Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 200

There is a user (who shall remain unnamed) who has "retired" twice and had the template removed from their page by other users because they were clearly still editing. They are now on their third "retirement", yet they last edited a few days ago. I don't see any policy formally prohibiting such behavior, but it seems extremely unhelpful for obvious reasons. Anonymous 17:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Unless the material is harmful to Wikipedia or other users, users have considerable leeway in what they may post on their user page. Personally, I always take "retirement" notices with a grain of salt. If a user wants to claim they are retired even though they are still actively editing, I don't see the harm to anything but their credibility. If I want to know if an editor is currently active, I look at their contributions, not at notices on their user or talk page. Donald Albury 22:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I can't imagine that this calls for a policy. You're allowed to be annoyed if you want. No one can take that away from you. But I'm missing an explanation of why the rest of us should care. --Trovatore (talk) 22:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

This seems a little prickly, my friend. Clearly, the other two users who removed older retirement notices cared. At the end of the day, it's definitely not the most major thing, but it is helpful to have a reliable and simple indication as to whether or not a user can be expected to respond to any kind of communication or feedback. I'm not going to die on this hill. Cheers. Anonymous 22:41, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

A "retirement notice" from a Wikipedia editor is approximately as credible as a "retirement notice" from a famous rock and roll band. Ignore it. Cullen328 (talk) 03:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

FWIW, those two other editors were in the wrong to edit another person's user page for this kind of thing. And the retired banner does indicate: don't expect a quick response, even if I made an edit a few days or even minutes ago, as I may not be around much. Valereee (talk) 12:28, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

There's a lot of active editors on the project, with retirement templates on their user pages. GoodDay (talk) 03:11, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I think it's kind of rude to edit someone else's user page unless there is an extreme reason, like reversing vandalism or something. On Wikipedia:User pages I don't see anything about retirement templates, but i do see it say "In general, one should avoid substantially editing another's user and user talk pages, except when it is likely edits are expected and/or will be helpful. If unsure, ask." If someone wants to identify as retired but sometimes drop by and edit, that doesn't seem to hurt anything. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:56, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOTCOMPULSORY, so even a "non-retired" editor might never edit again. And if someone is "retired" but still constructively edits, just consider that a bonus. What's more problematic is a petulant editor who "retires", but returns and edits disruptively; in such case, it's their disruptive behavior that would be the issue, not a trivial retirement notice. —Bagumba (talk) 07:42, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

• As far as Wikipedia is concerned it's just another userbox you can put on your userpage. We only remove userboxes and userspace material if they're claiming to have a right that they don't (ie. a user with an Administrator toolbox who isn't an admin). Retirement is not an official term defined in policy anywhere, and being retired confers no special status. Pinguinn 🐧 11:13, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

If you see a retirement template that seems to be false you could post a message on the user talk page to ask if they are really retired. I suppose it could be just a tiny bit disruptive if we cannot believe such templates, but nowhere near enough to warrant sanctions or a change in policy. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:39, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

At Wikipedia:Deletion review#Clock/calendar, a few editors (Enos733 and Jay, while Robert McClenon and OwenX hinted at it) expressed support for allowing non-administrators to close RfD discussions as "delete". While I don't personally hold strong opinions in this regard, I would like for this idea to be discussed here. JJP_Master (she/they) 13:13, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

• That would not be helpful. -- Tavix ^(talk) 14:10, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
• While I have no issue with the direction the linked discussion has taken, I agree with almost every contributor there: As a practice I have zero interest in generally allowing random editors closing outside their permissions. It might make DRV a more chatty board, granted. BusterD (talk) 15:02, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

  Tamzin makes a reasonable case in their comment below. When we have already chosen to trust certain editors with advanced permissions, we might allow those folks to utilize them as fully as accepted practice allows. Those humans already have skin in the game. They are unlikely to act rashly. BusterD (talk) 19:32, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

• To me, non-admin delete closes at any XfD have always seemed inconsistent with what we say about how adminship and discussion closing work. I would be in violation of admin policy if I deleted based on someone else's close without conducting a full review myself, in which case, what was the point of their close? It's entirely redundant to my own work. That said, I can't really articulate a reason that this should be allowed at some XfDs but not others, and it seems to have gone fine at CfD and TfD. I guess call me neutral.
  What I'd be more open to is allowing page movers to do this. Page movers do have the tools to turn a bluelink red, so it doesn't create the same admin accountability issue if I'm just cleaning up the stray page left over from a page mover's use of a tool that they were duly granted and subject to their own accountability rules for. We could let them move a redirect to some other plausible title (this would violate WP:MOVEREDIRECT as currently written but I think I'd be okay with making this a canonical exception), and/or allow moving to some draftspace or userspace page and tagging for G6, as we do with {{db-moved}}. I'll note that when I was a non-admin pagemover, I did close a few things as delete where some edge case applied that let me effect the deletion using only suppressredirect, and no one ever objected. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 19:07, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

  I see that I was sort of vague, which is consistent with the statement that I hinted at allowing non-admin delete closures. My main concern is that I would like to see our guidelines and our practice made consistent, either by changing the guidelines or changing the practice. It appears that there is a rough consensus emerging that non-admin delete closures should continue to be disallowed in RFD, but that CFD may be a special case. So what I am saying is that if, in practice, we allow non-admin Delete closures at CFD, the guideline should say something vague to that effect.

  I also see that there is a consensus that DRV can endorse irregular non-admin closures, including irregular non-admin Delete closures. Specifically, it isn't necessary for DRV to vacate the closure for an uninvolved admin to close. A consensus at DRV, some of whose editors will be uninvolved admins, is at least as good a close as a normal close by an uninvolved admin.

  Also, maybe we need clearer guidance about non-admin Keep closures of AFDs. I think that if an editor is not sure whether they have sufficient experience to be closing AFDs as Keep, they don't have enough experience. I think that the guidance is clear enough in saying that administrator accountability applies to non-admin closes, but maybe it needs to be further strengthened, because at DRV we sometimes deal with non-admin closes where the closer doesn't respond to inquiries, or is rude in response to them.

  Also, maybe we need clearer guidance about non-admin No Consensus closures of AFDs. In particular, a close of No Consensus is a contentious closure, and should either be left to an admin, or should be Relisted.

Robert McClenon (talk) 19:20, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

As for I can't really articulate a reason that this should be allowed at some XfDs, the argument is that more work is needed to enact closures at TfD and CfD (namely orphaning templates and emptying/moving/merging categories). Those extra steps aren't present at RfD. At most, there are times when it's appropriate to unlink the redirect or add WP:RCATs but those are automated steps that WP:XFDC handles. From my limited experience at TfD and CfD though, it does seem that the extra work needed at closure does not compensate for the extra work from needing two people reviewing the closure (especially at CfD because a bot that handles the clean-up). Consistency has come up and I would much rather consistently disallow non-admin delete closures at all XfD venues. I know it's tempting for non-admins to think they're helping by enacting these closures but it's not fair for them to be spinning their wheels. As for moving redirects, that's even messier than deleting them. There's a reason that WP:MOVEREDIRECT advises not to move redirects except for limited cases when preserving history is important. -- Tavix ^(talk) 20:16, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

@Tamzin: I do have one objection to this point of redundancy, which you are quite familiar with. Here, an AfD was closed as "transwiki and delete", however, the admin who did the closure does not have the technical ability to transwiki pages to the English Wikibooks, meaning that I, who does, had to determine that the outcome was actually to transwiki rather than blindly accepting a request at b:WB:RFI. Then, I had to mark the pages for G6 deletion, that way an admin, in this case you, could determine that the page was ready to be deleted. Does this mean that that admin who closed the discussion shouldn't have closed it, since they only have the technical ability to delete, not transwiki? Could I have closed it, having the technical ability to transwiki, but not delete? Either way, someone else would have had to review it. Or, should only people who have importing rights on the target wiki and admin rights on the English Wikipedia be allowed to close discussions as "transwiki and delete"? JJP_Master (she/they) 12:04, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

• I do support being explicit when a non-administrator can close a discussion as "delete" and I think that explicitly extending to RfD and CfD is appropriate. First, there can be a backlog in both of these areas and there are often few comments in each discussion (and there is usually not the same passion as in an AfD). Second, the delete close of a non-administrator is reviewed by an administrator before action is taken to delete the link, or category (a delete close is a two-step process, the writeup and the delete action, so in theory the administrators workload is reduced). Third, non-admins do face administrator accountability for their actions, and can be subject to sanction. Fourth, the community has a role in reviewing closing decisions at DRV, so there is already a process in place to check a unexperienced editor or poor close. Finally, with many, if not most discussions for deletion the outcome is largely straight forward. --Enos733 (talk) 20:01, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

• There is currently no rule against non-admin delete closures as far as I know; the issue is the practical one that you don't have the ability to delete. However, I have made non-admin delete closures at AfD. This occurred when an admin deleted the article under consideration (usually for COPYVIO) without closing the related AfD. The closures were not controversial and there was no DRV. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:31, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

The situation you're referring to is an exception allowed per WP:NACD: If an administrator has deleted a page (including by speedy deletion) but neglected to close the discussion, anyone with a registered account may close the discussion provided that the administrator's name and deletion summary are included in the closing rationale. -- Tavix ^(talk) 20:37, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

• Bad idea to allow, this sort of closure is just busy work, that imposes more work on the admin that then has to review the arguments, close and then delete. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
• Is this the same as #Non-Admin XFD Close as Delete above? Anomie⚔ 23:04, 7 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Yes, User:Anomie. Same issue coming from the same DRV. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:52, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
• (1) As I've also noted in the other discussion, the deletion process guidelines at WP:NACD do say non-admins shouldn't do "delete" closures and do recognize exceptions for CfD and TfD. There isn't a current inconsistency there between guidelines and practice.
  (2) In circumstances where we do allow for non-admin "delete" closures, I would hope that the implementing admin isn't fully reviewing the discussion de novo before implementing, but rather giving deference to any reasonable closure. That's how it goes with requested move closers asking for technical help implementing a "moved" closure at WP:RM/TR (as noted at WP:RMNAC, the closure will "generally be respected by the administrator (or page mover)" but can be reverted by an admin if "clearly improper"). SilverLocust 💬 08:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment - A couple things to note about the CFD process: It very much requires work by admins. The non-admin notes info about the close at WT:CFD/Working, and then an admin enters the info on the CFD/Working page (which is protected) so that the bot can perform the various actions. Remember that altering a category is potentially more labour intensive than merely editing or deleting a single page - every page in that category must be edited, and then the category deleted. (There are other technical things involved, like the mess that template transclusion can cause, but let's keep it simple.) So I wouldn't suggest that that process is very useful as a precedent for anything here. It was done at a time when there was a bit of a backlog at CfD, and this was a solution some found to address that. Also - since then, I think at least one of the regular non-admin closers there is now an admin. So there is that as well. - jc37 09:14, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
• If the expectation is that an admin needs to review the deletion discussion to ensure they agree with that outcome before deleting via G6, as multiple people here are suggesting, then I'm not sure this is worthwhile. However, I have had many admins delete pages I've tagged with G6, and I have been assuming that they only check that the discussion was indeed closed as delete, and trust the closer to be responsible for the correctness of it. This approach makes sense to me, because if a non-admin is competent to close and be responsible for any other outcome of a discussion, I don't see any compelling reason they can't be responsible for a delete outcome and close accordingly. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 19:51, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

  Some closers, and you're among them, have closing accuracy similar to many sysops. But the sysop can't/shouldn't "trust" that your close is accurate. Trustworthy though you are, the sysop must, at very minimum, check firstly that the close with your signature on it was actually made by you (signatures are easily copied), secondly that the close wasn't manifestly unreasonable, and thirdly that the CSD is correct. WP:DRV holds the deleting sysop responsible for checking that the CSD were correctly applied. G6 is for uncontroversial deletions, and if there's been an XFD, then it's only "uncontroversial" if the XFD was unanimous or nearly so. We do have sysops who'll G6 without checking carefully, but they shouldn't. Basically, non-admin closing XFDs doesn't save very much sysop time. I think that if your motive as a non-admin is to relieve sysops of labour, the place you're of most use is at RfC.—S Marshall T/C 11:28, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  if your motive as a non-admin is to relieve sysops of labour, the place you're of most use is at RfC alternatively you should consider becoming an administrator yourself. Thryduulf (talk) 13:20, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  If you're willing to tolerate the RFA process.—S Marshall T/C 15:24, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

  In all the cases I have dealt with, the admin's reason for deletion (usually copyvio) was completely different to the issues being debated in the AfD (usually notability). The closing statement was therefore something like "Discussion is now moot due to article being deleted for <reason> by <admin>". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

• I think most all the time, experienced closers will do a great job and that will save admin time because they will not have to construct and explain the close from scratch, but there will be some that are bad and that will be costly in time not just for the admin but for the project's goal of completing these issues and avoiding disruption. I think that lost time is still too costly, so I would oppose non-admin delete closes. (Now if there were a proposal for a process to make a "delete-only admin permission" that would be good -- such motivated specialists would likely be more efficient.) Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:44, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
• As I said at the "Non-Admin XFD Close as Delete" section, I support non-admins closing RfDs as Delete. If TfDs have been made an exception, RfDs can be too, especially considering RfD backlogs. Closing a heavily discussed nomination at RfD is more about the reading, analysis and thought process at arriving at the outcome, and less about the technicality of the subsequent page actions. I don't see a significant difference between non-admins closing discussions as Delete vs non-Delete. It will help making non-admins mentally prepared to advance to admin roles. Jay 💬 14:53, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
• The backlog at RFD is mostly lack of participation, not lack of admins not making closures. This would only be exacerbated if non-admins are given a reason not to !vote on discussions trending toward deletion so they can get the opportunity to close. RFD isn't as technical as CFD and TFD. In any case, any admin doing the deletion would still have to review the RFD. Except in the most obviously trivial cases, this will lead to duplicate work, and even where it doesn't (e.g. multiple !votes all in one direction), the value-add is minimal.

-- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 16:34, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

In thinking about a recent banned user's request to be unblocked, I've been reading WP:Blocking policy and WP:Banning policy trying to better understand the differences. In particular, I'm trying to better understand what criteria should be applied when deciding whether to end a sanction.

One thing that stuck me is that for blocks, we explicitly say Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, not to punish users. The implication being that a user should be unblocked if we're convinced they no longer present a threat of damage or disruption. No such statement exists for bans, which implies that bans are be a form of punishment. If that's the case, then the criteria should not just be "we think they'll behave themselves now", but "we think they've endured sufficiently onerous punishment to atone for their misbehavior", which is a fundamentally different thing.

I'm curious how other people feel about this. RoySmith (talk) 16:15, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

My understanding (feel free to correct me if I am wrong) is that blocks are made by individual admins, and may be lifted by an admin (noting that CU blocks should only be lifted after clearance by a CU), while bans are imposed by ARBCOM or the community and require ARBCOM or community discussion to lift. Whether block or ban, a restriction on editing should only be imposed when it is the opinion of the admin, or ARBCOM, or the community, that such restriction is necessary to protect the encyclopedia from further harm or disruption. I thinks bans carry the implication that there is less chance that the banned editor will be able to successfully return to editing than is the case for blocked editors, but that is not a punishment, it is a determination of what is needed to protect WP in the future. Donald Albury 16:44, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Good question. I'm interested in what ban evasion sources think about current policies, people who have created multiple accounts, been processed at SPI multiple times, made substantial numbers of edits, the majority of which are usually preserved by the community in practice for complicated reasons (a form of reward in my view - the community sends ban evading actors very mixed messages). What's their perspective on blocks and bans and how to reduce evasion? It is not easy to get this kind of information unfortunately as people who evade bans and blocks are not very chatty it seems. But I have a little bit of data from one source for interest, Irtapil. Here are a couple of views from the other side.

• On socking - "automatic second chance after first offense with a 2 week ban / block, needs to be easier than making a third one so people don't get stuck in the loop"
• On encouraging better conduct - "they need to gently restrict people, not shun and obliterate"

No comment on the merits of these views, or whether punishment is what is actually happening, or is required, or effective, but it seems clear that it is likely to be perceived as punishment and counterproductive (perhaps unsurprisingly) by some affected parties. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Blocks are a sanction authorized by the community to be placed by administrators on their own initiative, for specific violations as described by a policy, guideline, or arbitration remedy (in which case the community authorization is via the delegated authority to the arbitration committee). Blocks can also be placed to enforce an editing restriction. A ban is an editing restriction. As described on the banning policy page, it is a formal prohibition from editing some or all pages on the English Wikipedia, or a formal prohibition from making certain types of edits on Wikipedia pages. Bans can be imposed for a specified or an indefinite duration. Aside from cases where the community has delegated authority to admins to enact bans on their own initiative, either through community authorization of discretionary sanctions, or arbitration committee designated contentious topics, editing restrictions are authorized through community discussion. They cover cases where there isn't a single specific violation for which blocking is authorized by guidance/arbitration remedy, and so a pattern of behaviour and the specific circumstances of the situation have to be discussed and a community consensus established.

Historically, removing blocks and bans require a consensus from the authorizing party that removing it will be beneficial to the project. Generally, the community doesn't like to impose editing restrictions when there is promise for improved behaviour, so they're enacted for more severe cases of poor behaviour. Thus it's not unusual that the community is somewhat skeptical about lifting recently enacted restrictions (where "recent" can vary based on the degree of poor behaviour and the views of each community member). Personally I don't think this means an atonement period should be mandated. isaacl (talk) 18:33, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

• I think that a block is a preventive measure, whereas a ban is where the community's reached a consensus to uninvite a particular person from the site. Wikipedia is the site that anyone can edit, except for a few people we've decided we can't or won't work with. A ban is imposed by a sysop on behalf of the community whereas a block is imposed on their own authority.—S Marshall T/C 19:39, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

  A ban does not always stop you from editing Wikipedia. It may prohibit you from editing in a certain topic area (BLP for example or policies) but you can still edit other areas. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 00:24, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

• Seems to be addressed in WP:BMB, which explains that the criteria is not dependent upon an editor merely behaving with what appears to be "good or good-faith edits". A ban is based on a persistent or long-term pattern of editing behavior that demonstrates a significant risk of "disruption, issues, or harm" to the area in which they are banned from, despite any number of positive contributions said editor has made or is willing to make moving forward. As such, it naturally requires a higher degree of review (i.e. a form of community consensus) to be imposed or removed (though many simply expire upon a pre-determined expiration date without review). While some may interpret bans as a form of punishment, they are still a preventative measure at their core. At least that's my understanding. --GoneIn60 (talk) 12:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I am leading an initiative to review and make recommendations on updates to policies and procedures governing decisions to run project banners or make temporary logo changes. The initiative is focused on ensuring that project decisions to run a banner or temporarily change their logo in response to an “external” event (such as a development in the news or proposed legislation) are made based on criteria and values that are shared by the global Wikimedia community. The first phase of the initiative is research into past examples of relevant community discussions and decisions. If you have examples to contribute, please do so on the Meta-Wiki page. Thanks! --CRoslof (WMF) (talk) 00:04, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

@CRoslof (WMF): Was this initiative in the works before ar-wiki's action regarding Palestine, or was it prompted by that? voorts (talk/contributions) 02:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

@voorts: Planning for this initiative began several months ago. The banners and logo changes on Arabic Wikipedia were one factor in making this work a higher priority, but by no means the only factor. One of the key existing policies that relates to this topic is the Wikimedia Foundation Policy and Political Association Guideline. The current version of that policy is pretty old at this point, and we've found that it hasn't clearly answered all the questions about banners that have come up since it was last updated. We can also see how external trends, including those identified in the Foundation's annual plan, might result in an increase in community proposals to take action. Updating policies is one way to support decision-making on those possible proposals. CRoslof (WMF) (talk) 01:09, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

I am confident that I can get a knowledgeable answer here quickly. There is a Deletion Review in progress, where the AFD was held in December 2023, and no one participated except the nominator, even after two Relists. After two relists, the closer closed it as a Redirect, which was consistent with what the nominator had written. In Deletion Review, the appellant is saying that the article should be restored. I understand that in the case of a soft delete, the article should be restored to user or draft space on request, but in this case, the article is already present in the history. So: Does the appellant have a right to have the article restored, or should they submit it to AFC for review, or what? I don't care, but the appellant does care (of course). Robert McClenon (talk) 20:44, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Without a second participant, an uncontested AfD is not a discussion and so there is no mandated outcome and the redirect in question can be undone by any editor in good standing, and can be then taken to AfD again by any editor objecting to it. Draft isn't typically mandated in policies, because it's a relatively new invention compared to our deletion policies and isn't referenced everywhere it might be relevant or helpful to specify. Jclemens (talk) 07:04, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, User:Jclemens. Is there an uninvolved opinion also? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:16, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Uninvolved opinion: While I agree with Jclemens that the DR appellant can simply revert the redirect within policy, I have not looked at this specific article and it likely makes more sense to restore to draftspace. I believe the appellant can do this themselves and does not need to go through a DR to copy the contents of the article from its history to draftspace. Alternatively, they can revert the BLAR and move to draftspace. The only difference is that if/when the article is moved back from draft to mainspace, a histmerge might be needed. Toadspike [Talk] 11:56, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

WP:NOQUORUM indicates that such a close should be treated as an expired WP:PROD, which states that restoration of prodded pages can be done via admin or via Requests for undeletion - there's no identified expectation/suggestion that prods should go to DRV. WP:SOFTDELETE states that such a deleted article "can be restored for any reason on request", ie: restoration to mainspace is an expected possibility. It also states that redirection is an option since BLAR can be used by any editor if there are no objections. Putting those together, it's reasonable for a restoration from redirect to be treated as a belated objection, and this can be done by any editor without seeking permission (though it would be nice if valid issues identified in the original AFD were fixed as part of the restoration to avoid a second AFD). ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 12:08, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability/SPS_RfC. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:17, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I think there should be a new class added to Wikipedia:Content assessment. The gap between B class ("satisfactory"/"decent") and Start class ("early development") is far too broad to just be covered by a single class. C class to me means "barely acceptable"/"average". Many times have I come across an article that was so poor that I thought it denigrates other C class articles by putting it on par with them, yet it was clearly not in early development so couldn't be Start class. D class would be "unacceptable", i.e. an article that violates multiple policies, and may even be 'harmful' to the reader. This would better compartmentalise the articles most in need of improvement which ultimately harm Wikipedia's reliability and integrity. It'd also take the emphasis off of garish, ugly tags for directing cleanup efforts.

I haven't seen this discussed anywhere, although I see C class was only added in 2008. What do people think of this? Kowal2701 (talk) 23:20, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not at all convinced this would be useful in practice, or even really makes sense in theory given the goals of the system. Your proposed class of articles should not exist: if they meet the criteria of "possibly harmful" and "explicitly in violation", then those elements should be immediately excised until the article more clearly fits your view of either C or Start class. Remsense ‥ 论 23:34, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Ideally yes, but considering time constraint and relevant expertise/interest needed, that isn't feasible. There are loads of articles that have {{Multiple issues}}, indicating they are in explicit violation of multiple policies, dated to years ago that haven’t been fixed. This’d compartmentalise those. Kowal2701 (talk) 23:47, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it makes sense for this to be a separate project, almost. If we want to manage a repository of articles that are in the most dire need of gutting for the perusal of willing surgeons. As someone who does a lot of deletion, I would be worried that systematizing it would encourage overzealous surgeries, though. Remsense ‥ 论 23:50, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I’ll notify WP:Cleanup as it’s the opinion of the surgeons about whether this’d be useful that would determine its merit Kowal2701 (talk) 23:59, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I think I would participate in a project along these lines. I think the difficulty is in articulating the margins of its scope scope to avoid potentially toxic, disruptive, or WP:BITEy behavior in participants. We need to articulate that these are articles with major problems of a kind that are better excised than allowed to remain, but without targeting what is ultimately more typical work resulting from the article building process. Remsense ‥ 论 05:08, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

That is to say, it is not a class in a sequence representing progressive improvement, it is actively retrograde: unambiguous mistakes denatured from the typical article building process have taken place. Remsense ‥ 论 23:47, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense. I see what you meant by no articles should be D class on their journey to FA. But in reality, plenty of articles are taken off of the linear course to FA. For example, many articles get delisted as FAs or GAs. Derailment and rectification can be part of an article’s journey, and the status quo omits that. Kowal2701 (talk) 23:53, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

In that case, why couldn't they be demoted to Start class? Start isn't only for articles in early development, despite its name, and an article failing C-class criteria should definitely be demoted. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 00:33, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s a good solution for now, but far from ideal. Per WP:CLASS, a Start class article is An article that is developing but still quite incomplete. It may or may not cite adequate reliable sources. The primary task for improvement for it is usually expansion. They can still be considered “acceptable” if they adhere to NPOV and are reasonably sourced and encyclopedic, but are just missing content.

D class articles would be long standing articles that mostly cover their scopes, however violate various policies, making them “unacceptable”. They are fundamentally different tasks where the primary task for improvement is scrutiny, possibly approaching a rewrite.

Ultimately, this is about introducing an “acceptable” and “unacceptable” paradigm into the grading system and setting a minimum threshold for article quality (specifically quality of existing content). Kowal2701 (talk) 02:16, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

This rating system was created by, and still exists primarily to support, the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. The rating system is linear, and if the article is below C-class but too long for Stub, then it's a Start. (BTW, C-class is a "modern" invention from around 2008; originally, articles were Starts until they reached B-class, and many editors objected to the creation of this 'unnecessary' extra intermediate class.) I doubt that they want to have an "unacceptable" class added. If memory serves, they use maintenance tags (e.g., copyvio, hoax) to filter out truly unacceptable articles.

So let's imagine a separate rating, that doesn't interfere with their work. Some articles will be "C-class but unacceptable". Then we'll have a big fight over whether it's really unacceptable, or if the person claiming it's unacceptable is a POV pusher who didn't get his way. I would expect this fight to be especially common in WP:ARBPIA5 ("The article is too favorable to the other side!"), WP:AP2 ("This article is too critical of Trump, and it can't be balanced until WP:BREITBART can be cited"), and other contentious subject areas.

I think this sort of dispute is not only predictable, but also unavoidable. So: Is that really what you want to accomplish? If not, then we need a different approach.

In the meantime, I'd encourage you to keep working with Wikipedia:Articles for improvement, and maybe see if Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council has ideas for how to recruit new folks to the group. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:14, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Can this not be handled through the usual consensus building and dispute resolution channels, as well as WP:AN/Edit warring? Typically those disputes are WP:OAM which would mean the disruptor would have to edit war to get their way. In an instance where there are multiple users on both sides of a dispute, consensus building on the core problems being perceived and dispute resolution on the perceived problems is the avenue with rating being a background issue (not an RFC on “should this article be D class”). I can’t see the changing to D class being that toxic, although it depends how the policy is worded as “unacceptable” on its own is very harsh Kowal2701 (talk) 09:16, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Labeling the article as Officially™ Unacceptable will be something people fight over. They will fight over the label, just like they used to fight to keep {{POV}} tags at the top of articles, to "warn the reader" about their disapproval. That reduced after we set high requirements for keeping the tag there (namely, if you weren't actively engaged in a discussion about fixing the POV problems on the talk page, then any passing editor could remove the tag at will).

The question isn't whether we can handle disputes when they arise. My question is whether we want to knowingly provoke more disputes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:28, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Maybe the bar for D class could be very high (or low!), in my mind an article would have to be an egregious violation of a core policy, or violation of multiple policies. Ideally the category would be kept small, but I don't think I'm best placed to theorise specifics due to lack of intimacy with current systems for cleanup and quality control. I'm not sure what could be done to reduce drama. These disputes would happen regardless of whether we introduce this or not, among other things it's about directing willing people with expertise in cleanup and WP policy (or even subject expertise if done by WikiProject categories). However it could just become another battleground in some topic areas. I think quality control is something a lot of people are passionate about, especially given WP's public image, and there isn't a current way of directing people to articles in most need of help that I'm aware of, WP:AFI appears to focus on improvement rather than fixing Kowal2701 (talk) 20:01, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

No, these disputes won't happen anyway.

For a close parallel, I've seen people be very upset because I've assessed articles as |importance=Low for WikiProject Medicine. If we didn't assess the articles that way, then those disputes would not have happened. Our choice to assess them, and especially our choice, years ago, to call the parameter |importance= instead of |priority= is the direct cause of these disputes.

This will cause disputes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

But they’d usually be constructive disputes around improving the article, rather than a dispute about an arbitrary parameter Kowal2701 (talk) 13:17, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I envy your optimism. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I feel like seeing your article receive a "D" would be demotivating to new users. A "start" is fine because that indicates that the article is still at the beginning, and a "C" technically means "average" and is typically a passing grade in education systems. But "D" feels like a bad article that doesn't have the excuse of being inchoate. Photos of Japan (talk) 05:00, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, but is that sort of what WP:AFC is for? All articles going through AFC would be Start class, and if a D class article does sneak through, users would be encouraged to engage with the author, obv in a civil and considerate manner, to help them to write better articles Kowal2701 (talk) 09:06, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

As a regular AfC reviewer, not all AfC articles I've graded are Start-class – C-class is probably just as common, and I've seen stubs at AfC before. Even B-class, while I'm very hesitant to give it without knowing more about the subject matter, can sometimes be the right grade for translations of foreign language GAs/FAs. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:18, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The purpose of AfC is merely to screen out articles that would probably be deleted from mainspace. An article that "violates multiple policies" (the vast majority of our articles violate multiple policies) should be accepted by AfC as long as those problems are rectifiable. – Joe (talk) 10:30, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

"Should be", according to the AFC documentation, but that's not the usual practice as far as my experience goes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:53, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

A nice idea, but I don't see how this would be useful at all in practice. It's clearly not something meant to sit between Start and C, so "D" probably isn't the appropriate name for it at all. In terms of compartmentalising, we have PLENTY of categories already set up, and activities like WP:AFI, WP:CLEANUP, and numerous other smaller ones aimed at more specific issues. Even if going ahead, this would likely be a lot of work just to classify things, with minimal or no benefit. If "garish, ugly" tags are the problem (which is another issue), I don't believe this is the answer. We also already have things like the attention flag on some WikiProject banners (e.g. Category:Biography articles needing attention). If articles are truly unacceptable, they shouldn't be left in their current state anyway, and should be draftified, nominated for deletion, stubbed, or otherwise edited. -Kj cheetham (talk) 12:35, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

• Content ratings beneath GA/A/FA are advisory and mostly for internal curiosity. It would be better to have 10 articles improved than 1000 more accurate below-GA-ratings given. If an article is incomplete, put a stub tag or expand tag on it (in mainspace). If an article's content has major problems, slap appropriate, specific cleanup tags on it (or better yet, just fix it yourself). Adjusting the internal rating isn't helpful except insofar as it might attract interested users (it probably won't), but cleanup templates already categorize articles much more helpfully by the *type* of problem. Honestly, we should get rid of C-class IMO, so adding even more classes is going the wrong direction. SnowFire (talk) 20:27, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

  That's exactly what I would have said if I hadn't been so lazy as to wait for someone else to say it first. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:37, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

• Personally, I would vote to move A-class to be beneath GA and bump C-class down to what you're proposing. I checked, and pretty much no articles are in Category:A-Class articles. If something is a GA, we know it is good, but not yet featured. What purpose does A-class have? Why? I Ask (talk) 09:59, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  It has none. There are a handful of projects which use A-class, for every other project, it's pointless. Gonnym (talk) 13:32, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  More precisely, if something is a GA, we know that one editor says that it meets the Wikipedia:Good article criteria. Whether that one editor's opinion matches anyone else's is always a question. Some editors wrongly decline GA noms, and other editors wrongly accept them. This is not "a problem" and does not need to be "fixed", but it's good for experienced editors to keep in mind what these things mean. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:55, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

• I tend to agree that if we're to move the content assessments in any direction it should be to have fewer classes under GA, not more. The classes without explicit review process (i.e. GA and FA) or a very clear definition (i.e. stub) are applied extremely inconsistently, and after nearly two decades of volunteer time poured into classifying (and yes, arguing over!) whether a not-stub, not-GA is Start, C, B, or A I've yet to see a single productive use of these four shades of mediocre. Stub → Developing → GA → FA would work for me because it gives editors a concrete way to move from each stage to the next. – Joe (talk) 10:25, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  A-class is usually above GA and has an explicit review process, although it often depends on a specific WikiProject. I don't think it can reasonably be called a "shade of mediocre", given that nearly all A-class articles have also passed GA. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:54, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  I'd put a citation needed tag on that statement. I've spot checked a few A-class articles and more than a handful weren't GA. Gonnym (talk) 13:35, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  The order is (A)/B/C/Start/Stub. Start/Stub is effectively a D. We don't need it . Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:24, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  I completely agree, although A-Class is useful for the special class of WP:MILHIST articles as these articles actually get a decent peer review before receiving the designation. Whether articles I write end up being reviewed as Start, C or B also tends to be fairly random and have little or no connection to the actual article quality, so for me as an article writer, these fine rating differences have no use. We should reduce the number of rating levels and certainly not introduce additional ratings. —Kusma (talk) 21:06, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

• I think all these ratings (particularly the ones below GA) just take up time that would be better spent on improving articles. As WhatamIdoing says, they were originally supposed to support Wikipedia 1.0. That project is dead (it has been overtaken by the way technology is used) but the ratings that support it are very much alive, and taking up far too much time. Let's produce a quality product, not keep measuring the one we've got and ascertaining that it's mediocre. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:52, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  and taking up far too much time and this is even before we take into account the amount of time the category maintenance takes (creating, deleting, renaming, etc.). Completely agree that the system needs be to simplified with most classes removed. Gonnym (talk) 21:20, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  Idk, I quite like taking articles up from Start or C class to B, find it quite useful Kowal2701 (talk) 22:18, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

  Same. They are useful intermediate steps on the way to GA. I did some work last year on the falling number and getting it from a stubby start article to a GA (perhaps not even possible) would have been an enormous push. Using the quality scale as a guide for things to include was really useful. Brammers (talk/c) 00:20, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

  The 1.0 project isn't dead, but it does operate differently now (e.g., mostly off wiki). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:45, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

• As a frequent reader of the SCP Foundation wiki, the term "D-class" makes me think of some very different things than what Kowal2701 had in mind. DS (talk) 15:05, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Does ChatGPT play a role in Wikipedia's editorial and administrative affairs? To what extent is this role? If there is a policy, history, or notable case in this regard, please link to it. Arbabi second (talk) 17:29, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

This is not the right venue to post this topic on, a better place to put this would be the Teahouse. Regardless, WP:CHATGPT is a good starting point to learn about this. For the policy on using it in articles, see WP:RSPCHATGPT. Hope this helps! The 🏎 Corvette 🏍 ZR1^{(The Garage)} 18:28, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Not policy, guideline-ish. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:56, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree the policy village pump isn't the right place to discuss general questions on ChatGPT's usage on Wikipedia, but just in case anyone's interested there's a study interviewing Wikipedian's about their LLM usage which I think should shed some light on how users here are currently using ChatGPT and the like. Photos of Japan (talk) 18:46, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång@Photos of Japan@The Corvette ZR1

It was very useful information but unfortunately not enough. Thank you anyway. Arbabi second (talk) 20:29, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

We aren't allowed to sign things created by others with our user name. I think using AI generated contents without explicit disclosure should fall under that, either in discussion or article space. Graywalls (talk) 07:19, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

If you're interested, we also have WP:WikiProject AI Cleanup/Resources that has a list of relevant resources and discussions about that topic! (And an archive of the project's discussions at WP:AINB) Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:15, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

There appears to be a slight conflict between MOS:ACCESSIBILITY and MOS:ICONS. The former says:

Do not use techniques that require interaction to provide information, such as tooltips or any other "hover" text. Abbreviations are exempt from these requirements, so the template (a wrapper for the <abbr> element) may be used to indicate the long form of an abbreviation (including an acronym or initialism).

And makes ample reference to ensuring accessibility for screen readers. The latter says

Image maps should specify alt text for the main image and for each clickable area; see Image maps and {{English official language clickable map}} for examples.

And the linked image map no longer has an interactive image map, which I'm uncertain if resulted from a single editor or wider discussion. This feels like one of those small places where policy may have evolved, but as image maps are used so rarely it doesn't seem there's extremely clear guidance here. A good example of this in action is Declaration of Independence (painting) and the monstrosity at Gale (crater)#Interactive_Mars_map. I'd personally interpret MOS:ACCESSIBILITY as dissuading image maps entirely, but that doesn't appear to be a clear policy directive. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 09:21, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Is there any relevant distinction to be made here on which kind of device a user choses to employ? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:22, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I can't imagine there isn't a policy somewhere that's basically "Don't break the mobile browsing experience". The problem with imagemaps is they don't scale nicely to different sized devices; at some point there's a need for the size to stay fixed so the links map appropriately. This is why I sort of feel there may be a policy gap here, since several things would imply don't use imagemaps but we also have explicit guidance on how to use them. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:26, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Ah thanks. So editors/ readers who habitually use only desktop or laptop devices may not ever realise there's a problem? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:31, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Or even readers who use more recent phones. It's easy to forget that a high end iPhone/Android device may have a much higher resolution screen than the vast majority of phones globally. Even if it renders properly, the individual click points in an imagemap can get so compressed that they're not interactable. This puts us in a situation of populating articles with navigational elements that can only be utilized a: on desktop and b: by sighted users. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 11:34, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

The mobile interface is different. Would it better to simply disable those kinds of images for mobile users (and maybe replace with some kind of advice/apology), instead of taking them away for all users? Perhaps that's too difficult. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:03, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

There's a way to with Template:If mobile but that's apparently depreciated, so it seems like this policy overrides it, which seems like an even further call to avoid using imagemaps (without being exactly clear enough to be a policy guideline on imagemaps). Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:12, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

It's possible to navigate between imagemap links using the Tab key. Hence it seems likely they are rendered by screen readers as if they are a sequence of image links, explaining why MOS:ICONS requires alt text to be specified for each clickable area. I suspect MOS:NOTOOLTIPS is intended to apply to mouse-only interactive elements such as tooltips, rather than Tab-interactive elements such as wikilinks and image links, in which case the two policies are mutually consistent.

Your point about mobile browsers is a good one. WMF's Principal Web Software Engineer briefly commented on this back in 2017 in T181756 and Template talk:Features and memorials on Mars#c-Jon_(WMF)-2017-11-30T22:50:00.000Z-Template not mobile friendly, suggesting wrapping the element [image map] with a scrollable container so as not to break mobile readability. Another possible approach would be to add custom CSS via WP:TemplateStyles. Template:Calculator#Best practices suggests [using] media queries with template styles to adjust the display depending on how wide the screen is, though to pursue this option, I think we'd need to call in someone with more expertise than me. Preimage (talk) 14:14, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

The problem with that, though, is if you appropriately scale imagemaps for mobile screens that have more than a couple of clickable elements you've basically rendered it unusual just by virtue of the size of fingers and screens. Not sure that's a policy problem, but it is a problem. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:17, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I have seen it asserted that contacting another editor's employer is always harassment and therefore grounds for an indefinite block without warning. I absolutely get why we take it seriously and 99% of the time this norm makes sense. (I'm using the term "norm" because I haven't seen it explicitly written in policy.)

In some cases there is a conflict between this norm and the ways in which we handle disruptive editing that is funded by organizations. There are many types of organizations that fund disruptive editing - paid editing consultants, corporations promoting themselves, and state propaganda departments, to name a few. Sometimes the disruption is borderline or unintentional. There have been, for instance, WMF-affiliated outreach projects that resulted in copyright violations or other crap being added to articles.

We regularly talk on-wiki and off-wiki about organizations that fund Wikipedia editing. Sometimes there is consensus that the organization should either stop funding Wikipedia editing or should significantly change the way they're going about it. Sometimes the WMF legal team sends cease-and-desist letters.

Now here's the rub: Some of these organizations employ Wikipedia editors. If a view is expressed that the organizations should stop the disruptive editing, it is foreseeable that an editor will lose a source of income. Is it harassment for an editor to say "Organization X should stop/modify what it's doing to Wikipedia?" at AN/I? Of course not. Is it harassment for an editor to express the same view in a social media post? I doubt we would see it that way unless it names a specific editor.

Yet we've got this norm that we absolutely must not contact any organization that pays a Wikipedia editor, because this is a violation of the harassment policy. Where this leads is a bizarre situation in which we are allowed to discuss our beef with a particular organization on AN/I but nobody is allowed to email the organization even to say, "Hey, we're having a public discussion about you."

I propose that if an organization is reasonably suspected to be funding Wikipedia editing, contacting the organization should not in and of itself be considered harassment. I ask that in this discussion, we not refer to real cases of alleged harassment, both to avoid bias-inducing emotional baggage and to prevent distress to those involved. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:29, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

• If it's needful to contact an organisation about one of their employees' edits, Trust and Safety should do that. Not volunteers.—S Marshall T/C 09:21, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  Let's say Acme Corporation has been spamming Wikipedia. If you post on Twitter "Acme has been spamming Wikipedia" is that harassment? How about if you write "@Acme has been spamming Wikipedia?" Should only Trust and Safety be allowed to add the @ sign? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:43, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  What you post on Twitter isn't something Wikipedia can control. But contacting another editor's employer about that editor's edits has a dark history on Wikipedia.—S Marshall T/C 15:49, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  The history is dark indeed. What I'm pointing out is that writing "@Acme has been spamming Wikipedia" on Twitter is contacting another editor's employer. Should you be indef blocked without warning for doing that? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:56, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  You want an "in principle" discussion without talking about specific cases, so the only way I can answer that is to say: Not always, but depending on the surrounding circumstances, possibly.—S Marshall T/C 16:11, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  I agree. You said it better than I did. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:56, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  @S Marshall I hate to just barge in, but what is the "dark history" here? And I think this is a great idea that should be implemented globally. SimpleSubCubicGraph (talk) 04:08, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

  I need to avoid naming names or referring to specific incidents out of respect for Clayoquot's wishes. I'd be naming people who're blocked and can't answer my allegations in a very public place...—S Marshall T/C 08:03, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure the posed question is actually the relevant one. Take as a given that Acme Co. is spamming Wikipedia. Sending Acme Co. a strongly worded letter to cut it out could potentially impact the employment of someone who edits Wikipedia, but is nonspecific as to who. I'd liken this to saying, "Amazon should be shut down." It will doubtless effect SOME Wikipedia editor, but it never targeted them. This should not be sanctioned.

The relevant question is if you call out a specific editor in connection. If AcmeLover123 is suspected or known to be paid by Acme Co. to edit Wikipedia, care should be taken in how it's handled. Telling AcmeLover123, "I'm going to tell your boss to fire you because you're making them look bad" is pretty unambiguous WP:HARRASMENT, and has a chilling effect like WP:NLT. Thus, it should be sanctioned. On the other hand, sending Acme Co. that strongly worded letter and then going to WP:COIN to say, "Acme Co. has been spamming Wikipedia lately. I sent them a letter telling them to stop. AcmeLover123 has admitted to being in the employ of Acme Co." This seems to me to be reasonable. So I think just as WP:NLT has no red-line rule of "using this words means it's a legal threat", contacting an employer should likewise be considered on a case-by-case basis. EducatedRedneck (talk) 14:20, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Even if a specific editor is named when contacting an employer, we should be looking at it on a case-by-case basis. My understanding is that in the events that have burned into our collective emotional memory, trolls contacted organizations that had nothing to do with their employee's volunteer Wikipedia activity. Contacting these employers was a gross violation of the volunteer's right to privacy.

Personally, if Acme Co was paying me to edit and someone had a sincere complaint about these edits that they wanted to bring to AN/I, I would actually much prefer them to bring that complaint to Acme Co first to give us a chance to correct the problem with dignity. If a post about an Acme Co-sponsored project on AN/I isn't a violation of privacy, I can't see why sending exactly the same content to Acme Co via less-public channels like email would be one. Whether a communication constitutes harassment depends on the content. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 00:30, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes, what you described is why I don't think anyone here thinks contacting an employer is categorically forbidden. Though my concerns are, as I mentioned above, less about privacy (though HEB's comments below are well-taken), and far more about the chilling effect similar to WP:NLT. If there's even a whiff of such a chilling effect, I think it's reasonable to treat it the same. If it's vague, a stern caution is appropriate. If it reads as a clear intimidation, there should be a swift indef until it is clearly and unambiguously stated that there was no attempt to target the editor. Even that is a little iffy; it'd be easy for someone to do the whole, "That's a nice job you have there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it" shtick, then immediately apologize and insist it was expressing concern. The intimidation and chilling effect could remain well after any nominal retraction. EducatedRedneck (talk) 15:00, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

I think the main problem is we won't have access to the email to evaluate it unless one of the off-wiki parties shares it... We won't even know an email was sent. For accountability and transparency reasons these interactions need to take place on-wiki if they take place at all. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:04, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back That's fair. I think because off-wiki communications is a black box like you said, I figure we can't police that anyway, so there's no point in trying. The only thing we can police is mentioning it on-wiki. If I understand you right, your thinking is that there is a bright line of contacting an entity off-wiki about Wikipedia matters. It seems like that line extends beyond employers, too. (E.g., sending someone's mother an email saying, "Look what your (grown) child is doing to Wikipedia!")

I assume the bright line is trying to influence how they relate to Wikipedia. That is, emailing Acme Co. and saying, "Hey, your Wikipedia article doesn't have a picture of [$thing]. Can you release one under CC?" seems acceptable, but telling them, "Hey, someone has been editing your article in such-and-such a way. You should try to get them to stop." is firmly in the just-take-it-to-ANI territory. Am I getting that right? EducatedRedneck (talk) 15:29, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

More or less, for me the bright line is naming a specific editor or editors... However I would interpret "You should try to get them to stop." as an attempt at harassment by proxy, even with no name attached. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:38, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

I see. Okay, that makes sense to me. I'm sure there are WP:BEANS ways to try to game it, but at the very least it'd catch the low-hanging fruit of blatant intimidation. You've convinced me; thanks for taking the time to explain your reasoning to me. EducatedRedneck (talk) 10:49, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Just in general you should not be attempting to unilaterally handle AN/I level issues off-wiki. That is entirely inappropriate. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:04, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Another issue is that it sometimes doing that can place another link or two in a wp:outing chain, and IMO avoiding that is of immense importance. The way that you posed the question with the very high bar of "always" is probably not the most useful for the discussion. Also, a case like this is almost always involves a concern about a particular editor or center around edits made by a particular editor, which I think is a non-typical omission from your hypothetical example. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:41, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by placing a link in an outing chain. Can you explain this further? I used the very high bar of "always" because I have seen admins refer to it as an "always" or a "bright line" and this shuts down the conversation. Changing the norm from "is always harassment" to "is usually harassment" is exactly what I'm trying to do.

Organizations that fund disruptive editing often hire just one person to do it but I've also seen plenty of initiatives that involve money being distributed widely, sometimes in the form of giving perks to volunteers. If the organization is represented by only one editor then there is obviously a stronger argument that contacting the organization constitutes harassment. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:44, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

What would be the encyclopedic purpose(s) of the communication with the company? You don't describe one and I'm having a hard time coming up with any. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:42, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

It would usually be to tell them that we have a policy or guideline that their project is violating. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:07, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

And the encyclopedic purpose served by that would be? Also note that if there is no on-wiki discussion then there is no consensus that P+G are being violated, so you're not actually telling them that they're violating P+G you're only telling them at you as a single individual think that they are violating P+G. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:16, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

It serves the same encyclopedic purpose, and carries same level of authoritativeness, as you or I dropping a warning template on a user's talk page. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 03:08, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Those are not at all the same (remember you aren't proposing to email the person, you're proposing to email someone you think is their employer)... At this point I think you want a liscense to harass, what you're proposing is unaccountable vigilante justice and the fact that you think anything you do off-wiki carries on-wiki authority is bizzare and disturbing. How else would you like to be able to harass other editors? Nailing a printed out warning template to someone's front door? Showing up at their place of work in person? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:55, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Wikivoyage dealt with an apparent case of corporate-authorized spammy editing (or spam-adjacent) in 2020, and I thought that contacting the corporate office (a hotel chain) was a reasonable thing to do.

Paid editing isn't forbidden there, but touting is. Articles started filling up with recommendations to use that particular hotel chain. Contacting the editor(s) directly didn't seem to make a difference. Sending an e-mail message to the marketing department to ask whether they happened to have anybody working on this, and to see if we could get them to do the useful things (e.g., updated telephone numbers) without the not-so-useful things seemed to eventually have the desired effect.

Also, just to be clear, while a private e-mail is one way to go about this, I understand that there's this thing called social media, and I have heard that publicly contacting @CompanyName is supposed to be a pretty reliable way to get the attention of a corporate marketing department. "Hey, @CompanyName, do you know anything about why someone keeps pasting copyrighted content about your company into Wikipedia?" is not "contacting someone's employer"; it's "addressing the likely source of the problem".

In terms of history, I'm aware of two cases that made many editors quite uncomfortable. Without going into too many details, and purely from potentially fallible memory:

• A banned editor was disrupting Wikipedia from IP addresses controlled by the US government. There was discussion on wiki about reporting this to the relevant agency. The disruption stopped (for a while). Some editors thought that a report could result in the editor losing his job, but (a) AFAICT nobody knows if that happened, and (b) if you have a contract that says misusing government computers could result in losing your job, then choosing to disrupt Wikipedia at work = choosing to lose your job.
• An editor figured out someone's undisclosed real-world identity and phoned her up at work (i.e., called to talk to the editor herself, not her boss). This was taken as a much bigger deal. A stranger phoning you up at work to argue with you about Wikipedia is much more personal and threatening than a note being dropped in a government agency's public complaint box.

I don't think that either of these are equivalent to telling a company that its marketing plan is causing problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:12, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above has spiralled out of control, and needs clarification. The discussion revolves around how to count episodes for TV series when a traditionally shorter episode (e.g., 30 minutes) is broadcast as a longer special (e.g., 60 minutes). The main point of contention is whether such episodes should count as one episode (since they aired as a single entity) or two episodes (reflecting production codes and industry norms).

The simple question is: when primary sources and secondary sources conflict, which we do use on Wikipedia?

• The contentious article behind this discussion is at List of Good Luck Charlie episodes, in which Deadline, TVLine and The Futon Critic all state that the series has 100 episodes; this article from TFC, which is a direct copy of the press release from Disney Channel, also states that the series has "100 half-hour episodes".
• The article has 97 episodes listed; the discrepancy is from three particular episodes that are all an hour long (in a traditionally half-hour long slot). These episode receive two production codes, indicating two episodes, but each aired as one singular, continuous release. An editor argues that the definition of an episode means that these count as a singular episode, and stand by these episode being the important primary sources.
• The discussion above discusses what an episode is. Should these be considered one episode (per the primary source of the episode), or two episodes (per the secondary sources provided)? This is where the primary conflict is.
• Multiple editors have stated that the secondary sources refer to the production of the episodes, despite the secondary sources not using this word in any format, and that the primary sources therefore override the "incorrect" information of the secondary sources. Some editors have argued that there are 97 episodes, because that's what's listed in the article.
• WP:CALC has been cited; Routine calculations do not count as original research, provided there is consensus among editors that the results of the calculations are correct, and a meaningful reflection of the sources. An editor argues that there is not the required consensus. WP:VPT was also cited.

Another example was provided at Abbott Elementary season 3#ep36.

• The same editor arguing for the importance of the primary source stated that he would have listed this as one episode, despite a reliable source stating that there is 14 episodes in the season.
• WP:PSTS has been quoted multiple times:
  • Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if it has been published by a reliable secondary source.
  • While a primary source is generally the best source for its own contents, even over a summary of the primary source elsewhere, do not put undue weight on its contents.
  • Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so.
• Other quotes from the editors arguing for the importance of primary over secondary includes:
  • When a secondary source conflicts with a primary source we have an issue to be explained but when the primary source is something like the episodes themselves and what is in them and there is a conflict, we should go with the primary source.
  • We shouldn't be doing "is considered to be"s, we should be documenting what actually happened as shown by sources, the primary authoritative sources overriding conflicting secondary sources.
  • Yep, secondary sources are not perfect and when they conflict with authoritative primary sources such as released films and TV episodes we should go with what is in that primary source.

Having summarized this discussion, the question remains: when primary sources and secondary sources conflict, which we do use on Wikipedia?

1. Primary, as the episodes are authoritative for factual information, such as runtime and presentation?
2. Or secondary, which guide Wikipedia's content over primary interpretations?

-- Alex_21 _TALK 22:22, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

• As someone who has never watched Abbott Elementary, the example given at Abbott Elementary season 3#ep36 would be confusing to me. If we are going to say that something with one title, released as a single unit, is actually two episodes we should provide some sort of explanation for that. I would also not consider this source reliable for the claim that there were 14 episodes in the season. It was published three months before the season began to air; even if the unnamed sources were correct when it was written that the season was planned to have 14 episodes, plans can change. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 10:13, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  Here is an alternate source, after the premiere's release, that specifically states the finale episode as Episode 14. (Another) And what of your thoughts for the initial argument and contested article, where the sources were also posted after the multiple multi-part episode releases? -- Alex_21 _TALK 10:48, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  Vulture does say there were 14 episodes in that season, but it also repeatedly describes "Career Day" (episode 1/2 of season 3) in the singular as "the episode" in its review and never as "the episodes". Similarly IndieWire and Variety refer to "the supersized premiere episode, 'Career Day'" and "the mega-sized opener titled 'Career Day Part 1 & 2'" respectively, and treat it largely as a single episode in their reviews, though both acknowledge that it is divided into two parts.

  If reliable sources do all agree that the one-hour episodes are actually two episodes run back-to-back, then we should conform to what the sources say, but that is sufficiently unexpected (and even the sources are clearly not consistent in treating these all as two consecutive episodes) that we do need to at least explain that to our readers.

  In the case of Good Luck Charlie, while there clearly are sources saying that there were 100 episodes, none of them seem to say which episodes are considered to be two, and I would consider "despite airing under a single title in a single timeslot, this is two episodes" to be a claim which is likely to be challenged and thus require an inline citation per WP:V. I have searched and I am unable to find a source which supports the claim that e.g episode 3x07 "Special Delivery" is actually two episodes. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:18, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto-public: That's another excellent way of putting it. Plans change. Sources like Deadline Hollywood are definitely WP:RS, but they report on future information and don't really update to reflect what actually happened. How are sources like Deadline Hollywood supposed to know when two or more episodes are going to be merged for presentation? To use a couple of other examples, the first seasons for both School of Rock and Andi Mack were reported to have 13 episodes each by Deadline Hollywood and other sources. However, the pilot for School of Rock (101) never aired and thus the first season actually only had 12 episodes, while the last episode of Andi Mack's first season (113) was held over to air in the second season and turned into a special and thus the first season only had 12 episodes. Using School of Rock, for example, would we still insist on listing 13 episodes for the season and just make up an episode to fit with the narrative that the source said there are 13 episodes? No, of course not. It's certainly worth mentioning as prose in the Production section, such as: The first season was originally reported to have 13 episodes; however, only 12 episodes aired due to there being an unaired pilot. But in terms of the number of episodes for the first season, it would be 12, not 13. Amaury • 22:04, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

And what of the sources published later, after the finale, as provided, in which the producer of the series still says that there are 14 episodes? Guidelines and policies (for example, secondary sources vs primary sources) can easily be confused; for example, claiming MOS:SEASON never applies because we have to quote a source verbatim even if it says "summer 2016", against Wikipedia guidelines. So, if we need to quote a source verbatim, then it is fully support that there are 14 episodes in the AE season, or there are 100 episodes in the GLC series. All of the sources provided (100 episodes, 14 episodes) are not future information. What would you do with this past information? -- Alex_21 _TALK 23:56, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the question remains: does one editor's unsourced definition of an episode outrule the basis sourcing policies of Wikipedia? -- Alex_21 _TALK 23:58, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Usually we don't need to source the meaning of common English language words and concepts. The article at episode reflects common usage and conforms to this dictionary definition - "any installment of a serialized story or drama". Geraldo Perez (talk) 00:27, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

If a series had 94 half-hour episodes and three of one hour why not just say that? Phil Bridger (talk) 11:04, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

What would you propose be listed in the first column of the tables at List of Good Luck Charlie episodes, and in the infobox at Good Luck Charlie?

Contentious article aside, my question remains as to whether primary or secondary sources are what we based Wikipedia upon. -- Alex_21 _TALK 11:11, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

• If only we could divert all this thought and effort to contentious topics.
  Infoboxes cause a high proportion of Wikipedia disputes because they demand very short entries and therefore can't handle nuance. The solution is not to use the disputed parameter of the infobox.
  None of these sources are scholarly analysis or high quality journalism and they're merely repeating the publisher's information uncritically, so none of them are truly secondary in the intended meaning of the word.—S Marshall T/C 13:11, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, secondary sources "contain analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources", that is correct. -- Alex_21 _TALK 23:57, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

  I agree with S Marshall: if putting "the" number on it is contentious, then leave it out.

  Alternatively, add some text to address it directly. You could say something like "When a double-length special is broadcast, industry standards say that's technically two episodes.^[1] Consequently, sources differ over whether 'The Amazing Double Special' should be counted as episode 13 and 'The Dénouement' as episode 14, or if 'The Amazing Double Special' is episodes 13 and 14 and 'The Dénouement' is episode 15. The table below uses natural counting [or the industry counting style; what matters is that you specify, not which one you choose] and thus labels it as episode 13 and the following one as episode 14 [or the other way around]."

  Wikipedia doesn't have to endorse one or the other as the True™ Episode Counting Style. Just educate the reader about the difference, and tell them which one the article is using. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:54, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

(Added note: AP refers to the WP:Contentious topic of post 1992 American Politics i.e WP:AP2)

I think that requiring EC in such RfCs is important - I've seen a lot of new editors on both sides of issues who clearly haven't much understanding of our policies and guidelines. Doug Weller talk 12:17, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I would generally support such a measure at this time. We are certainly seeing a bunch of "chatter" from new and ip contributors. In any normal discussion, I'd say fine. But in CTs or meta discussion, requiring entry permissions to formal processes is not an unreasonable step in adding layers of protection to vital conversations. Contributors who have no stake in the continued function of en.wiki are less concerned about its continued function than are long time contributors, generally speaking. Any rando can hurl bombs with impunity. This impunity is not always great for civil disagreement. BusterD (talk) 13:57, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

That's too extreme imo. If these new editors are making non-policy based arguments, surely the RfC closer will take that into account when they make their close. Some1 (talk) 14:11, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm with Some1 in thinking this is too extreme, especially when sometimes RfCs come about because of new eyes seeing them and mentioning something on the talk page. I do think that maybe a more explicit statement about sticking to established policy would be helpful, but not simply making EC privileges even more fundamental to being able to use wikipedia. I do wish it were considered a policy violation to suggest just ignoring Wikipedia policy during RfCs that could warrant a minor sanction if not just very clearly a good faith suggestion, though.

Is this an issue with RfCs becoming disproportionately new users making bad suggestions junking things up? Or more of a general thing. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 14:22, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

You think that suggesting that we follow the long-standing official policy that Wikipedia:If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. should be sanctionable? If so, you'll be the first in line for punishment, because you just suggested that we ignore that policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:35, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

The EC system for ARBPIA talkpages is a mess. Banning people from participating, but still leaving all the technical tools for them to participate, and so enforcing bans by reverting their contributions, both takes up editor time to enforce and seems a deeply poor way to treat good faith contributors. I would oppose this system being extended elsewhere in that way. It should only be considered if we first have agreed technical ways to manage it, for example we hold all AP RfCs in EC-protected subpages and have big labels informing editors of the situation at the top and bottom of the RfCs. CMD (talk) 14:36, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Noting that, since a few days ago, editors don't have all the technical tools for them to participate anymore, as an edit filter disallows non-edit request posts. My bad, it looks like the edit filter is still being tested and doesn't block posts yet. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:51, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, I wonder how it excepts requests. That said, this would block for the entire talkpage wouldn't it, not just RfCs as is being proposed? CMD (talk) 01:32, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

This does affect the entire page, so a similar edit filter for RfCs would likely need the RfC itself to be transcluded from a separate page. For the edit request part, we "just" had to make a regex looking for every single redirect of {{edit protected}} and {{edit extended-protected}} (a lot!) Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 01:47, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Just! Thanks for the work. CMD (talk) 01:51, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Wait, you're actually planning to block people for using the Edit buttons? Even if they don't know what's going on? If you don't want non-EC folks participating on a page, then you really need to use page protection. Don't give them an Edit button and then block them for not noticing that they weren't supposed to use it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:37, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

No, this is just misuse of the word "block". The edit filter will stop non-EC editors from editing certain talk pages unless their edit looks like an edit-request. Because some sorts of edits (i.e. edit requests) are permitted, this can't be done using page protection. Zero^talk 02:50, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Why not use CSS to hide the [Edit] buttons from non-EC editors? The in-article edit request system would still work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

This edit at Talk:Gulf of Mexico is not unusual, see also or - I wish I could easily find out how many new editors there are there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 14:52, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

New accounts whose sole (or essentially sole) purpose is to comment in contentious RFCs should be tagged with Template:Single-purpose account. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:24, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Well... I dunno about that. You shouldn't label someone as an SPA if they've only made one edit, because that's not sensible. We were all "single-purpose accounts" on our first edit. For example, your first four edits were about skunks.

Maybe we need two different SPA labels, one of which rather benignly says something like "Welcome to Wikipedia! If you have any questions, you can get answers at the Wikipedia:Teahouse" and the other says "This account has made more than n edits but has made few or no edits outside this topic area". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:47, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

We can describe a temporal version of the latter now thanks to WP:ARBBER. CMD (talk) 02:16, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

So maybe retrofit the concept of an SPA to say that if you've made 11 edits, and "only" 7 are about American politics, then you're not an SPA? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:22, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

The opposite, ARBBER expects no more than 3 of 11 edits to be about PIA. CMD (talk) 02:37, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

This rule is going to need a minimum number of edits. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:55, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

ARBPIA requires 500 edits but more importantly, balanced editing is a discretionary sanction, not a universal prohibition. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 06:44, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

• You can rely on it that all our regular RfC closers check people's contribution histories when weighing !votes in this topic area.—S Marshall T/C 17:44, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

  @S Marshall that will take a lot of time if they don’t have a script. Doug Weller talk 18:22, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

  It does, yes. Properly closing a RfC in this topic area is extraordinarily time consuming.—S Marshall T/C 19:03, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

  I believe there is a script that can do that, if the discussion is on a separate page. I can't find it right now. @Quiddity, do you remember the one that I'm thinking of? I'm pretty sure that either Samuel or Dumisane wrote it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:28, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  Yup, that's toolforge:consultation-stats. Here's an example of it running (random current open RfC example that's on a standalone page). Quiddity (talk) 20:49, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  Thank you! If I believed in mind reading, I'd believe you could read my mind. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

• "AP" is American politics, is it? It took me a while to work that out. Johnbod (talk) 03:22, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  Thank you! I couldn't figure out what that was talking about. --Trovatore (talk) 03:25, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  It's "Post-1992 politics of the United States and closely related people, broadly construed", which defines the scope of WP:CT/AP. CMD (talk) 07:25, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  I'd gently suggest, in the future, that contributors might consider explaining such acronyms, at least in the initial post if not in the heading itself. The original post was pretty inside-baseball for the main page for discussing policy in the entire 'pedia. It's pretty hard to even search for two-letter acronyms. --Trovatore (talk) 20:57, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  Generally, if you see some WP:UPPERCASE, just put WP: on the front and see what you find. However, in this case, WP:AP takes you to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy, which doesn't mention it, because what you really need is WP:AP2. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:57, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  It's not even necessarily obvious that AP (or for that matter EC) is a Wikipedia-specific term to search for in that way; they stand for too many other things. Probably most readers of this page know about extended-confirmed, but you kind of have to be in the contentious-topics milieu to know what AP is. Could it be Associated Press? Advanced Placement? Neither makes a lot of sense, but it would have cleared the whole thing up to start the post with a single-sentence recap of the heading that expands out the acronyms. Anyway I'm not so much laying blame about the original post as suggesting that it might be a good thing to consider in future posts. --Trovatore (talk) 23:09, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  Added a note. This is generally part of the issue when biting new users. We use obscure acronyms and don’t even bother to wikilink ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 23:47, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

• The latest editor I've seen at the Gulf of Mexico RfC, which is an AP topic, has only made the one edit showing considerable knowledge of policies and gudielines. Doug Weller talk 17:18, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  I am quite concerned by the number of people in the AP subject area who think Wikipedia should change its positions on the basis of the Trump election - as if that somehow fundamentally alters what neutrality or reliability means. And not just in RFCs. Simonm223 (talk) 02:57, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

• As I understand it, the key principle of the recent Arbcom case was to topic ban the most experienced editors because they were tending to own that contentious topic. We're trending towards becoming "the encyclopedia that no-one can edit"... Andrew🐉(talk) 18:36, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

  Not at all if we are talking about new SPAs, or inexperienced editors who edited years before and came back only for AP issues. Doug Weller talk 18:46, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

  Maybe not EC, but definitely semi-confirmed protection/autoconfirmed Rc2barrington (talk) 19:06, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I think participating in discussion process like AfD and consensus building by flooding it with a "wall of text" response generated by AI should be added into disruptive editing. Those kind of discussion are generated quickly with low effort in AI, but consumes considerable time to read and process. Graywalls (talk) 07:22, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Courtesy link to the above section § Should WP:Demonstrate good faith include mention of AI-generated comments? where a similar proposal is being discussed. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:28, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Use a chatbot to generate a reply, that way the two AIs can just talk with each other and it doesn't waste editors time. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:51, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Flooding discussions with walls of text is disruptive regardless of whether the walls are AI-generated or human-written. Equally-sized walls of equal relevance to the discussion are equally disruptive regardless of the method used to write them. Thryduulf (talk) 06:54, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree that equal-sized text of equal quality is equally disruptive (that's tautologically true), however there's a difference in the effort required to create them. Human-generated walls of disruptive text are limited by the time and effort the disruptive human is willing to put in, which means that as long as our community continues to maintain a sufficiently healthy proportion of constructive vs disruptive editors, the problem is manageable. The problem with LLM wallspam is that it takes effort to process and respond to disruptive discussion, and a very small number of disruptive editors using LLMs can consume a very large amount of human bandwidth dealing with them. AI doesn't help the constructive response much, since even if you are using AI to summarize the disruptive text wall, and AI to craft your response to the disruptive text wall, you still need to put in the effort to internalize the content of the wall of text, decide if it is disruptive, and then craft a prompt for your own LLM to use in the response. All of which results in a situation where it takes a disproportionate amount of effort to respond to the disruption compared to the effort it takes to produce it. If LLM use is disclosed that would help the issue, but personally I would prefer that the other person I am communicating simply send me the prompt they put into their LLM and let me use the LLM to elaborate and clarify it myself if I feel that is helpful. -- LWG ^talk 05:25, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

How much time and effort the author puts into writing a text wall is irrelevant, what matters is how much time and effort it takes other people to read it. It makes absolutely no difference to this whether it was written by a human or an AI. If someone writes text walls very quickly, they will simply get to the point where people advise them about it (and take action if necessary) sooner. Thryduulf (talk) 12:59, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree with what matters is how much time and effort it takes other people to read it. The example cited below of the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ribu is a good example of the cost to the project of low-content discussion - it takes a significant amount of time to even determine that the contribution is low-quality, so it's not always a viable option to ignore it. I'm coming to this conversation from a perspective of someone who has in the past spent a lot of effort engaging with newer editors who come here in good faith in the sense that they want to build a better encyclopedia, but who lack understanding of our community norms around consensus building and tend to view POV issues as a battleground. One option is to simply ignore such people's comments, revert their contributions, and wait for them to get frustrated and leave or do something bad enough that they get blocked. But if we make that our default stance towards problem editors the pool of active editors will continue to decline, which hurts the long-term health of the project. To give these editors a chance to develop into useful contributors requires wading through, understanding, and replying to a lot of low-quality comments, and if these comments are AI generated then I'm just wasting my time. -- LWG ^talk 20:44, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Your entire comment is predicated on the assumption that it is a waste of your time to engage with people who use LLMs. Why are you assuming that this is the case? What evidence do you have that someone unfamiliar with community norms can be educated and become a valuable editor unless they happen to use a tool you personally dislike? Thryduulf (talk) 02:56, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

That's an inaccurate characterization of my position, and I apologize if I have communicated it unclearly. Maybe using a LLM would help clarify things, haha:

If LLM use is similar to what I have done above, then I see no problem with it, and think it could potentially be very helpful. However, I think we should be transparent in the ways we communicate and we should communicate an expectation of this transparency to new editors. -- LWG ^talk 19:09, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

If I've understood correctly this time you seem to be saying that because AI can be used in a manner that is disruptive we should expect all uses of it to be disruptive? I very strongly disagree with that. If someone is using AI and being disruptive the problem is that they are being disruptive not that they are using AI. For example if someone is engaging in civil POV pushing then it's really not at all relevant whether they are doing so using AI or doing so not using AI, and trying to determine which it is is a distraction from dealing with the civil POV pushing - especially when (not if) someone gets accused of using AI to engage in civil POV pushing when they are genuinely not using AI at all. Thryduulf (talk) 01:52, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

You seem to still be misunderstanding me. As I said in my reply to isaacl below "I feel that the use of LLMs is acceptable, but should be disclosed." Best practice would be to do as I have done above and clearly mark LLM-generated text as such and attach the prompt used to generate it. Such use can only be positive in my opinion. A less-obtrusive disclosure than what I did above would also be acceptable. Even just a message on the user page saying "I use ChatGPT to help organize my thoughts and clarify my non-native syntax" or something similar would provide helpful context. Your concern about people distracting from discussions by throwing around accusations is a valid one, but you could say the same about WP:AGF: it's pretty much impossible to tell for sure whether or not someone is assuming good faith, but we still feel fine clearly communicating to new editors that AGF is a community expectation here. -- LWG ^talk 03:09, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support: ban prompt-lawyering and treat it like sockpuppetry. It's obvious that widespread access to generative AI allows editors to flood discussions with prompt-generated text and this is no doubt happening already on the site: it's just too easy to do. While it appears some editors here are keen to downplay the very real danger here (what's that about?), we need a statement noting that this is no OK and a form of not only wikilawyering but outright abuse. When it can be identified, this needs to be treated just as severely as sockpuppetry. :bloodofox: (talk) 07:11, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  I've seen so many human-generated walls of text that were repetitive and failed to move discussion forward through new analysis or points. Personally I feel the community needs to deal with this problem, no matter how the text was created. isaacl (talk) 17:38, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  Exactly this. The problem is the wall, not how the wall was built. Thryduulf (talk) 19:03, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  One solution is AI, which can summarize human generated walls of text. "Summarize the following in 2 sentences". -- GreenC 19:23, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  AI summary of this section: The discussion thread debates whether AI-generated "walls of text" in Wikipedia discussions should be considered disruptive editing. While some argue for treating AI-generated content like sockpuppetry, others point out that human-generated walls of text can be equally problematic, suggesting the focus should be on addressing lengthy, unproductive contributions regardless of their source GreenC 19:25, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  True, but we shouldn't force everyone to rely on AI writing (potentially inaccurate) summaries if they wish to meaningfully participate in a discussion. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:38, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  +1 Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 04:40, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  AI summation is a tool you can use, or not, it's your choice to generate and consume it. Obviously posting AI summation is not appropriate unless solicited. -- GreenC 05:03, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

  Unless the community decides to delegate decision-making to an AI program, repeated redundant verbose comments can swamp Wikipedia's current discussion format, and unnecessarily prolong discussion. This results in participants losing focus and no longer engaging, which makes it harder to build a true consensus. The problem is not trying to understand such comments, but how they slow down progress. isaacl (talk) 22:52, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  There is WP:TEXTWALL ("The rush you feel in your veins as you type it"). It has varieties of walls of text. Maybe a new section for AI. -- GreenC 05:21, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose (although nothing is being proposed, but whatever). My opinion is unchanged from the last time this wall-of-text-producing topic came up. Gnomingstuff (talk) 22:49, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

Maybe we should consider a temporary moratorium on proposals to ban uses of AI. Just 30 days? It's the same thing over and over: "I'm worried that someone might use LLM to generate replies that don't represent their real thoughts. Please, let's have a rule that says they're bad, even though it's unenforceable and will result in false accusations." WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes. Perhaps followed by a requirement that all future proposals explicitly state how they differ from the previous ones that have been rejected or failed to reach consensus, how/why the proposer believes that the differences will overcome the objections and/or why those objections do not apply to their proposal, and why AI needs to be called out specifically. This last point is poorly worded, I'm thinking of a requirement to explain why e.g. AI walls of text are a different problem to non-AI walls of text that mean we need a policy/guideline/whatever for AI walls of text specifically rather than walls of text in general. Thryduulf (talk) 06:52, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

The most recent major RfCs on generative AI were closed with strong consensuses supporting restrictions. We aren't going to put a moratorium on such discussions just because you and Thryduulf ardently opposed their outcomes. JoelleJay (talk) 17:59, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Or require them to be centralized to a single location? There are four of them currently on this page, and this isn't the only page. Maybe if they were in the same place, people would realize that they need to join the existing discussion instead of creating another WP:TALKFORK. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:31, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Agree that such behavior is disruptive if it is in fact happening. I haven't personally seen it, but I think it is reasonable for the community to set expectations before the problem behavior becomes widespread. I would like the community to 1) encourage transparency in the use of LLMs to write content, and 2) recognize that it is unreasonable and disruptive to expect the other party to put a lot more effort into comprehending and replying to your comments than you put into creating them. If all you did to contribute to the discussion is spend 30 seconds putting the prompt "summarize the reasons to keep/delete this article" into your LLM of choice, then I shouldn't be expected to do more in response than spend 30 seconds saying "looks like they have an opinion about this, but couldn't be bothered to articulate it themselves." As Thryduulf has pointed out, this principle extends beyond LLMs: any low-effort, low-quality contribution to the discussion merits a similarly minimal response, however the extreme ease of generating responses with LLMs and the difficulty of quickly identifying their use makes them of special concern. -- LWG ^talk 05:34, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I've previously written about being respectful of other editors, which includes being respectful of the time of others, such as making a concerted effort to be up-to-date on discussions when making a comment, copy editing one's remarks to be concise, avoiding comments that aren't germane to the discussion at hand, being understanding if no one responds to your inquiries, and considering how your actions affect the time spent by others on Wikipedia. Focusing on the time spent writing a comment is a distraction from the real problem of poor communication. I don't want editors to argue that their comments deserve a response because they spent a lot of time writing them. isaacl (talk) 06:16, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh I definitely don't want to imply that comments deserve a response because of the time spent writing them. But I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who has spent a lot of hours over the years responding to comments that don't deserve a response, because failing to respond will either result in escalating anger and continued disruption, or will drive editors away from the project. We can say "good riddance" to such editors, but a lot of us weren't the most consensus and culture savvy in our earlier days as editors, and we already struggle with editor retention and development. If someone is writing human-generated textwalls but is redeemable, I'd like to engage with them and try to mentor them into a better understanding of our culture, but I'm wasting my time if I'm doing that with LLMs, and it takes a lot of effort from me to tell the difference. Hence why I feel that the use of LLMs is acceptable, but should be disclosed. -- LWG ^talk 20:44, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

There are times when I'm a bit of a writing snob and think all editors should be strong communicators from day one. I recognize, though, that Wikipedia likely would have been a failure if my standards had been adopted for contributors. I have previously written about trying to find more effective ways to sort out editors who show promise from those who don't. In my view, as we don't have any way to know exactly how an editor crafted a message, what really matters is the end effect. If an editor doesn't appear to be on the right path to improve, then we should sympathetically convey to them that their approach isn't a good fit for a collaborative community. Of course, this is a lot easier said than done. isaacl (talk) 05:35, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

This is one example Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ribu. I believe signing your user name to your comment that was written by someone else (including AI) without attribution shouldn't be allowed in the first place. Graywalls (talk) 06:56, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh it is definitely happening. Here's just the most recent example that I personally collapsed. JoelleJay (talk) 18:03, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks to Graywalls and JoelleJay for the examples. I agree that that behavior is a drain on valuable project resources. -- LWG ^talk 20:44, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Seems a variation of WP:TEXTWALL. There is already an established AN/I practice for this, refuse to read it and ask for something shorter. CMD (talk) 11:26, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

We recently got strong consensus (a super-majority) that it is within admins' and closers' discretion to discount, strike, or collapse obvious use of generative LLMs, it makes perfect sense to reflect this in DE policy. JoelleJay (talk) 17:27, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

That makes sense, although I don't recall that consensus being directly related to walls of text. CMD (talk) 18:58, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

The original WP:DAILYMAIL discussion, which set off these general reliability discussions in 2017, was supposed to reduce discussion about it, something which it obviously failed to do since we have had more than 20 different discussions about its reliability since then. Generally speaking, a review of WP:RSNP does not support the idea that general reliability discussions have reduced discussion about the reliability of sources either. Instead, we see that we have repeated discussions about the reliability of sources, even where their reliability was never seriously questioned. We have had a grand total of 22 separate discussions about the reliability of the BBC, for example, 10 of which have been held since 2018. We have repeated discussions about sources that are cited in relatively few articles (e.g., Jacobin).

Moreover these discussions spark unnecessary conflict with parties off wiki that harm the reputation of the project. Most recently we have had an unnecessary conflict with the Anti-Defamation League sparked by a general reliability discussion with them, but the original Daily Mail discussion did this also. In neither case was usage of the source a problem generally on Wikipedia in any way that has been lessened by their deprecation - they were neither widely-used, nor permitted to be used in a way that was problematic by existing policy on using reliable sources.

There is also some evidence, particularly from WP:PIA5, that some editors have sought to "claim scalps" by getting sources they are opposed to on ideological grounds 'banned' from Wikipedia. Comments in such discussions are often heavily influenced by people's impression of the bias of the source.

I think a the very least we need a WP:BEFORE-like requirement for these discussions, where the editors bringing the discussion have to show that the source is one for which the reliability of which has serious consequences for content on Wikipedia, and that they have tried to resolve the matter in other ways. The recent discussion about Jacobin, triggered simply by a comment by a Jacobin writer on Reddit, would be an example of a discussion that would be stopped by such a requirement. FOARP (talk) 15:54, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

• The purpose of this proposal is to reduce discussion of sources. I feel that evaluating the reliability of sources is the single most important thing that we as a community can do, and I don't want to reduce the amount of discussion about sources. So I would object to this.—S Marshall T/C 16:36, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I don't thinks meant to reduce but instead start more discussions at a more appropriate level than at VPP or RSP. Starting the discussion at the VPP/RSP level means you are trying to get all editors involved, which for most cases isn't really appropriate ( eg one editor has a beef about a source and brings it to wide discussion before getting other input first). Foarp us right that when these discussion are first opened at VPP or RSP without prior attempts to resolve elsewhere is a wear on the process. — Masem (t) 16:55, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
    • Oh, well that makes more sense. We could expand WP:RFCBEFORE to cover WP:RSP?—S Marshall T/C 17:06, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

      Basically this. I favour something for RSP along the lines of WP:BEFORE/WP:RFCBEFORE, an WP:RSPBEFORE if you will. FOARP (talk) 21:50, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

      Adding a sentence to WP:RSPCRITERIA that more or less says "if you try to start RSP discussions when there's no actual dispute happening in actual articles, it doesn't count as a valid discussion (because RSCONTEXT and all that) and also people will get annoyed at you" might do it. For people who read the instructions anyway. Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:12, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

      That's not a bad idea. FOARP (talk) 09:45, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

      I like this idea. I'd actually like to see 2+ prior discussions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:15, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

      For a start RSPCRITERIA needs to explicitly exclude discussions that are only opened to add sources to the RSP, and only include discussions that are about the source (not just one editor who mentions it in passing during a discussions about another source). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:23, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

• Yeah I would support anything to reduce the constant attempts to kill sources at RSN. It has become one of the busiest pages on all of Wikipedia, maybe even surpassing ANI. -- GreenC 19:36, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
• Oddly enough, I am wondering why this discussion is here? And not Talk RSN:Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, as it now seems to be a process discussion (more BEFORE) for RSN? Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:41, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  Dropped a notice both there and at WT:RSP but I think these are all reasonable venues to have the discussion at, so since it's here we may as well keep it here if people think there's any more to say. Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:24, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

• Some confusion about pages here, with some mentions of RSP actually referring to RSN. RSN is a type of "before" for RSP, and RSP is intended as a summary of repeated RSN discussions. One purpose of RSP is to put a lid on discussion of sources that have appeared at RSN too many times. This isn't always successful, but I don't see a proposal here to alleviate that. Few discussions are started at RSP; they are started at RSN and may or may not result in a listing or a change at RSP. Also, many of the sources listed at RSP got there due to a formal RfC at RSN, so they were already subject to RFCBEFORE (not always obeyed). I'm wondering how many listings at RSN are created due to an unresolved discussion on an article talk page—I predict it is quite a lot. Zero^talk 04:40, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

  “Not always obeyed” is putting it mildly. FOARP (talk) 06:47, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

• I fully agree that we need a strict interpretation of RFCBEFORE for the big "deprecate this source" RfCs. It must be shown that 1. The source is widely used on Wikipedia. 2. Removal/replacement of the source (on individual articles) has been contested. 3. Talk page discussions on use of the source have been held and have not produced a clear consensus.

We really shouldn't be using RSP for cases where a source is used problematically a single-digit number of times and no-one actually disagrees that the source is unreliable – in that case it can just be removed/replaced, with prior consensus on article talk if needed. Toadspike [Talk] 11:42, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

The vast majority of discussions at RSN are editors asking for advice, many of which get overlooked due to other more contentious discussions. The header and edit notice already contain wording telling editors not to open RFCs unless there has been prior discussion (as with any new requirement there's no way to make editors obey it).
RSP is a different problem, for example look at the entry for Metro. Ten different discussions are linked and the source rated as unreliable, except if you read those discussions most mention The Metro only in passing. There is also the misconception that RSP is (or should be) a list of all sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:55, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

• If our processes of ascertaining reliability have become a locus of conflict with external parties I'd contend this is a good and healthy thing. If Wikipedia is achieving its neutrality goal it will not be presenting the propagandized perspective of "external parties" with enough power to worry Wikipedia at all. That we are now facing opposition from far-right groups like the Heritage Foundation demonstrates we are being somewhat successful curtailing propaganda and bias. We should be leaning into this, not shrinking away. Simonm223 (talk) 13:01, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

  Really, we should be actively seeking out such conflicts, merely for the purposes of having them? Wikipedia is not an advocacy service.

  I don't understand why we are even having a discussion about the Heritage Foundation because on any page where the topic of "should we be using the output of a think-tank for statements of fact about anything except themselves in the voice of WP" the outcome would inevitably be "no", so there's no actual need to make a blanket ban on using them for that purpose. FOARP (talk) 09:49, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

• I agree with Simon223. Regarding "these discussions spark unnecessary conflict with parties off wiki that harm the reputation of the project". It takes two to have a conflict and Wikipedia is not a combatant. "reputation" shouldn't be a lever external partisan actors can pull to exert influence. They will never be satisfied. There are incompatible value systems. Wikipedia doesn't need to compromise its values for the sake of reputation. That would be harmful. And it doesn't need to pander to people susceptible to misinformation about Wikipedia. It can just focus on the task of building an encyclopedia according to its rules. Sean.hoyland (talk) 13:45, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
• I do note that the vast majority of these disputes relate to the reliability of news outlets. Perhaps what is needed is better guidance on the reliability and appropriate use of such sources. Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 27 January 2025 (UTC)
• I'd favour something stronger than "curtailed", such as "stopped" or "rolled back". But in 2019 RFC: Moratorium on "general reliability" RFCs failed. The closer (ToThAc) said most opposers' arguments "basically boil down to WP:CONTEXTMATTERS" which I rather thought was our (supporters') argument; however, we were a minority. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:35, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

  @Peter Gulutzan: I still stand by that closure. I think the real problems are that 1) the credibility of sources changes over time, 2) there may be additional factors the original RfC did not cover, or 3) the submitter failed to check RSPS or related pages. Such discussions are bound to be unavoidable regardless of context. ToThAc (talk) 18:45, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

• The current Heritage discussion is a real problem and (if anyone ever dares close it) should make us rethink policy. But I think this proposal overlooks the real value of the RSP system, which is preventing ordinary discussions from ever reaching RSN. I see appeals to RSP all the time on talk pages and edit summaries, and they are usually successful at cutting off debate. RSN is active because editors correctly recognize that the system works and the consensuses reached there are very powerful. I do think that the pace of RFCs is much too strong. Some blame should be placed on the RSP format which marks discussions as stale after 4 years. As there are now many hundreds of listings, necessarily there must be reconsiderations every week just to keep up.

I'm inclined to think that we should

1. Set 3 years as minimum and 5 as stale, and deny RFCs by default unless (A) 3 years have passed since the last discussion or (B) there's been a major development which requires us to reconsider. It's very rare for a source to slide subtly into unreliability. Generally there is a major shift in management or policy which is discussed in the press. Often RFCs start with only handwaving about what warrants a new discussion.

2. Split the RSP-feeder process off from the normal RSN, which should return to its old format. IMO the biggest problem with the constant political news RFCs is that they distract attention from editors who actually need help with a non-perennial source. GordonGlottal (talk) 16:26, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that the Heritage Foundation RfC requires us to rewrite our policies. And blanket strict moratoria on new RFCs that last 36 months is significant overreach. Simonm223 (talk) 15:54, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

The issue with the Heritage Foundation RFC is that it has little to do with reliability. The problem is that editors wanted a technical solution to the threat that HF poses and think that blacklisting is the solution. But blacklisting states a requirement that the source be discussed at RSN, and RSN says that discussions should only be about reliability.
The discussion should have stayed at the village pump. The community should have been able to make a decision there without the unnecessary bureaucracy. Technically all comments in that RFC that aren't about reliability should be ignored, which would be ridiculous but required by rigidly sticking to process. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:42, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

• "General reliability discussions have failed at reducing discussion" is neither provable or falsifiable yet its the core of your argument. You have no idea if thats true or not and pretending otherwise is just insulting the rest of us. What I would support along the lines of your argument is a more efficient way to speedily close discussions which are near repeats. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:58, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

  I would also agree that would be a benefit. In general speedy clerking is good for noticeboards. Simonm223 (talk) 16:06, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

  I think we also need to make it clear that taking something to the noticeboard for the explicit purpose of generating an additional discussion to meet the perennial sources listing criteria is gaming the system. Those are the only discussions I see that really piss me off. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:12, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

  I hear you. As it is most of those should just be closed as lacking WP:RFCBEFORE. Simonm223 (talk) 16:13, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

  There's a couple of these currently on the noticeboard. I'd happily just close them (rather than commenting 'Bad RFC'), but there's no policy reason for doing so at the moment that I'm aware of. Unless I've missed something that says RFCs without RFCBEFORE can just be closed.
  An effort not to WP:BITE would be needed though. Due to misconceptions about the RSP inexperienced editors see that the reliable sources for their country aren't on the RSP, and thinking it's a general list of sources want it get those sources added. Making the description of WP:RSP clearer could help clear up those misconceptions. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:32, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  Failure to have a prior discussion is not grounds for closing an RFC, just like failure to do a WP:BEFORE search is not grounds for closing an AFD. Sometimes an RFC is necessary because you're on such a low-traffic page that you need the RFC system to draw attention to it.

  An RFC with no prior attempts at discussion doesn't happen very often, and we are not overwhelmed with RFCs in general (it used to be about three a day; now it's about two), so keeping this option open isn't hurting us. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:37, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  Yeah that's what I thought. Honestly the issue isn't the RFCs the issue comes from editors believing they need to add sources to the RSP. Every few months there's a new editor who sees that the sources in their country aren't listed and starts an RFC, mistakenly thinking that getting them on the RSP is necessary for the sources to be considered reliable. However that there's no agreement on whether a generally reliable source that has additional considerations should be yellow or green doesn't make me hopeful that much will change. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 03:27, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

• These general reliability discussions most often refer to something like a newspaper, magazine, or website (which have lots of distinct articles/webpages) rather than something like a book, so I'll limit my discussion to the former. I frequently see editors starting general reliability discussions at the RSN without giving any examples of previous (specific WP text)+(source = specific news article/opinion article/webpage) combinations that call the newspaper's/magazine's/website's general reliability into question, and without introducing an example of this sort. Yes, when we use something from a newspaper/magazine/website, we should be paying attention to its overall "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy," but also WP:RSCONTEXT. I think it's a mistake to launch into an RSN discussion of whether a newspaper/magazine/website is GREL/GUNREL without first having discussions of (specific text)+(specific article/webpage) combinations for that newspaper/magazine/website. I agree with @FOARP's last paragraph. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:14, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

  We need some way to differentiate between "reliable in general but not for, you know, just anything" and "reliable for", which is the kind of "That politician's tweet is reliable for what he said, even though it's not reliable in general." WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:18, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

• Certainly, one may argue for applying RFCBEFORE more strictly. However, the premise that the general reliability concept has "obviously failed" at reducing discussion is incorrect; the simple counts presented here are not sufficient, for multiple reasons. Using the Daily Mail as an example:

Beyond that, of course, reduction in repetitive discussion is not the only possible type of benefit. As determined by consensus, the removal of Daily Mail references since 2017 reflects a major improvement in the quality of our content. Perhaps that is assumed, but it is a major advantage that needs to be included in the cost-benefit analysis.

One thing I do agree with is that Wikipedia's reputation is a relevant factor to consider; our purpose is to serve the readers, and to do that we need them to trust us. It's conceivable that the benefits from classifying or reclassifying a particular source could be outweighed by the risk of igniting a controversy or appearing partisan, especially if a source is rarely used or if its disadvantages could be mitigated in other ways. (And assuming that the alternative isn't likely to alienate a different population that's even larger, etc.) However, there are relatively few sources where this is likely to be an issue, so I would be more likely to support an initiative that applies specifically to the relevant sources. Sunrise (talk) 10:04, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I agree with you that "We don't inherently care about the number of discussions, but whether the number decreased". Sometimes we really do care about how many times ____ gets revisited, because the fact that people are starting discussions indicates that they are uncertain. If you see something from DubiousWebsite.com, and you are dubious about it, and the notes at RSP confirm your initial impression, then you will not start a discussion. If, however, you discover that Fox News is listed, and Fox News happens to be a main source of your own (and your friends' and neighbors') news information, then you are likely to start a discussion because you believe it is wrong and, in good faith and with what you perceive to be Wikipedia's best interests at heart, you want to try to fix the mistake. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:46, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

In general terms, yes, but I was speaking in the context of evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention. If N discussions occurred, that can indeed be a relevant issue, and you've given a reasonable argument to that effect. However, the argument that was made is "N discussions occurred, therefore the intervention had no effect at all", which isn't a valid line of reasoning because it doesn't tell us whether there was an improvement over the alternative. Another way to describe this is that the measurement has no control group.

The problem being highlighted by the bullet point you quoted isn't that we never care about discussion counts at all. Instead, the issue is that the count on its own has no meaning for the intervention's effectiveness, because the necessary comparison is missing. Furthermore, even if a correction is made, this is only the first of multiple reasons why the overall logic is insufficient, as I have described in the analysis. Sunrise (talk) 08:42, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

• I think that, on the whole, RSN is working properly right now; the quality of our sourcing has improved over time. External coverage generally treats Wikipedia as one of the few sites on the internet that has properly handled the modern flood of misinformation. Of course there are a lot of discussions - new sites constantly appear; Wikipedia is constantly growing - but on the whole most RSP discussions seem to run fairly smoothly and produce reasonable results. And I do believe that disputes on article talk pages have been reduced - it's now much easier to find a source that people generally won't object to; or to recognize that a particular source is likely to encounter objections. And I would describe the Daily Mail and ADL RFCs as ones that were broadly successful and have, overall, improved our reputation by prompting large amounts of coverage that make it clear how strict on sourcing we can be. Obviously those sources themselves and people involved in those disputes are going to react based on their strong priors; but if you look at eg. CNN it treats it as part of a larger shift on the reliability of that organization. (And, more generally, I'm skeptical of "think of our reputation!" arguments. Our job is to write an encyclopedia using the best available sources; if tagging a particularly prominent source as unreliable helps at that, we ought to do it, even if it makes a bunch of people hate us. But in this case I think we've done right by doing good, so to speak.) --Aquillion (talk) 19:39, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

In recent years, psychological research on social media users and its undesirable side effects have been discussed and criticized. Is there a specific policy on Wikipedia to protect users from covert psychological research? Arbabi second (talk) 00:22, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

For starters, try Wikipedia is not a laboratory and WP:Ethically researching Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:01, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon

That was helpful, thank you. Arbabi second (talk) 03:34, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

• No there is not. Wikipedia provides easy ways for anyone including the general public to examine your contributions, and offers researcher-friendly licence terms to enable them to do so.—S Marshall T/C 09:13, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

  @Robert McClenon@S Marshall

  I meant pages like this: Wikipedia:"Breaching experiment" considered harmful Arbabi second (talk) 07:17, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  Oh, that's interesting. Are you under the impression that Wikipedia is social media?—S Marshall T/C 08:23, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

  @S Marshall I have seen and continue to see general and unfortunately sometimes personal similarities. Arbabi second (talk) 12:29, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

There are similarities and differences. With most social media, a corporation sets up a site to attract a community. The corporation wants to sell advertising to community members and gather the community members' personal data. The site doesn't have any other purpose. Wikipedia, on the other hand, has a clear purpose: we want to write an encyclopaedia together. Community members' personal data is not collected, except to the extent that we choose to share that data on our own userpages or by way of our contributions. Advertising is not sold, or at least, not by the WMF; some Wikipedians do try to sell pages to commercial interests but that's frowned upon.

We do rely on some of the legal protections meant for social media sites, which is important for a legal case currently in progress in India.

The fact that community members' personal data isn't collected, and where someone does provide personal data, isn't verified, means that it's really hard to carry out many kinds of psychological research because you don't have enough information about the Wikipedians involved. Some Wikipedians have more than one account (legitimately or otherwise); some accounts are shared (always illegitimately). All a psychologist can really do is analyze Wikipedians as a group, and even then, people writing an encyclopaedia have modified their behaviour (hopefully towards encyclopaedia-writing) compared to how they'd behave on a regular social media site.

How could you devise a valid piece of research that targets particular users?—S Marshall T/C 16:38, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

@S Marshall

I agree with you. You misunderstood me, and it's not your fault. I meant more to protect potential victims of Wikipedia's Breaching experiment.

I am not the author of this essay. I wrote my opinion on the article's talk page here Arbabi second (talk) 04:59, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Which breaching experiment specifically?—S Marshall T/C 08:58, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@S Marshall

Sorry. I prefer to keep my suspicions to myself for now. As much as it is possible that such a thing exists. I'm not talking about random playfulness by a new user. I'm talking about calculated, organized activity. But my specific question is, what measures does Wikipedia have in place to deal with this kind of harmful activity? Arbabi second (talk) 11:38, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I remember a long time ago when "research" like this was performed on Usenet. The remedy now is as it was then. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 12:28, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Non-specific suspicions, Arbabi second? Are you concern trolling?—S Marshall T/C 16:08, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

This question inspires more questions:

• How do you differentiate between "psychological" and "non-psychological" research?
• What's the standard for "covert"? "Unknown to everyone"? "Something I don't remember agreeing to"?
• Is a covert study more likely to be harmful? Is disclosed/non-covert research more likely to be harmless? (Generally, the potential for harm is a reason given for disclosing it and requiring informed consent, so it seems likely to be the other way around.)
• Who do you think would be doing this research?
• Do you think that a document saying "Covert psychological research is naughty" would stop them?
• What kind of research do you think they would do on wiki? How do you imagine that harming people?
• Do you think that an A/B software test is "psychological research"?

WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:06, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing

I am not the author of this essay. I wrote my opinion on the article's talk page here. But regarding your questions, I should say that I was initially referring to organized Breaching experiment. Arbabi second (talk) 04:34, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm only familiar with the regulations for research involving human subjects in the US. If you want to know relevant US law, you might start with this FAQ, especially the first section. Observational research on WP using public data (such as how articles change over time through edits, or what editors say on talk pages) is allowed and does not require informed consent. However, research like a "breaching experiment" that you referred to above would require informed consent. As Robert McClenon pointed you to, WP's policy is also that "research projects that are disruptive to the community or which negatively affect articles—even temporarily—are not allowed." Below, you say "Who would conduct this research? Universities, tech companies, and independent researchers may conduct psychological studies, sometimes without users’ awareness." I don't know how tech companies handle research involving human subjects, but universities have institutional review boards (IRBs) and do not allow research without consent except in situations that are exempt by law (e.g., "the observation of public behavior when the investigator(s) do not participate in the activities being observed"). Could someone nonetheless covertly start a breaching experiment involving editors? I don't see how to prevent it, though blocking policies would likely interrupt it. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:23, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion

Thank you for your attention and information. The topic of human research is important but very broad. I am most interested in Wikipedia's rules on this matter. My intention is to find and translate these rules into Persian. For example: that WP policy is that "research projects that are disruptive to society or negatively impact articles - even temporarily - are not allowed." On which page is it? If possible, please link to that page. Arbabi second (talk) 20:23, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@اربابی دوم, that quote came from Wikipedia is not a laboratory. The other page that Robert McClenon highlighted, WP:Ethically researching Wikipedia, it also useful, though it's an information page rather than a policy. This Wikimedia page might have some useful information, though again it's not a policy page. FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:06, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion

Thank you.😊 This was exactly what I was looking for. Arbabi second (talk) 08:37, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon@S Marshall@WhatamIdoing

Difference between psychological and non-psychological research

Psychological research focuses on behavior, emotions, cognition, and social interactions, while non-psychological research may study technical data, usage patterns, or system efficiency.

Standard for "covert"

Covert research typically means a study conducted without participants’ knowledge or informed consent. Forgetting prior consent is different from not being informed at all.

Is covert research more likely to be harmful?

Yes, because lack of informed consent can lead to ethical concerns or psychological harm. Open research is usually subject to ethical oversight.

Who would conduct this research?

Universities, tech companies, and independent researchers may conduct psychological studies, sometimes without users’ awareness.

Would a policy against covert research be effective?

A formal policy could discourage such research, but enforcement and oversight would be necessary to prevent violations.

What kind of research could be done on Wikipedia?

Studies on user behavior, editing patterns, social interactions, and how information influences decision-making.

Is an A/B software test considered psychological research?

It depends. If it only tests interface improvements, then no. But if it examines users' perceptions, emotions, or behaviors without their knowledge, then it could be psychological research. Arbabi second (talk) 12:23, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

How would a software test "examine users' perceptions, emotions, or behaviors without their knowledge"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:09, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Just for clarity, "lack of informed consent can lead to ethical concerns" does not mean that anyone is actually being harmed. The point of those ethical concerns is that there might be harm. If there is no actual harm, then the ethical concern is resolved.

Consider:

• A: This research proposal causes me to have some ethical concerns!
• B: Like what?
• A: Well, what if one user gets angry and starts hitting the other users?
• B: This is a virtual environment. You can't hit people over the internet.
• A: Oh, sorry, I didn't think of that.

It would be absurd to say that the existence of that incorrect ethical concern is harmful to users.

I don't know how much you know about research, but in the US, and in most of the world, if you are at a university or other formal research organization, you have to get permission from your employer to research that involves other humans. This requires either a declaration from the Institutional review board (or equivalent outside the US) that the research is not reasonably expected to be harmful, or that you get an appropriate level of informed consent.

As an example of "not reasonably expected to be harmful", some years back, someone painted the Stairs at Odenplan station to look like the keys of a piano. The experiment was to see whether more people climbed the stairs instead of using the escalator. This is "psychological research" but it would be silly to stop all the people and say "Before you leave the subway station, I need you to agree to participate in psychological research. We'll be counting how many people climb the stairs and how many people ride the escalator."

Maybe you should describe a hypothetical study that you would object to. For example, would you object to someone counting up how many times editors use certain words (e.g., 'editors' vs 'people') and seeing if it differs according to whether the speaker has self-identified as a man or a woman, or by the number of edits they've made? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing

I have been reflecting on the distinction between observation and intervention in the context of studying online communities, particularly Wikipedia. While passive observation—such as analyzing existing interactions or content patterns—raises few ethical concerns, active experimentation introduces significant risks, particularly when it involves manipulating user behavior. In this sense, certain types of experiments on Wikipedia can be seen as analogous to betting on horse or dog races: predicting outcomes based on interventions, where the “subjects” are often unaware they are part of a study.

A relatively simple case study might involve an editor making a minor but deliberately provocative change to assess how another editor reacts—whether they ignore it, escalate the situation, or engage in constructive dialogue. While this may seem harmless, it deliberately introduces a variable into a social environment with real participants. More concerning, however, is when those in positions of authority—such as administrators—conduct coordinated interventions. For example, multiple administrators might decide, without objective justification, to systematically reward or punish a particular user by deleting their articles, blocking their account, or, conversely, promoting them or offering unwarranted praise. Such an experiment would not only distort natural interactions but also undermine the integrity of Wikipedia as a collaborative platform.

The key ethical issue is that Wikipedia operates on principles of transparency and trust. When deliberate manipulations—whether by individual editors or coordinated groups—are introduced under the guise of research, they cease to be neutral studies and instead become forms of interference. Ethical experimentation, even in digital spaces, requires clear consent, transparency, and a commitment to minimizing harm. Without these safeguards, such actions risk damaging both the credibility of the research and the stability of the community itself. Arbabi second (talk) 05:33, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Deliberately provoking people just to get a response is prohibited under the general heading of Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. Trolling is disruptive and can be blockworthy, even if you say "but I'm deliberately upsetting all these people for the sake of science, not just for fun!"

OTOH, deliberate "manipulation" towards our real goals is a good thing. For example, around 2010, we re-wrote the user warning messages to be less aggressive, because we wanted a different psychological response. We tested it to prove that it works (e.g., newcomers getting shorter, simpler, gentler messages were more likely to try to make a constructive edit another day). I see no harm in this, even though the whole point was to use psychology to change newcomers' behavior. An ordinary advertisement is an "intervention" intended to "manipulate" you.

Here are two scenarios for you. Do you consider these to be "psychological research"?

• Someone wants to know how quickly and how thoroughly editors revert obvious vandalism. This will establish the baseline for a tool to find and revert vandalism. To get an accurate number, he uses a script to dump obvious vandalism in many articles (perhaps about 1% of edits that day, representing perhaps 25% of the edits that needed to be reverted that day). Most of it is quickly found and removed, and the tester removes the small amount of missed vandalism later. Some editors feel angry about this test.
• Some editors think that NPP and AFC editors are doing a poor job. They secretly write some stubs on subjects they believe are notable. They create new accounts and post the stubs, with simple mistakes and common formatting problems, as if they were first-time editors. After a week, they announce their sting operation and publicize the results. Many articles were processed correctly, but the test shows that some NPP and AFC reviewers reject articles that should be accepted. Some NPP and AFC editors feel angry about being secretly tested.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:53, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Based on my opinion, the scenarios described can be considered psychological research to some extent, but they primarily fall under the category of social experiments rather than formal psychological studies. These tests assess human behavior in specific contexts—how editors react to vandalism or how NPP and AFC reviewers handle new submissions. However, they do not follow the rigorous methodologies typically required in psychological research, such as ethical review, informed consent, and controlled conditions.

While I believe such tests are sometimes necessary to evaluate and improve processes, they can also negatively impact individual editors. Each editor has their own personal experience and emotional investment in their work, and feeling deceived or tested without consent can lead to frustration and resentment. To mitigate harm, it is important to make editors aware of the need for such tests and to ensure transparency in reporting the results. This way, the testing process can serve its intended purpose without unnecessarily alienating or upsetting the community. By the way, I'm not very familiar with acronyms on wiki, so please write the whole word as NPP (New Page Patrol). Arbabi second (talk) 08:58, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing

• Is there any example of publicly reporting the results of one-week sting tests to users that you could link to? I mean new accounts that were created for the purpose of testing New Page Patrols.Arbabi second (talk) 15:56, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Both of those examples happened years ago. I don't have the links handy.

The problem with both examples is that if you tell people that it's happening, they will change their behavior. The Hawthorne effect is a problem in general, but if you specifically tell people "Next week, I'm going to make 1,000 fake edits to see how fast people revert vandalism", then people will start watching Special:RecentChanges more closely. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing

I meant the post-test report, not a pre-test warning. Arbabi second (talk) 19:47, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Post-test announcements preclude informed consent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:03, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

This isn't either of the examples that WhatamIdoing described, but here's an example of vandalism carried out for purported research, but not by a researcher, and where the person who did it seemed not to understand why their account ended up blocked. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:21, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion

It was very interesting but unfortunately not what I was looking for. If you find any statistics or articles about user feedback testing or the percentage of outright vandalism generated by admins to test new reviewers, please let me know. Arbabi second (talk) 20:00, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't think you mean "admins", at least not in the way that we use that word here. An 'admin' is just an ordinary volunteer with a few extra buttons. They don't run Wikipedia. There is no central authority deciding what other people are allowed to do.

For the two cases mentioned above, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-09/New pages experiment and Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-08-16/Spam attacks. More generally, you might be interested in reading about research on Meta-Wiki. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

There is a proposal to change the text of MOS:CALLIGRAPHY at:

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles#Proposal: clarify "user-generated" in MOS:CALLIGRAPHY

Editors are kindly invited to participate in the discussion there. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:20, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Came across an instance where an enthusiastic fairly-new editor placed a pp-vandalism template on a banned user page. Is that correct? Incorrect? Seems like overkill to me but I can't find the policy/guideline that says so. Thanks in advance for any help on this. - Shearonink (talk) 16:50, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Nobody but admins should be adding page protection templates to pages. I warned the editor. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:03, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh I thought the page wasn't actually protected. That's my mistake. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:15, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks anyway, sorry for any trouble. - Shearonink (talk) 20:01, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Could someone please take a look at Wikipedia:Notability (books)? I'm fairly certain that there shouldn't be such a long nutshell on any page. Furthermore, that nutshell is repeated almost verbatim further below. I understand that editors want that part to have high visibility, but there has to be a better solution.

There appear to be other problems on that page as well. Factors that should at most only be tiebreakers in a borderline case are treated as standard criteria. Notability is mainly about the coverage a book has gotten, not about how it was published.

This was my most recent attempt at cleaning things up. The intro was also a bit long and rambling, and shortening it had the added benefit of moving up the section which repeated the nutshell. But editors who have commented seem to think it should stay the way it is. 36.89.218.67 (talk) 01:44, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

The changes touched large parts of the guideline with no prior discussion and deleted 6K of text. There is nothing wrong with a long nutshell at the top IMO. Your nut shell is not specific ("book must have reliable sources" is so generic it applies to all of Wikipedia not specific to books). The weight of criteria have are determined by editors on a case by case basis, there is no rule that says to give one criteria more weight than another as a "tie breaker", that would be an individual opinion. The phrase "cleaning things up" often signals a singular personal view that does not encompass other perspectives. -- GreenC 02:20, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

There is now an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles#RfC on images containing Islamic honorifics or calligraphy, offering various proposals on the text of MOS:CALLIGRAPHY. Editors are kindly invited to comment there.

☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 11:19, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Continuing the previous discussion, per that nomination… ArionStar (talk) 20:18, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Look at this paragraph from the article To Catch the Uncatchable:

*The show is re-run at midnight from August 25, 2006. and Television Stations are Singapore has ; MediaCorp TV Channel 8. Every at Saturday and Sunday feast (Weekend) at 7;00pm

This is, frankly, garbage writing. First a period followed by a lowercase letter, then the grammatically painful phrase, "Television Stations are Singapore has ;" and after that the phrase, "Every at Saturday and Sunday feast (Weekend) at 7;00pm". Let's be frank here, certain parts of Wikipedia are riddled with crap like this, some having just paragraph after paragraph of this stuff. There are searches for certain kinds of specific errors like the comma-spacing errors that I routinely look for, that will capture some of this, but there is a lot of straight up garbage that will elude specific searches and stay garbage. An AI that could crawl all seven million Wikipedia articles and come up with a report and recommendations for soundly rewriting lines like this one would be an absolute boon. BD2412 T 02:18, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

While we should be cautious about any use of AI that makes changes on Wikipedia, I think there's a lot of potential for tools that use AI to identify problems and bring attention to things. The thing is, it would need to be something actionable. We already have a list of articles needing cleanup at Category:Articles needing cleanup, and a large proportion of our non-GA/non-FA articles need to be significantly rewritten regardless of individual issues. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:55, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

The article I noted here is not even tagged for cleanup. I would love to have a tool that finds lines like these in articles and suggests a coherent rewrite, where I can click to accept the proposal or tweak it myself and then accept it. BD2412 T 05:04, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

There are lots of potential use cases for AI-type tools. For example, I've been thinking about how an AI instance might be used to find articles 'missing' from WikiProjects. A fuzzy edit filter for odd grammar might be useful, but it would require people to check it. That article has been unsourced for 20 years, so an AI finding those grammar issues would be identifying a symptom of an article just not receiving any attention. CMD (talk) 05:09, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I've fixed that particular sentence that was introduced in 2009, and should have been seen by several editors running AWB. I know this discussion is about the general case. The version seen by BD2412 is at . Phil Bridger (talk) 14:04, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Given the size of the existing backlog in most cleanup categories, it appears that our limiting factor is not identification of problems but available editor-hours to resolve those problems. Automation (with or without "AI") might help with prioritization of cleanup efforts by, say, generating a feed of high-visibility articles with serious issues. But my focus would be on figuring out how to use these tools to accelerate the clearing of current backlogs, or using social engineering to encourage more editors to engage with the work. If we get to a point where we are solving problems faster than we are identifying them then we might want to take another look at how to identify more problems. -- LWG ^talk 16:18, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

@LWG: I completely disagree with this take. I am one of the handful of editors who actually engages in the sort of sweat equity you envision here, and my work would be vastly accelerated by an AI that could do multiple layers of cleanup at once, including fixing just plain bad writing. BD2412 T 17:43, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

@BD2412: thanks for your service! I agree that if an AI tool could be developed that would correct common, uncontroversial problems in an automatic and smart way, that would really speed up our work. That would essentially just be a more advanced version of what AWB already does if I understand you correctly. I agree with the caveats Elemimele expresses below though - in inexperienced hands a tool like that becomes a sledgehammer that can do more harm that good. -- LWG ^talk 19:54, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I'd rather have the tool and worry later about erroneous uses. Just picking a random bad grammar combination like "it is has been" brings up numerous instances, with unique but obviously bad grammar combinations doubtless proliferating throughout the work, but not findable with any standardized AWB search. BD2412 T 20:19, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree. In the case identified by BD2412, which I do not agree is typical, several people using AWB saw it (or, at least, should have seen it) and did nothing. The problem we have is with the people using the tools, and providing people with better tools isn't going to fix that. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:22, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger: When I fix comma spacing errors, I look in the AWB edit box and no further. Sure, there are probably other errors in that article, but I am fixing thousands of that specific error, and can choose to either pore over each article or fix the clear error in each case. An AI review could identify an article rife with errors and suggest fixes to all errors at once, whether grammar, spelling, spacing, punctuation, or application of any number of MOS conventions. If we had one where I could look at its proposed edit and make all of those fixes with a click (including my comma spacing fixes), I would be making thousands of those complete fix edits rather than my thousands of single fix edits. BD2412 T 21:55, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

I like this idea: using AI to make suggested grammar edits to an article. As long as we show humans the diffs before the publish button is hit I see no issue with it. People already use grammar checkers and I don't see the harm in us (wikipedia) running a grammar checker ourselves on a per article basis. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 23:25, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

My gripe with your reasoning here is it sounds like your example is better solved with Regex and string replacement. Not "AI" maybe AI could be use to write the regex but its like bringing a cannon to a knife fight. Czarking0 (talk) 07:30, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

@Czarking0: Just clicking "Random article" a few times I come to Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke (1969 film), which includes the sentences "He and his wife, Parvati raises them both as their own sons" and "Shivram happens to be in right place, right time, and saves Rekha", which are grammatically incorrect in ways I don't see a regex catching. I'd like to bring a cannon to this knife fight. BD2412 T 19:08, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree that regex cannot catch this. I think if we go down the path of adding an AI like you suggest then we should promote some follow-on work to see if there are some large subsets of cases that regex can catch before going to AI. Depending on the type of AI you use this could be computationally expensive. Czarking0 (talk) 19:18, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

"this could be computationally expensive" - yes. AI at scale is expensive. I run into this frequently. Works great for one thing . Scale it up, forget about it. Developments will continue to bring costs down though how soon we can reasonably process 7 million articles hard to say. -- GreenC 01:35, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

The Foundation can certainly afford it, and should be working on a proprietary AI so that we will not be stuck using someone else's platform with someone else's design parameters and restrictions. BD2412 T 01:40, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Environmental impacts of artificial intelligence. Cremastra (talk) 01:42, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

It takes more water to make one cheeseburger than it would take to have an AI parse every article in Wikipedia. BD2412 T 03:59, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

When did Wikipedia start making hamburgers? ;-) DN (talk) 06:25, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

I am disappointed to learn that WP:HAMBURGER doesn't exist. Thryduulf (talk) 11:55, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

funny story, that. if i haven't misread that article, and it's not grossly outdated or something, then sure. a single action from an ai tool might not take as much water as making one (1) yeehawlandian sandwich (by which i specifically mean with the methods used in mcdonkey's and kentucky fried man), but parsing through every mainspace page (article or not) very likely would take a good amount of water. at the very least, large-scale ones like what wikipedia would need use more power and sippies in the span of an hour than i would use in a week (which is saying a lot because i was born after 1984 and drink like a race horse)

this is a roundabout way of saying that i kinda disagree tbh, at least with the tools' state now and for around the next 6 years consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 13:10, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, how much watering do cheeseburger-eating, cotton-wearing Wikipedians require for their intensively caffeinated neural networking? and will who knows enter ai a perhaps Corrected Writing of the Environmental impacts of Wikipedia? -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:27, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Tools to identify problems are good, but tools in bad hands are a danger. You'd need to make sure, for example, that an AI garbage-grammar detector didn't end up being used by people with a poor grasp of English grammar and good writing, who leave a trail of disaster as they correct mistakes that weren't wrong, and convert stuff that was bad into stuff that's still bad. On the other hand, plenty of that happens already, so maybe another tool is no harm. Elemimele (talk) 17:52, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Agreed, but why do some people try to edit in English if that isn't their first language, at the very least? DN (talk) 22:02, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

"A man's reach should exceed his grasp" I suppose.Herostratus (talk) 23:56, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Because they lack college-level training in critical thinking and don't understand the idea that there are unknown unknowns. So they greatly overestimate their ability to draft formal written English. --Coolcaesar (talk) 00:05, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Because everything we've been telling them for over 20 years is that it doesn't matter if what you write isn't perfect, as long as you improve the information content in the article someone else will come along later and fix your spelling/grammar. This is what should happen, and in many cases it is what does happen. The issue is that we haven't got enough editors doing the follow-up, and tools like that BD2412 suggests to enable those we do have to be more productive would be a very good way of dealing with that while we work on fixing the lack of editors. Thryduulf (talk) 00:12, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree with this: If the only problem with a person's contributions is poor spelling/grammar, I'd much rather have their contributions than not have them. There is no deadline on the Wiki. It would be nice if we had the man or machine power to make corrections to all articles as soon as the need was identified. But unlike POV or sourcing issues that can do active harm just by existing, there's no urgent need to fix style issues. -- LWG ^talk 04:26, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Also: Because the English Wikipedia has an outsized effect, compared to local languages. People are reading our articles with machine translation, because the articles exist here and don't exist in their local languages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:04, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

There are many automated tools that automate the creation of cites, and show the editor the diffs before the changes are published. They have caused massive issues with some editors leaving thousands of pages needing fixing, simply because they didn't check the output correctly. Having a AI identify the problems would be very useful, but I would hesitate going further. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:58, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

God please no. Generative AI -- as opposed to simple bots or heuristics -- should not be used for anything in articlespace because of the risk of hallucinations. This includes "just checking grammar," I have seen even AI "grammar checkers" introduce errors into text, and the products tend to blur the lines. Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:09, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I tend to agree with this. DN (talk) 23:56, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I was kind of curious, so, well, getting some actual results is good. I used GPT-4 to answer a test query written in poor English, asking it to fix poor English, and it did fine with that:

make good english "how u can do that tho"

ChatGPT said:

You could rephrase it as: "How can you do that, though?"

Not bad, it fixed the misspellings of "you" and "though", capitalized it properly, added punctuation, and corrected the grammar. Okay, let's try it on our actual above sentence:

make good english "The show is re-run at midnight from August 25, 2006. and Television Stations are Singapore has ; MediaCorp TV Channel 8. Every at Saturday and Sunday feast (Weekend) at 7;00pm"

ChatGPT said: Here’s a more polished version:

"The show has been re-run at midnight since August 25, 2006. It airs on MediaCorp TV Channel 8 in Singapore every Saturday and Sunday at 7:00 PM."

That's actually pretty good. Now in reality, that sentence was so badly written I'd probably have to go check a source to see what it's even supposed to say, but certainly the AI's interpretation of it is at least reasonable. So, we'd need probably some more testing/piloting than my off the cuff stuff, but this is actually an area where tools like that could really help speed up editors' work. I'd remain opposed to letting AI make automated changes, especially large-scale ones, but if it could feed suggestions like the above into AWB or similar tools so that an editor could just review it and click "Approve" or "Decline", I could see fixing grammar issues and poor writing as an area where it might do more good than harm. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:01, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

My worry is exactly what you've raised, Seraphimblade: the AI has done a pretty good job, but it can't flag that the original was bad enough that the interpretation might be wrong. It's taken away the danger-flag of bad writing, and replaced it with clear, definitive text, but it's still just "at least reasonable". I think we should set our aims higher than to become an encyclopedia whose articles are at least a reasonable interpretation of what the original author probably intended. Elemimele (talk) 12:13, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

That's certainly fair—but then, a human editor could as easily say "Well...I think they meant to say...", and go with that as well. "People might do it wrong" always applies, unfortunately. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:08, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

But is it really a reasonable interpretation? Does/did the programme air at both 7 p.m. and midnight? If so, then we should say so clearly, which this doesn't. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:52, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

A clever enough AI could tag the line as unsourced. An even more clever one could check sources cited. A most clever one could find reliable sources. In five or ten years, I expect that most of the work of writing Wikipedia will be done by the most clever AIs. BD2412 T 19:12, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

And what will they train on five or ten years after that? Other AIs? This looks like a recipe for ossifying Wikipedia into what humans thought in the 2020s. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:11, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

that is... actually a worst-case scenario. handing wikipedia over to ai like this could cause ai inbreeding across nearly the whole internet and turn the models back into hallucinating messes, reliable sources into sources that are not reliable, and wikipedia into a parody of itself. this process could take years, or it could take days, but i find it unlikely that it wouldn't happen. and we wouldn't even get a cool race with metal sonic out of it!! consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 20:23, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

What comes to mind is Idiocracy. Fabrickator (talk) 20:57, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

The sort of cleverness described here doesn't remotely exist in the current state of the art for AI. What you're proposing is the equivalent of running a marathon from a technology that can't even yet reliably tie its shoelaces (but it can and does yell "MY SHOES ARE TIED!" very loudly regardless of what the state of their shoes is) _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:04, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I expect that most of the work of writing Wikipedia will be done by the most clever AIs. That sounds fun. And pointless. Also, unlikely. Cremastra (talk) 22:06, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Considering that five years ago, AI basically did not exist at all, "unlikely" just seems like a matter of waiting. Besides, the point of Wikipedia is to serve the readers, as an encyclopedia. That is the point, no matter who does the writing. BD2412 T 23:20, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

You may want to review History of artificial intelligence. Specifically, the current state of the art AI technologies are very much still operating within the same neural network paradigm that has been around since the early 2010s. There's been small incremental improvements, but still nothing has been able to address the hallucination and opacity problems that have always plagued the field, and which are the fundamental problem. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:40, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Not so much, that is kind of saying the Ford GT engine is very much still operating within the same paradigm as the Model T. They both make explosions in a cylinder to turn a crank, same same. PackMecEng (talk) 00:45, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I may sound like a weaver complaining about those dark satanic mills, but this hardly seems a good thing. Maybe we could try to avoid it instead of shrugging our shoulders? Cremastra (talk) 23:43, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

then the question becomes "will ai serve readers"? because from what you're telling, using it to write and evaluate stuff, as opposed to basick grammer's fix's, would serve writers over readers. if that, considering what i said before about inbreeding and what other people said before, now, and later about hallucinations. if you want ai to write summaries for stuff, google already does that, and i assume you know how prone its overviews are to spreading misinformation on the internet (and also that masahiro sakurai image thing that happened a few ages ago i guess

ultimately, this is why i'm in favor of only using ai to help with copyediting, gramars, and similarly small, uncontroversial stuff of the sort, and even then with heavy scrutiny from the user, and without the ability to click that yummy "publish changes" button. even so, i don't trust it to get the possessive form of "it" right lol consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 23:56, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

should clarify that serving one over the other isn't necessarily a bad thing, just that getting the two mixed might not give someone a good look consarn _{(speak evil) (see evil)} 23:59, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

If Wikipedia gets to the point it is mostly written by AI, it'd be obsolete. If AI can do that, then information can just be generated by AIs on their platforms at the specific level of customisation the customer wants. CMD (talk) 02:30, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

If we could trust the human editor to actually review the suggestion and make an appropriate judgement call before hitting "approve", I agree this could be really helpful. I would feel better about it if there was a way to clearly mark in the edit history whether a given wording was generated by the tool or not, thus mitigating the problem Elemimele mentioned that correcting bad writing without verifying content might make bad content harder to detect. I also agree with Seraphimblade that these are concerns with any editors who focus only on style without examining content, regardless of the tools they use. In a more distant future, it could be really powerful to have an AI that could follow links, read sources, generate some sort of agreement score for how well the cited source seems to support the wiki text, and flag sentences whose agreement score is too law. You would still need human judgement to actually take action on potentially unsourced content, but it could really speed up the process. -- LWG ^talk 21:17, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I suspect that short bits (e.g., a single sentence or a single paragraph) would be more likely to get reviewed properly than dozens of little tweaks scattered across thousands of words

@Seraphimblade, I like your suggestion, and I wonder whether modeling it on something like Wikipedia:Citation Huntwould work. Imagine that you see suggested changes in a single paragraph, with any existing citations displayed. It would want a prominent 'Skip' button, and maybe a "Add Template:Citation needed" button if there are no inline citations to display. A proper tool could also limit the rate of contributions (e.g., 10 per day for newer editors). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

There are some articles where a "short bits" approach would capture everything, and some articles (predictably most often regarding locations and media from countries where English is not the first language) where eyesore grammatical errors are rife. I would prefer to be able to see every posited correction of those at once, and click once to accept them all. BD2412 T 23:07, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

There should be options to accept all, accept none, and accept a manually selected subset. Similar to how the edit conflict resolution tool works. Thryduulf (talk) 23:09, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Or just open the right section, and let you copy/paste the changes you want?

The problem with doing every suggested correction in a single go is that people are more likely to check three changes than 100 changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:32, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Hi. I've noticed on keyboard warrior article that someone (not sure who) added unreliable source template to a source link which goes to Dictionary.com. Is this true though? Why is Dictionary.com an unreliable source? I thought of deleting it, but I wasn't sure if that is the case, that's why I'm asking here. --Pek (talk) 17:27, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

simply put, it's user-generated. such sources are not considered reliable. incidentally, the template was added by the now blocked user ltbdl consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 17:38, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Are you thinking of a different site? I can find no indication that Dictionary.com is user-generated - their about page states Dictionary.com’s main, proprietary source is the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, which is continually updated by our team of experienced lexicographers and supplemented with trusted, established sources including American Heritage and Harper Collins to support a range of language needs. and there is no obvious option to contribute to the site. Thryduulf (talk) 17:44, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

i thought i mistook it for another site, but it turns out that i actually just misread the article. whoops consarn _{(prison phone) (crime record)} 17:53, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Questions about the reliability of sources belong at Wikipedia:Reliable sources noticeboard (but do read the notes at the top of the page before starting discussions there). I've only found one discussion in the noticeboard archives. That was in 2021 and didn't reach a firm conclusion, but general gist seems to be that it's not unreliable but there are better quality sources available. Thryduulf (talk) 17:38, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library offers access to Oxford Reference works, which includes many dictionaries (but not the OED itself). If you want a different dictionary, try here. And after looking at it, maybe think about whether the opening sentence of that article deserves a {{Copyvio inline}} tag. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:21, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I've always thought of Wikipedia as a source of information that could be trusted and was written with integrity and proper English. I was researching Mayor Adam's and as it became increasingly clear that it written with bias and vulgar language (see attached). So much for integrity. 2603:7000:D202:5F0F:A548:72AF:17E1:18D5 (talk) 04:38, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

"Up his butt" was the exact wording. 2603:7000:D202:5F0F:A548:72AF:17E1:18D5 (talk) 04:39, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

The article in question appears to be Eric Adams. I've not read it in anywhere near sufficient detail to have an opinion about whether it is biased, but the phrase you are objecting to is a small part of a verbatim quote by Tom Homan directed towards Adams, and in that context (which might be a little clearer) it seems proper for an encyclopaedia to include it. Do note that Wikipedia is not censored, so while we do not go out of our way to be puerile or shocking we do include material that some people find offensive, including vulgar language. Thryduulf (talk) 05:24, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I need to know what your policy on autobiographies might be. I might be willing to write mine on Wikipedia depending on issues with my naming names. Still, Statutes of Limitations have to apply after 50 years sans murder (not a problem). I asked this question somewhere else but evidently the wrong place since I got no response. Or maybe it's such an odd idea you don't know what to think.

I'll also have to study your edit / disedit guidelines more closely. (I really don't need problems with shitheads. Cancer causes me more than enough as it is.)

I propose to write non-fiction under my own name but, perhaps, under an alias url. I'm working on the timeline now & I'm mostly done with the basics. I'm going to fill the thing out into a actual autobiography and also plan to add pictures throughout. (This idea is kind of a surprise for my grandchildren.) This will make my page fair sized, if not huge. Can you host a book-size page? Can you host video or video links? Video would expand the page's size quickly. I never considered editing anything on Wikipedia before so this is all new. What are your limits? (How about for a regular donor? I've been donating Franklins for decades. Irregularly, but so's life. And I think you're on my donate monthly list now.) But I suppose that shouldn't alter limits. I don't much care for inequality before the law so maybe I shouldn't try to push policy. Habit. Or, I offer more content than most as I've lived a strangely varied life. Difficult for me to judge this objectively (if objectively is how this question should be judged).

And I do support your work. You ended up being my go-to first click if I'm looking for information. That's the other reason for this offer. Maybe I'd start a fad. Humans'll line up for anything. lol

Anyway, you get the idea of the type of questions I'm asking here, I think. I got a couple of other questions but plan to put each in their appropriate technical catagory. Thanks for listening.

Bret Blakeslee AKA Odric-the-Mad Tempe, AZ, USA 2025.2 Odric-the-mad (talk) 04:55, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

First, read WP:Autobiography. Second, while the author's user name is attached to the edit history on every edit made, we do not have by-lines in the article space of Wikipedia. We are writing an encyclopedia, and while it is certainly non-fiction, an encyclopedia is a limited sub-set in style and content of non-fiction. Alt.Donald Albury (talk) 05:31, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

The policy on autobiographies is located at Wikipedia:Autobiography, but in summary writing an autobiography on Wikipedia is very strongly discouraged as it will nearly always be an inappropriate Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. Similarly, Wikipedia is not a publisher of original material, fiction or non-fiction, other than encyclopaedia articles based on previously published works.

There are many useful links to information about what Wikipedia is and is not, what our policies and guidelines are, and other information for novices at Help:Contents. You can also ask questions and get advice at Wikipedia:Teahouse.

Finally, while we do welcome donations, they are always completely optional and bring no privileges or other benefits on Wikipedia - you get treated the same, receive the same rights and are subject to the same expectations whether you donate £100m a month, never donate a penny or anything in between. Thryduulf (talk) 05:41, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

We have to treat everyone the same, because none of the volunteers who make content-related decisions have any access to the financial records. You could claim to donate any amount, and none of us would be able to prove or disprove it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:25, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Sounds like you should make your own website. A book-length autobiography for the gradnkids is not appropriate for Wikipedia. Purchasing a website and hosting is pretty cheap these days. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:54, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Just to throw a bit in on websites, I teach a class that involves website design/hosting and it can be done for free using several routes. I prefer Google Sites personally, but you can use Github, or a few others. Having a Google account allows you to make a "Google Site" for free, gives you a Google Drive with 15 GB of storage you can use to host content for the site, and a YouTube account you can use for videos. The free Google Site URL isn't the prettiest, but you can pay for a better one. Not affiliated with Google, just wanted to share this option as it is pretty nifty in my opinion and I don't think many people know about it even if they use a Google account daily. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:55, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing. It's a really BAD idea. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:26, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Recently, several well-respected editors and administrators have been caught engaging in paid editing. A few years ago, most paid editors focused only on the articles they were paid to edit, and their bias was often so obvious that WP:COI could be easily established.

However, as Wikipedia has grown in popularity, many organizations have started hiring highly educated individuals or even reaching out to established Wikipedia editors. This new generation of paid editors is much harder to detect because they leave no clear evidence. They know how to present themselves as neutral contributors, editing a wide range of articles to build a positive reputation before subtly pushing biased points of view.

Those who are retired from their professional careers often have plenty of time for such activities. In contrast, people who are still working or studying may struggle to dedicate so much time to in-depth research, and it seems that they have more time for Wikipedia article research than their real life work and family, friends. Some new editors start contributing, and within just a month, it seems as if they have been editing for years. 2409:40E1:106E:6AD3:6D77:E75E:FE79:D35A (talk) 17:44, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

At first glance this seems like a call to assume bad faith of experienced editors who make a lot of contributions. Thryduulf (talk) 19:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

While I hope this was offered in good faith, it would fit into a campaign to tear down Wikipedia. Such claims really need hard evidence to be taken credibly. Alt.Donald Albury (talk) 19:42, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Anyone can edit Wikipedia. While I get the argument against COI editors and such, it really feels like an exercise in futility to be overly concerned. Everyone has a bias, everyone has motivations for editing or doing anything. A rule that is unenforceable without doxing is a suggestion, to assume good faith, it is better to avoid a witch hunt against people who are being paid to do something. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 20:32, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Doxing wouldn't be enough to detect this. Even if you know someone's name and where they live, you don't know whether that person is being paid under the table to edit Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

This is a good point. Another thing to note is often people who are extremely close to a topic may be the most interested and qualified to write about it. Someone like a military intelligence officer could be an editor in their free time and edit articles related to geopolitics. The edits should be enough to speak for themselves, a witch hunt or being overly concerned with people taking checks isn't productive. I'm worried about mud slinging and uncivil accusations on controversial topics more then I am about a COI editor. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:25, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I worry about the impossibility of defending against COI accusations. Not only do we have different ideas about what constitutes a COI (e.g., I've seen editors claim that everyone has a COI for their current home, their birthplace, and all schools they ever attended, but most of us don't agree with that), but most of the accusations are really just someone's hunch, and some are an attempt to exclude editors with the Wrong™ viewpoint from participating. I mean, it's just "obvious" that anyone who disagrees with me is getting paid to spread misinformation, right? There couldn't possibly be any legitimate reason for not sharing my POV, so if we disagree, then you have a COI. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:54, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

IMO this is indeed a legitimate concern. Elon Musk and other moneyed interests have a tenuous relationship with Wikipedia to say the least (See & & ). It can be extremely difficult to discern human bias from a conflict of interest without improving verification and measures that would create, for lack of a better term, a firewall. AI is also another can of worms in this regard. In a sense it does feel futile to attempt to guard against it, as the core principle of WP:AGF seems to become somewhat self-defeating in terms of maintaining WP's neutral point of view. However, this is why we have committees and certain levels of "bureaucracy" on WP. As much as editors complain about them, they are currently our best defense against this issue. Cheers. DN (talk) 21:02, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

In order to be sure, there would have to be tracking of money. But "Wikipedia" is not going to get that information about where all the earnings of users come from. So we will just have to stick with noting bias, whitewashing and promotion. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree. The IP editor who began this discussion raises an interesting point, but I don't see any way to deal with it. Over time I've come to realize that while paid editing is undesirable, it can't be dealt with easily and is fundamentally a Foundation issue, not one that ordinary editors should sweat over. Coretheapple (talk) 22:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

First, I am unaware of any administrators on en.wp recently being found to be involved in paid editing. Paid consultancy might happen, but that is not paid editing. But yes, it is very difficult to identify paid editors if they go out of their way to hide paid editing. That said, most serial paid editors (stupid term, but I want to seperate this from the person working for a company that occasionally makes edits to an article related to the company, but does not otherwise engage in paid editing) rely heavily on socks rather than building one account and disgusing their paid edits within the unpaid one. These editors could potentially be identified by technical means - it is not a lost cause - but it would involve the WMF. Those who do try to create a semi-established account that does paid editing and unpaid editing tend to display clues in their choice of topics and tend to risk having all of their paid work tagged and deleted if they make a mistake, so they seem to be less common, at least within the paid editors I tend to see. - Bilby (talk) 23:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I thought you will remember [Nihonjoe] 2409:40E1:10F8:6E83:7063:A2B9:108D:DF8 (talk) 02:58, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Fair enough. I tend to think of that being a year old, but it isn't quite, and the only example I can think of in recent years. I was thinking you meant more recently than that. At any rate, the rest of the comment holds, I think. - Bilby (talk) 03:06, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't assume that most people are aware of the occasional case. In a typical year, we have about 800,000 registered editors who make 1+ edits. The page you linked to was read by less than 1% of them. I'd guess that 95% of last year's editors never even heard about it. (You can become a registered editor! Special:CreateAccount is free and does not even require an e-mail address. Creating an account and logging in will hide your IP address.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:09, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

• We don't have a magic wand that would let us detect paid editing, but one step might be to make WP:PAID stricter (in the past many people have argued that most of its requirements are optional.) Another step might be to try and enforce WP:TEND / WP:CIVILPOV more strictly, since the ultimate tell of any paid editor is that their edits will be wholly tendentious - one-sided editing is what they're being paid for, so it is the one thing they cannot conceal. But this has its own limitations; TEND is notoriously difficult to enforce. --Aquillion (talk) 05:03, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

  Perhaps you're thinking of the guidance at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest § Paid editing? (The paid-contribution disclosure requirement from the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use is mandatory.) My impression is that for detected editors, the community tends to enforce the guidance fairly strictly. The key challenge is that English Wikipedia's decision-making traditions require disputes to be resolved by community discussion, and the community's capacity for discussion is quickly depleted. isaacl (talk) 05:42, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Moved from wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Cover_Images_with_Albums/Singles

An admin suggested we escalate this to a wider audience. I'll be blunt, this might not be the best forum, but I also can't find a better one, so if I'm in the wrong place, just show me the door and the hallway to follow....

WP:FFD is routinely asked to weigh in on articles about a musical album/single. In these articles, there is usually more than one non-free cover (usually the original release and a deluxe/special edition release or the album cover and the title single cover) and the user coming to FFD is seeking input as to whether we should delete images if more than one is in the article, often citing WP:NFCC#3a and 8. Usually, these images are marginally different. It's frequent enough that it's probably 20-30% of the FFDs (or maybe it just seems that way). Rather than deal with all of these individually, I felt it might be better to simply establish a consensus to create a guideline so we can just be consistent across the board and streamline the process:

No more than a single, non-free primary album cover/primary single cover shall be placed in the article on an album/song (respectively) unless there is significant commentary about more than one cover's visual artwork appearance. When in doubt, pick a single image of the most prominent cover; anything more than that fails WP:NFCC#3a and 8. This guidance applies separately to each version about which there is sufficient content for a stand-alone article (regardless of how many articles there are in practice).

Your inputs are appreciated. Buffs (talk) 18:00, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Per feedback below, here is I updated the guidance Buffs (talk) 21:18, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

VPP, not here. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:32, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

• No comment on substance, but think Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) the better place for this discussion which admins can then implement if there is consensus established. Star Mississippi 18:34, 13 February 2025 (UTC) Moot on move. Star Mississippi 19:24, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

The proposed wording is fine, but VPP is the best place for this. Frankly, if spurious covers fail NFCC3a/8, they should be removed anyway, we don't need a change - but I appreciate that some editors simply don't understand NFCC and will keep splattering non-frees everywhere "because it looks nice". Black Kite (talk) 18:43, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

• There are general two types of covers, beyond the one allowed for identification, that get used on singles and albums: alternate artwork such as for a specific region or a special re-release, and the artwork of a cover version. For the alternate art, that should absolutely show discussion of the artwork beyond that it was merely different as to meet NFCC#8. For covers, if the cover is likely sufficiently notable for it's own article, but editors have opted to include it in the article on the original work, it is fair to include that cover's album art for identification purposrs, as otherwise can be seen to penalize the efitors' devision for maintaining a single comprehensive article. Masem (t) 19:17, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  I want to ensure I understand what you're saying. Can you give an example? Buffs (talk) 22:11, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

  Are you referring to something like Ain't Nobody? If so, I can see your point. Buffs (talk) 22:17, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, that would be an example where many of those covers could be sepearate articles based on notability, but are covered as one, so NFCC cover use is fine. — Masem (t) 17:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

• I think the proposed wording is fine. The one thing I would consider rewording is to change the part about "visual artwork" to "appearance," just in case there end up being edge cases or we end up getting into stupid pedantic arguments about whether typography counts as visual artwork, etc. Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:18, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  Done. Excellent feedback! Buffs (talk) 22:04, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

• This matter was discussed at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content, days before this wide discussion. @Buffs: I don't know why a proposal or this discussion is needed unless you wanna have two FFD discussions overturned or overridden (File:Moliendo café Chi sarà.png and File:Zara Larsson - VENUS (Vinyl Cover).jpeg). I still can't believe that Pppery has seconded Buffs's suggestion on this. I also don't know why Gnomingstuff and Black Kite found the wording fine. The proposal would impact how FFD discussions run individually and how NFCC would be interpreted case-by-case. Also, sometimes, guidelines are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. I wonder whether the proposed rule is necessary and whether others will follow through. George Ho (talk) 21:30, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  The FFD discussion on File:Zara Larsson - VENUS (Vinyl Cover).jpeg is now reopened. George Ho (talk) 23:27, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  The reason I commented that the wording of the proposal was "fine" was because I think it is fine. I do not have any issue with the proposal. I think it is sensible and is consistent with our free use policy. I don't feel that my comment was unclear at all, and I don't know why you're tagging me to clarify it. This is a public venue and people not involved in the original discussion are allowed to weigh in. Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:33, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  This matter was discussed at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content, days before this wide discussion I was unaware of that discussion.

  As for why it is needed, I'm seeing a lot of album covers up for FFD. To be blunt, I genuinely don't care that much about what happened in the past and I'm not specifically looking to overturn them. I'm looking for a consistent policy we can apply across the board and prevent such discussions from even needing to occur. If we can simply edit an article and remove an album cover from the article citing WP:POLICYX/WP:GUIDELINEY and then nominate it for speedy deletion via SD F5, then it never hits FFD at all (nor should it). If we decide 2 albums/song covers are appropriate (or more), then we can shoot down frivolous WP:FFD proposals with "This is permitted under WP:POLICYX/WP:GUIDELINEY".

  My proposal is a draft, nothing more. If you want to add to it/take away from it/propose your own here, please fire away. I welcome all such criticism. Buffs (talk) 21:12, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

  If we can simply edit an article and remove an album cover from the article citing WP:POLICYX/WP:GUIDELINEY and then nominate it for speedy deletion via SD F5, then it never hits FFD at all (nor should it). Not a fan of orphaning and tagging, honestly.

  If we decide 2 albums/song covers are appropriate (or more), then we can shoot down frivolous WP:FFD proposals with "This is permitted under WP:POLICYX/WP:GUIDELINEY". With all due respect, there's already WP:PROD, which now applies to files, especially if you're unaware of it.

  Other proposed projects (of non-free content repository), m:NonFreeWiki and m:NonFreeWiki (2), were attempted. Maybe someday someone else can propose m:NonFreeWiki (3)? George Ho (talk) 22:09, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

  I'm well aware of WP:PROD. We certainly go that route too. My point is to spell out what the procedure is and minimize unnecessary WP:FFD submissions. I'm fine with WP:PROD being listed as the preferred method. To answer a previous point, yes, handling it on a case-by-case basis and exceptions may apply, I think it's worth spelling it out to prevent as much extra work/repetitious discussion as possible.. Buffs (talk) 22:30, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

• I agree with the sentiment, but feel that the wording doesn't work well for cover versions (c.f. Masem's comment above). I think the best way to solve this would be to state the guidance as proposed above applies separately to each version about which there is sufficient content for a stand-alone article (regardless of how many articles it is in practice). For example at Ticket to Ride (song) there is sufficient content for a non-free image for the versions by The Beatles and The Carpenters, but not any of the other cover versions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thryduulf (talk • contribs) 21:43, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  Hmm.... Ticket to Ride (song) isn't probably the best example. How about Hanging on the Telephone (FFD discussion) and Ain't Nobody (FFD discussions #1 and #2)? George Ho (talk) 22:00, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

  Regardless of what is decided, the wording under [[Template:Infobox album#Template:Extra album cover] should match when we're done. Buffs (talk) 22:22, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

  Hmm... Currently, the instructions don't mention contextual significance, even when "critical commentary" exemplifies it. George Ho (talk) 22:38, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

  we can update that too, when we're done :-) Buffs (talk) 16:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  Excellent point! Buffs (talk) 21:13, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

• I wonder whether the proposed guidance will be clear enough. Do we mean something like this?

  "Articles about albums and singles normally contain one album cover. If more than one image is wanted (e.g., differing designs in different countries), then the article must contain at least one substantial sentence about each of the displayed non-free album covers. This content must have an inline citation to a source other than the album/cover itself. "Substantial" generally means at least 20 words per album cover and that the content is more than a simple description of the album's appearance (e.g., "In 2010, the lead singer said the all-blue color scheme is meant to evoke feelings of both literal and figurative coolness", not "The cover shows a blue guitar on a blue background").

  If that's what we really mean, then we should probably say that.WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  In general, I love the general tenor! But I think we need to include the specifics brought up here though. Specifically, we are doing our best to establish a black line and limit such instances. I don't think the phrasing you proposed covers NFCC at all nor does it really cover the problems. People cannot simply decide they want another image because it's "prettier". Since these are copyrighted images, they must comply with NFCC. Many of these additional covers are not substantially different. I don't think a sentence word count is the best method, but I don't know of another bright line standard that really works well. Perhaps...

  "Articles about albums and singles normally contain the cover art of that work for purposes of identification which is usually copyrighted. If more than one such image is desired (differing designs in different countries, a deluxe cover that is substantively different, etc), then the article must contain at least one substantial sentence about each of the displayed album covers. This content must reflect significant, third-party commentary about each cover's appearance. "Substantial" generally means at least 20 words per album cover and that the content is more than a simple description of the album's appearance (e.g., "In 2010, the lead singer said the all-blue color scheme is meant to evoke feelings of 'both literal and figurative coolness' and clearly evokes that with its soaring chorus...", not "The cover shows a blue guitar on a blue background"). If an article discusses more than one version of a single song, it is appropriate to include the single's cover art in each instance if a separate article is not warranted; additional commentary is not needed if separate articles do not exist. Each instance of a copyrighted work must include a fair use rationale. Criteria that meet the above description are presumed to meet the qualifications specified in WP:NFCC#3a and 8. This guidance applies separately to each version about which there is sufficient content for a stand-alone article (regardless of how many articles there are in practice).

  Buffs (talk)

  Last part needs to be clear that we are taking covers that could be notable for a standalone article, but editors opted fir it to be included in one article. A non. Notable (but verify able) cover song does not get a non free cover image. Masem (t) 17:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  point taken. Before I make any more updates/changes, I want to see if we have any more inputs. This is great feedback! Buffs (talk) 17:15, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  I'm not sure about If an article discusses more than one version of a single song, it is appropriate to include the single's cover art in each instance if a separate article is not warranted; additional commentary is not needed if separate articles do not exist. Perhaps "it may be appropriate"?

  I think we should explicitly exclude near-duplicate or "not substantially different" album covers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

  agreed Buffs (talk) 15:39, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

There are cases, such as The Triptych, where the original release involves multiple versions, each equally notable and useful for identification. I think the proposed wording allows for such exceptions, though.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 22:52, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

I would definitely concur. Buffs (talk) 21:34, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Working text based on above discussion. Feel free to edit as consensus develops:

Articles about albums and singles normally contain the cover art of that work for purposes of identification which is usually copyrighted. In order to meet compliance with WP:NFCC#3a and 8, if more than one such image is desired (differing designs in different countries, a deluxe cover that is substantively different, etc), then the article must contain at least one substantial sentence about each additional displayed album cover. This content must reflect significant, third-party commentary about each cover's appearance. "Substantial" generally means at least 20 words per album cover and that the content is more than a simple description of the album's appearance (e.g., "In 2010, the lead singer said the all-blue color scheme is meant to evoke feelings of 'both literal and figurative coolness' and clearly evokes that with its soaring chorus...", not "The cover shows a blue guitar on a blue background"). More than one cover that is not substantially different is prohibited. Some articles discuss more than one version of a single song. Where this is the case, it may be appropriate to include an image for some or all of the versions about which there is sufficient content for a stand-alone article (regardless whether such articles exist in practice); additional commentary is not needed if separate articles do not exist. Each instance of a copyrighted work must include a fair use rationale. This guidance applies separately to each version about which there is sufficient content for a stand-alone article. Criteria that meet the above description are presumed to meet NFCC qualifications

_{Note that this section reflects feedback below}

Minor change "at least one substantial sentence about each of the displayed album covers" to "at least one substantial sentence about each additional displayed album covers" or something like that. NFCI#1 still allows for one non-free for purposes of identification, but only one, so we dont need to expect any substance about that cover (though if there is stuff to be said, obviously we benefit to include it). I'd also introduce NFCC#3 and NFCC#8 earlier as these are the two key drivers in limiting images of album covers. --Masem (t) 19:03, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Points taken. Buffs (talk) 21:53, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

There are a couple of bits that I think are confusingly worded -

• More than one cover that is not substantially different is prohibited. I suggest rephrasing this to something like "each non-free cover image must be substantially different to all other images used in the article".
• If an article discusses more than one version of a single song, it may be appropriate to include the single's cover art in each instance if a separate article is not warranted; additional commentary is not needed if separate articles do not exist. perhaps something like "Some articles discuss more than one version of a single song. Where this is the case, it is sometimes appropriate to include an image for some or all of the versions about which there is sufficient content for a stand-alone article (regardless of whether such articles exist in practice)."?

Thryduulf (talk) 20:12, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Rephrased. Buffs (talk) 21:53, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I've been considering programming a desktop app for browsing and/or editing Wikipedia using the API, but I wanted to make sure that there's no policy which would prevent me from doing such a thing. I'm aware that AWB requires permissions to be granted before you can use it, but I'm unsure if there is any general policy that applies to all third-party applications that can edit through the API. Thanks! Gracen (they/them) 20:26, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Hi, Gracen! No specific rules, I don't think, as long as the editing isn't so automated as to run afoul of the bot policy (including the section on semi-automated or assisted editing). Obviously, you're responsible for any edit you perform, whether automated, manual, or in between, including any edits that are the result of a bug or other malfunction, so there is an element of "use-at-your-own-risk". But I imagine you're well aware of that, so beyond that, I think you can go nuts. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 20:32, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Appreciate the quick response! I'll take a look at the bot policy, as I've never read through it before (and I assumed it only applied to fully automated editing), so thanks for the link! As you assumed, I am familiar with the "use-at-your-own-rist" part; I'm assuming that any accidental harmful edits that are obviously accidents (and are quickly reverted) will be covered by WP:AGF. Gracen (they/them) 20:41, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm assuming that any accidental harmful edits that are obviously accidents (and are quickly reverted) will be covered by WP:AGF. generally yes, although it depends on your attitude - communicate, be honest, apologise where needed, fix your own mistakes as soon as you can after you become aware of them, and try your best not to make mistakes in the first place (especially avoid repeatedly making the same mistakes) and you should be fine. Bear in mind that the absolute number of errors is at least as important as the error rate, particularly in reading-facing environments (articles, article templates, etc) but conversely practically nobody will care how you mess up in your own userspace (unless you're flooding recent changes) so do as much testing as you can there. Hopefully this is all common sense, but it's where others have come unstuck in the past. Thryduulf (talk) 22:29, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

You'll probably want to be aware of foundation:Policy:Wikimedia Foundation API Usage Guidelines, which contains a link to the user agent policy. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:51, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to hang out with some MediaWiki folks. Start with mw:How to contribute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:58, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Can you elaborate on what you mean? I have no experience with and don't plan on gaining any experience with PHP or JavaScript—beyond what is absolutely necessary, of course—and I don't plan on contributing to MediaWiki itself. I was under the impression that the api.php documentation would be enough to work with. Gracen (they/them) 16:04, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

The documentation might be sufficient, and it might not, depending in how up-to-date the documentation is and whether the exact thing you need is documented in the level of detail you need. If it's not, then the people who know any information that is missing from the documentation hang out at MediaWiki.org, and I've found them to be generous about answering questions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:24, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

More input would be appreciated at the RfC concerning the proposed simplification of MOS:JOBTITLES. Surtsicna (talk) 08:34, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Template:Tweet has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thanks, Tantomile (talk) 09:23, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

RfC has been closed/withdrawn ~ Lindsay^Hello 14:27, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/AI images.

This has been split because the discussion is too long for this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:10, 28 February 2025 (UTC)