Wikipedia talk:WikiProject AI Cleanup/Archive 4

• Electrical injury (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Johnknollpec (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

There is a persistent editor at Electrical injury who has been adding LLM content to this article. He was been warned multiple times on his talk page, and reverted at least twice: . The last time I reverted him he had added quite a few citations that were downright fakes, right down to made-up pubmed and doi numbers.

He just re-applied his edits again, and I don't have time or inclination to look at them. The changes are extensive. Some of them are ok, but he also removed a lot of sourced content, and has many MOS violations. I can't deal with this. Can someone else take a look? GA-RT-22 (talk) 10:12, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

@GA-RT-22 This is probably Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents worthy, especially with the fake citations. qcne (talk) 11:17, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

After finding more examples of problematic content in the recent edits, I went ahead and restored the last good version of the article. -- LWG ^talk 11:29, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

I would agree this is WP:AN/I material, because for an article such as this MEDRS sources would be expected. Posting LLM hallucinations is one thing when you're writing about pop music, and something else entirely when you're writing about medical topics. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 23:12, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

These are not hallucinations. Read the paper work, read the studies, if you want to contact the research hospitals in North America to learn more. Dr. Lee and Neil Plisken are very accessible via the Chicago Electrical Trauma Research Center, and Dr. Jeschke and Dr. Fish both are accessible. Johnknollpec (talk) 21:15, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Johnknollpec. Please read Hallucination (artificial intelligence). Can you explain why you included references that did not seem to exist? qcne (talk) 21:25, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I am learning these edits. I have done comprehensive research, using direct articles, provided by the medical teams.

Those pdfs are fed into the assistant, they are missing links as they are direct pdf's, and I am learning to include those. The other issues comes from a reference to the document with internal links to everything, versus using those links.

I am learning to edit section by section, and talk to the LLM's more correctly, so when they summarize, they pull the correct research papers. I understand LLM's can be a hazard, but when guided with knowledge, and the user like me is willing to learn. I hope they can be admired, as a way to help spread more knowledge.

Sincerely, John Knoll Johnknollpec (talk) 21:39, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Do not use Chatbots or AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, etc to edit articles without thoroughly checking every single edit the AI makes.

These tools can create fake/made up references and sources. Your edits to Electrical injury included AI output which was not checked.

Do not do this in the future. qcne (talk) 21:44, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

@Johnknollpec you posted this one hour before adding more LLM slop to Electrical injury which features hallucinated references, again. This is clearly a behavioral issue. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 22:32, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

I've blocked Johnknollpec (talk · contribs) for disruptive editing. Hopefully that puts an end to this. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:54, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

I sent this message in the Teahouse and was directed to drop this message here.

Hey y'all,

I have recently come across two editors, @StoryWritter1 and @HistoryRiderIndia, who have contributed nothing but AI-generated slop over the past year across a variety of articles. I first discovered this on the article for Rajarajeshwara Temple which I stumbled across while cleaning reference tags, and after 30 minutes attempting to see if I could salvage anything, I made the choice to revert. I have now come to realize that this LLM-generated content, complete with fake citations and accidentally included ChatGPT headers, is not just limited to the earlier article but also to articles such as Madayi Kavu and Kottiyoor Vysakha Mahotsavam. Before I reverted those, I thought it might be best to ask for help from somebody more experienced than I am. What are the next steps towards cleaning up these articles?

In the talk page of one of the articles, one of the editors has written an AI-generated essay contesting the quality of their AI-generated work. It's all a bunch of BS - some stuff about double standards.

3602kiva (talk) 21:42, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

KISS: Revert with extreme prejudice, G15 as needed, ask for blocks. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:43, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

@3602kiva, if you can link me to some of those accidentally included ChatGPT headers for HRI, I'll block. That giant screed on that talk page was enough for me to move on StoryWritter1. -- asilvering (talk) 23:53, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

It took me a while, but I was abel to find one of the instances. Not sure how to best link it, however!

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rajarajeshwara_Temple&oldid=1270429564

Towards the end of the lead section, there is a portion that says "This version aims to maintain a formal and academic tone while still conveying the essential information about the Rajarajeshwara Temple."

As an aside, what is the best way to embed edit links in comments? I see it all of the time in arbitration and in the talk pages but have never found out how to do it myself.

3602kiva (talk) 03:08, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to ping you @Asilvering. 3602kiva (talk) 03:16, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

@3602kiva Wikilink to Special:Diff/[diff number]. For instance, to link to my comment, it would be [[Special:Diff/1308553788|my comment]]. Gnomingstuff (talk) 04:15, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

You can also just stick the link between [square brackets] and it will look like , if you prefer that approach. Anyway: both blocked. So, now you can clean up after them to your heart's content. Thanks for the report. -- asilvering (talk) 05:40, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

And here I've been going around using the {{diff}} template! That's way easier to use, thank you. Altoids0 (talk) 17:47, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Initially a post I've made on AN/I, I've been informed on discord to comment here as well: I've now encountered AI users (agents?) that are now going onto talk pages and adding pointless discussion without making any edits to mainspace at all.

Easiest example is visible at Talk:Zero-width space, where three AIs are randomly discussing whether to include an example character in response to a talk page post from 16 years prior that discusses something only mildly relevant. Checking their contribution history shows all three of these accounts apparently responding to the same pages (often with the quotes left in place, in the case of Meltonmarry), so it's probably easier to spot them appearing in groups.

Wanted to give a heads up as something to look out for, since this is seemingly new behaviour. Corsaka (talk) 09:45, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

Good to point out. My suspicion here is that this is some kind of WP:MEATPUPPET groundwork-laying for future SEO spam of their app - that they have been doing all over the place.

Be prepared for pushback if you try to remove this stuff, however, as technically it is related to improving the article, and even if you point out stuff like the above you may still get "well you have no PROOF" type comments. Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:58, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

Hamish.croker is creating articles about the Australian fertilizer industry in quick succession, sometimes within the same minute. James Cuming (1861–1920), for example, has sentences like ...securing its place as a cornerstone of the Australian fertiliser industry. Can we be certain these articles are created using AI, and if so, what can we do about it? Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 15:27, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

Holy hell, I count 15 new pages created today alone, and that's not including many more redirects. Very little activity before today, so I wonder if this might be a compromised/hijacked account? Definitely suggestive of AI use, though. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 21:22, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

The "legacy" sections are another AI dead ringer. Looks like a couple of them have already been send to AFD. Sarsenet•he/they•(talk) 03:51, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

Dunno if this is in the project's wheelhouse, but the article Age of Artificial Intelligence seems like it's full of biased boosterism and could use some attention from skeptics. --Trojan Dreadnought (talk) 22:14, 3 September 2025 (UTC)

If there's any LLM-generated content involved (which there well may be since LLM-generated content tends to be very promotional), this would be in scope for this project. Otherwise, this might be an issue to take to WP:NPOVN or inform WikiProject Artificial Intelligence (which focuses on coverage of AI in articles).

Also, I moved this topic to the bottom of the page. Please put new topics at the bottom. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 16:04, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

WikiProject Artificial Intelligence seems defunct. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 03:10, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Isn't that whole page just a WP:POVFORK of AI boom? Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 21:14, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Moved from WT:Signs of AI writing

 – fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 02:48, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Guys again i think the section in Cadillac Sollei article called Exterior is also AI generated since the end had a present participle, not only that, but it also has the typical promotional AI words in it. 179.109.143.133 (talk) 02:38, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Sure was. I reverted it. The editor who introduced it has only made one edit on WP so I'm not too concerned about longer term misuse. Btw if you run across one-off, obviously problematic LLM-generated edits like this, feel free to revert yourself! NicheSports (talk) 02:55, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Flagging a thread on the {{upscaled images}} talk page for wider input, as it's a template that's used by members of this WikiProject.

Should the template documentation tell users to explain your reasons on the page's talk page whenever they add it, or is the template sufficiently self-explanatory?

Another editor objected to me taking that line out of the documentation a couple of days ago (it's only in there because I accidentally copied it over from {{AI-generated}} when creating the template last January), but they aren't really saying why, and have asked for other views. Belbury (talk) 20:25, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

After about a month of trawling for possibly-AI edits, something I've observed is that unless someone's a student who edits one article and then leaves, the people who are making AI edits are often making them to the tune of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of edits. Alarmingly this includes articles that have made it through AfC.

I haven't been making threads for every single such person, or posting on ANI, etc., because there are just so fucking many of them, and not all of them have been active recently (though a lot have). There also continues to be no AI policy, and no help seems to be arriving on that front for the foreseeable future, so it's unclear whether anything is even enforceable. Gnomingstuff (talk) 23:02, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

If the only issue is that the edits may have been done with AI and there are no policy/guideline/MOS issues, there isn't anything that can be done. It is difficult, but possible to use LLM and be constructive. But usually if it's a sloppy use of LLM, there will be some other problem with the edits that can be used as justification to revert/delete/take action. If it's a case of large scale editing with LLM with problems, WP:MEATBOT could be an applicable guideline depending on the situation. Jumpytoo Talk 01:04, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Constructive edits are less likely to be noticed, so the ones that end up under discussion are likely the ones with issues. That said, aside from developing a few edit filters, there's little way to bulk address issues other than individual action. CMD (talk) 01:52, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah exactly -- if I'm finding these at all, it means that there's at least enough slop and/or unchanged formatting remaining that it doesn't take much scrutiny be 90% sure an edit was AI. But from there I don't actually know how much review was actually done. And there are so many of these editors compared to the handful that get written up at ANI that it feels... disproportionate, like "ok, here's our daily fall guy."Gnomingstuff (talk) 02:11, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Have you been using Template:Uw-ai1? Might help alert those using it unaware of its issues. CMD (talk) 02:52, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

Well what we (and that includes the WMF) should do is

1. have a clear policy that forbids AI slop so that it is easy to deal with those who post it
2. change the interface so that on copypasting, you get a message saying are you sure this isn't AI slop, we will ban you if it is Wikipedia:Edit check and meta:Community Wishlist/Wishes/Warn when large amount of content has been copy-pasted
3. create something better than the massRollback script that allows people to undo the changes of those posting AI slop. A script that can take into account edits that came after and provides a convenient interface that allows people to decide what to restore/keep

Problems are: it is difficult to force the WMF to do something, and especially to do it quickly. Creating a firm consensus for an AI-policy that says "if reasonable people expect AI, then trash it" is gonna be difficult because some of us are reflexive contrarians, some of us don't understand the issue and everyone needs to have their say.

Polygnotus (talk) 05:51, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

I assume there have been previous attempts to get #1 introduced as policy. What failed? Can we use the recent ANI thread as a trigger for a renewed effort?

I'm newer here but I assume the correct approach would be Village Pump? Perhaps we could get some admins to take a look at a draft of an RfC before we post it there? Sorry if any of these ideas are stupid NicheSports (talk) 18:07, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

If someone is actively editing I post a comment on their talk page asking if they're using AI, what tools/versions/prompts, and what review they're doing. Usually they're somewhat receptive if you ask nicely without a template. Problem is that not everyone is actively editing since we are clogged up with 3 years' worth of slop by now, and so I usually don't template anyone who hasn't been around in the past month. The other problem is that even people who do answer the questions don't always give a full accounting of the generation/review process, and I'm not sure whether that's a problem with my approach.

Of your suggestions:

2) is the easiest but depends upon 1)

1) should not be hard in a reasonable project but is proving to be excruciatingly difficult, partly because I don't think people realize how bad the problem has gotten

3) would be difficult from a coding perspective regardless, as anyone who's had to deal with merge conflicts on git knows Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:45, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

If you have ideas for the template wording, Template:Uw-ai1 should be as nice as possible and perhaps cover as much ground as possible. CMD (talk) 07:24, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

What I've usually been asking is just a three-parter asking people to disclose:

- What if any AI tools were used, and what version

- What features and/or prompts were used

- What review was done on the output

Usually if you ask nicely and don't slap a template down, people will be willing to at least give some answer (and in my experience it's usually that AI was indeed used) Gnomingstuff (talk) 15:12, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

I was going to suggest creating an equivalent to Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations (WP:CCI) for cleaning up large-scale LLM abuse, but I see that ARandomName123 has already suggested it below, so I'm seconding their suggestion. I believe this WikiProject would be able to set up such a process and execute it well. — Newslinger talk 15:40, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

There's a discussion over at Template talk:AI-generated#why do we have this template? you might be interested in. Regards CapnZapp (talk) 00:53, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

I started working on Bookleo's earlier edits which unsurprisingly have been subsequently edited by other users. My plan is to revert to the pre-AI version unless there have been multiple material modifications to the LLM-generated text. But what about the case of Lincoln in the Bardo? Here is a diff of all subsequent changes made to the article post AI-rewrite. With the exception of the Adaptations section these are all minor copy-edits of the AI-generated content itself. My instinct here is to revert the changes to the pre-AI version and then manually update the Adaptations section to incorporate the added content. What do people think? NicheSports (talk) 20:02, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 20:41, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Yeah that's the best course of action Gnomingstuff (talk) 04:57, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

I am at my wits' end. If I have to explain to one more furious person the very clear signs of AI writing -- which are corroborated by actual fucking research -- I am going to lose my goddamn mind.

How are you managing to actually explain this to people? Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:31, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

You're not going to because we're not arguing from the same perspective. I highly doubt anyone here uses LLMs regularly, they do, and think they are editing it well enough. We're arguing with the people making the fucking mess, they think they know what they're doing but lack WP:COMPETENCY. But oh! We don't need an LLM policy, they violated a different one. Facepalm ~ Argenti Aertheri^(Chat?) 17:48, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

To be clear this isn't about the people making the edits, it's people "well you have no proof," which, no shit I don't have any proof, it's impossible to have proof unless you go back in time and shoulder surf, but I have read several studies on the linguistic distribution of AI text, done a rough approximation of one such study on Wikipedia edits, and viewed enough thousands of diffs from pre-2023 and post-2023 to be able to pinpoint patterns. I have no idea how to explain to people that something fits an aggregate pattern. See my talk page for a good example -- literally, in the data I have run, some of these indicators are at 5200% more common in AI text, 2400%, 700%, etc., what more evidence is even fucking Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:59, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I have a much harder time trying to explain to people why LLM outputs are nearly useless fucking trash. No, it isn't the magical box of you want just because it sounds plausible and no I'm still not impressed or wooed because a computer used correct grammar to "tell" you something! I swear these things wouldn't be half as annoying if someone hadn't though of letting people use them with chat interface. Why does anyone want to think less? Why do they think that comparing it with horses and machinery is smart? How am I supposed to explain this to people that seemingly are actively disinterested in actual thought? What is going on? Why do I even try? --Gurkubondinn _(talk) 23:18, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

We are all here to create an encyclopedia, so eventually the cool heads will prevail (asking the opponents essentially, "what do you want Wikipedia to be: a mountain of AI trash, or a source to train AI on?". That said, many LLM outputs are not trash. For example, AI already does an excellent job translating articles between languages (wa-a-a-a-y better than yours truly for French and German). It is also pretty good at summarizing, so an article mostly based on a single review-type source would be OK (see, for example, San Felipe Creek (Texas). What we need to explain to other editors IMHO is that humans are responsible for following the rules, so (1) select the sources yourself. This eliminates hallucinated sources, (2) feed the text of these source into AI explicitly. This eliminates AI guessing what is the content of the sources that are not easily accessible, (3) prompt should guide AI to generate wikitext based on these sources only and provide page numbers. This eliminates hallucinated claims, (4) verify claims against pages manually, (5) use the best model available, this will save your time on #4 (in my experience, Gemini Pro Deep Think is decent with page numbers, the free models of the same Gemini will hallucinate pages happily). Викидим (talk) 01:17, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps we should set up our own LLM to explain it so we don't have to.^[Joke] - ZLEA ^TǀC 17:52, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

This is why all the proposed restrictions on AI are focussing on the wrong thing. You can't prove that someone used AI, and it's not really relevant whether they did or not. What matters is whether the content they produce matches our standards or not - if it doesn't then tag it, fix it, revert it or delete it as appropriate for whatever the actual problem with the content is. If you can't point out what the actual problem with the content is then there isn't a problem that needs fixing and you're wasting your (and others') time and energy. So don't say "this is bad because I think you used AI" say "this is bad because the included reference doesn't support it" or "this is bad because it's written in overly-flowery language". Thryduulf (talk) 18:24, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with Thryduulf. It makes more sense to remove or change content based on whether there are actual content problems instead of simply asking editors to blindly accept removing huge swaths of content and crying "leave me alone". Thank you. Sundayclose (talk) 18:32, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

@Thryduulf Perfectly encapsulates what I think an LLM policy, whenever we finally get one, should say. qcne (talk) 18:33, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

@Thryduulf I do not think your perspective reflects the reality that these tools are having on the project. LLMs are the problem because they

• Introduce WP:V failures at far higher rates than humans
• Generate content far faster than humans

There are hundreds of LLM-generated articles or article expansions being added to the project every day; almost all of these contain extensive policy violations, often with WP:NPOV but the most problematic and time consuming are the source-to-text integrity issues. There are about 10 editors who prioritize catching and addressing this content; we are utterly insufficient to "fix" it as you describe. The #1 thing we can do is to tell users to not use LLMs. I believe in WP:AGF when it comes to human editors - a majority will listen, and overnight there will be a huge reduction in the volume of these edits. NicheSports (talk) 18:34, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

literally, in the data I have run, some of these indicators are at 5200% more common in AI text, 2400%, 700%, etc.

You can't prove that someone used AI

This is a good example why some of us are getting sweary, it's like we're not even speaking the same language. ~ Argenti Aertheri^(Chat?) 19:16, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

There are hundreds of LLM-generated articles or article expansions being added to the project every day; almost all of these contain extensive policy violations [...] Introduce WP:V failures at far higher rates than humans [...] All this is just more of the same being blind to the actual problem. The problem is the policy violations (e.g. WP:V failures) not the tool used to create the text that contains the policy violations. If text fails WP:V it fails WP:V regardless of whether it was written by a human or a by an LLM, the problem with it is that it fails WP:V not who wrote it. If you spend hours shouting at new users for using LLMs they wont understand what the problem is, because you aren't telling them what the actual problem is. Thryduulf (talk) 21:33, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I didn't mention anything about policy. Nor am I "shouting at new users" -- the shouting tends to come from the opposite direction, which is why I generally do not engage with editors at all; I do not have the patience for trying to explain the same thing to dozens or hundreds of people.

For example, I have explained at least dozens or hundreds of times that with AI-generated text, you do not and cannot know what the problems are without going over every single source and claim, a process that takes hours and usually requires access to the sources and/or subject-matter expertise. If you do not know text is AI-generated, you do not know that this level of scrutiny is necessary. Basically, it's a code smell. Please go read that page; I don't know how else to explain this in a way that will get people to listen. Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:45, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I don’t think that’s enough, Thryduulf. Having an LLM write text, even as far as whole articles, is not only antithetical to the point and philosophy of Wikipedia, it’s deeply unethical in general. I believe many people would like to see it purged from Wikipedia as a tool, period. If article content is ‘art’, and the LLM its artist, this is an example of times you cannot separate them. Whatever the end product, damage to the global information web on that subject has still been done in the background - and continues to be done as long as the LLM-derived text stays on Wikipedia and is fed back into that web. Kingsif (talk) 20:50, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I think this is a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" type of argument. The fundamental problem is that genAI makes it so much easier to write articles that say things the references don't support or that use overly-flowery language. A novice can get a plausible and persuasive-sounding WP article in seconds using an LLM, and it takes hours to track down the mistakes and misrepresented sources. Sure, the violations of policy are the problem. But AI has removed the barriers to creating such a problem.

Furthermore, it isn't just linguistic and reference features that are problematic. Many LLM-written articles I've had to correct in recent weeks have been factually accurate, but uselessly unfocused and meandering, because the LLM doesn't (can't) know what is the main point and what is ancillary...so the articles drift from the main topic to side topics, dedicate entire paragraphs to niche offshoot applications or tangentially-related subjects, and treat single-mention sources and authoritative reviews with equal weight. (See this diff for an example, if you can parse it...this took me hours to bring to presentable form). I'm 100% certain the person who added the AI edits to that article could not explain what a "protease" is without asking ChatGPT, and those of us who have spent literal decades working in the field have to clean it all up.

As for getting people to listen, I don't think it can happen without a zero-tolerance LLM policy (and good luck enforcing that). I'm starting to think genAI is a cult. The true believers can't be swayed, and the people outside simply can't believe the people inside don't see through all the malarkey. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 23:37, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I think this is a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" type of argument.

Great to know that I wasn't alone in thinking that. Tried to formulate it but gave up, so thanks for putting it into words. Bad tools are a problem, and LLM chatbots are infuriatingly destructive to enwiki. --Gurkubondinn _(talk) 23:49, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

But the quoted argument is not entirely false. My best friend came from a family where father was an avid hunter, so his childhood home was full of hunting paraphernalia. Particularly, one long gun was stored literally under my friend's bed, along with the ammo. So I can confidently say that having a quite easy access to firearms even in the troublesome teens is not a problem by itself. So is the LLM: for example, it definitely does a better translation between languages than almost all human editors here, so why should its use be prohibited? My friend was told that the guns are for hunting and kids do hunting with adults, he was demonstrated the damage that a shotgun can wreck, so he (and I) obeyed. We need similar policies, not a Prohibition (perhaps, a special flag?). Викидим (talk) 01:42, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Once again, I'm not talking about the true believers, I am talking about regular editors who simply do not believe that text can be AI generated without 100 notarized fucking letters each signed by Sam Altman, the Pope, Cthulhu, and HAL 9000. See Talk:Big Five personality traits for the latest example. Or people who are SHOCKED and OUTRAGED that there is a horrible TEMPLATE on their article now, much more than the prospect of potential hallucinations in their article. Gnomingstuff (talk) 04:14, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Gnomingstuff, I get you have a lot on your plate, but looking at that exchange, the other editor saw the tag, went to the article, evaluated the text and fixed the problems they saw, then asked you to elaborate. Do you think responding to that with I do not know how many fucking times in how many fucking ways I have to explain this to people before they will listen to me. & reverting the tag back on was going to help?

It's great that you do so much anti-AI patrolling - but (and this is speaking very generally), there's a point where anybody who devotes themselves entirely to one area becomes jaded. And bitey - and while that gets excused, to a certain point, there's also a point where being right is not enough. Yes, sometimes Wikipedia articles wind up with contain copyright violations or hoaxes or vandalism, and you have to explain time and time again to good-faith editors why yes, a certain change or tag is needed, but sometimes you have to accept that the sanctitiy of the encyclopedia is not your responsibility. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 04:53, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Thryduulf is there an LLM policy you would accept? What actual text would you propose? ~ Argenti Aertheri^(Chat?) 00:16, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

What we should have is a combined information and guideline page that explains in clear language that LLM-generated text often violates content policies like WP:V and as such it is essential that if you use a LLM it is essential that you carefully review the text before submitting it to ensure that the content is accurate, that you verify the references exist and do support the text, etc. Making it clear that using LLMs is not prohibited, especially for things like checking spelling and grammar, as long as there are no problems with the content but that very obviously unreviewed submissions will be speedily deleted.

Additionally it should make it clear that many editors strongly dislike LLM's typical writing style, and you work will generally be better received if you copyedit it to better match Wikipedia's encyclopaedic tone.

I don't have any suggested wording for this - writing this sort of page is hard and crafting explanations that are all of clear, concise and simple is not my forte. Thryduulf (talk) 01:22, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

@Gnomingstuff totally hear your frustration, I often feel the same. Our policies are grossly insufficient. Are you fine if I archive this? I'm planning on opening an RFCAFTER (lol) here once the Wikipedia talk:Writing articles with large language models § RfC RFC closes to discuss a more robust (and restrictive) LLM policy. I want to ask admins to participate in that and curse words scare admins away. NicheSports (talk) 18:51, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't know, the whole thing got derailed anyway into whether we should allow AI when it wasn't even about that in the first place. Gnomingstuff (talk) 21:49, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

You know I appreciate you MUCHO and as your homie I'm going to archive this NicheSports (talk) 06:44, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

There is a Miscellany for deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Case against LLM-generated articles that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject.—Alalch E. 10:12, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Few months ago, I tried to create a page (Wikipedia:WikiProject AI Cleanup/AI or not) in which editors can test their AI detection skills á la Tony1's copyediting exercises. At first I was copy-pasting novel examples that I generated myself, but I think compiling real-life AI-generated and human-generated articles would create a more accurate testing environment. Any help collecting examples (whether be it writing from pre-November 2022 or editors who disclosed their LLM usage) will be welcome. Ca ^{talk to me!} 00:24, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Some species examples:

AI: here (easy)

AI: here (a little harder)

AI with substantial review: here (this user has disclosed their use of LLMs, including a few they apparently trained themselves, and their review process)

Non-AI: here (pre-2022) Gnomingstuff (talk) 00:38, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

I've added a pretty hilarious one into the "Hard" section of that subpage, if that helps. Altoids0 (talk) 16:15, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Given that this wiki project is becoming a bit more like a AI noticeboard, somewhat akin to the CCI or COIN noticeboards, any thoughts about adding the standard boilerplate "notify people if you bring them up here, and try to talk through the problem with them first" notice and banner? Not a hard and fast rule, of course, and I'm sure its something experienced editors already do, but anyways. Thoughts? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 08:57, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

As a suggestion sure, but I would disagree with indicating it's a requirement. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 09:59, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

No problem with the idea, just a lot of editors brought up might no longer be around. Gnomingstuff (talk) 14:19, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Well, if they're no longer around then they won't mind the notification! (And it's a good for CYA reasons). GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 02:13, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

ARandomName123 and Newslinger both suggested setting up a CCI for LLM misuse which makes sense and is maybe where your suggested language could go? I don't think this project should only be a noticeboard, I'd like to see a dedicated page for that and keep this open for broader topics like research to quantify the impact of LLM use (#/% of AfC declines for AI content over time, etc.) and discussing potential policies NicheSports (talk) 15:18, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

I fully agree with this proposal – it would still be very helpful to be able to discuss broader topics, and they can easily get drowned in the amount of individual reports. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 03:56, 3 October 2025 (UTC)

Hey @Chaotic Enby - any chance you can help with a short term solution? It would be good to create a "Cases" or "Investigations" tab in the project (i.e. WikiProject AI Cleanup/Cases) so we can separate cleanup cases from general discussion. Idk how hard that is but I see that you have some experience with templates so figured I'd ask :) NicheSports (talk) 20:05, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Doing it at Wikipedia:WikiProject AI Cleanup/Noticeboard! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:30, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

heck yeah, thank you. Is it possible to move cases from this page (including those in the archives) to the new noticeboard? NicheSports (talk) 16:45, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

I would be happy to, but I'm afraid that editors subscribed to the current threads might lose them. If that isn't the case, it's fine with me! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:51, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Is there some way to copy them over to the board while leaving the original threads intact? Sarsenet•he/they•(talk) 17:19, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Looking at H:TALKPERMALINK and WP:SUBSCRIBE, just moving the discussions should do the trick, I'm going to do it. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:50, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

And it's done! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:53, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

thanks. Can we get a Noticeboard-specific archive set up? I'm cleaning up and trying to archive the posts about one-off articles/edits, because those aren't in scope there. But my one-click archiver says it is going to archive to "WP:WikiProject AI Cleanup/Archive 1" when I hover over the link NicheSports (talk) 18:40, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

I just created Wikipedia:WikiProject AI Cleanup/Noticeboard/Archive 1, this should work now! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:16, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

thanks. I did some cleanup of the page

• Archiving inactive sections that clearly do not meet the criteria of "repeated" LLM misuse
• Tagging + collapsing completed cleanup cases and archiving them (only one so far)
• Tagging + collapsing cases that are being significantly worked on

It's a start! NicheSports (talk) 19:45, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

I picked that criterion to avoid minor issues proliferating on the noticeboard, but I'm realizing that some major issues on a single article (e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject AI Cleanup/Noticeboard#Need a second or third opinion on AI signs) absolutely did warrant a report, so I might lower the threshold. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:24, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Within the past few days, a user not associated with this wikiproject (or at least not in the members list on the project's front page) created a new {{AI citations}} template to flag for possibly AI-generated citations. Significantly, they tried to make it file pages in a dated-monthly maintenance category, Category:Articles containing possible AI-generated citations from October 2025, that obviously doesn't exist — I couldn't leave a redlinked category on the pages, but I obviously wasn't going to create the category without consulting with you lot first (especially since even if it is desirable, it obviously still won't get used adequately if you guys don't even know it exists), so I had to remove the category from the template so that it currently files pages nowhere.

So do you want a template and categories like this, or is it just unnecessarily duplicating another process queue that you already have? If you want it, then somebody needs to create the categories that would go with it, and if you don't want it, then it can just be redirected or deleted as needed — but obviously, one way or the other, it requires project attention rather than just being left as a one-person creation that files articles in a maintenance queue that doesn't exist. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 16:37, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

Additional context: the editor who created it appears to be using it to flag articles with utm_source=chatgpt.com type citations . There exists an edit filter, 1346, which also logs the addition of those types of citations. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 17:24, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't think we need this template at this time. To fifteen's point we already have Special:AbuseFilter/1346 to track that. Although I find Special:AbuseFilter/1325 more useful NicheSports (talk) 19:10, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

It's redundant but I don't really think it's bad -- the abuse filter is editor-facing, the template would be more for the benefit of readers since almost none of them are going to look at the filter or the tags. Gnomingstuff (talk) 02:05, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

I think the use of an inline template, one like {{verify source}} but tailored for LLMs, would probably be more appropriate than tagging an entire article for this specific issue, especially when considering that if there are signs of model-generated text then {{AI-generated}} is more appropriate. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 02:41, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

This is the approach I would prefer. If they're only flagging sources with chatgpt.com in the URL, then the individual source is what needs to be verified. And these sources aren't necessarily problematic because a lot of people use LLMs in place of search engines and just lazily copy-paste the URLs after visiting the sites. That much less concerning than using an LLM to actually write article content. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 11:16, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Agree with this, although ChatGPT also adds UTM parameters when generating content itself. Maybe a template looking like ^{[AI-retrieved source]} could work?

We already have {{AI-generated source}}^{[AI-generated source?]}, but it applies to sources that themselves contain AI-generated content, rather than sources that were linked by an AI model. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:59, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

^{[AI-retrieved source]} is probably the best way to phrase it. and it should link to something explaining what the tag is indicating. I suppose after a tagged ref would be reviewed the utm_source should be removed, or the template should have a checked=date parameter that will hide it from view to prevent retagging. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 20:38, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I already made it so the hover text displays more information, but if you have an advice page in mind, that would be great! I can throw something together quickly based on {{verify source}}. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:58, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Done with {{AI-retrieved source}}! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:21, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Looks good!

I don't think linking a full advice page is necessary, just a small section to explain what "AI-retrieved" means should be adequate. To that end I've made this edit to TM:AI-retrieved source/doc to try to make it a suitable landing page for such a link. Further improvements are welcome, and if it's not an improvement a revert is welcome also. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 21:50, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the improvements! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:05, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

If the template is kept, probably easiest to have it file in Category:Articles containing suspected AI-generated texts from October 2025 for now and then split it if it actually sees use. Alpha3031 (t • c) 09:56, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

I've modified the template to file articles in that category, although as of now it doesn't appear to actually be in use on any pages at all anymore. Beyond that, I'll leave it to you guys to decide whether to use it or get rid of it. Bearcat (talk) 13:26, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

I just read an article that posed the question Also: If Wikipedia is “generally not considered a reliable source itself because it is a tertiary source that synthesizes information from other places,” then what does that make a chatbot? I thought it was a good question, so I asked Googles AI: . I thought it was a pretty good answer, but I'm not sure other people will see what I see, maybe it changes per location etc. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:56, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

courtesy ping to @Gråbergs Gråa Sång as I moved this here. WP:AINB is for reporting potential LLM misuse - it was created yesterday, so you are actually the first person to post anything there! WT:AIC is the place for general LLM-related discussion NicheSports (talk) 15:16, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, it does indeed fit better at a Wikiproject. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:25, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Google's AI model isn't available in my location, but I'll add that Wikipedia not being a reliable source is not due to it being a tertiary source. While there isn't much of a need to cite tertiary sources in general (as they don't add any new information compared to the secondary sources they synthesize), the reasons why Wikipedia isn't considered reliable go beyond that, and are because it is user-generated content and especially because of the risk of circular sourcing. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:33, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Fake links seem to go to 404s, can't we have a bot that checks if recently added sources with links resolve to valid webpages? 404's can then be marked or something. Bogazicili (talk) 12:11, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Interesting idea but I think there may be technical limitations in having a bot testing tons of urls across many articles. But may be easier to create a bot that users can run on a single article or diff, for example to test for G15 criteria. Pinging @Sohom - are either of the above possible? NicheSports (talk) 12:52, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

How about just the recently added ones? Something daily?

Single article would work too.

The bot could combine multiple things. For example

• 404s
• No match for ISBN if it's a book source
• Recently added source with no links or ISBNs. To identify the source in this hoax article for example: Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wikipedia/Amberlihisar#References. I mean they should be tagged somehow. Bogazicili (talk) 13:00, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

There's link-dispenser which you can use on a single article. It helps sieve down a lot of URLs to some potentially dodgy ones. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 13:07, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Nice, thanks. Would be great if this could run on a diff as well NicheSports (talk) 13:11, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

@SunloungerFrog: what about a tool that combines multiple things mentioned above?

It can also check sources without links and add a Category:Hidden categories, such as unchecked sources with no links. We may need a new reference variable for genuine sources with no links such as |no-link-check Bogazicili (talk) 13:42, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

So the tool is written by @Sohom Datta not me; they will better know the art of the possible in terms of additional features. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 14:01, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Ideally, we should have something like "AI generated source check" or more broadly "source existence verification" similar to "Fix dead links" or "Copyvio Detector" when you click page history Bogazicili (talk) 15:25, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi @NicheSports! Responding to your recent comment at ANI re edits to Social conservatism in the United States, but my reply is not really on topic there, so I figured I'd pop in here. For most of the suspected-LLM-generated book citations I've run into, I've been able to look up the book in Google Books and view the cited page. I just sometimes have to be a little crafty to stay within the number of pages that Google Books allocates for previews, such as opening the link in an incognito window and/or adjusting the Google Books URL to get to the cited page number. (There are useful template URLs at Wikipedia:Citing sources#Linking to Google Books pages.) My backup method is to check whether there's a scan of the book at the Internet Archive, in case the cited page is within the preview allocation there.

Checking book citations is not a new topic, but it's much more important now that it's so easy for even well-intentioned editors to add realistic but fake citations. The section at Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing#Citations is helpful, but specific validation approaches seem out of scope there. The linked page at Wikipedia:Fictitious references would benefit from a thorough update for the era of LLM-generated sources, including more details about checking book sources. Dreamyshade (talk) 19:36, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Another trick for finagling text out of Google Books' paywall is to search for any phrases that are cut off at the end/beginning of the preview, and/or your guess at them. So if the preview cuts off at "The film won the Academy" you can try searching "the Academy Award," sometimes that'll give you the next page, sometimes not. Gnomingstuff (talk) 20:40, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Can't we have a bot that verifies existence of ISBNs? Bogazicili (talk) 12:09, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

The vast majority of made up ISBNs will throw checksum errors, like ISBN 978-456454-554-3 {{isbn}}: Check isbn value: checksum (help) Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:57, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

We can expect a link to google books and try the strategy below, "Category:Hidden categories, such as unchecked sources with no links"? Bogazicili (talk) 16:04, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for the recommendation. I was wary about trying to verify article content cited to books because I recently made a mistake while doing so. But I will try again with this approach NicheSports (talk) 21:42, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Posted about this on the signs of AI writing page, but people here might be interested as well: I decided to loosely replicate one of the studies analyzing the frequency of certain words in AI versus human-generated research abstracts, except with (probably) AI versus (almost definitely) human-written articles.

Here are some preliminary results. It's a work in progress, not perfect by any means and there are flukes, but the data probably won't surprise anyone here. Gnomingstuff (talk) 02:37, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Amazing, pretty great start! I wonder if it could be possible to run them through a tokenizer? Right now, species, is treated as a different word from species and appears to be overrepresented in the AI dataset, likely by a statistical fluke. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:35, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Possibly! I'm hesitant to do too much cleaning of the text because I feel like it's likely that AI might have punctuation or capitalization or syntax quirks.

For instance Additionally, with the comma and capitalization, is pretty high up, while Additionally and additionally (comma or no) aren't even on the list. I don't know whether that's because those words just aren't in any of the human articles -- the original study has a min-occurrences-per-million-words comparison to deal with this scenario, but I don't have a million words in either data set yet -- or because of the anecdotal thing where AI really likes to start sentences/paragraphs with "Additionally, blah blah blah...."

The species thing seems to be a fluke but a dataset rather than punctuation fluke, since both those two words as well as species. are all more common in the AI text. (I would guess it's probably due to how many of our old species articles are stubs from a database.) Gnomingstuff (talk) 23:55, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Concerning the additionally thing, it's possible that the latter is true. I read in a preprint that LLMs seem to not just have catchphrases but also slightly disfavor certain grammatical words, like "is" and "are". It's likely that lowercase "additionally" is another example! Assuming your current dataset is representative, anyhoo.

Awesome work by the way Gnoming! I am delighted to put this page in my bookmarks Altoids0 (talk) 16:29, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the new preprint! Just skimming: anecdotally speaking, I don't feel like I see "delve" in newer articles as much. delves is the only form that shows up in any of these word/phrase lists using these thresholds, and it doesn't place high on any of them. delve and delving are both gone.

My datasets are probably godawful -- I tried to think of as many problems they might have as I could, the problem of course is what to do about it besides tracking down more articles to feed it and hoping it all averages out. I could just generate articles with ChatGPT or whatever myself, but I don't use it and don't intend to start, and I don't know what prompts people are using. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:11, 20 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Gnomingstuff! I conducted an interview with Businessweek today about WikiProject AI Cleanup, and briefly mentioned this preliminary result – is that okay with you? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:11, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Oh... I'm not sure that is a good idea per WP:BEANS. I'm already suspicious LLM designers are using the project (and things like the EF 1325 criteria) to train "better" models - ones with less puffery but just as much reference hallucination. If I'm wrong, seems better to not publicize what we're doing here? NicheSports (talk) 18:30, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

No objections on my end.

Not that concerned about WP:BEANS -- this is something researchers have published a ton of data on already. The thing is basically just me dumping Wikipedia text into a dumbed-down version of the Juzek/Ward study and going "fuck it, we're doing four words," doubt that's anything LLM designers haven't thought of already. Gnomingstuff (talk) 18:46, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Writing articles with large language models § RfC, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:18, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

@Chaotic Enby: do you think something like User:EF5/AINB-notice would be beneficial? ^EF⁵ 17:05, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

That could work great! Helpful for editors who might want to defend themselves from accusations, clarify the specifics of how they used AI, or just help clean up/double-check their own edits. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:12, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Pinging @Athanelar and @NicheSports from the noticeboard discussion. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:16, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

The notice looks fine to me so long as its use isn't required. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 17:23, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

@Fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four: maybe there could be a notice like at WP:ANI that says "it is recommended, but not required, that you inform involved editors of a discussion", or something else of the like. ^EF⁵ 17:33, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Something like: The {{AINB-notice}} template can be used to inform an editor of a discussion involving them, would be my suggestion. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 17:57, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Yep, just having it as an optional tool is enough – having it be recommended can easily shift into a de facto requirement. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:02, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Alright, I've WP:BOLDly moved my userspace draft to a template; no harm in having it. What to do with the notice can continue to be discussed. ^EF⁵ 18:33, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

I added documentation on the template parameters to Template:AINB-notice/doc. --Gurkubondinn (talk) 12:41, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

As there didn't appear to be any opposition, I've added the template to the page instructions for the noticeboard in this edit: The {{AINB-notice}} template can be used to inform an editor of a discussion involving them, but this is not a requirement. Anyone who disagrees with this phrasing, feel free to revert and we can continue discussing here. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 19:48, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't want to unarchive the discussion but did you ever reach consensus? It doesn't seem like you did and I want the topicon I make to use the right one. ~ Argenti Aertheri^(Chat?) 06:12, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

 Courtesy link: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject AI Cleanup/Archive 3 § New logo?

Consensus was formed to not use the proposed new logo, with six editors opposing (myself included) and two supporting changing to it. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 06:25, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Okay, this little guy it is then: Cute, I like it. ~ Argenti Aertheri^(Chat?) 06:40, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Template:Wikiproject_AI_Cleanup_topicon, now I won't have to hunt for the project page. ~ Argenti Aertheri^(Chat?) 10:53, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Whatever the recent chatGPT (copilot?) update was, it has hilariously started adding maintenance banners to generated text occasionally - see User:SGIDavid/sandbox for a current example. Sarsenet•he/they•(talk) 09:34, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Google Gemini now correctly identifies certain situations, like {{Single source}}, inserts a hatnote and suggests to add more sources. Викидим (talk) 03:00, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DarklitShadow/AI_detection DarklitShadow (talk) 21:02, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

As a human reviewer that kind of vagueness is a good tell, but I suspect building an automated system that can identify "vagueness" is a challenge similar in scope to the building of the LLMs themselves. -- LWG ^talk 21:38, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Agreed, that strikes me as far more buggy and wishy-washy than simply looking for keywords or stylistic tells. And far harder to justify to someone you've just tagged with the LLM template.

I agree that "vagueness" (or I would prefer the term "overgeneralization") is probably the most specific and constant feature of LLM writing, but also one of the hardest to prove and to quantify. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 11:58, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia:WikiProject AI Cleanup/Noticeboard § Useful script

 – jlwoodwa (talk) 19:56, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

I have found WP:UPSD to be a useful script to detect some usage of LLMs, but are there other useful scripts that editors recommend for this purpose? - Amigao (talk) 02:03, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

As in finding potential usage or assessing the text itself? Gnomingstuff (talk) 12:56, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

For WP:UPSD in particular, the former. - Amigao (talk) 20:03, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Could we create a template for a collapsible table similar to Fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four's comment here so people can keep track of work done and work still to do (by we I mean someone else that knows how). On the user side it could look something like {{AIC table|collapsed=yes|user=Steven|article1=Fishcakes|clean=y|g15=n|article2=History of Fishcakes|clean=n|g15=y}}. Most efficient, if possible, would probably be to have the default being no for "clean" and "g15" parameters, and it only needing a yes in one of those per article entry where the other parameter/box gets greyed-out. Would people find that useful? Kowal2701 (talk) 21:51, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Many cases require cleanup across hundreds of articles and I don't think this is viable at that scale. I also have some feedback on the columns in this table. I often don't tag articles associated with an AINB case and just fix them instead. I have cleaned hundreds of articles and I don't think I have ever G15'd an article associated with an open case at AINB - other editors not associated with the project typically get to those first (often via AfC or NPP). When I G15 its normally by finding stuff via the edit filter logs. My actions while cleaning are typically: revert, stubify, rewrite, tag and leave, or (rarely) AfD. NicheSports (talk) 22:01, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

That said I would love a way to both clerk and track our cases better. I have been meaning to look at CCI to see how they do it there NicheSports (talk) 22:04, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Agreed, and I think a table is a reasonable way to track cleanup progress. Small cleanup efforts could use a table in situ, larger efforts could be hosted on a subpage with a hatnote added to the top of the report linking to the subpage and indicating if cleanup has been completed or not. An example LLMN discussion might look like:

Mass LLM misuse by User:Example

Ongoing cleanup efforts are being tracked at subpage, 50 pages need review.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis no...

The CCI process looks too formal for the way reports here and at LLMN have worked, ideally tracking efforts should be low-friction and kept tightly coupled to the original reports. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 23:31, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

This looks great, as there doesn't seem to be opposition to it, I am happy to implement it! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:26, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree this would be helpful. I'd like us to pick a standard set of icons to be used for different situations, but that can come later? NicheSports (talk) 23:26, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Feel free for the subpage-pointing hatnote, I think that could be useful no matter what, but I do have some additional thoughts that might be worth considering first.

I'm re-mulling over how to format tracking lists. I think ease of use in accessing, editing, and reading is paramount. A simple start-collapsed {{AIC table}} like Kowal2701 suggested would almost certainly be best for small cleanup tasks, and it could ideally take the spot of a section hatnote for increased visibility, instead of leaving it buried down in a thread.

For larger task tracking on a subpage, there are three options I can think of for formatting:

• Plain tables: A hassle to edit, easy to read and sort.
• Bulleted lists: Dead simple to edit, OK to read, can get unwieldy the more info each entry needs to convey.
• Template plus subtemplate-based tables, like {{sat}} and {{sa}}: Has the potential to be OK to edit and easy to read, but larger pages would likely run into technical issues.

I'm now inclined to think that bulleted lists (à la CCI), possibly used in conjunction with sections that can act as categories, might be the best choice for larger tracking jobs. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 05:26, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't think tables will help for any cleanup case, no matter the size. Just too much overhead and unnecessary process. A bullet point list could work for smaller cases but I'm still unconvinced. I wouldn't want to use either - I prefer to get in a zone and crank out the articles, leaving occasional updates on the case about where I'm at. The sub-page will be very helpful however (for cases with 10+ edits, which is almost all). Can we start there and see how it goes? NicheSports (talk) 05:39, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

No complaints with starting with simple subpages containing bulleted lists.

I've come around to thinking plain tables are too fiddly also, and am I right in reading your comment that you're against a template-based solution like an {{AIC table}} also? fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 05:53, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes - against all types of tables. Pretty sure they'll be a net negative even with an add-in to help create them. We should start with pages and figure out over time what works best in terms of how to structure the information within them. NicheSports (talk) 06:01, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Understood, and you're very likely right. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 06:04, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Looking forward to the subpages. Thank you for suggesting it! NicheSports (talk) 06:10, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Starting something at {{AIC status}}! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:28, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Looks pretty dank, danke. In addition to your 3 statuses I was also considering a 4th: "cleanup required". Kind of like a "case accepted" status. This would hopefully entice people to work on cases that no one is handling. I've only been tagging threads at AINB as in progress that I'm actively working on, for this reason. What do you think? NicheSports (talk) 19:20, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

That works for me! I'm also working on subpage integration as we speak, so the number of active pages to clean up can be retrieved directly from there. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:37, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Looking good! Interested to see how the subpage tracking and construction will work.

I've started a discussion at Template talk:AIC status#Accessibility with some ideas on how to make the template easier for anyone, even those who've never read the docs, to use. Would love to hear any feedback. fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 21:57, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

All is done, and we even got a tracking category at Category:WikiProject AI Cleanup open cases to keep track of subpages where there is work left to do! And yes, sorting is automated! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 00:32, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

Yeah I've just been tagging stuff if it isn't something I can revert without splash damage -- I assume a lot of those articles have been quietly untagged but I haven't been keeping track because there is so, so much and I just don't have the patience to argue over them all. Open to a more formalized tracking system though. Gnomingstuff (talk) 02:18, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

Please see the previous thread. "Publifye" publishes AI-generated books with little to no human review. As this is not always apparent, users mistakenly cite these books as reliable sources. My suggestion in the previous thread was to create an edit filter, but nothing happened. I'd like to workshop some ideas about how we can mitigate this and similar issues going forward. I think there should be an edit filter that warns editors when they add an AI-generated citation (contains for example "Publifye" or one of its authors is "AI"), and tags these edits. A mention at WP:RSML, Wikipedia:Large_language_models#Sources_with_LLM-generated_text, and/or Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Types about this would also be great, something along the lines of "Some publishers are known to publish AI-generated books with little to no human review. As these are products of machine learning, they are not reliable." Kovcszaln6 (talk) 13:13, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

I think that the proper solution would be for Meta to contact Google and ask all these books delisted (ask them to institute some procedure to complain about the AI publisher, similar to reports of the copyright violations). Google cannot at this point be interested in devaluing their Google Books project by drowning real books in the sea of slop, so there is a slim chance of success here. Pinging @Richard Nevell: who started the previous thread. Викидим (talk) 07:29, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

I have opened a thread at RSN after having been deferred there. Kovcszaln6 (talk) 09:57, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

I have to admit that I'm flabbergasted. I have removed three live LLM URLs from an article. I fail to understand how a URL to an LLM with a specific prompt can be suggested to be anything faintly resembling a WP:RS. I guess it's the success of LLM marketing. I incorrectly put disinformation in my edit summaries, though it's really closer to misinformation, or gossip.

Anyway, the practical implication is that someone may wish to write a bot to check for links to LLMs in citations, and by default remove them, with the usual warnings about bots, per the standard bot policies. Boud (talk) 13:06, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

All the links to LLMs should probably be added to filter 869. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:00, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

I put a suggestion here. Boud (talk) 15:14, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

I believe I saw something similar but I can't find it. Is there a category of those pages available? Eurostarguage (talk) 09:26, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Specifically {{AI-generated source?}} populates Category:Articles containing suspected AI-generated sources, more broadly {{AI-retrieved source}} populates Category:Wikipedia articles needing factual verification.​ fifteen thousand two hundred twenty four (talk) 09:32, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! Eurostarguage (talk) 10:03, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

User_talk:WorldPeace888#COI_/_PAID They take a news article about a company, they throw the first 2 paragraphs in ChatGPT for a minor rewrite, and add the result to Wikipedia. Polygnotus (talk) 18:26, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

I think this should be on Wikipedia:WikiProject AI Cleanup/Noticeboard because it is about a specific editor. OutsideNormality (talk) 04:20, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

Per a successful RFC, Wikipedia:Writing articles with large language models has been promoted to a Wikipedia Guideline. qcne (talk) 13:33, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Although it is very important to note the detail of the close, particularly the current wording (which changed during the debate) does not enjoy a particularly strong consensus and requires further development. In particular we need community consensus on (a) How to identify LLM-generated writing and (b) How to deal with it when it does occur. and Therefore although I have determined that there is consensus to promote this proposal to a guideline, it has to be construed conservatively and narrowly for the time being. Until the community has decided on a test of what constitutes an LLM-generated contribution, the threshold is consensus; and this means that we have to treat an edit as human-generated until there's consensus otherwise. (italics in original, bolding mine). Thryduulf (talk) 13:52, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

I am not sure how to interpret that instruction. Taken literally, it would mean that editors should not boldly place the {{LLM}} template onto articles. jlwoodwa (talk) 18:50, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

This is the sort of problem that occurs when you make a vague statement of philosophy into a guideline without any attempt at working out practical matters beforehand and is a significant reason why many opposed doing so. Nevertheless that view did not reach consensus. I know saying "I told you so" is not helpful, but I genuinely have no practical suggestions off the top of my head - hopefully for the sake of the good of the project others do. Thryduulf (talk) 19:53, 24 November 2025 (UTC)