; it's definitely impossible to cover every phobia to ever exist. VicAsksWhy (talk) 23:06, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
It's been brought up before, sorry I don't have a link to the most recent discussion but as I recall, the idea was to default-hide that type of image so the reader would have to select to show them. There was no consensus for the suggestion. Schazjmd (talk) 23:40, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
If someone does track down major discussions on the topic, they should add them to WP:PEREN#Censor offensive images. Anomie⚔ 23:44, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
Alright, got it. Just a little idea I had. VicAsksWhy (talk) 23:45, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
@VicAsksWhy, you couldn't know that it's been brought up before. Check out Anomie's link to WP:PEREN, there's a lot of interesting stuff in there. Schazjmd (talk) 23:53, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
Alright, I'll be sure to check that out. Thanks! VicAsksWhy (talk) 23:56, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
In 2010, the recommended categories were sex/nudity, violence, religious, and gore/disgusting content. In 2011, the Image filter referendum resulted in the project being cancelled. Examples of the four categories that were mentioned during the discussion included stills from notable porn movies, a photo of a professional fighter gouging out his opponent's eye with his thumb, drawings of Muhammad, and various illustrations in medical articles (e.g., the lead image of Smallpox). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:24, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
this had me thinking, why doesn't wikipedia have any settings for non logged in users, most other sites have settings for people who are not logged in and those who don't usually don't even allow for access of they're site unless your logged in, many settings don't seem like they inherently require or should require a account to use like appearance and search, is there something im missing? if not maybe we should start a discussion on this. Misterpotatoman (talk) 07:23, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
The general approach used by websites to save settings for users without accounts is to save the settings in the user's browser (either in a cookie or in local storage), and then either return the cookie information for the server to process, or use Javascript in the browser to change the page accordingly. A cookie-based approach isn't cache-friendly, so more servers are needed to handle the workload. At the scale of Wikipedia's readership, the required resources add up quickly. Using Javascript either causes visible changes to a page after loading, or requires the page to wait to finish its Javascript processing before rendering the page, reducing responsiveness to the reader. There are tradeoffs with each approach, and so far, the community and development team prefer the tradeoff of mostly not having settings for non-logged in users. (Vector 2022 introduced some settings related to its layout.) Specifically for content filtering, since this would generally be something a user would want for all websites, it would be more effective to manage within the user's viewing device or personal network. isaacl (talk) 08:31, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
thanks! i didn't know that. Misterpotatoman (talk) 08:36, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
Wait five years; some AI company will come out with automated content filters to hide nudity, spiders, or whatever you want. Of course, all at the expense of privacy... Anne drew (talk · contribs) 01:57, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
@VicAsksWhy: There's always Help:Options to hide an image. JJPMaster (she/they) 02:06, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

revamp to section system

Policy on userpages for unregistered users

Alternate to blocking - flag edits for pending change review

A policy on 'Awards and recognition' sections

Consistent display of coordinates

Make it mandatory to fill basic information within the government_type= of an infobox when writing about countries

Thoughts on standardized policy around GPTZero or other AIDetect software?

Better Citation Tool?

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2025 § Workshopping changes to the ArbCom election schedule

Idea for International Mentoring Day '26 & beyond

Thoughts on serverless functions for toolforge?

Require editors to acknowledge unread warnings

Suggestions for new features in Wikipedia

Modification for template:page numbers needed

Wikipedia app

Mass-reverting AI serial abusers

A new space for all these proposals for proposals relating to problematic LLM usage ?

Scope of AI tool use

Synchronizing and removing inconsistencies of all human-written editions of Wikipedia by implementing Machine Wikipedia

Thoughts on adding conspiracy theories and theorists to WP:CTOP?

IP talk page blanking bots, now that we have temporary accounts

What requirements should be expected for a "can use LLMs" user right?

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