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The idea lab section of the village pump is a place where new ideas or suggestions on general Wikipedia issues can be incubated, for later submission for consensus discussion at Village pump (proposals). Try to be creative and positive when commenting on ideas.
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Implemeting "ChatBot Validation" for sentences of Wikipedia

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hi, I propose to define a "Validation process" using Chatbots (e.g. ChatGPT) in this way:

1. The editor or an ordinary user, presses a button named "Validate this Sentence"
2. A query named "Is this sentence true or not? + Sentence" is sent to ChatGPT
3. If the ChatGPT answer is true, then tick that sentence as valid, otherwise declare that the sentence needs to be validated manually by humans.

I think the implementation of this process is very fast and convenient. I really think that "ChatBot validation" is a very helpful capability for users to be sure about the validity of information of articles of Wikipedia. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 10:34, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

While it would certainly be convenient, it would also be horribly inaccurate. The current generation of chatbots are prone to hallucinations and cannot be relied on for such basic facts as what the current year is, let alone anything more complicated. Thryduulf (talk) 10:48, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Thryduulf The question is

Is Wikipedia hallucinations or ChatGPT is hallucinations?

This type of validation (validation by ChatGPT) may be inaccurate for correctness of Wikipedia, but when ChatGPT declares that "Wikipedia information is Wong!", a very important process named "Validate Manually by Humans" is activated. This second validation is the main application of this idea. That is, finding possibly wrong data on Wikipedia to be investigated more accurately by humans. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 11:02, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

The issue is, ChatGPT (or any other LLM/chatbot) might hallucinate in both directions, flagging false sentences as valid and correct sentences as needing validation. I don't see how this is an improvement compared to the current process of needing verification for all sentences that don't already have a source. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 11:13, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

If there was some meaningful correlation between what ChatGPT declares true (or false) and what is actually true (or false) then this might be useful. This would just waste editor time. Thryduulf (talk) 11:15, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Chaotic Enby@Thryduulf Although ChatGPT may give wrong answers, but it is very powerful. To assess its power, we need to apply this research:

1. Give ChatGPT a sample containing true and false sentences, but hide true answers
2. Ask ChatGPT to assess the sentences
3. Compare actual and ChatGPT answers
4. Count the ratio of answers that are the same.

I really propose that if this ratio is high, then we start to implement this "chatbot validation" idea. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 11:24, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

There are many examples of people doing this research, e.g. [1] ranks ChatGPT as examples accurate "88.7% of the time", but (a) I have no idea how reliable that source is, and (b) it explicitly comes with multiple caveats about how that's not a very meaningful figure. Even if we assume that it is 88.7% accurate at identifying what is and isn't factual across all content on Wikipedia that's still not really very useful. In the real world it would be less accurate than that, because those accuracy figures include very simple factual questions that it is very good at ("What is the capital of Canada?" is the example given in the source) that we don't need to use ChatGPT to verify because it's quicker and easier for a human to verify themselves. More complex things, especially related to information that is not commonly found in its training data (heavily biased towards information in English easily accessible on the internet), where the would be the most benefit to automatic verification, the accuracy gets worse. Thryduulf (talk) 11:38, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Have you read, for example, the content section of OpenAI's Terms of Use? Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:53, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Sean.hoyland If OpenAI does not content with this application, we can use other ChatBots that content with this application. Nowadays, many chatbots are free to use. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 11:04, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm sure they would be thrilled with this kind of application, but the terms of use explain why it is not fit for purpose. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:17, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Factual questions are where LLMs like ChatGPT are weakest. Simple maths, for example. I just asked "Is pi larger than 3.14159265?" and got the wrong answer "no" with an explanation why the answer should be "yes":

"No, π is not larger than 3.14159265. The value of π is approximately 3.14159265358979, which is slightly larger than 3.14159265. So, 3.14159265 is a rounded approximation of π, and π itself is just a tiny bit larger."

Any sentence "validated by ChatGPT" should be considered unverified, just like any sentence not validated by ChatGPT. —Kusma (talk) 11:28, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I get a perfect answer to that question (from the subscription version of ChatGPT): "Yes. The value of π to more digits is approximately 3.141592653589793… which is slightly larger than 3.14159265. The difference is on the order of a few billionths." But you are correct; these tools are not ready for serious fact checking. There is another reason this proposal is not good: ChatGPT gets a lot of its knowledge from Wikipedia, and when it isn't from Wikipedia it can be from the same dubious sources that we would like to not use. One safer use I can see is detection of ungrammatical sentences. It seems to be good at that. Zero^talk 11:42, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

It's a good example of the challenges of accuracy. Using a different prompt "Is the statement pi > 3.14159265 true or false?", I got "The statement 𝜋 > 3.14159265 is true. The value of π is approximately 3.14159265358979, which is greater than 3.14159265." So, whatever circuit is activated by the word 'larger' is doing something less than ideal, I guess. Either way, it seems to improve with scale, grounding via RAG or some other method and chain of thought reasoning. Baby steps. Sean.hoyland (talk) 11:51, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I do not think we should outsource our ability to check whether a sentence is true and/or whether a source verifies a claim to AI. This would create orders of magnitude more problems than it would solve... besides, as people point out above, facts is where chatbots are weakest. They're increasingly good at imitating tone and style and meter and writing nicely, but are often garbage at telling fact from truth. Cremastra (u — c) 02:22, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Writing a script that would automatically give a "validation score" to every article—average probability of True vs. False across all sentences—would be helpful. (Even if it completely sucks, we can just ignore it, so there's no harm done.) Go ahead and do it if you know how! However, WMF's ML team is already very busy, so I don't think this will get done if nobody volunteers. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 04:41, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Further Reading: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 211§AI for WP guidelines/ policies. ExclusiveEditor _{🔔 Ping Me!} 06:34, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Using ChatBots for reverting new edits by new users

Even though the previous idea may have issues, I really think that one factor for reverting new edits by new users can be "the false answer of verification of Chatbots". If the accuracy is near 88.7%, we can use that to verify new edits, possibly by new users, and find vandalism conveniently. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 13:48, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Even if we assume the accuracy to be near near 88.7%, I would not support having a chatbot to review edits. Many editors do a lot of editing and getting every 1 edit out of 10 edit reverted due to an error will be annoying and demotivating. The bot User:Cluebot NG already automatically reverts obvious vandalism with 99%+ success rate. Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:11, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

@Ca Can User:Cluebot NG check such semantically wrong sentence?

Steven Paul Jobs was an American engineer.

instead of an inventor, this sentence wrongly declares that he was an engineer. Can User:Cluebot NG detect this sentence automatically as a wrong sentence?

So I propose to rewrite User:Cluebot NG in a way that it uses Chatbots, somehow, to semantically check the new edits, and tag semantically wrong edits like the above sentence to "invalid by chatbot" for other users to correct that. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 14:22, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Can Cluebot detect this sentence automatically as a wrong sentence? No. It can't. Cluebot isn't looking through sources. It's an anti-vandalism bot. You're welcome to bring this up with those that maintain Cluebot; although I don't think it'll work out, because that's way beyond the scope of what Cluebot does. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 19:46, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

I think you, Hooman Mallahzadeh, are too enamoured with the wilder claims of AI and chatbots, both from their supporters and the naysayers. They are simply not as good as humans at spotting vandalism yet; at least the free ones are not. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:46, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

The number of false positives would be too high. Again, this would create more work for humans. Let's not fall to AI hype. Cremastra (u — c) 02:23, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Sorry this would be a terrible idea. The false positives would just be to great, there is enough WP:BITING of new editors we don't need LLM hallucinations causing more. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:26, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Dear @ActivelyDisinterested, I didn't propose to revert all edits that ChatBot detect as invalid. My proposal says that:

Use ChatBot to increase accuracy of User:Cluebot NG.

The User:Cluebot NG does not check any semantics for sentences. These semantics can only be checked by Large Language Models like ChatGPT. Please note that every Wikipedia sentence can be "semantically wrong", as they can be syntacticly wrong.

Because making "Large language models" for semantic checking is very time-consuming and expensive, we can use them online via service oriented techniques. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 17:18, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

But LLMs are not good at checking the accuracy of information, so Cluebot NG would not be more accurate, and in being less accurate would behave in a more BITEY manner to new editors. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:24, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Maybe ChatGPT should add a capability for "validation of sentences", that its output may only be "one word": True/False/I Don't know. Specially for the purpose of validation.

I don't know that ChatGPT has this capability or not. But if it lacks, it can implement that easily. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 17:33, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Validation is not a binary thing that an AI would be able to do. It's a lot more complicated than you make it sound (as it requires interpretation of sources - something an AI is incapable of actually doing), and may require access to things an AI would never be able to touch (such as offline sources). —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 17:37, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

@Hooman Mallahzadeh: I refer you to the case of Varghese v. China South Airlines, which earned the lawyers citing it a benchslap. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 17:30, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

@Jéské Couriano Thanks, I will read the article. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 17:34, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 4) For Wikipedia's purposes, accuracy is determined by whether it matches what reliable sources say. For any given statement there are multiple possible states:

1. Correct and supported by one or more reliable sources at the end of the statement
2. Correct and supported by one or more reliable sources elsewhere on the page (e.g. the end of paragraph)
3. Correct and self-supporting (e.g. book titles and authors)
4. Correct but not supported by a reliable source
5. Correct but supported by a questionable or unreliable source
6. Correct according to some sources (cited or otherwise) but not others (cited or otherwise)
7. Correct but not supported by the cited source
8. Incorrect and not associated with a source
9. Incorrect and contradicted by the source cited
10. Incorrect but neither supported nor contradicted by the cited source
11. Neither correct nor incorrect (e.g. it's a matter of opinion or unproven), all possible options for sourcing
12. Previously correct, and supported by contemporary reliable sources (cited or otherwise), but now outdated (e.g. superceded records, outdate scientific theories, early reports about breaking news stories)
13. Both correct and incorrect, depending on context or circumstance (with all possible citation options)
14. Previously incorrect, and stated as such in contemporary sources, but now correct (e.g. 2021 sources stating Donald Trump as president of the US)
15. Correct reporting of someone's incorrect statements (cited or otherwise).
16. Predictions that turned out to be incorrect, reported as fact (possibly misleadingly or unclearly) at the time in contemporary reliable sources.

And probably others I've failed to think of. LLMs simply cannot correctly determine all of these, especially as sources may be in different languages and/or not machine readable. Thryduulf (talk) 17:44, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

I believe someone else had a working implementation of a script that would verify whether a reference supported a claim using LLMs - I think I saw it on one of the Village Pumps a while back. They eventually abandoned it because it wasn't reliable enough, if I remember correctly. — Qwerfjkltalk 16:46, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

It probably struggles to understand meaning. On the other hand, I reckon you could get a working implementation to look for copyvio. CMD (talk) 18:02, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

It could be great to have an LLM-supported system to detect potential close paraphrasing. —Kusma (talk) 18:06, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Even professional-grade plagiarism detectors are poor at that, generating both false positives and false negatives. That's fine in the environment where they are used with full understanding of the system's limitations and it is used only as one piece of information among multiple sources by those familiar with the topic area. Very little of that is true in the way it would be used on Wikipedia. Thryduulf (talk) 18:49, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Pertty implementation of this idea in gemini.google.com

Hi, I noticed that this idea is pretty implemented in https://gemini.google.com . Here are some sentence to validate given to gemini and the result of validation:

Sentence to validate

Steven Paul Jobs was German.

The result:

No, Steven Paul Jobs was not German. He was born in San Francisco, California, and was an American citizen. His parents were American college students, and he was adopted shortly after his birth.

Sentence to validate:

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal union of 60 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C.

The answer:

The United States of America consists of 50 states, not 60.

Sentence to validate:

Steven Paul Jobs was an American engineer.

Answer:

While Steven Paul Jobs was not a formally trained engineer, he was a visionary and a key figure in the development of personal computers. He was a businessman, inventor, and investor who co-founded Apple Inc. and was instrumental in the creation of iconic products like the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

Finally, I should note that this idea can be pretty implemented by https://gemini.google.com . I really propose to implement that and wait for possible feedbacks and bugs. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 14:59, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Have you read the above discussion? There is clear consensus that this is a bad idea. Cremastra (talk) 15:01, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Gemini even has a giant disclaimer repeatedly telling you not to trust it. Cremastra (talk) 15:03, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

@Cremastra No need to be trusted. My purpose for claiming this proposal was to detect "suspicious wrong sentences". The purpose of the idea is only to find "suspicious wrong sentences" to inspect by humans afterwards. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 15:07, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Here, take a look.

Is the lesser-toothed pademelon common in Sydney suburbs?
The lesser-toothed pademelon is not common in Sydney suburbs. It is found in the rainforests of eastern Australia, including New South Wales, but it prefers undisturbed habitats. It is not likely to be found in areas that have been heavily modified by human activity.

Needless to say, that animal does not exist.

Rhympophorus gigas can be dangerous if approached.
Yes, Rhympophorus gigas can be dangerous if approached. They are large, aggressive beetles that can bite if they feel threatened. Their bites are not venomous, but they can be painful and cause infection.

Ditto.

Red-toed frogs are endangered.
Red-toed frogs are not endangered. However, they are considered a species of special concern in Canada. This means that they are at risk of becoming endangered in the future.

It is not hard to fool. Cremastra (talk) 15:09, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

@Hooman Mallahzadeh Cremastra (talk) 15:10, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Here's another one:

The brown elbow galaxy can be seen by amateur observers with larger telescopes.
The brown elbow galaxy is a popular name for the spiral galaxy M83. It is located about 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra.

Cremastra (talk) 15:20, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Dear @Cremastra. If you note the Gemini site answers, It contains a three dots after each response. For example, to validate this wrong sentence:

Jobs was born in San Francisco in 1956 and adopted shortly afterwards.

In three dots part, there exists a hyperlink named "Double-check response". In this link, the correct birthdate of Steve Jobs is written as 1955 which is adopted from "www.cccco.edu".

I checked your sentence too which is "The brown elbow galaxy can be seen by amateur observers with larger telescopes." Only some parts of this answer are "Double-checked response".

Given answer for me was

"The "Brown Elbow Galaxy" isn't a commonly used name for any celestial object. It's possible that it's a nickname given to a specific galaxy by amateur astronomers in a particular region."

it is like

The brown elbow galaxy is a popular name for the spiral galaxy M83

Is not a "Double-checked response". Am I wrong? So we should only rely on parts of the response which are "Double-checked response". Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 15:33, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

@Cremastra Discussion was about "False positive". Please yourself try to check its false positive in https://gemini.google.com . And give me the feedback, after checking multiple sentence. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 15:03, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Cremastra did try it 3 4 times above, and each time it said that something exists when it doesn't exist. Free AI is nowhere near as good as a human editor yet, so just give up on this silly idea. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:49, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger As I mentioned above, in the answers that Cremastra got, the first sentence parts were not "Double-checked responses", they are just dreams of AI. If I am wrong, tell me please. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 15:57, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

You are wrong. It presented those dreams as if they were true. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:02, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Dear @Phil Bridger, these exists "three dots" and click "Double-checked response" in gemini site answers. Those "dreams" are not double checked. Please try again.

If "dreams" are "double-checked", then I really "just give up on this silly idea". Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 16:06, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

I tried Cremastra's Pademelon question, and asked for a double check. It lit up some of the text in green, which indicates that it thinks it passed the double check. Can we end this now? MrOllie (talk) 16:14, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

@MrOllie Yes, if you are sure that such "Dreams" are "double-checked", I convinced. Please close the thread and archive that. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 16:18, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If someone or something tells me in English that the lesser-toothed pademelon or Rhympophorus gigas or Red-toed frogs or the brown elbow galaxy exists I expect to be able to believe them without checking whether it has three dots after it or that it doesn't come with "Double-checked response" or that they haven't got their fingers crossed behind their back. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:16, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

@MrOllie: @Rosguill: Final question: You said "some part of it was green". My final question is "what part" was exactly was in green? Is that part "dreams part"? See some part does not imply "total answer". Please mention exacly "what question" and "what answer" that you applied and got on Gemini. I should see what you applied and got exacly. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 16:37, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Hooman Mallahzadeh I threw pademelons at it again with the "double check". It highlighted this text in green: The lesser-toothed pademelon is a small marsupial native to Australia.. Which is, um, false.

I also tried it with the statement, Greater-toothed pademelons, Thylogale gigadonti, can be seen in wildlife preserves in Queensland.

It responded with Yes, greater-toothed pademelons are found in wildlife preserves in Queensland. They are shy and nocturnal, so it may be difficult to see them during the day. However, you may be able to see their tracks or hear them rustling in the bushes at night.

When I ran doublecheck, it highlighted this sentence in green (the rest was in grey): They are shy and nocturnal, so it may be difficult to see them during the day.

The source it "cited" for that claim (I clicked the little green down arrow) was an Australian Museum article about a real species [2]. This whole project is a wild goose chase, or, rather, some lesser-toothed pademelon tracks. (According to Gemini, I can see lesser-toothed pademelon tracks in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park – this thing lies so pathologically I'm amazed that someone thought that even with the "double check" it was a useful tool.) Cremastra (talk) 16:58, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

It's all WP:PADEMELONS. Cremastra (talk) 17:02, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

@Cremastra I think this wrong answer is due to application of taxonomy. This "double checked" sentence:

They are shy and nocturnal, so it may be difficult to see them during the day.

is derived from behavior of "pademelons" in general, maybe from this sentence:

All pademelons are shy and nocturnal, so it may be difficult to see them during the day.

In fact, all "pademelons" threat this way, and "Greater-toothed pademelons" as a specific kind, should obey this rule as well. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 17:23, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

It is still wrong.

Besides, here's another one, free of marsupials. I gave it only the scientific name, with a genus that doesn't exist, so it has no information to go on:

Kemptorus henryii was named in honour of Sir Charles Henry.

Its answer (emphasis added):

That's correct! Kemptorus henryii is a species of extinct reptile that was named after Sir Charles Henry. Sir Charles Henry was a British colonial governor who served in several colonies, including Jamaica, the Cape Colony, and Victoria. He was known for his progressive policies and his support for education and social reform. Kemptorus henryii is a small, lizard-like reptile that lived during the Triassic period. It was first discovered in South Africa in the 1960s.

You know how liberal those British colonial governors are.

The point is I gave it no information and it still hallucinated that this made up name was that of an extinct Triassic reptile. Double check gave the last two sentences a "consider searching further" (but it still generated this lie in the first place!!), but okayed Sir Charles Henry was a British colonial governor who served in several colonies, including Jamaica, the Cape Colony, and Victoria and provided this source [3] which is about a real person with a similar name.

This tool is useless. Cremastra (talk) 17:30, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Defining reliable resources for Chatbots to validate Wikipedia sentences and implementing a chatbot-resourcing mechanism

I propose to define a set of reliable resources for chatbots like "Google Gemini" to validate Wikipedia sentences with that, and then in the "double-checking phase", it automatically would adds some references for that sentence, as a proof for its validity.

I really think that by the current way that Wikipedia resources its contents, the readers have not the opportunity to conveniently access reliable sources. This idea can make resourcing very fast, directly to the page and sentence of that reliable resource. Please discuss the idea. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 13:25, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Ye gods,Please WP:DROPTHESTICK. No-one here wants chatbots on the encyclopedia and I've shown above that they're easy to mislead. Cremastra (talk) 13:30, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

@Cremastra I should add that this idea can be implemented as a "browser extension" to apply not only for Wikipedia, but also all of the web contents. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 13:31, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

@Cremastra Please achieve this thread. Thank you. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 13:34, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

The thread will be archived automatically if you simply stop posting for a few days. You had an idea, but it turned out to be an extraordinarily bad idea. Just drop it. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:06, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

More levels of protection and user levels

I think the jump from 4 days and 10 edits to 30 days and 500 edits is far too extreme and takes a really long time to do it when there are many editors with just 100, 200 edits (including me) that are not vandals, they do not have strong opinions on usually controversial opinions and just want to edit. Which is why I want the possibility for more user levels to be created. For example one for 200 edits, and 15 days that can be applied whenever vandalism happens somewhat, in that case normally ECP would be applied however I that is far too extreme and a more moderate protection would be more useful. Vandals that are that dedicated to make 200 edits and wait 30 days will be dedicated enough to get Extended Confirmed Protection. Though I want to see what the community thinks of sliding in another protection being ACP and ECP. 2 levels should suffice to bridge the gap between 4 edits and 500 edits would allow low edit count editors to edit while still blocking out vandalism. This is surprisingly not a perennial proposal. SimpleSubCubicGraph (talk) 02:19, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

It's more that editors who have 500/30 generally have been in enough situations to hold Wikipedian knowledge that's in-depth enough. That doesn't necessarily hold true for those you've proposed. Time is part of the intention. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:28, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

possibility for more user levels to be created I had thought about this before and think more levels (or at least an additional level with tweaks to the current ones) would be a good idea. Something along the lines of:

1. WP:SEMI - 7 days / 15 edits

2. WP:ECP - 30 days / 300 edits

3. WP:??? - 6 months / 750 edits (reserved for pages with rampant sockpuppetry problems, such as those in the WP:PIA topic area). Some1 (talk) 02:50, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

@Aaron Liu Yes, that may be apart of the intention but I feel like there are editors with under 500 edits who can make just a good enough edit to not get it instantly reverted. Also protection is there mainly for vandalism, if we lived in a perfect society anyone could edit wikipedia pages without needing accounts and making tons of edits.

@Some1 I think 180/750 would be far too harsh, not even the most divisive topics and controversial issues get vandalized often with ECP.

My idea generally was keeping ECP the same but inserting another type of protection level in-between for mildly controversial topics and pages that are vandalized infrequently. SimpleSubCubicGraph (talk) 03:25, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Can you give some specific examples of "controversial topics and pages that are vandalized infrequently"? Is there a particular article you want to edit but are unable to? Some1 (talk) 03:29, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

SimpleSubCubicGraph, if this is regarding Skibidi Toilet (per the comments below), then under my proposed ECP level requirements (30 day/300 edits), you would be able to edit that article. Some1 (talk) 12:35, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

There is not too much utility to creating a variety of new levels, as it generally gets clunky trying to define everything, and it makes the system less easy to grasp. What differentiates 100 edits from 200 from 300? ECP is not usually for vandalism, it is deployed for topics that receive particular levels of non-vandalistic (WP:VAND is very narrow) disruption. These are topics where experience is usually quite helpful, where editors who just want to edit are more likely to get in trouble. However, it is also a very narrow range of topics, apparently only affecting 3,067 articles at the moment, or less than 0.05% of articles. CMD (talk) 03:39, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Isn't EC protection just for contentious topics? I didn't think we were using it just to protect against common or garden vandalism. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

@Espresso Addict even though there are 3,000 articles that have ECP protection, many articles are often upgraded to ECP in light of infrequent vandalism (once a day, few times a week, etc). I know Skidibi Toilet was upgraded to ECP when the page was vandalized a few times. It was quite hilarious but it demonstrates a wider problem with liberally putting ECP on everything that gets even remotely vandalized. SimpleSubCubicGraph (talk) 07:06, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Now, are there that many people that care for Skidibi Toilet? No. But it is also liberally applied to other wiki pages that are infrequently vandalized and editors can be there, wanting to edit, but they have to wait until an admin removes the protection which can vary depending on how active they are. It can be a day, to a week, and up to a month if you are really unlucky and the article is not that well known/significant. Which is why another type of protection can allow these editors to edit their favorite subject while still preventing vandalism. There are very few ECP users and that is with counting alternate accounts. So this change will affect a lot with how wikipedia works. SimpleSubCubicGraph (talk) 07:09, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

ECP is not liberally applied. Admins are usually very cautious about applying it, and if there is a particular case where you think it is no longer needed, raise it and it will very likely be looked at. CMD (talk) 08:11, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

It wasn't "infrequent" vandalism. Just look at the page history. Though I would use PC protection instead. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:40, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

500 edits is also when you earn access to Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library.

Editors who make it to about ~300 edits without getting blocked or banned usually stick around (and usually continue not getting blocked or banned). So in that sense, we could reduce it to 300/30 without making much of a difference, or even making the timespan a bigger component (e.g., 300 edits + 90 days). But it's also true that if you just really want to get 500, then you could sit down with Special:RecentChanges and get the rest of your edits in a couple of hours. You could also sort out a couple of grammar problems. Search, e.g., on "diffuse the conflict": diffuse means to spread the conflict around; it should say defuse (remove the fuse from the explosive) instead. I cleaned up a bunch of these a while ago, but there will be more. You could do this for anything in the List of commonly misused English words (so long as you are absolutely certain that you understand how to use the misused words!). WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:36, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

[to SimpleSubCubicGraph] Sorry, I must have missed the various RfCs that extended the use outside contentious topics. SimpleSubCubicGraph, if you finding pages that could safely be reduced in protection level, and that don't fall within contentious topics, then you should ask the protecting admin to reduce the level on their talk page. But if you have an urge to edit Skibidi Toilet then the simplest thing to do is make small improvements to mainspace for a couple of hundred edits. If you don't have a topic you are interested in that isn't protected just hit random article a few times or do a wikilink random walk until you find something that you can improve. Espresso Addict (talk) 08:47, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

For anyone who wants to run up their edit count: Search for "it can be argued that", and replace them with more concise words, like "may" ("It can be argued that coffee tastes good" → "Coffee may taste good"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:27, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm one of those affected by it, and I'm all for an open encyclopedia, but I'd honestly say that the 500/30 ECP makes sense. There is a great depth to this project, from the philosophy (e.g. standards for inclusion, notability, reliability) and practice (a million gray areas in PAG) of building an encyclopedia, to the philosophy (e.g. idea darwinism and convergence to a good result) and practice (the heavy bureaucracy and politics) of running a productive wiki project. If an editor comes in unfamiliar with these ideas, encountering and absorbing them organically takes time. spintheer (talk) 06:20, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

This thread seems dead. So I am reviving it. SimpleSubCubicGraph (talk) 00:04, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is consensus that the existing levels are enough. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:58, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

WP:CRITICISM's status as an essay

I was a bit surprised last night to discover that WP:CRITICISM is "only" an essay. I see people try to follow it on a somewhat frequent basis for best practices and was under the impression that it must be a guideline. But it's not. Should it be? I've never tried to "upgrade" the status of something before and I'm assuming to some extent that would be controversial, but input would be welcome. I'm assuming some things might need to be finetuned if it does get that extra status. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:31, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Regarding the process, Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines § Life cycle describes the process of establishing consensus for guidance to be designated as a guideline or policy. Before having a request for comment discussion, it would probably be good to have a discussion reviewing its current content and establishing consensus amongst interested editors, before moving to a broader sampling of the community in an RfC. isaacl (talk) 17:46, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

That's why I came here. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:05, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Maybe put a pointer on the talk page for Wikipedia:Criticism then? The idea lab page is usually more for brainstorming than establishing consensus, but probably not a big deal if the discussion happens here or, say, the miscellaneous village pump, as long as they're pointers at the other places. isaacl (talk) 18:10, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't think the talk page has that many watchers. I came here for brainstorming and wider community input. I thought that's was what one should do before even attempting an rfc. It seems to fit exactly with the stated purpose of this page. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Sure; I gave my brainstorming thoughts that it would probably be good to have a discussion to do that finetuning you described to ensure that the page was a good representation of in-practice consensus, before having an RfC. A village pump is a fine place to have a discussion. I was just suggesting that it might be helpful to attract interested editors with pointers on the corresponding talk page and the miscellaneous village pump, since the idea lab typically discusses less fully-formed ideas, and so its set of page watchers might not cover enough of the desired audience. isaacl (talk) 18:24, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I've posted on the talk page about this too now. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:36, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I think your instinct is correct; Special:PageInfo says that 9 editors who have the page on their watchlist looked at the WP: page during the last 30 days, and 10 of them looked at the talk page. That's not a lot.

A note at the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style main talk page would also be appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) X 2. Often too much notice is made of which word an essay, guideline or policy has at the top. How much it is binding depends more on how widely it is accepted rather than its formal status. Having said that, I would follow Isaacl's advice before "upgrading" anything. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:12, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I would support a process to bring CRITICISM to at least a guideline. This might mean an initial stage to review and revise the text to make it appropriate for a guideline before bringing an RFC to make it a guideline. Masem (t) 18:42, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

It might be interesting to see whether editors actually support the content. For example, I tend to favor the approach of Wikipedia:Criticism#Integrated throughout the article, but when I have suggested that, other editors generally want to have a place where the Correct™ POV can be easily found. See, e.g., my suggestion a few months ago, and yet Talk:Cass Review#Criticism section has been recreated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:24, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't see why, in that particular case, there are separate "reception" and "criticism" sections. Surely any criticism is part of the reception? Maybe if this was made a guideline it would help. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:41, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

"Criticism" is a type of "reception", so it doesn't seem reasonable to have them be separate, but what I really mean in that instance is that it doesn't make sense to say in the first or second section something like "It proposes changing the rules for this class of medications" and then you have to scroll through 14 other sections to get to a sentence that says "And this advocacy group thinks that changing the rules for that class of medications is a really bad idea". Those two sentences are on the same subject, so they belong together. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I think it would be useful as a guideline, after the community signs off on the wording. A few years ago, @HaeB: ran a query to identify BLPs with controversy sections, then I went through those to see which could be integrated or at least more appropriately titled. (It was fun, actually.) I couldn't come up with solutions for all of them, but we cleaned up quite a few. I think some readers/editors like "controversy" sections because that's where the "juiciest" content is. Schazjmd (talk) 20:39, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Frequently, the content I see in criticism sections for businesses would be better integrated into the history sections for the company, so the events can be placed into context. As touched upon in Wikipedia:Criticism § Organizations and corporations, though, there are some cases where there is an ongoing criticism that spans across an extended period of time, and it's more easily described in a separate section that pulls together various threads.

I do think there are some editors who take any negative news, and describe it as a controversy or criticism when it's not really either. This type of info usually should be integrated into the sections for the overall history of the subject. isaacl (talk) 00:38, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree. I can also see how a cohesive "counter-arguments" section might be helpful to readers, such as on an article about a theory or concept. Schazjmd (talk) 23:49, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

WP as a whole has a larger problem that editors want to include every bit of negative content they can find about a topic when documented in reliable sources, particularly for BLP and more particularly for certain types of BLP due to recent events. Criticism and controversy gets added far more faster and without regards to trying to integrate it better than other types of content for the most part, and we really need stronger guidelines that stem from NPOV that not all negative content or criticsm is appropriate or needs to be included, and when included, it generally should be integrated better in the article than as a standalone section or the like. — Masem (t) 03:57, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

At some level, we teach them to do this. If editors, especially new editors, add positive content, then someone comes around and smacks them for being "promotional". Take a look at the history of Pickathon. An inexperienced editor tried to add some content, and got told off for, among other things, adding facts that were reported in major newspapers. How dare you say that free things are free. How dare you say that it's plastic-free. How dare you say that they offer childcare services, because "many, many" festivals – none of which anyone can find or name, and we did look – do the same. But do feel free to add anything negative you can find, because that's "balance". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:50, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Criticism sections should already be disallowed per WP:STRUCTURE, but for some reason there's a footnote in there saying that actually it doesn't count. They're almost always problems when it comes to NPOV, and their fiercest advocates tend to be people who want to present a negative point of view on the subject. Adding them to BLPs is even worse and in my opinion should be considered a serious policy violation. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:37, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

The fact that WP:STRUCTURE already points to WP:Criticism as a source for further guidance on the subject supports the idea that WP:Criticism is more weighty than a mere essay. Especially when dealing with BLP situations, there should usually be a better option than grouping a labeling content by the POV it represents. -- LWG ^talk 23:40, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Related thought: the criticism section template only has 405 transclusions in mainspace, so it might be a valid option to just make a push to clean up those 405 articles and then retire/rework the template. -- LWG ^talk 23:46, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I've never actually seen a criticism section with that tag so I suspect that the total amount of these sections is a much higher number. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:50, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

That's fair, and also related to a conversation happening on the talk page for that template about the appropriate use of the tag. Currently that tag falls under the broad heading of "POV Dispute tags" which means it is only meant to be used to make the presence of an ongoing discussion/dispute. In the absence of an active consensus building process the appropriate thing to do is not to tag the article, but to fix it. But an argument could be made that the presence of a badly-structured crit section is less a matter of dispute and more a matter of content quality, in which case the time and effort involved in fixing the article might merit some amount of "drive-by tagging". My general thoughts on the matter are that for topics whose controversial nature is itself a subject of comment by RSs, it may be appropriate to dedicate a section in the article to opposing viewpoints, but in that case the section should usually be given a more informative title than just "Criticism". -- LWG ^talk 00:22, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

New editors and IP use it a lot, specifically the WP:CSECTION, to remove criticisms or controversial items from articles. Most of the times this is a COI/NPV issue and the criticism they tend to wrongly remove is justified by WP:DUE. Turning it into a guideline or policy, as in its current version, could just empower them more. We need to fix this for sure. --𝓔xclusive𝓔ditor _{Ping Me🔔} 07:25, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

WikiRPG Gadget/Extension

I had this idea a good bit ago. A gadget or extension for Wikipedia that turns it into an RPG, where you can like, get XP for making good edits and stuff, or maybe even fight enemies on wikipedia articles to make it a real rpg. This is obviously a non-serious idea, and it's just an idea to make editing a bit more fun for some, but I do think it'd be cool. Discuss in the comments, I'm excited to see what y'all add!
From Rushpedia, the free stupid goofball (talk) 18:18, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Thinking about it now, this would probably be an extension. It wouldn't fit in as a gadget, since it wouldn't be useful. From Rushpedia, the free stupid goofball (talk) 18:19, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

It sounds like you'd be interested in Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an MMORPG. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't want to encounter grinders spamming minor edits to level up quick. It would also buff trolls because they'd be treated as a proper enemy instead of something to deny and clean up after.^[Humor] ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 05:56, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I like the idea, but the execution would be hard. also you would need to make scripts that would detect vandals, but what if the people using the script were vandals? Twineee ^{talk Roc} 14:29, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Ask the chatbot

Have you seen the "Ask the chatbot" feature in Britannica? Honestly I am a bit suprised that they developed something like that. I think that it's a good way to consume the encyclopedia contents for quick questions. One of the most frequent uses for ChatGPT and similar tools (hi DeepSeek R1) is Q&A, and they use to reply using our contents (their models are trained partially using Wikipedia after all), so why don't we develop our own chatbot? What do you think? Regards. emijrp (talk) 18:18, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not really a fan of AI, being an artist and all, but this could maybe help students and stuff. I kinda like this idea. From Rushpedia, the free stupid goofball (talk) 18:21, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Considering all of the discussion above, what would you consider an acceptable error rate for answers? Donald Albury 18:48, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Ideally 0, but that's probably impossible. I am not an expert in the field, though IMHO we could train the model excluding articles with maintenance tags, all sentences without a reference, pages written by newbiews or few editors, etc. Also, adding the "I don't know" sentence to the chatbot vocabulary could be a feature, it's not bad to say it. Furthermore, more than a purely conversational chatbot that can hallucinate, I propose one which replies to your questions pasting the relevant sentences in the articles, with minimum originality. Other features could be "please summarize this article, or all articles in this category, tell me three writers born in France in the 17th century, the most important Van Gogh paintings, etc". Definitely, an improved search engine which helps to consume the content. emijrp (talk) 19:10, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

That would mean training the model to exclude nearly all of our content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

To be fair, "pages written by few editors" isn't necessarily something we should exclude: GAs and FAs are usually written by a few dedicated editors, rather than in a slow incremental way (my own example).

Regarding the proposal of adding the "I don't know" sentence to the chatbot vocabulary, while the idea is certainly good, there isn't a specific "chatbot vocabulary" that can be edited: rather, that's something that has to be pushed for during training. However, I do like your proposal of one which replies to your questions pasting the relevant sentences in the articles (there's something similar that can be found in the literature, namely retrieval-augmented generation, which directly adds the relevant sentences to the prompt and answers from there). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 02:17, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any particular need why we should integrate chatbots – a rapidly changing and frequently flawed technology – into our own rapidly changing and frequently flawed encyclopedia. It'll only make matters worse. Cremastra (talk) 20:10, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Agree with this. I did give some technical advice above, but it doesn't mean I'm sold on the proposal at all. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:15, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

We should integrate a chatbot that people can ask about future chatbot integration plans, and tells them no. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:36, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Good plan. We can have a little box off to the side that says, "ask the chatbot ✨" below a little box. Whatever the user enters in the box is replaced with "Will Wikipedia integrate chatbots into its encyclopedia". The response is then "no". I'll get started on development. Cremastra (talk) 17:40, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

lol send me the link Twineee ^{talk Roc} 17:45, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

No, wikipedia is one of the few places left on the internet not infected by the LLM hypetrain. LLMs have a very antisocial and corporatized connotation, they are the antithesis of what wikipedia is Mgjertson (talk) 16:00, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

#Implemeting "ChatBot Validation" for sentences of Wikipedia Twineee ^{talk Roc} 17:34, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Adding a TLDR section for AFC submissions

Currently, a lot of AFC drafts get stuck in the middle of the queue due to refbombing by inexperienced editors. Would it make sense to modify the AFC process so that the new article wizard asks the user to provide three reliable sources and a blurb ? The blurb and three refs would be added to the top of article which would then be used by AFC reviewers to assess notability (after which they can work with the submitter to move the rest of the draft to mainspace). Sohom (talk) 02:49, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

also cc @Chaotic Enby with whom I was discussing this idea on the Wikimedia Discord -- Sohom (talk) 02:50, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! For the specific implementation, I was thinking that we could help the new writers evaluate what is and isn't a reliable source, by pointing them towards something like WP:THREE or directly having a clear wording similar to WP:42. Something such as:

Here, please link what you think are the three best reliable sources that are independent and provide significant coverage of the topic:

(with or without piped links to WP:RS, WP:SIGCOV, etc.)
We can clarify that it is the quality of sources, and not the quantity, that matters, and that highlighting your best sources makes the article easier to assess, and thus more likely to be accepted soon. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 02:56, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

In fact, now that I've had a look at the AfC wizard itself, I'm realizing that the code part might be a bit scary and not necessarily conductive for adding the important sources. We could have the new users enter the sources before (between Wikipedia:Article wizard/Referencing and Wikipedia:Article wizard/CommonMistakes), which would also help them not write the article backwards. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 03:00, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I made a prototype of what I had in mind at User:Chaotic Enby/Article wizard, although the buttons aren't functional yet. My idea for the technical part is to have the first two link to the same page with themselves as added hyperlink parameters, and the third send to the next page with all the hyperlink parameters, which can then be passed to the draft's source editor (in a suitable template we can create). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 03:14, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Nice mock-up! I'd replace the word "link" with "cite" though, to be inclusive of offline sources. Ca ^{talk to me!} 11:40, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Good idea, I made the change! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 13:38, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Strongest possible support from an AFD and lapsed NPP reviewer perspective. I'll highlight Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Patrick Bet-David (3rd nomination) as an AFD where this would have been useful. I would also suggest an additional step during finalisation where the TLDR sources are reviewed and replaced if better ones are identified during the process. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 03:21, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

That could also be a great idea! Since the last phase of the article wizard is the source editor where the draft is written and published, we could have the WP:THREE sources be in a template that is clearly visible in the source editor, so that the user can review and edit the sources if needed.

The current code displayed in the editor is:

{{subst:AfC submission/draftnew}}<!-- Important, do not remove this line before article has been created. -->

== References ==
<!-- Inline citations added to your article will automatically display here. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:REFB for instructions on how to add citations. -->
{{reflist}}

We could have it become something like:

{{subst:AfC submission/draftnew}} <!-- Important, do not remove this line before article has been created. -->
{{best sources <!-- Your three best sources -->
| $1
| $2
| $3
}}

== References ==
<!-- Inline citations added to your article will automatically display here. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:REFB for instructions on how to add citations. -->
{{reflist}}

With the three fields being autofilled by the parameters passed in the previous form, but still editable by the user. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 03:38, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

To make it more practical for future reviewers, I'm also thinking that the template {{best sources}} should allow the reviewer to fill a {{source assess table}} to help point out to the nominator and future reviewers what the issues with the sources are. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 03:41, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Sounds good! Depending on how energetic code support is feeling, the tool could actually step through the "best sources" one at a time, with an explanatory checklist for the editor to complete (for various aspects of independence, reliability, significant coverage, etc.) ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^{~(Talk)~ ~}Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 03:49, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I've made {{User:Chaotic Enby/Best sources}} which either shows the sources (if not yet reviewed) or generates a source assess table (if reviewed), that's definitely a functionality that could be added to the AfC helper script. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 14:10, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

• I strongly support something like this conceptually. Anything to streamline the identification of WP:GNG-establishing sources to get pages out to mainspace seems greatly helpful for reviewers and draft-writers alike. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 05:41, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
• Strong support This change will help speed up reviews for larger articles and articles with an unholy amount of inline citations. "Just what I needed" kind of suggestion. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 05:53, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
• I like this proposal, but I'd caution against 100% relying on this system when reviewing. Most newbies don't have a good idea of what a GNG compliant source is, a skill that comes through experience. I'd imagine this would be helpful for obvious cases, but borderline cases will require closer examination that just three sources. Ca ^{talk to me!} 11:38, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Strong support for an excellent idea. qcne (talk) 17:31, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

• Strong support. This is a wonderful idea. I suggest adding that it will speed up reviewing if we can see the best references for notability up front. StarryGrandma (talk) 22:03, 29 January 2025 (UTC)
• I saw this on Discord and came here to check out the mockup, which looks great. This idea would make reviewing so more fun and might also make "notability" easier to understand for new editors. Toadspike [Talk] 20:10, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose as written, but support in theory. My main concern is that there needs to be exceptions (i.e. three sources are not always needed). Numerous notability guidelines do not mandate three sources. For example, books only require two sources and numerous criteria in NSPORTS, NACADEMIC, NPOLITICS or even NBIO could be met with just one source. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 21:47, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

  Good point, that's definitely something that could be clarified in the wizard. See Special:Diff/1273654439 for an example of an article I passed on WP:NMUSIC despite none of the three given sources technically counting for WP:GNG.

  However, something to note is that most new editors do not necessarily know every SNG, and it could be more prudent for them to give three sources if possible, even if some guidelines require less (for instance, having three book reviews for WP:NBOOK is better if the editor was wrong about the reliability/independence of one of them). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:01, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

  I'm digressing, NSPORTS kind of became lame duck guideline after that last RfC, and doesn't have recommendations for soccer players. It should really just be put out of its misery. Ca ^{talk to me!} 00:13, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Black links

Reading and going through normal webpages and sites, I started to wonder: Do we really need links to shine blue these days? We are all so used to just "test clicking" on anything, since most things online are clickable these days, so I'm just wondering if we still need to differentiate our links by having them shine blue. This topic might have been discussed before and I've simply missed it.

We have several rules on how to limit the number of links on an article, simply because too many of them disrupts the reading experience. It also takes a lot of time to weed out double links or anything that doesn't fall inside the guidelines. With black links, there wouldn't be any problem with over-linking.

Sure, this is just a very rudimentary idea that would need to be sorted for editors. Like perhaps the links could turn blue (and red) when you open a page in the editing window, black links could be default for when you are not logged in, and when logged in you could select the color in your settings. Or: the second, third, etc. link in an article could automatically be displayed in black, leaving only the first time blue (surely we have the tech for that now). It needs to look good on all platforms. And what about all the menus on wiki pages, do they really need to be blue? What normal websites these days have their menus in a "click color". I think that a reduction of colored links would be a way to give the layout of Wikis a bit of an update.

This question might belong on another forum, but this place is as good as any to start. Cart (talk) 20:21, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Respectfully, I don't think that this would be a very practical navigating experience. The idea of having blue links is specifically so the readers don't have to "test click" on every word, and I don't think Wikipedia readers are actually doing it. Having links be black by default would make for a more painful navigating experience, as you'd have to try to click on every word to see if there is a link hidden there.

However, I do agree that making the menus (and only the menus) be black could be a possibility (although not sure if it would be an improvement) as the readers already expect them to be links. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:28, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I am not used to test clicking. Not differentiating before hovering is just bad UX and has not been and should not be normalized. Not to mention the print view.

With black links, there wouldn't be any problem with over-linking.

I don't understand this rationale at all. We should make it easy for readers to go places. "Solving" navigational issues by breaking navigation entirely is the "nuke the world and just die out" solution. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:28, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

"We are all so used to just "test clicking" on anything" --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:39, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Not an expert, but I believe there has to be some way to distinguish between links and plain text to meet accessibility standards (this is why link colors were lightened between Vector 2010 and Vector 2022 – to increase contrast between text colors). RunningTiger123 (talk) 14:11, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence of "We are all so used to just 'test clicking?'" I certainly do not do that and looking over peers shoulders, I don't think I've ever seen anyone do that, period. This is anecdote vs anecdote, but I feel that you're making an extraordinary claim. Most people don't click something unless there's something to differentiate it from surrounding text (or it's obviously part of a menu.) Nebman227 (talk) 14:23, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Ok, I was obviously unclear in calling it 'test clicking'. But say that you go on a news website like BBC or CNN, you see no links at all. On a computer the links will show up as underlined when you move your cursor over them, but not so on a phone. You just assume that the headlines are clickable and so you 'test click' on them, and that usually works. You are directed to the article you are looking for.

As for how having the second, third etc. links to the same article on a page turn black automatically, it would reduce the visual number of links, making the page easier to read. The links would be there, just not so much in your face. And if you happen to click on that word it will link as usual. Cart (talk) 15:04, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

True, but people know that headlines are clickable. People don't know in advance which words inside a chunk of text will be clickable. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:07, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Those headlines fall under Nebman227's point about "differentiate[d] from surrounding text (or it's obviously part of a menu)". Nobody just randomly clicks on words in the middle of an article.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:09, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Indeed the actual links in BBC and CNN articles are underlined see e.g. [4] and [5]. I'd note over linking is also likely to cause problems for touch screen users even worse if these links aren't obvious. Nil Einne (talk) 14:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

A setting to underline links could be helpful for visually impaired readers (assuming it is optional, in order not to add visual clutter to the default experience), although maybe that is already a thing? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:56, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

It is. Appearance->Advanced options->Underline links (dropdown) Aaron Liu (talk) 17:29, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh that's great, thanks! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:41, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Blue and purple links are a pretty standardized thing online and have been since the early days. I wouldn't be opposed to the option (more options is never a bad thing), but by default I think wikipedia should stick to common internet standards Mgjertson (talk) 16:02, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Since we all read Wikipedia in dark mode, black links would be invisible against the black background. I don't agree that this would increase readability.</sass> See also H:LC and MOS:COLOUR.

One of Wikipedia's foundational ideas is highlighting our intraconnectivity, and bluelinks are basically part of our brand identity (and jargon). I think many desktop browsers have options to use different colours and/or text-decorations for their default link presentation, so some readers can already configure this to their liking.

As to what looks good (even on one platform, let alone all platforms), this value cannot be reliably defined. And the following isn't really a counterargument, but I feel like Wikipedia is one of the only normal websites these days, most of the rest having degenerated into ads and widgets. Folly Mox (talk) 17:36, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

proposed template for justified criticism

Please share your thoughts on the draft of this template, which could be named {{Care}} or something else.

Arbabi second (talk) 19:41, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

I think that sort of thing is better conveyed with a personalised message rather than a template. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:55, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

That message is making a judgment about a user's internal state. We warn users when their conduct does not conform with policies and guidelines, and may sanction them when their behavior continues to not conform with policies and guidelines, but we should never be commenting on their intentions, beliefs, or other internal states. Donald Albury 22:10, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

@Donald Albury

I basically agree with your opinion, but" Discussion of behavior in an appropriate forum (e.g. user's talk page or Wikipedia noticeboard) does not in itself constitute a personal attack." Anyway, in practice, there are far more severe criticisms in messages between users, and a mild and humorous example might have a place to test. Arbabi second (talk) 22:24, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

There is a difference between discussing overt behavior and discussing internal intentions. We assume good faith, but we may sanction problematic behavior even if it may have been done in good faith. We don't know why an editor does something, we only know what they did. Telling someone that they don't care is not assuming good faith. I'm sorry to jump on you like this, but I think AGF is a very important principal to maintain. Donald Albury 23:15, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Personally I think it's better to focus on what behaviour is desired, rather than any internal motivation for someone exhibiting poor behaviour. For instance, it's helpful when commenters acknowledge the viewpoints of others to let them know that their points have been considered, even if the commenters disagree with the conclusions being drawn. isaacl (talk) 23:19, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

You think that the recipient doesn't care about other people's opinions, but you still expect this to accomplish anything? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:13, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

@Khajidha

Like many others, I often forget that there is another side to an argument, and now, in my old age, I have finally learned not to be offended by others' reminders and to try to listen to the other side. Arbabi second (talk) 22:41, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps your meaning would be closer to "You are very precise and fluent in explaining your points and opinions, but right now, I wish you were paying attention to my points and opinions." WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing

Your wording is definitely better than mine. It didn't occur to me. I will correct the message according to your guidance. Arbabi second (talk) 02:24, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

I modified the message text with the guidance of WhatamIdoing. Is this template now usable? Arbabi second (talk) 10:07, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

In my view, it would be better to demonstrate the desired behaviour by example first (or refer to where the desired behaviour has already been exhibited), and then ask for a response to your expressed viewpoints. By itself, just asking for attention can come across as being self-centred. isaacl (talk) 15:19, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Note by modifying your original post, you've made it difficult for new people joining the thread to understand the previous responses. Perhaps you can restore the original post, and post the modified message separately? isaacl (talk) 15:22, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

For posterity, the previous text was "You are very precise and fluent in explaining your points and opinions, but unfortunately you don't care much about the opinions of others." The current text is "You express your points and opinions very precisely and fluently, but at this moment, I wish you would pay more attention to mine." I personally find both examples to be rude, and the first one probably counts as a personal attack. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:37, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien

In my experience after several years on Wikipedia, it is rare for a user to personally attack others or to be offended by the normal, mild sarcasm of others. It is not unlikely that there are other intentions behind extreme actions and reactions. I invite you to read Wikipedia:"Breaching experiment" considered harmful to understand the complexity of behavioral issues. A template like this may be a useful tool for new users who have unknowingly been exposed to "Breaching experiment". Arbabi second (talk) 08:46, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

In my longer experience I have seen numerous people feel offended or even attacked by harmless phrases. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:23, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

@Khajidha You might be right. Arbabi second (talk) 05:27, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Creating a template named "Template:High view is predicted"

Hi, high view (jump in views) of an article on Wikipedia may be caused by different reasons:

1. TV and satellite
2. News web sites
3. Social media (e.g. Instagram)
4. Reaching a milestone (for example, birthday of a scientist)

and other reasons. So in my opinion, a jump in page views can be predicted by these causes in advance a couple of minutes/hours/days before.

So I propose to create a template named "Template:High view is predicted", to alarm editors to pay more attention to such articles in advance and try to improve its quality as much as they can, due to such predicted increase in page views. This template should have a category named "Category:Most predicted view articles" that shows all such articles in rush view at that time at a glance. Four possible arguments of this template are 1- The start time of view rush, 2- Duration of view rush 3-estimated views 4- Reason(s) of this high rush view.

Please discuss the idea. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 17:41, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't think enough people would notice a template / maintenance category for this to be helpful. Better to post at a non-dead relevant discussion page (for example, a WikiProject talk page). —Kusma (talk) 17:51, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Number four seems to be the only one in that list (I understand that the list is not exclusive) that is predictable a couple of days in advance. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:52, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, these changes (Instagram and Tv) impact page views very faster, may be the prediction is "they impact page views a couple of hours, minutes or seconds later". Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 18:04, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Awards where nominees are known in advance but winners will get lots of attention (say, Oscars) would also qualify I guess. —Kusma (talk) 17:56, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

For more sudden changes, we already have Template:Current. CMD (talk) 18:18, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

{{slashdotted}} ? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:14, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

@Xaosflux No, similar to Template:High traffic, but it predicts the future instead of past. For example after the release and success of the movie A Separation, on 15 February 2011, it could be predicted that a rush view can be seen for Asghar Farhadi and all its actors, beginning at 15 February at least on week later.

For today, I predict that the article named Learjet 55 would be on top view for tomorrow due to this news. The exact estimate depends on many factors but its about 20000. Let us see what happens. I propose to use this template:

{{High view is predicted|2/4/2025|2days|20000|a crashes happened}}

It contains rush time/rush duration/estimated views/rush reason. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 05:03, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

We can predict that views to the page will increase, but I don't think we can predict by how much and for how long, even to one significant figure. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:27, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Predicting article views by machine learning algorithms

@Phil Bridger: I think we can apply some machine-learning algorithms for predicting page views

1. Based on 1-concept 2-reasons 3-previous page views: train a model. This model can predict page views for each article on a given day.
2. Predict page views for the following days
3. If its prediction be somehow wrong, then we check the reasons given to it and if we are sure that all reasons was applied, the learned model is modified and improved automatically.

This "view prediction model" incorporates some features from Wikidata about the type of concept. For example Learjet 55 is an airplane and so on. I think we only need to give "reasons" to this model and get predicted view number from it. Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 10:44, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't think a template is the right way to alert editors, but maybe a new noticeboard. Some1 (talk) 05:25, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

A note at an existing noticeboard, or a village pump, would be more useful. A new noticeboard = a page few people are watching. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:55, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

The talk page for Wikipedia:WikiProject Current events would often be a good choice, I think. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:56, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

That model would very much need a way to retrieve and quantify information about current events, rather than manually inputting "reasons". Information retrieval is quite a wide field. Also, I don't think relying on discrete Wikidata encoding is the way to go – embedding the subject into a high-dimensional space feels like a more natural way to go at it. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:08, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Change Wikipedia themes using View > Page Style in Firefox

This would make it so logged out, or logged in users of Wikipedia could change the theme of Wikipedia by pressing Alt > View > Page Style and selecting from a drop down of available themes. This is a standard feature in HTML: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Alternative_style_sheets Northpark997 (talk) 19:27, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

This is not really what I would call a "standard feature" – it has been deprecated from several browsers (Chrome, Opera), and doesn't appear to have ever been implemented in other browsers, besides Firefox. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:35, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, I still think it would be a good idea as all it requires is adding a few more stylesheet tags Northpark997 (talk) 16:19, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

And a lot more support, as we already have a way to change themes and any implementation of alternative style sheets will have to be made to work in tandem with these themes. And that's not counting user CSS (which itself can vary across themes) and other potential issues, like having to memorize the theme when switching from one page to another. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:29, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who worked in technical IT from time immemorial until a bit before smartphones came into existence, I can say that even when I started out this would have been a bad idea, and it has got progrssively worse since then. The main reason is given by Chaotic Enby above. I happen to use Firefox on Linux, but what about the majority of users that use different browsers or apps? Phil Bridger (talk) 22:54, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I can't edit semi protected pages which can be edited by new users with more than 10 edits and also I can't create new pages on English Wikipedia

Hi Wikipedia users and admins! I have registered an account days ago and made some edits on Wikipedia. I want to ask you, can you remove the semi protected feature from the pages which can be edited from new users which have made more than 10 edits, in this case me, as I am unable to edit them for now. In addition, make possible to create new pages on English Wikipedia, as I have made more than 10 edits and new pages on English Wikipedia can be created by users who have made more than 10 edits. For now, I must create a new page on a draft. Please remove these limitations. Thanks EmanGero (talk) 20:20, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

@EmanGero: Your account is one day too young. (Autoconfirmed is 10 edits + 4 days of age.) —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 20:27, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Until you have some experience having drafts accepted, it's highly recommended that you use the submission process. 331dot (talk) 20:54, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Seconding this advice – that process is also there so that new users can gain some experience instead of directly jumping to creating an article in mainspace. Helps to have more experienced eyes on what you are doing the first few times. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:12, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

What do we want on the front page?

A recent RfC was closed with the suggestion that in six months an RfC be held on whether or not to abolish In The News. We could, of course, just abolish ITN without replacing it. However, I wonder if rather than asking "abolish ITN? yes/no" as the survey we might find consensus with "On the front page do we want a section for: In the news or X?" in a way that we wouldn't if we just discuss about abolishing ITN. Looking at some other projects things that I see on their front pages in roughly the place of ITN on ours are a featured image and information about how to participate. But I'm guessing there might be other ideas? And is this concept even a good one rather than the binary abolish/not? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:51, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I honestly think that we should revisit the two proposed amendments which were derailed by the added "abolish ITN" option. The close did find consensus against the nominated forms of the proposals though, so I'm not sure if re-asking these questions would be disruptive.

On replacing ITN, we could replace just the blurbs and the title with "Current events"—the newest blurb for each category, with 2 blurbs in a category if needed. (In practice, this will probably mean armed conflicts will have 2 blurbs most of the time and occasionally another category will have 2 blurbs.) Other possible replacements include a short introduction like simplewiki, a blurbed version of Wikipedia:Top 25 Report, {{tip of the day}}, a WikiProject spotlight, and perhaps the WP:Signpost headlines. Looking at all these, perhaps Current events is the only way we can preserve the innocent Current events portal and Recent deaths... Aaron Liu (talk) 23:20, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Or we could, I dunno, list recent deaths whenever "deaths in <year>" pops up under Top25. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:28, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

These suggests strike me as ways of "fixing" ITN (in quotes because I think some argue it doesn't need fixing?) rather than saying what is a different way we could use that mainpage space (which was my hope in this section). I found it interesting and not what I'd have initially thought that the closers felt abolishing was more likely to get consensus than some other form of fixing ITN as the two proposals that were on the table both had consensus against. I'm not sure what the value would be in revisiting either of those so soon. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:17, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I did talk about ways to replace the space in my second paragraph and beyond. What do you think of those?

I'm not sure what the value would be in revisiting either of those so soon.

There was a lack of discussion and engagement regarding the fixing proposals after option 3 was introduced. I have had quite a few counterarguments that weren't addressed by newer !votes repeating the previous arguments. Maybe we could just split the RfC into separate, isolated sections. We could also change the proposals to be alternate qualification routes inserted. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:31, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Anything featured on the main page needs to be representative of the quality of work that WP can produce, so a blind inclusion from something like Current Events is very much unlikely to always feature quality articles. — Masem (t) 05:04, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Makes sense. I guess that also eliminates the "Top 25 Report" option. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:38, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't agree that everything on the Main Page needs to be "representative of the quality of work that WP can produce", where what we "can" do means "the best we can do". I think we should emphasize timely and relevant articles even when they are underdeveloped. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

In the case of articles about current events, the quality seen on ITN postings often approximates the best that can be achieved. GA, let alone FA, requires a stable article and that is simply not possible when the thing we are writing about is not stable. Obviously not every ITN post is of the same quality, but then the existence of FAR shows that not every FA is of the same quality. Thryduulf (talk) 22:54, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

I've always liked the {{tip of the day}} concept, in order to get more of our readers to make the jump to editing. Otherwise, something as simple as moving WP:POTD up could be a "band-aid" solution, but I would certainly prefer trying something new rather than just shuffling our sections around. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:00, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

POTD needs more space than ITN has. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:27, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

• The main page juggles a lot of tasks, but they can be boiled down to editor retention, reader engagement, and editor recruitment. Most of the main page has long been about showing off our best or most interesting work (reader engagement), and giving a sort of reward to encourage editors (editor retention). Hitting the front page requires dedication, and also a little bit of luck, which really helps with gamification of our work--and that's a good thing! Knowing that I could get something I did on the front page was and remains a major motivation to contribute. I think DYK and FA are currently perfect. If we could come up with a new stream of quality content to hit the front page, that'd be awesome, but perhaps a bit pie in the sky. If we had to replace ITN with DYK, I wouldn't lose much sleep. If we replaced it with OTD, I would want to see the OTD process reformed to encourage higher quality entries. However, that brings up the last, perhaps less frequently considered point of the front page: editor recruitment. I'd be interested to see some data on how much new editor traffic is created from articles that hit the front page. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:17, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I'll add the suggestions I've raised previously:

• The best option in my opinion would be an "Intro to Wikipedia" box: a brief explanation of what anyone can edit means, some links to help with the basics of editing, and maybe a tip of the day as suggested by Chaotic Enby above. This might also subsume what currently exists as "Other areas of Wikipedia" toward the bottom of the main page. Editor recruitment is paramount, and something like this could help.
• We could feature more content with "Today's Good Articles". This would function similarly to TFA, but instead of a full paragraph it would be a bulleted list of ~6 GAs and their short descriptions. We have over 40,000 GAs, so just those alone give us enough material for 20 years, let alone everything promoted in that time.
• We could add a portal hub with icons that link to the main portals. I'm a little more hesitant about this one given the track record for portals, but I have a hunch that they'd be more useful if we gave them front-and-center attention. The current events portal has a subtle link to it on ITN, and it gets a ridiculous number of page views. There's been talk of Wikipedia's identity in the AI age, and a renewed focus on browsing could be part of that.
• We could have a display for recently updated articles. This is cheating a little since it's kind of an ITN reform, but a brief list of high quality previously-existing articles that have received substantial updates based on new sources would be more useful than a list of news articles.

Even if there's no consensus to replace ITN, I strongly believe Wikipedia would benefit if we added one or more of these somewhere on the main page. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:35, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

The display for recently updated articles is what DYK is supposed to be, right? CapitalSasha ~ talk 17:46, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

That's more for new content, such as newly created pages or stubs that got expanded. I'm picturing already-written articles that get large additions based on new developments. It's at the bottom of my list for a reason though, these are in the order of how viable or useful I think they are. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:50, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm partial to the Today's Good Articles box, since I think GAs don't get enough love. Although of course a GA promotion is a DYK qualifying event, so there is some overlap. With the downfall of featured portals, I don't think portals are exactly what we want to be showing off. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:03, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I'd support replacing ITN with either DYK or Today's Good Articles. SilverTiger12 (talk) 18:08, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Another idea would be a “Can you help improve these articles?” Section… each week we nominate a few underdeveloped articles and highlight them for improvement by the community. Not a replacement for draftspace or New Article patrol … for articles after that. Blueboar (talk) 18:40, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Asking unacquainted readership to make substantial improvements is a bad idea. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:44, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

The goal would be to highlight articles for the benefit of experienced editors who are acquainted with the topics, but may not know that a particular article (within their field of expertise) needs work. Blueboar (talk) 02:17, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

This sounds like WikiProject article improvement drives. Thryduulf (talk) 02:50, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately, most of our wikiprojects are moribund. Most no longer do article improvement drives. So why not shift that concept to the main page? Blueboar (talk) 12:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

This section header asks "what do we want on the front page", but "we" do not include casual readers or non-editors. Would they really want us to replace ITN with a boring "Please help out with these articles" type of box? Besides, when new people sign up to edit Wikipedia, I believe there's a feature already recommending them articles that need improvement, see Newcomer tasks. Some1 (talk) 12:13, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree that we should be taking the desires of non-editing readers into account. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

The main page does not filter out non-experienced editors. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:39, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

It could; we can selectively hide any content from logged-out editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Then what should we display for logged-out editors? Aaron Liu (talk) 02:29, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

I assume that the logged-out editors would like to see Wikipedia:In the news, but if we don't want to have that, then we could leave it blank. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:46, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

As we discussed last year, Wikipedia:Articles for improvement used to have a section on the main page, but it was removed after its trial was considered unsuccessful, as there were few new editors making edits to the highlighted articles. I suggest working with that WikiProject on the feasibility and potential cost/benefit ratio of having a corresponding section on the main page. It could also be something to consider for user home pages, which has a specific intent of suggesting tasks for new users. isaacl (talk) 04:48, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Could we do GAs but on a certain topic, using WikiProjects? So for instance if you get 3 GA articles (or another number) tagged for WP:Literature, it gets added to the queue for the main page much like with DYK. If the article has multiple tags, nominator of the GA chooses which WikiProject they want it to be part of. A big benefit of this is that it could revive interest in WikiProjects and give people a common mission that isn’t just vaguely improving Wikipedia’s coverage. Perhaps the display would have the topic at the top, which would link to the WikiProject, and then the three or so articles below maybe with excerpts. Basically something that fostered collaboration, improved collegiality etc. Kowal2701 (talk) 19:51, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

There are good topics. That's an intriguing concept for me. Between good topics and featured topics there are just under 700 potential topics. That's close to two years of topics to rotate through and if we put it on the front page I can't help but think we'd get more of these made. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:18, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

I also like that idea! A neat way to emphasize good articles without it being either DYK or "today's good article". Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:29, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

We might have 365 days x 20 years of GAs listed at the moment, but if we don't resolve the fundamental disagreement about whether the Main Page can offer links to imperfect content, then we're just replacing "Get rid of ITN because it has so many WP:ERRORS" with "Get rid of GA because it has so many WP:ERRORS".

One of the things that seems to surprise folks is that GA is literally one person's opinion. There's a list of criteria, and one single, solitary editor unilaterally decides whether the article meets with the listed criteria. The most important criteria are largely subjective (e.g., "well written") and therefore something editors can and do disagree about. Most reviewers aren't especially knowledgeable about the subject matter, and therefore they will not notice some errors or omissions. In other words, while GAs are generally decent articles, a critical eye can and will find many things to complain about.

IMO people either need to decide that imperfect content is permissible on the Main Page (and thus quit complaining about how other people have sullied the perfection and ruined our reputation), or that imperfect content is not permissible (and thus get rid of everything except featured content). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:27, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure where the WP:ERRORS thing is coming from, because that's not at all why there's such widespread dissatisfaction with ITN. You're also saying that a system that promotes GAs to the main page wouldn't work despite DYK doing exactly that for years. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:57, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

One of the persistent complaints about ITN is that the articles aren't Wikipedia's finest quality. This complaint is also leveled against DYK entries, sometimes including GAs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:21, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Not sure where GAs come in in all of this. If anything, GA quality is the least controversial thing about DYK, with complaints usually centering around misleading blurbs or recently created articles of mediocre quality.

Our threshold for ITN/DYKNEW quality is way lower than GA, and it doesn't really follow that GAs would have the same quality issues. Lumping GAs alongside ITN/DYK issues as "imperfect content on the Main Page" is oversimplifying the situation. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:24, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

WAID is correct in saying that with GAs, "one single, solitary editor unilaterally decides whether the article meets with the listed criteria" (see Talk:I-No/GA1 for example). The quality of GAs are subjective, the same way the quality of ITN/DYK, etc. articles are. Some1 (talk) 12:21, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

One of the persistent complaints about ITN is that the articles aren't Wikipedia's finest quality: I don't think many are expecting finest. Are there example threads? ITN is already an editing drive of sorts to meet WP:ITNQUALITY. —Bagumba (talk) 08:39, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

A few people[6][7] who supported the "abolishment" of ITN at the RfC argued that the main page should only feature "high quality" content. Some1 (talk) 12:41, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Much less. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:47, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

• However, I wonder if rather than asking "abolish ITN? yes/no" as the survey we might find consensus with "On the front page do we want a section for: In the news or X?" Why ITN vs [X]? What if editors want to keep ITN and replace another section on the main page such as DYK with something else? Any future RfCs regarding the potential removal of ITN from the MP should initially and explicitly ask whether editors want ITN removed or not (a "binary abolish/not?" sort of question).
  We could also go the more general, less ITN-focused route and ask the question you just asked in the heading: "What do we want on the front page?" and in that RfC, provide multiple options, such as ITN, DYK, OTD, TFA, [and any new ideas that people have]; then have the community choose their favorites or rank the choices. Some1 (talk) 00:44, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• I like both the "learn to edit" and "good topics", but given the appalling deficit of editor recruitment on the main page, the former is my decided preference. Cremastra (talk) 00:39, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• If we are going to remove it we shouldn’t replace it with anything, there isn’t anything else that won’t have just as many problems as ITN. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  A static box as an introduction to editing? Aaron Liu (talk) 12:50, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  I am very opposed to that idea. It's just not main page type content. No matter what we put on the main page it should be showing stuff, not begging/pleading for more editors. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:17, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  Why not a simple explanation of the pillars? I could say it features some of our best projectspace work. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:26, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  How exactly then are we supposed to continue to attract new editors? Cremastra (talk) 20:46, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  In my opinion, part of this exercise should be reconsidering what "main page type content" actually means. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:14, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

• I looked at page views being driven by the Main Page, using the list of recent deaths from mid-December (the latest data in Wikinav). https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=John_Fraser_Hart is a typical example. Most of the page views for that article came from the link on the Main Page. This makes me wonder whether the question about "What do we want on the front page?" should be interpreted as "What 'categories' or 'departments' do we want?" (e.g., a box dedicated to WP:GAs) vs "What purposes do we believe the Main Page should serve?" (e.g., helping readers find the articles they want to read). I think that ultimately, no amount of rearranging the deck chairs is going to solve the fundamental problem, which is that we need the community to decide whether the Main Page is only for WP:PERFECT content, or whether the Main Page is for WP:IMPERFECT content, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:15, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  One of the more common positives of Wikipedia that RSs bring up is the speed and neutrality with which it covers even contentious current events topics. I would say that ITN does reflect the best of Wikipedia in a sense, even if the exact process needs revamping. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:36, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  I agree, and apparently our readers agree, too. Current events are one of the places where we shine – some of "the best", just not always "the most polished". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:51, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

  It's not "Perfect", it's "quality enough". Very few people !voted option 3 due to perceived quality issues. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:30, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

• This is not meant as an idea to replace ITN, but the top box on the main page is extremely sparse compared to any other Wikimedia project page. The top box should serve better as a welcome box to WP for any incoming link so should feature a search bar, links to the key pages about how to contribute to WP, and other similar links. The closest info for that is buried near the bottom of the current main page. --Masem (t) 05:18, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

  The search bar is at the top of the page. I do think it would be helpful to add at least a more explicit sign-up link or something. We already advertise that anyone can edit, which is sort of an WP:EASTEREGG link to an introduction page, and the number of editors. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 06:41, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

An Android app screenshot from 2023

• The Featured Picture would be a natural replacement for the ITN top right slot on the desktop view. Having a prominent picture at top right is our standard look and the featured picture is a logical complement to the featured article.

Otherwise, to see other existing possibilities then try using one of the Official apps. The Android app provides the following sections:

1. Featured article
2. Top read (daily most-viewed articles)
3. Places (nearby articles based on the current location)
4. Picture of the Day (from Commons)
5. Because you read (suggestions based on a recently read article from your history)
6. In the news
7. On this day
8. Randomizer (a random article with some filtering for quality)
9. Suggested edits (suggestions to add content to Wikipedia)

And what's nice is that you can turn these sections on or off in your settings to customize the feed.

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:56, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

• I'm probably biased an as involved party at ITN, but I really don't think doing away with ITN is a worthwhile idea. As much as it has it's issues, I don't think we have proof that non-editor readers (aka the majority of readers) are displeased with ITN. Understanding that getting sentiment of non-editor readers is hard (see the discussion on Vector 2022), I feel like we should try and find out more about what the larger readerbase thinks before doing anything drastic with ITN. For what it's worth, I'm not moved by many of the replacement proposals. I think having a box directly about active goings on in the world is a useful and interesting feature for the main page, which contrasts with how the other three top boxes work. I interact a lot more with ITN's hooks than any others on the Main Page. DarkSide830 (talk) 18:01, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

  ITN doesn't show the active goings on in the world in a fair way. It provides a slanted overview based on the (often death-obsessed) fascinations of editors who camp out there. This does a disservice to readers if not outright misleads them. This is why people who write content on Wikipedia apply policies on original research and balanced proportions. We follow the lead of reliable secondary sources instead of holding our judgement above them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:20, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

  I'm not convinced that your assertions are true, but "original research" is irrelevant (ITN is a navigational element, not an encyclopedia article) and if you wanted to apply the concept of "balanced proportions", it would be judged against today's headlines, not against secondary sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

  And these are inherent problems with ITN and the reason why it's broken at a fundamental level. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:05, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

  To be fair, nothing on Wikipedia is perfect, including our own policies and guidelines. Getting rid of ITN because of perceived problems feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If you have ideas for improving ITN, you can always suggest them at Wikipedia talk:In the news. Some1 (talk) 04:07, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

  That was the RfC. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:12, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

  See, that's where the two of us just disagree. I'm not entirely favorable to current posting policy, but I really don't believe it's as substantial a problem as you do. DarkSide830 (talk) 17:17, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

  @DarkSide830, I think you're right that it's hard for editors to get information about non-editors. If we wanted some proper user research, we could talk to the WMF about having their UX researchers do this. It's February, which means now's time to make requests for their next fiscal year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:55, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

  Would you know if they've ever done a click-tracking test on the Main Page? I suspect that data could help. DarkSide830 (talk) 17:16, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

  https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Main_Page should have some of the data from the last two months, but it's just giving me errors at the moment (@MGerlach (WMF), does something need to be restarted somewhere?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:50, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

• Whatever we may end up doing, I just propose that the replacement for ITN (1) is dynamic and (2) is not more DYK. Per above, the same quality arguments against ITN can be applied to DYK for non-GA noms. But more importantly I just think that the replacement needs to be a dynamic module that changes daily to keep readers engaged. Most of the proposals so far have satisficed that aside from the "introduction to editing" and "portals" idea. ✈ mike_gigs ^talk_contribs 19:52, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

  The "introduction to editing" idea could be dynamic if it's something like {{Tip of the day}} that gives a new piece of advice daily! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:33, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

  Well I suppose I stand corrected! ✈ mike_gigs ^talk_contribs 20:50, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

  But more importantly I just think that the replacement needs to be a dynamic module that changes daily to keep readers engaged: There's nothing inherent at WP:ITN that mandates that the content cannot change more frequently. New people can begin participating at ITN to help make it happen, countering current regulars that value significance more. —Bagumba (talk) 08:52, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

  Mike was not arguing against ITN. This is just a topic to brainstorm ideas. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:13, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

  That is correct. Full disclosure: I am for keeping ITN. But if it is going to go away I'd like to give my opinion on a successor earlier than later. ✈ mike_gigs ^talk_contribs 13:47, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Front‽ Hah! Neither Google nor Bing, nor anyone pointing to Wikipedia for some reason, have taken me anywhere near it in decades. And none of the people who print Wikipedia into books and YouTube videos ever include it.

Whatever you do to it, though, it's probably best not to replace it with things from Project:Community portal, which is there for the potential editors in project space as opposed to the potential readers in article space. Whereever one may go when it comes to the content quality rules, the "main page" being article content as opposed to project content still remains as a distinction.

Unless you want to take the drastic step, which some wikis (e.g. German, Spanish, and Polish Wikipedias — de:Project:Hauptseite, es:Project:Portada, pl:Project:Strona główna) do take, which is to set the MediaWiki:Mainpage as somewhere outwith article space (vide de:MediaWiki:Mainpage). But then MediaWiki still has a distinct page (set at MediaWiki:Portal-url) for the "community" rather than for the readership.

Uncle G (talk) 07:28, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

There's quite a bit of users who commented in the ITN RfC that they found the box useful, so they must have checked the main page somewhat frequently.

Main Page is in the article namespace solely because of inertia (from having too many links to it and stuff) and not because it's article content. And the Community portal only links to community forums, which is not what the "introduction to editing" suggestion entails. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:23, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the main page is checked quite frequently. It was the most viewed page in January actually - and had over 4.9 million views yesterday alone… ✈ mike_gigs ^talk_contribs 21:45, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

ADD translate.google.com into wikipedia

Having a feature like translate.google.com integrated into Wikipedia could provide users with audio pronunciations and translations directly within articles, enhancing accessibility and language learning. Thanks deo! 2A06:5900:42A:F000:F05B:AF:54A7:FBB4 (talk) 15:09, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Fairly sure there's already a browser extension for that. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:30, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Also, not sure if either the Wikipedia community or the WMF would be okay with adding a non-transparent, non-open source commercial feature on the website like this. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:12, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Unless things have massively changed over there, WMF would certainly be against it. I think most of us here would be against it as anything other than an optional user script people could install too (I know I would). Anomie⚔ 00:55, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

I also would be against it, for that matter – not a great plan for a free encyclopedia to be dependent on commercial software for some features. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:03, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

many mainstream browsers nowadays have this integrated natively into the software, ie Chrome would use Google Translate if the user right clicks to open the context options menu and then selects Translate this page. – robertsky (talk) 03:46, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

no, integrating a proprietary, closed source, often wrong service into Wikipedia runs contrary to its purpose Mgjertson (talk) 16:54, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, I'm sorry to hear that people dislike this idea, because the community wrote a gadget for that years ago. It's in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets-gadget-section-browsing, third item. I don't recommend it because of phab:T156228 and phab:T65598. Also, as Robert and others point out, your web browser probably has that option for you anyway. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, the second phab ticket with respect to the Google-related privacy issues is what's especially concerning for me. While a minor shift key bug isn't a big deal, a potential breach of privacy by a private company's API is exactly what I would've expected from using proprietary software in our gadgets, and, well, I've made my opinion on it pretty clear already. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 01:26, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Account deletion proposal

I know that it is not possible to delete user accounts on Wikipedia. I was wondering if there could be a possibility of if an account is deleted, that there could be a placeholder that would look something like this: [deleted] The edit would remain there, but it would indicate that it was made by a deleted account. Hope to get some ideas. Interstellarity (talk) 16:16, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Courtesy vanishing for how an account can be renamed to an anonymous string. isaacl (talk) 16:27, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Edits legally must be attributable to someone. The best that can be done is a vanishing as isaccl describes. Identifying an edit as by "deleted" would be insufficient. 331dot (talk) 16:38, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Now I'm curious, would there be a way to legally cede the copyright of your edits to the WMF or the community at large when vanishing? Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:55, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Under Creative Commons, it would be CC0. Otherwise, it would be a Terms of Service thing whereby the registered user explicitly assign the copyright ownership of their contributions to WMF or the community (the latter would be a headache if there's a legal issue as the community isn't a legal body per se), and then WMF/community rededicates the contributions accordingly. I can imagine pushbacks if done so this way. – robertsky (talk) 01:27, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

You can never revoke your CCBYSA/GFDL license, but you can declare an additional CC0 license. Procedurally this would have many issues such as: (a) you make a derivative version of an existing article, even declaring CC0 right then, (b) someone else makes a future derivative. Well you can't relicense the edits before you, and the future edits are still going to not be in CC0 so it's not very useful for those wanting to reuse the page again in the future. One place something like that would likely have the most use would be if you upload original media and would like to add additional free-er licenses later. A utility to help with that might be useful, and discussing that idea over at commonswiki is probably the best venue. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:50, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

More generally, copyrights can be assigned, through contracts, your will, etc. However, I'm not sure whether the WMF would appreciate having someone unilaterally assign their copyrights to the WMF ("Hi Legal, so User:Example died, and left the copyright to all their edits to the foundation, so I have some papers for you...". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:09, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

I guess attribution is always maintained in the sense that actor.actor_id and user.user_id are retained in the database regardless of changes to the user_name. But user names must be unique, so I guess any kind of non-unique placeholder like [deleted] would have to happen outside the database. I'm not sure how it would be better than the current vanisheduser_somenumber or whatever it is now. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:04, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Random article button for specific wikiproject proposal

Would be really nice if individual wikiprojects had their own random article button purely for articles under the scope of that wikiproject.

It would also help out stuff like random page patrol, as most users are more knowledgeable than others. I see that the featured article page already has a similar function, so would be great if we did this also to wikiprojects. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 09:19, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

This can be achieved with Special:RandomInCategory (for instance, Special:RandomInCategory/WikiProject Dinosaurs articles gives you a random dinosaur or dinosaur-related topic), and it could definitely be great to have that link available directly on WikiProject pages. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 10:08, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! Thehistorianisaac (talk) 10:19, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

A new hidden category for articles using raw HTML for built-in MediaWiki features

For example, what will be in this category - an article using <i>...</i> for italic text instead of ''...'', or an article using <h2>...</h2> for lv. 2 header instead of ==...==. This will be useful to replace raw HTML with proper wikitext. 5.228.112.228 (talk) 22:27, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Probably need to exclude div and span tags from this, those are everywhere. Also probably exclude anywhere with user signatures (talk pages, etc). Gnomingstuff (talk) 23:36, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

category for articles. 5.228.112.228 (talk) 09:05, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia. It's already being handled. If you're interested in helping out, create a free account (only a username and password is needed; e-mail is optional) and join in. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:00, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Age in days

How about adding whatever script would be required to include a person's age measured in days along with their approximate age in years among their personal details? Peter Jedicke (talk) 11:44, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not too sure how useful this would be, as well as how acceptable under WP:BLP, but we do have the template {{age in days}}. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:34, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

I mean, we could, but I don't see the point of this. Learning that someone is 3017 days old is honestly useless. There may be extremely select circumstances when this is needed, but that's no reason to include it. Cremastra (talk) 20:52, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Why would someone need a person's age in days? 5.228.112.228 (talk) 22:32, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Yeah lol. Your age in days becomes useless information after you are 1 month old. And besides, it would have to be updated daily, which is time consuming manually and resource intensive automatically. Gallus lafayettii (talk) 23:53, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Honestly, I think this should be implemented as a joke every April fools day as "age in days as of April 1st." Gallus lafayettii (talk) 23:57, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Geography, countries, image switcher : design improvement

Hello, I have recently noticed that, plenty countries have only the ortographic projection as geography representation, I would just like to know if, it is necessary to add a second picture (ONLY FOR COUNTRIES WHICH DOES NOT HAVE AN IMAGE SWITCHER; like the majority of American, Asian and Oceanian countries). On the Indonesian version, an image switcher is present to the majority of the countries, it have the map of the country with the flag in it and it is presented like this (Kirgizstan actual article in Indonesian Language, to see the improvement of the geography representation, go on the second option of the image switcher to see the map.)). Please take time and feel free to answer me, if you want to go deeper with the subject, go on my talk page. Thanks. QwertyZ34 (talk) 19:58, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Does this mean:

• Some articles currently have only one image in the infobox. For example, Kyrgyzstan currently has only File:Kyrgyzstan (orthographic projection).svg
• At some other Wikipedia, the infobox contains two or more images. For example, at idwiki, the infobox for that country contains the above map plus also File:Kyrgyzstan stub.svg.

If so, it's already here. For example, Mexico contains both File:MEX orthographic.svg and File:Mexico states map w names.png. United Kingdom lets you switch between four maps. It is not used in all articles. This is probably because nobody bothered. You could WP:Be bold and add suitable maps where they are missing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

The linked id.wiki page switches to a flag map, these are not hugely encyclopaedic or helpful to a reader, and we should not boldly copy that. CMD (talk) 04:10, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I know, I rather prefer to add a map of the country with the largest cities, than this. Please tell me if it is necessary or not, to add it. QwertyZ34 (talk) 15:32, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's why I want to add a second image in the infobox, like a map of Kyrgyzstan with its largest cities, it will be for sure better for the reader, and also more encyclopaediv, in the term of imformation. QwertyZ34 (talk) 15:34, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

You can add any second image you want. If someone disagrees, they'll revert it or change it to an image that they think is better. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

And if you still think that your images are better, you can talk about it on the article talk page. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:15, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the information QwertyZ34 (talk) 22:20, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the imformation. QwertyZ34 (talk) 22:20, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Would a filter to identify changes from "transgender" to man, boy, girl, female, woman be appropriate

I'm seeing editors make such changes, presumably related to the Trump's making official there are only two choices, male or female. Doug Weller talk 12:19, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Might not be a bad idea. A lot of that may start to happen in relatively unventilated corners (i.e., little-watched BLPs), and a filter could, in the first place, be helpful to figure out whether it is going to be a problem. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 12:40, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Maybe, provide some diffs as examples so we can evaluate from a technical perspective. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:58, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I only have one right now.[8] Doug Weller talk 13:44, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Notifying WP:EFR of this. Also agree with the proposal, presuming it's only logging rather than completely disallowing. The amount of false positives might be pretty high, so it's best that humans take a second look at them. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 14:46, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I would hope that most filters, apart from ones that deal with an urgent problem, start life by only logging, so we can get a better idea of how prevalent the problem is, how many false positives are thrown up etc. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:13, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh definitely, and I'd also be interested in seeing the editors. Doug Weller talk 15:15, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Is there an actual problem that needs fixing, or just the chance that there may be a problem some day? So far, it seems just the standard levels of vandalism. Cambalachero (talk) 15:20, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I think it's a real problem - part of the problem that certain Wikipedia editors feel emboldened towards particular kinds of disruption by the current power shift in the US. Here's an example, with a specific reference to "the government" having ruled that trans women are men. Bishonen | tålk 15:35, 9 February 2025 (UTC).

So? Did that user edit articles in a way that this proposed filter would catch? All I see in that link is a user explaining his view over the way the article is written. And citing big proponents of a given idea (such as the government of the US) is a way to show the weight of that idea. Cambalachero (talk) 01:43, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have given the actual diff rather than assume it would be easy to find from the conversation I linked. Here it is. Bishonen | tålk 02:23, 10 February 2025 (UTC).

I think Special:AbuseFilter/1200 tries to catch some versions of this, but limited only to BLP articles. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 20:26, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

• What I would filter for is something along the lines of... changes from one gendered word to another (pronoun or gender-identifier), especially on articles categorized as trans-related in some way, and particularly on biography articles for trans individuals. Some false positives are inevitable and there's no way to catch everything, but it could probably get the number flagged for review down to a reasonable number and could catch a lot of the blatant "someone sweeps in and changes pronouns throughout the article" stuff. --Aquillion (talk) 20:35, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  Even "someone sweeps in and changes pronouns throughout the article" is occasionally going to be correct, such as when some notable person first publicly comes out as transgender, so human review will always be needed. However flagging them so that humans know there is a need for review seems like a very sensible idea. Thryduulf (talk) 23:56, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

  Special:AbuseFilter/1200 covers most of what you mention (it flags people changing a bunch of pronouns on a trans person's page), but if people want more filters like that, diffs are useful - generally it is hard to create a useful filter without a few diffs which help to figure out patterns that can be filtered for. Galobtter (talk) 01:49, 10 February 2025 (UTC)