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Considering the amount of pageviews this page gets, I just don't see the value in keeping this page. When looking at the page, it disappoints me that while it does cover most types of articles, it doesn't cover biographies pretty well. Biographies make up a huge portion of our Wikipedia pages, so unless the page is improved to include them, I think it would better to just remove the link. Interstellarity (talk) 12:28, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support improving the page, would not support removing it. Different people use the different ways to navigate the encyclopedia and its not causing harm. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 22:21, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The standard for appearing in the sidebar is much higher than "not causing harm." If it's not pulling its weight, it should be removed. SnowFire (talk) 15:53, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The number of views is about 3800/day, essentially all of them from desktop, almost none from mobile. WP:Contents and its subpages are an attempt at providing alternative ways to discovering Wikipedia content (not through direct search), a time-honoured traditional approach. I am not sure it is working well for many people and I do not know how well-maintained it is, but if there is no link to this from sidebar or at least the Main Page, it won't work at all. —Kusma (talk) 16:11, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Contents is indirectly linked on the Main Page, via Contents/Portals. Maybe replace that with a straight link to Contents? Dege31 (talk) 17:30, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What would be the benefit of the removal? Dege31 (talk) 17:11, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
De-cluttering sidebars/menus generally has one underlying goal: to quit 'distracting' people with something that's not useful/helpful, so that they will be more likely to find/click on something that is useful/helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:10, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support removing the page, as it does not help navigation, nor does it make sense to have 7 million articles condensed into a scrappy and incomplete list in the sidebar. Portals probably do a better job. Pksois23 (talk) 07:31, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just to check, the sidebar and its links are only relevant for logged in users right? Taking action/no action would not affect most readers, so the links are mostly there for newer editors (or to try and beguile readers creating accounts into becoming editors)? CMD (talk) 07:53, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sidebar is visible for everyone logged in or not Pksois23 (talk) 10:23, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Where? When I look at Henry de Hinuber logged in, I see the "Main menu" on the left side above "Contents". When I look at it logged out, I see only "Contents". CMD (talk) 10:47, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not the contents of the page, it's the the Contents link under the Main menu menu below Main Page, that links to Wikipedia:Contents. Also whether the main menu displays in the sidebar is a setting you can turn on/off. Pksois23 (talk) 11:08, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, there is no Main menu when I am logged out. I don't think logged out users can turn settings on and off. CMD (talk) 12:38, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's hidden as the three bars left of the Wikipedia logo in the top left. When you click it it should have an option that says move to sidebar. At least on vector 22 it's like this Pksois23 (talk) 12:45, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah thanks, how fascinatingly unintuitive. CMD (talk) 12:47, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: Adding featured and good content status to the tagline

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Should the site tagline display featured and good content status in the following style?

London Beer Flood
A featured article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of English words containing Q not followed by U
A featured list from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archaeological interest of Pedra da Gávea
A good article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
All horses are the same color
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 19:33, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Background (tagline)

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Apologies for the long text to follow but I think a detailed RFCBEFORE and implementation is necessary for such a highly-visible proposal.

There's been perennial proposals for increasing the visibility of page status, with a fair amount of assent but no proposed directions. Many editors in prior discussions have felt the topicon is too small a notice that doesn't accurately reflect the amount of work put into raising articles to featured status. Other editors think the topicons are opaque to readers, and feel that more prominence will draw editors to these backend projects.

In this most recent discussion at the Idea Lab, I proposed using the tagline-modifying style of the metadata gadget which got some assent. Aaron Liu, WhatamIdoing, and Novem Linguae were helpful in pointing me toward Lua modules and how taglines are built into the software. While it wasn't feasible then, the recent implementation of phabricator:T380122 and addition of "Project-independent assessment" to the banner shell allows us to directly get FA/FL/GA status using Lua. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 19:33, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Implementation (tagline)

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I've developed Module:Page assessment raw, a simplified version of Module:Page assessment that uses the newest features in the MediaWiki pageAssessments extension. I wanted to have a duplicate module to reduce the expensive function count (since this will be on every page) and to allow full- or template-protecting the module (for the same reason).

I think the most efficient way to implement this proposal is to fully replace the page MediaWiki:Tagline with a switch-case function to change the tagline based on the output of the Lua module: 

{{#switch:{{#invoke:Page assessment raw|get_class|page={{FULLPAGENAME}}|project=Project-independent assessment}}
 | FA = A ''[[Wikipedia:Featured articles (linked from tagline)|featured article]]'' from
 | FL = A ''[[Wikipedia:Featured lists (linked from tagline)|featured list]]'' from
 | GA = A ''[[Wikipedia:Good articles (linked from tagline)|good article]]'' from
 | From
}} Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This example code also uses statistical redirects (suffixed with "linked from tagline") in the same manner as Elli's additions to the current topicons. This allows us to get a good view of how often readers click on these new taglines, and determine whether they're a useful addition to the project. In the month of June, about a third of visitors came to the featured articles page through the topicon. With these new statistical redirects, we can see how many use the tagline. Of course, if this passes, an admin should fully-protect these three redirects. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 19:33, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (tagline)

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Notified: Wikipedia talk:Featured articles, Wikipedia talk:Featured lists, Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations, MediaWiki talk:Tagline. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 20:00, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as proposer. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 19:33, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support a small change (probably smaller than people expect, considering the banner blindness phenomenon) which could nevertheless increase new editor attraction from people curious enough to click the link. I don't really see any downsides. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:19, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Good articles being invisible on mobile – 65% of our readers – doesn't make sense. Bringing us to some parity with the web version communicates to readers that some verification and vetting effort has been made, especially with the recently increased level of scrutiny required by GAs (and much-discussed at WT:GAN. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 20:23, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This sadly won't affect mobile users as the tagline does not appear in Minerva. It would be a good impetus for bugging WMF over at Phabricator to show the tagline though. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 20:33, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Dan Leonard: Thanks for telling me that, although it is disappointing. I assume this affects web Minerva, too? If so, do we have any statistics on how many users aren't using Minerva at this point? I'd assume the number is relatively low, and largely our most engaged user base. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 22:31, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know where to find skin usage statistics. OVasileva (WMF) made a couple pie charts at commons:Category:MediaWiki skin statistics, but they're of editors, not readers, and don't have details on where the source data is from. It does seem like there's an open task for the tagline to be shown at phabricator:T349117. Presumably if this RFC passes it can also be seen as a request from the English Wikipedia community to finish that request. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 22:40, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As someone who edits exclusively from mobile, I support adding the tagline to the mobile skin. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:26, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Wow, I have to commend you on your dedication to the project if you do it entirely on mobile. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 21:19, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This seems like a different problem - wouldn't adding GA indicators in Minerva solve this? — xaosflux Talk 12:33, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Other respondents mentioned here that mobile topicons don't seem to have any progress and community work on adding a mobile tagline would probably be easier than adding a mobile topicon, not to mention the engineering needed to have parity with tooltips on mobile. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:18, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support a minor change but a positive one. Anything that (1) raises awareness of our quality content and (2) might conceivably encourage readers to contribute is a good thing. Cremastra (talk) 20:48, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support taglines are harder to miss, so this does seem like an improvement. Would this also remove the topicons, or would a highlighted article end up displaying both? Paprikaiser (talk) 20:51, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it's worth keeping both, at least for a trial period, to compare clickthrough rates. But maybe I'm just too addicted to pageview stats. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 21:00, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    For the record, I support keeping both. Topicons are cute. Paprikaiser (talk) 21:09, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per Airship, though I think the current wording is needlessly verbose. I feel it could be more impactful if it said something like "A featured article, meaning it represents the best Wikipedia has to offer" IAWW (talk) 20:55, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @It is a wonderful world I'm not sure I understand you. If you think the suggested wording is too verbose, why are you proposing a longer version? Cremastra (talk) 21:07, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, verbose wasn't a good word. I mean the current wording doesn't make the best use of space. Adding "from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" is pointless, because the reader obviously already knows this. Those words could be replaced with something different that the reader doesn't already know, like what a "featured article" is. IAWW (talk) 21:23, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The tagline "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" has been stable for a while after many thorny discussions, so I think replacing the language wholesale would be much more controversial than just squeezing in "a featured article". See the many subheadings of MediaWiki talk:Tagline/Archive 1 § "that anyone can edit". Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 21:33, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree it would probably be tough to reach consensus and it should be a separate proposal to this. IAWW (talk) 22:43, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support As a drafter of a similar RfC that failed to reach consensus, I assume my !vote is no surprise... Dege31 (talk) 20:58, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, I thought my RFCBEFORE was complete. Thanks, I've added your discussion to the above list. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 21:16, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I think this is a better way to make the good and featured stand out. If this proposal passes, I recommend removing the topicons. I would also like to implement this change to all the vital articles as well. For example, George Washington would say A level 3 vital and featured article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia while an article that is neither good nor featured, but vital like Christianity would say A level 3 vital article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Interstellarity (talk) 21:07, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure removing the topicons is necessarily a good plan, since many eyes will skip over the tagline entirely. Cremastra (talk) 21:08, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Vital article status uses a very different method of data management so would require a different solution. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 21:18, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That can be something we can discuss here or maybe the vital article talk page to figure out what level of organization is best. I'll leave a note on the talk page to get opinions on what method is best. Interstellarity (talk) 21:33, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Vital article status seems less important, as not only is it less transparent to readers ("is level 1 vital the least or most important?"), but also only relates to the topic itself rather than the quality of the article they are reading. Knowing that what you are reading has been through a formal review process is great to gauge the level of trust you want to give to the article, knowing that the subject has been assessed to be important, less so. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:48, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Beyond the technical limitation raised by Dan, Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Archive 25#Proposal for a VA "top icon" rejected a far smaller top icon for vital articles on the basis that unlike article quality, "vital" describes the subject itself which has little use to the reader already here to learn about it. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 22:49, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose. Current system seems fine. Interestingly, neither icons nor tagline work on mobile web. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Phallological_Museum?useskin=minerva –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:12, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    At phabricator:T75299, JScherer-WMF explained the current roadblock in showing topicons in Minerva:

    For example, a FA/GA badge with enough context could be an interesting and valuable trust signal for a reader, similar to how warning templates are often used as distrust signals when articles are low quality. On the other hand, I assume that a "protected" badge would be of little interest to anyone who isn't logged in and actively considering contributing to the wiki.

    Another tension in the current proposal is the form of the indicators themselves. As mentioned in the VP discussions about this, there may be a low awareness of FA/GA for casual readers, and an unlabelled icon might not "onboard" casual readers into explaining what FA/GA are and why they're useful.

    While the tagline isn't currently shown in Minerva either, WMF might be more amenable to displaying it as it is likely technically simpler than showing topicons and solves the problem of an unlabelled icon might not 'onboard' casual readers. It's currently tracked, albeit stale, at phabricator:T349117. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 21:25, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I'm already used to seeing it with Wikipedia:Metadata gadget, and, while classes below GA are more subjective, it could be great for our readers to highlight articles that have had a formal review process. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:44, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support been waiting a long time for this one. Very much needed! --JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 22:09, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for GA/FA as long as we also keep the topicons; I think the visual cue is nice. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:39, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    2nd on this. Topicons are still nice and useful. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 23:32, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support; I agree with AirshipJungleman that it likely won't be noticed by the vast majority of users, but if one percent are intrigued and find out more about the Good & Featured processes, I think that makes it more worthwhile. I also agree with the takes that it'd be more applicable to mobile than a topicon would be, and I think it adds context to the topicons on desktop if people don't realize you can click on them. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 22:47, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as the overdue implementation of repeated consensus for greater visibility. Like Chaotic Enby, I would never want this expanded to other article classes because many (myself included) use Rater for an AI-generated classification that works for our technical needs but communicates little to readers. I would have this appear alongside the topicon, both because the aesthetic badge is a big motivator for article writers and to run Dan's click-through experiment. Hoping that even if the topicons are never added to mobile view, at least this expanded tagline can be. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 22:55, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I said in a previous discussion, I don't agree with the premise. I think the current amount of prominence given to the article rating is appropriate, given the way the rating is determined. Thus I do not support changing the tagline in this manner. isaacl (talk) 22:55, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Since that comment is in turn referring to another comment, here's the link to isaacl's argument against greater visibility for GA/FA status. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 23:13, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    To expand slightly on the determination concerns: I appreciate that the good article/featured article review processes are the only ones we have for this type of article rating. However they do not ensure evaluation by subject matter experts with the background knowledge to best evaluate the comprehensiveness and accuracy of the article. I think giving the rating higher prominence would raise reader expectations that an evaluation has been made by subject matter experts. isaacl (talk) 15:10, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per above. These two ratings are the ones with the least amount of arbitrariness so I don't think this status should have any less prominence. They're already displayed as topicons everywhere except Minerva, which shows the reader interest. If these statuses are any overprominent, there's already consensus for them being so. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:05, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as the tagline should be kept simple. I agree with isaacl that we don't need to give more prominence to article ratings, which are subjective anyway. Some1 (talk) 23:27, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see how this isn't simple. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:45, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A tagline that changes depending on the article rating isn't simple, and I prefer that the tagline text remains the same for every article, regardless of its rating. Also, it's misleading to state that Example article is "A good article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" when that rating reflects only one editor's review (opinion) of that article. In that instance, the tagline is more misleading than the topicon, especially when most readers won't bother to click on the good article link in the tagline.
    Many editors in prior discussions have felt the topicon is too small a notice that doesn't accurately reflect the amount of work put into raising articles to featured status Seems like this proposal is more for the editors than for the readers. Some1 (talk) 00:32, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What's the impact of this small bit of added complexity?

    when that rating reflects only one editor's review (opinion) of that article

    I think that's only an argument for renaming GoodArticle. In my opinion, "good article" signifies only as much value as it should. This also means if a reader thinks "hey this is not good-article quality" they can start something on the talk page. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:20, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. As long as we can keep the topicons as well, I don't see any downsides to this. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:08, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't see the harm per se, but more visibility for GA/FA ratings makes more critical the need for participation at WP:FAR and WP:GAR and for those processes to function properly. CMD (talk) 00:38, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. As I mentioned in the 2023 RFC: I once observed a high school classroom that happened to be teaching research skills on using Wikipedia. The teacher said that the lock icon in the corner meant that it had been reviewed and was safe. Readers have no idea what our esoteric icons mean, so a little explanation of what exactly is verified and what isn't could go a long way towards mutual incentives. This is a smart way to start. czar 02:08, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I don't see the harm in mentioning the fact that the article has reached good/featured status, and it would certainly help reader to become aware of those statuses and as a compliment to the topicons. Speaking of those icons, why don't we include them in the tagline too so the reader will notice it when reading the tagline and be able to recognize it when reading another article on its tagline or on the corner of said artile. So maybe something like "A good article This symbol designates good articles on Wikipedia. from Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia." Here I placed the icon after the phrase introducing the article class since it looked akward to have it immediately following the indefinite article "A" when I tried that first. Gramix13 (talk) 02:52, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This thought came to mind for me as well. I like the idea of having a more prominent visual, but I feel like it'd be redundant presuming we're keeping the topicon. My preferred approach to accomplish this would be to move the icon from the top right to directly next to the article title, as was previously proposed. Sdkb talk 05:09, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Noting that since that 2020 proposal argued for matching the Danish Wikipedia's practice, dawiki has switched to our practice of having the topicon appear in the top-right corner (e.g., da:Israel). ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 13:40, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Interesting; any idea why? Sdkb talk 14:18, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Unfortunately not. I checked through their relevant talk pages and Landsbybrønden (village well) archives to no avail in identifying why they switched. ViridianPenguin🐧 (💬) 16:04, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. An article's good or featured status is a key piece of information that every media-literate reader ought to pay attention to, but our current display is nowhere near prominent enough to make that happen. This is a well-thought-out step in the right direction toward making that happen. I support keeping the topicons, and ultimately moving them next to the article title per the prior proposal. I also continue to hope that phab:T75299 is taken up so that icons display on mobile. Sdkb talk 05:07, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support and additional request. I have a script that already does this, but this being an automatic thing for other editors would be extremely useful in helping people maintain articles. Possibly, we could also have 'Currently a featured article candidate', 'Former featured article', 'Currently a good article nominee' too; that might be a bit too technical though. 750h+ 05:18, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Being a candidate or having former status is mainly relevant for editors, not readers, so I would not support this. Sdkb talk 06:03, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    +1 Graham11 (talk) 07:09, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Metadata gadget? It's a good thing the code is already pretty much there. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:25, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – If we are to use a redirect like Wikipedia:Featured articles (linked from tagline), we should probably change the tooltip to simply "Wikipedia:Featured articles". Graham11 (talk) 05:34, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, great idea. I'd also support other measures to improve GA/A/FA visibility, like moving the topicon to be right beside the title. Toadspike [Talk] 09:12, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My reaction to much of the opposition is that our readers are not stupid. They know what Wikipedia is. They will not see "good article" and think "this must be a 105% perfect article certified by the leading experts in the field and then fully-protected so no-one can edit the page again". They know that Wikipedia is a wiki written by regular people, many of whom are not experts on the topics they write about, and that Wikipedia articles can generally be edited by anyone, anytime. By calling something a "good article" or "featured article", whether in a tagline or with an icon, we simply argue that this article is better than many others. And while were bashing the names as "hokey" or "bizarre", I must point out that "featured" sounds stupid outside the context of being featured on the main page, while "good" is a simple English word that accurately describes the point of the rating. Toadspike [Talk] 13:34, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The top of many articles, including GA and FA, are already overly cluttered. I would support the reduction of clutter rather than the adding to it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:01, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I understand your point, but this would add practically no clutter, as "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" is still a default tagline. I assume you are generically opposed to the tagline in the first place? Dege31 (talk) 17:17, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes I would support removing it altogether, rather than adding to it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:40, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with ActivelyDisinterested here Logoshimpo (talk) 05:08, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Awareness of the featured article process is partially what inspired me to begin contributing to Wikipedia, and I feel like increasing this awareness wouldn't just inspire more people to edit, but would also inform readers which articles have been more diligently reviewed to eliminate gaps and verification errors. Sad that this won't be visible on mobile but it's a step in the right direction with no glaring downsides. Fathoms Below (talk) 19:50, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I can see no downsides to this proposal - anything that helps promote good and featured content, and potentially bring in new editors, is a positive in my book, and this is a pretty nice and yet non-obtrusive way to do so. CoconutOctopus talk 20:40, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It sounds like we are proposing adding a module to every single page load on the entire wiki. Has someone who understands mediawiki caching and performance given some thought about if this will cause stress to the servers or performance issues? –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:48, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notified: WP:VPT. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:50, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    mw.title.new().pageAssessments is an WP:EXPENSIVE function, but since it is only called once it usually shouldn't often be an issue considering the per-page limit of 500. The module does access the class rating via iteration (see the for loop at lines 29–33) rather than via random access, which is admittedly inelegant but probably not too inefficient. Sadly, I got what feels like a WONTFIX for random access at phabricator:T396135.
    Regardless, whether the community wants something shouldn't be dependent on whether it is currently feasible. I trust the interface admins and WMF will fix things if the community breaks them.
    This isn't to say I am in any way opposed to a code review of this, which I welcome wholeheartedly. I am sure there is something here that could be made more efficient. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 23:10, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I tend to agree with the link to WP:DWAP here (which has been relevant for parts of the interface like this before, the link to Category in the footer of each page used to be treated as sufficiently expensive for some reason or another that we couldn't let it vary by number of categories or something like that).
    The only way to get an authoritative answer to this question would be to ask WMF directly I think.
    That aside, I'm actually not really certain this will work the way OP wants it to. Has it been attempted on test Wikipedia? Izno (talk) 23:57, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Putting my developer hat on, to my understanding the MediaWiki:tagline is added by a user's skin. As such, running page assessments at that layer is prohibitively expensive since the skin layer is re-rendered every time a user visits a page (as opposed to the parser cache layer where data is computed/rendered every edit and thus can have expensive functions). Unless folks contradict me, to my understanding this will require a significant investment of engineering effort to implement into core-mediawiki (or one of it's extensions) which I'm not sure is worth the outcome.
    Putting on my WP:INTADMIN hat on, I'm not sure I'm completely onboard with using JS (or even Lua) to hack and slash at the existing tagline at pages that we as enwiki are wanting folks to visit. (For context, every time such a thing is implemented folks with bad internet connection will see a flash of unstyled content that often makes the navigating/reading experience worse). Sohom (talk) 00:51, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh dear, I didn't realize it was part of the skin. What a shame. Guess it'll have to rely on mw:Extension:CustomSubtitle if it's ever finished. I defer to SD0001 below, who wrote the MediaWiki code that makes this possible and seems to think it's potentially possible. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 01:01, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think it's prohibitively expensive, just a bit expensive. Performance is not affected for logged-out users as for them the entire page html, including the skin, is CDN-cached. For logged-in users, it does result in re-rendering, however note that the Lua .pageAssessments call is just a single SELECT call in the db. Being marked as WP:EXPENSIVE doesn't give the full picture. – SD0001 (talk) 05:35, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tend to oppose, but only for technical reasons. This should be part of MediaWiki (→m:Community_Wishlist/Wishes), not a Lua hack. Then maybe one day even mobile users would get it. Ponor (talk) 23:14, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It definitely isn't a Lua "hack". Functionality like retrieving page assessments have been exposed to Lua for use cases like this. It doesn't make much sense to implement everything natively in MediaWiki since most MediaWiki installations don't have a concept of FAs or GAs. – SD0001 (talk) 05:37, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Exposing page assessments to Lua is a part of MediaWiki. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:18, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a hack because it hacks a message that shows at a place convenient for desktop users (⅓), but is not shown to mobile web and app users (⅔). It's not a complete solution, it's a hack. Other than that, there's a javascript gadget that also hacks the message, used by some 1000 active users. Why reinvent the wheel? Ponor (talk) 15:37, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Changed my mind, it's a complicated js script. I'd still like to see a solution that every reader can see. Indicators are fine. Ponor (talk) 15:48, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Using client-side JavaScript to scrape the talk page and modify the DOM after page load is a very different solution than using a MediaWiki extension's intended functionality to modify pages server-side. Mobile users miss out on a lot of things, including navboxes, sidebars, and even categories. Are categories "hacks" because Minerva chooses to hide them? Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 15:45, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree about the gadget, just checked the code: ugh, that's an ugly one. But here, we're saying "this is important, we want everyone to see it", while at the same time we know that two in three readers will not see it. Categories and navboxes are the things at the bottom. Most users rarely go past the lead. So I'd say there is some importance difference. I'm not strongly opposed to "the hack" – I'd simply like to see a better solution. Use different indicators - find better icons? Use icon+text on desktop, icon alone on mobile? Ponor (talk) 16:10, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Topicons aren't shown on mobile because it's a difficult implementation and because they're even more opaque to readers (see phabricator:T75299#10512584): on desktop, {{featured article}} at least benefits its readers with the tooltip "This is a featured article. Click here for more information", but touchscreens don't get tooltips. The tagline isn't shown on Minerva either, but it's probably a much simpler implementation and hasn't been done simply as a screen real estate saving measure. If we can get the tagline shown (phabricator:T349117), it'd serve the same purpose as the tooltip serves for desktop users. I do want mobile users to see this, and I think using the tagline is an important first step to getting WMF to increase visibility. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 16:19, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You cannot see indicators on mobile either. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:37, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose What is the point? FAs and GAs are not necessarily better than normal articles, and the reader does not care about who followed internal Wikiprocedures to get something declared FA/GA. Also per Ahecht. Polygnotus (talk) 03:36, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    While you are technically correct that some articles which haven't been formally reviewed are as good as GAs or FAs, the average GA is certainly better than the average article, which is a stub or not much more. Toadspike [Talk] 07:58, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Toadspike The best kind of correct! Polygnotus (talk) 09:12, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    They have necessarily underwent quality control, which includes things like "checking whether the sources confirm what the article say"- not exactly obscure, Wikipedia-only procedures. Dege31 (talk) 16:33, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as an idea. If the current technical implementation is insufficient, then it can still be recognised as something the community supports and perhaps be added at a later point. Even if that is not likely to happen any time soon given other technical priorities, it would be better having than having another RFC every time someone comes up with another way to make FAs/GAs more visible.  novov talk edits 08:26, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with the idea that consensus and technical details should be separate. The closer should feel free to find clear consensus that the community wants this (because they do). Then a consultation with a WMF dev good at performance and caching (maybe via a Phab ticket tagged #performance_issue and pinging someone like Krinkle?) and/or a trial should probably be encouraged in the close as a next step, but can leave that part vague / not as strong as the community consensus part. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:10, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose hacking a module in to the tagline for every single page is a poor technical implementation, especially for something that is only needed on an extreme minority of pages. — xaosflux Talk 12:29, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Also oppose conceptually using the tagline for this purpose; work was already spent on indicators and if wanted I'd prefer improvement to indicators. Indicators are also much more consistent across the Wikipedia's in other languages. — xaosflux Talk 12:32, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The French, German, and Russian Wikipedias all use different icons (from us and from each other). Of the Wikipedias I regularly visit only Chinese and Norwegian use the same icons we do. Smaller wikis like Alemannisch don't have quality ratings at all. Toadspike [Talk] 13:20, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I wonder if it's possible to add code to {{good article}}, {{featured list}} and {{featured article}} that changes the tagline. Cremastra (talk) 14:59, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That was my original thought too and I asked the same thing at the idea lab. The MediaWiki extension mw:Extension:CustomSubtitle could allow this with {{#subtitle:A ''[[Wikipedia:Featured articles (linked from tagline)|featured article]]'' from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia}}, but the extension is in beta and hasn't been touched in years. It seems like it uses a deprecated function global $wgOut so would need to be updated. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 15:13, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Additional oppose reason, as others have called out already, this will not solve the problem of casual readers (who increasingly use minerva) not seeing the rating - as the tagline element isn't even shown on that skin. I'd rather see indicator support added to minerva. — xaosflux Talk 14:54, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A tagline seems much more understandable than cryptic and tiny symbols that we use today. If this proposal passes, I would support the removal of original topicons, as they will be made redundant. I don't know how feasible it is, but I would like WMF develop a way to show the taglines in the minerva skin as well. Ca talk to me! 15:40, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The tagline is there to provide credit to Wikipedia, not provide extra information such as an assessment from a niche rating project that the vast majority of Wikipedia readers and editors don't participate in. I don't think we should be adding overhead to every single page, including non-article pages, just for increasing the visibility of page status. Not to mention that, to those not familiar with our lingo, "A good article from Wikipedia" sounds incredibly hokey, if not conceited.--Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    )     15:53, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    And what will the readers do with this information? Nothing. Polygnotus (talk) 15:56, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    They're assured that the article has been reviewed. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:20, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A previous version of the article was reviewed. NebY (talk) 16:51, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Aaron Liu That is not how they will interpret that, but even if it was, what will the readers do with this information? Nothing. Polygnotus (talk) 00:08, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's like the opposite of the unofficial secondary purpose of maintenance tags. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:59, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Aaron Liu You lost me. I am assuming the unofficial secondary purpose of maintenance tags is to give the tagger the feeling they did something useful. Polygnotus (talk) 01:03, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's to inform that there is (more likely to be) a problem with an extract from an article. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:07, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That sounds like its the official primary purpose. Polygnotus (talk) 02:03, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a very controversial opinion. The question of whether cleanup templates' visibility to readers is in conflict with the WP:NODISCLAIMERS philosophy has been a battle on here since the beginning. The official primary purpose, a little fiction we tell ourselves to resolve this, is to categorize articles and flag areas for other editors. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 02:12, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Dan Leonard to inform that there is (more likely to be) a problem with an extract from an article doesn't specify who gets informed, it might be the readers or editors or both. Polygnotus (talk) 02:26, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm just explaining Aaron's comment, which I saw as a joke referencing the TfD battles over cleanup templates and the official policy that they aren't for informing readers. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 02:31, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah. Well I am mostly asleep so any jokes will go over my head. Polygnotus (talk) 02:35, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I meant "inform readers" lol. Dan is correct in what I'm talking about, but I did have a point with my joke though in that the tagline would have the inverse purpose. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:39, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Readers should absolutely be paying attention to an article's assessed GA/FA status. The fact that something underwent (in the case of FAs) a rigorous review process is a key piece of information as a reader decides to what extent to trust an article (and yes, in an ideal world they'd be verifying everything, but in practice doing that rigorously would take nearly as long as writing the article). It's something we pay attention to even when just reading an article we do not intend to edit. And it's therefore something we should make noticeable enough to readers that they can do the name. Sdkb talk 23:30, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sdkb I think one of the major weaknesses and strengths on Wikipedia is that the writers are completely clueless about the readers. should absolutely be paying attention to an article's assessed GA/FA status. No, of course not. It means only that someone jumped through some hoops. a reader decides to what extent to trust an article In my experience, people don't work like that. it's therefore something we should make noticeable enough to readers that they can do the name. Why should we tell a reader information that is not helpful to them and that they do not know how to interpret. Doesn't make sense to me. Polygnotus (talk) 00:13, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    GA/FA statuses only reflect the quality of an article at the time it was reviewed. Some (most?) of the articles with GA/FA status haven't been reassessed in several years or have undergone so many changes since achieving their status that their current quality differs significantly from when they were first reviewed. J.K. Rowling, a "Featured article" (which apparently means that it's "[one] of the best articles Wikipedia has to offer"), currently has two large templates on the article, one of which indicates that it has neutrality issues. So again, these article ratings are subjective, and readers do not need to be paying attention to them any more than they need to. Some1 (talk) 00:31, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You're conveniently omitting that there is currently an effort to delist the Rowling article. Which illustrates exactly how it should be working: Quality articles that no longer meet standards should be reassessed. Sdkb talk 02:42, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The J.K. Rowling discussion has been opened for almost a month now (and who knows how long it'll take for that discussion to close), and in the meantime, that FA status is there, misleading readers into thinking the article is still "one of Wikipedia's very best works" despite multiple experienced editors arguing that the article should be delisted. Some1 (talk) 03:31, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    And plenty of others arguing that it should remain listed (and those editors are arguing that the aforementioned maintenance tags were added in an effort to try to get it delisted). I take no position on whether it should or should not remain an FA, but the active discussion around it, as the example you chose, contradicts the notion that FAs are listed and then never looked at/reevaluated again. People who watch them periodically send them to FAR, and WP:URFA/2020 has been going through every single one systemically. Of course, as in most areas of the encyclopedia, we don't have the editor capacity to monitor everything as closely as we wish, but that's no reason to give up on the project or minimize the value it provides to readers — if they know about it. Sdkb talk 17:40, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hence the giant neutrality tag on the top of the article. It's just like a "Disputed" inline tag right after a claim, and here the claim is that this is once of Wikipedia's very best works. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:43, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As an editor who has provided a very critical review, I’m not concerned about the time the review has been active. It has been Featured for several years in roughly the same state. A month is pretty normal and I expect it’ll be moved to FARC soon (I’m going to post a follow up review tomorrow, which is how the process works). The moment we start speeding up the process of delisting, you will see (for example) large swathes of gender related content beset by meaningless and inaction able critiques to force delistings. WP:There is no rush. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 09:16, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    All the common slogans of Wikipedia sound incredibly hokey, if not conceited, to those who are opposed to wikis, the free knowledge movement, ... even the tagline itself, what if someone thinks "no such thing as a free lunch!", we have pages explaining free as in libre vs free as in gratis! This is just a walking on eggshells mentality which is not productive. Dege31 (talk) 16:38, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If it's for providing credit, it should say "from Wikipedia contributors", given that Wikipedia/WMF don't own the copyright of article content. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 16:39, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see how either the FA or GA process is niche. If you were talking about WP:ACLASS, then sure, that would be truly niche. But almost 1% of all articles are already either FAs or GAs. As long as it links to the actual WP:FA and WP:GA pages, it isn't any more niche than the topicons already there, which I'd argue are even more cryptic to the casual reader. Epicgenius (talk) 18:16, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Less than 1% is pretty niche. How many Wikipedia articles would you have to read to have a 50:50 chance of stumbling on one of the 0.76% that are GA, FA, or FL? NebY (talk) 18:34, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    But GAs and FAs are some of the most-frequented articles that readers are likely to bump into. They're not randomly distributed. Cremastra (talk) 18:56, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    From Wikipedia:Popular pages § Top-100 list, quite a few of our most-viewed articles are GA or FA:
Rank Class Page Views in millions
Main Page 46,800
Special:Search 15,000
Special:Random 7,900
- 2,900
Undefined 1,800
United States Senate 350
Special:Watchlist 344
Special:Randompage 314
YouTube 296
Wiki 277
Facebook 277
1 United States 254
2 Donald Trump 243
Wikipedia 228
404.php 225
xHamster 212
Portal:Current events 208
3 Elizabeth II 198
Google 193
Special:Book 185
Special:CreateAccount 172
4 India 165
5 Barack Obama 161
Search 153
Bible 153
6 Cristiano Ronaldo 151
7 World War II 145
8 United Kingdom 144
9 Michael Jackson 142
Wikipedia:Your first article 137
10 Elon Musk 135
Special:RecentChanges 135
11 Sex 132
Cleopatra 132
12 Lady Gaga 129
13 Adolf Hitler 129
14 Eminem 127
15 Lionel Messi 125
16 Game of Thrones 122
17 World War I 121
18 The Beatles 116
19 Justin Bieber 114
20 Canada 113
20 Freddie Mercury 113
22 Kim Kardashian 111
23 Johnny Depp 109
Creative Commons Attribution 109
24 Steve Jobs 108
24 Dwayne Johnson 108
26 Michael Jordan 107
26 Australia 107
28 List of presidents of the United States 104
29 The Big Bang Theory 103
30 Taylor Swift 102
Search engine 102
31 Stephen Hawking 101
31 List of highest-grossing films 101
33 China 100
Portal:Contents 100
XXXX 96
Malware 96
34 Russia 96
34 New York City 96
34 Japan 96
34 Kanye West 96
38 List of Marvel Cinematic Universe films 95
38 Abraham Lincoln 95
40 LeBron James 94
40 Charles III 94
40 Darth Vader 94
40 Star Wars 94
40 Miley Cyrus 94
40 Germany 94
40 September 11 attacks 94
47 Leonardo DiCaprio 93
48 Kobe Bryant 92
48 Selena Gomez 92
50 Joe Biden 91
50 Tom Cruise 91
50 Rihanna 91
50 Albert Einstein 91
50 Academy Awards 91
55 Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh 90
55 Harry Potter 90
55 Elvis Presley 90
55 The Walking Dead (TV series) 90
59 Scarlett Johansson 89
59 Lil Wayne 89
59 Tupac Shakur 89
59 Angelina Jolie 89
63 Queen Victoria 88
63 Jeffrey Dahmer 88
65 John F. Kennedy 87
65 COVID-19 pandemic 87
67 Diana, Princess of Wales 86
67 Marilyn Monroe 86
69 Keanu Reeves 85
69 Arnold Schwarzenegger 85
69 How I Met Your Mother 85
69 Chernobyl disaster 85
69 France 85
69 Ariana Grande 85
75 Jennifer Aniston 84
75 Breaking Bad 84
77 Meghan, Duchess of Sussex 83
77 Muhammad Ali 83
77 Will Smith 83
80 Ted Bundy 82
80 Pablo Escobar 82
80 Mila Kunis 82
80 Vietnam War 82
80 Mark Zuckerberg 82
85 Manchester United F.C. 81
85 William Shakespeare 81
87 Titanic 80
87 Tom Brady 80
87 Jay-Z 80
87 Singapore 80
87 Earth 80
87 Bill Gates 80
Wikipedia:Contact us 80
93 Winston Churchill 78
93 Bruce Lee 78
93 Nicki Minaj 78
93 Israel 78
97 Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon 77
97 John Cena 77
97 Charles Manson 77
97 Ryan Reynolds 77
97 Brad Pitt 77
97 Vladimir Putin 77
Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 18:58, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - more than I was guessing! NebY (talk) 19:01, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per above; I have an extension installed which does practically the same thing. To partially address the concerns some users have about the taglines being potentially misleading b/c the GA/FA is super old, the extension says Currently undergoing review of its featured status etc when articles get re-reviewed. ❤HistoryTheorist❤ 04:21, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support It took me ages to find the tagline. I'd never noticed it, but support anything that lets our readers get more of a sense of relative fidelity of Wikipedia articles. A good thing that the GAR process is alive and kicking: we've been able to remove the icon from the 'worst' articles in recent years. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:32, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. We should not be misleading readers into thinking that the article rating is objective or meaningful when it is neither. Thryduulf (talk) 08:19, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ouch. Cremastra (talk) 14:48, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you arguing the average featured article is not better than the average article? Because that's what article ratings having "no meaning" would mean. The reality is the opposite. The average featured article is way way better. IAWW (talk) 15:29, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @It is a wonderful world by what objective measure is the comparison being made? What is the definition of an "average article" and an "average featured article"? The median-length featured article is definitely going to be longer than the median-length non-featured article but length alone is not a reliable indicator of anything other than length (e.g. an article that is two thirds reactions from random celebrities on Twitter is worse than an article one third its length that is purely encyclopaedic). Article ratings are meaningless in that they do not reliably convey to the reader any information about the quality of the current state of the article. Even a featured article rating simply says that someone put a lot of effort into satisfying a small number of other people that they put a lot of effort into the article at some point in the past. There is no requirement for writers or reviewers to be subject matter experts so there is no guarantee it is any more or less accurate than any other cited article. Ratings other than featured are worth less than the paper they are written on. Thryduulf (talk) 17:16, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If there's a non-featured article whose quality is better than a featured article, that article should be made a featured article. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:45, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That assumes that the current version of every featured article is of sufficient standard to be regarded as one of Wikipedia's best, that is simply not true. If you think the effort in getting a rubber stamp of approval from a self-selecting group of non-experts is worth the time it takes, good on you, but that doesn't make the rubber stamp meaningful to readers. Thryduulf (talk) 19:10, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If an article does not meet the standards, you can be the one to delist it. The great bulk of articles do not meet Feature quality standards, therefore articles that do are in fact among the best. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:49, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It doesn't matter what objective measure you use. Any measure which tries its best to rigorously define the heuristic concept of article quality will show featured articles are better than non-featured articles in 99% of cases. You can see this by picking random featured articles and random non-featured articles – seriously, just go and try it right now! You don't need to rigorously define "average" and "objective measure" or any other words to see this. IAWW (talk) 17:50, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Any measure which tries its best to rigorously define the heuristic concept of article quality will show featured articles are better than non-featured articles in 99% of cases. citation needed. Thryduulf (talk) 19:07, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The sentence after: "you can see this by picking random featured articles and random non-featured articles" – go try it IAWW (talk) 19:16, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Without some measure which tries its best to rigorously define the heuristic concept of article quality I cannot. Thryduulf (talk) 19:17, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If there is no objective measure you can think of (though I'm sure there is), your claim would be unfalsifiable. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:34, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Eh? I'm not the one claiming that the average featured article is better than the average article (that's @It is a wonderful world's claim). Thryduulf (talk) 19:44, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v3i1.13959 empirically derived features of FAs from FAC discussions, and for two articles I've tried it seems to work. Regardless, Wond's claim did not say the measures have to be objective; that's what you introduced. To see whether an article has better quality, we only need to agree in our judgement, no matter whether it is based on subjective criteria or objective criteria. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:53, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Reading the abstract of that 2009 study (I don't have time to read more), it seems to only show that articles that were awarded featured status reliably contained the features the FAC process looked for - which is unsurprising, not really relevant to this discussion, says nothing about whether those features do indicate quality (if the featured article criteria required every featured article to contain a sentence about the colour red and every featured article did contain such a sentence, that would indicate that the FAC process is following its own rules, but wouldn't say anything about the article quality) and may or may not still hold true nearly 15 years later.
    To see whether an article has better quality, we only need to agree in our judgement, no matter whether it is based on subjective criteria or objective criteria. true, but no criteria (objective or subjective) were specified let alone agreed - I asked what objective criteria were being used to back up the claim (and still haven't got an answer) because while we could agree to use subjective criteria to verify the claim I do not agree that such would be both relevant and meaningful. Also, it's worth pointing out that putting the article status in the tag line is not agreeing anything with anybody, or telling anybody anything about the average Wikipedia article. It is claiming that this version of this article is an example of Wikipedia's best work. That is not reliably true. Thryduulf (talk) 20:47, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair point. I still maintain that you should use whatever subjective criteria you should stand behind, but ORES scores also show quality. I strongly disagree that subjective criteria are meaningless. I'm sure we all know the meaning in having "good" article quality, and that is of course subjective. It is meaningless to ask for objective assessments of something being better if we can agree using other criteria that something is better much faster, especially when the selection of such "objective" criteria is, in itself, subjective. All I'm saying is the near-tautology of subjective assessments being able to produce the subjective assessment of "good quality", while you're saying that only objective assessments will suffice, an unfalsifiable claim if you cannot provide an objective measure.
    The topic of "this version" is being discussed elsewhere in this RfC. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:33, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sympathetic to your main argument, that labeling articles at some point in time is incompatible with the wiki model. But I think your comments rubber stamp of approval from a self-selecting group of non-experts, even GA only requires that citations exist, an article that is two thirds reactions from random celebrities on Twitter is worse than an article one third its length that is purely encyclopaedic, and ratings other than featured are worth less than the paper they are written on are very dismissive of the work content reviewers do and I don't think you should be surprised you're getting piled on here over them. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 19:54, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What pile on? It's about even in terms of people who (broadly) agree with me and people who (broadly) disagree. The final statement you quote from me is entirely a matter of opinion, we can agree to disagree regarding that. The quote about reactions relates only to article length not being a reliable metric of quality, I don't understand why you think that is dismissive of the work of content reviewers unless they do regard length as a reliable indicator of article quality? (If they do, that's definitely a black mark for the process).
    The first two are factual statements. Thryduulf (talk) 20:32, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    By calling the result a "rubber stamp", the first one is an opinion. For the claim to be factual, you would need to show FAC does not disagree with its insiders, which is verily false. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:34, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm really disheartened by the comments decrying the content review process here. IAWW's review of an article I wrote was one of the most enjoyable editing experiences I've had on here, and it was very comprehensive and involved a text-source integrity check. Reducing his work to a rubber-stamp without citation checks is insulting. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 20:30, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There are GA reviews like that, but there are also GA reviews like Talk:I-No/GA1. As Stepwise stated below, promoting articles to GA status only requires one person's approval. Some1 (talk) 20:40, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Is there a problem with the subject article that makes you think the review was conducted improperly? It obviously has fewer BLP and political considerations than the one I cited so the prose does not need to be checked as closely. Regardless, it still gets a topicon with a "this is a good article" tooltip so I don't see why the modified tagline would be so extreme an addition. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 20:51, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a little off topic, but @Some1, what makes you think that review you linked was not conducted properly? IAWW (talk) 22:47, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't believe the review was conducted "improperly", but find the differences in the lengths and comprehensiveness of the two GA reviews quite jarring. Some1 (talk) 23:21, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The first two are factual statements Ha ha. No they aren't. I'm not sure why you're taking this opportunity to complain about editors who want quality articles, but your second statements is clearly false. Perhaps you should look at the GA criteria, which are loose but set a baseline of acceptable quality content, before making clearly and egregiously incorrect statements, which at this point is approaching disinformation. Cremastra (talk) 01:22, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Discussion elsewhere has identified that the GA criteria I was reading and the GA criteria that are actually applied are different, so while I thought that was factual it turns out that it wasn't. The first is though.
    I'm not complaining about editors wanting quality content - far from it - what I'm saying is that article rating labels are not a reliable guide to the quality of the current version of an article. I'm also saying that the FA and GA criteria used to award those labels are not a guarantee that the version of the article reviewed is one of Wikipedia's best, just that it meets those criteria. If you think that is an attack on editors then you haven't been reading what I've actually written. Thryduulf (talk) 01:35, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I mean, the GA criteria excerpts the part from the "how the GA criteria should be applied" guideline on spot checks being minimum, so you could say it is in the GA criteria you were reading. That is an interesting state of affairs indeed. Aaron Liu (talk) 15:01, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If the GA criteria as written differ from the GA criteria as applied in practice, then we definitely shouldn't be proclaiming GA status in the tagline. Overloading the ordinary word "good" with an insider meaning is confusing enough. Expecting that people will read a set of criteria and then a further guideline to figure out what "good" is supposed to mean is... not really practical. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 18:41, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Again, the relevant part of that guideline is quoted in the set of criteria. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:07, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe you know that that's the only relevant part of that guideline. Maybe someone would figure that out after reading both. But it's not at all clear. Every time a reader has to investigate a behind-the-scenes Wikipedia page to understand what something means, we've failed. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 19:52, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We have explanatory essays that go in depth on the specific meanings of everything. That does not undermine the meaning of what is explained at all. The criteria by itself sufficiently explain what is expected of GoodArticles. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:00, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    They don't differ, criteria 2 definitely requires sources verify the text. I don't follow the claim that there's a discrepancy here. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 20:08, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's a pretty serious claim you're making. Do you have any objective evidence that the process is this fundamentally useless? None of the criteria for good and featured articles, after all, are not length, so if they don't measure anything else, that's pretty serious. You think the process is so bad that even checking the sources doesn't increase the average accuracy, that it's just a rubber stamp? This all sounds pretty unbelievable to me, but maybe I'm wrong. If this is all true, why do you think the average participant of this RfC is ignorant of it? Dege31 (talk) 17:57, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I do not have evidence for a claim I am not making. Checking the cited sources do verify the content they claim to verify is extremely valuable but only a small part of what is required to get the FA badge, not required for any other rating (even GA only requires that citations exist) [see later discussion, it turns out the documented GA criteria I based that comment on do not match the GA criteria that are actually applied. Thryduulf (talk) 01:42, 11 July 2025 (UTC)], and something that can be done completely independently of the FA process. My claim is that FA status does not reliably communicate anything useful to readers about the current version of the article. The current version of the article might be better than average, even one of Wikipedia's best, but it might even be below average now. Thryduulf (talk) 19:16, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's no longer true. Funnily, the new GA checks are in some sense more strict that the FA criteria on WP:TSI. All GANs require spot checks (since 2023 or so), whereas only newer FA nominators have their articles spot checked. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:27, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not what is written at WP:GACR6. Thryduulf (talk) 20:56, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well in practice, spot checks are expected. See the guideline Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles#Assessing the article and providing a review. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:04, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sure the GA criteria used to include that a spot check was required. Did this get removed? IAWW (talk) 21:06, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's good to know, but if we can't even reliably communicate what the GA criteria actually are to editors who know that "good article" is jargon then it is even less useful information for readers than I previously thought it was. Thryduulf (talk) 21:16, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The proposed destination for the modified tagline is Wikipedia:Good articles, which states (emphasis mine)

    A good article (GA) is a Wikipedia article that meets a core set of editorial standards, the good article criteria, passing through the good article nomination process successfully. They are well-written, contain factually accurate and verifiable information, are broad in coverage, neutral in point of view, stable, and illustrated, where possible, by relevant images with suitable copyright licenses.

    Also, I think you may have missed footnote 3 in WP:GACR6, which states "at a minimum, check that the sources used are reliable ... and that those you can access support the content of the article". I think these adequately explain to readers that a good article has had its sources checked for verifiability. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 21:23, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Right, I see what you mean now. I understand the concern, but personally, with the (re)activation of the good & featured article review process, I don't personally think it's as critical. Would you also support removing the good article and featured article topicons, by the same logic? Dege31 (talk) 23:03, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not something that bothers me enough to propose myself, especially as some people seem rather attached to them, but I would probably support if someone else were to propose it. Thryduulf (talk) 23:08, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Thryduulf: even GA only requires that citations exist please strike this factually incorrect statement. Cremastra (talk) 01:23, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I've struck with a note as it's slightly more complicated than simply being incorrect, see discussion subsquent to my comment about why I made that statement. Thryduulf (talk) 01:42, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you. Cremastra (talk) 01:57, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There is no requirement for writers or reviewers to be subject matter experts so there is no guarantee it is any more or less accurate than any other cited article. Yes, exactly. Schizophrenia is a Featured Article with almost 4k edits since its FA review back on May 2, 2011 (14 years ago). Who knows if that article is still accurate or up-to-date, but because of its FA status, readers will blindly trust that the article and its content are accurate. Some1 (talk) 18:39, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I mean WP:MEDRS the policy is pretty good at tackling that exact problemSuperscript text Aaron Liu (talk) 19:08, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Per Thryduulf - GA particularly has little to do with quality and is more of an Wikipedia:Esperanza-like process to promote the participants. The GA talkpage currently has an RFC to enforce Quid pro Quo reviewing of articles and to reduce the standard of reviews. GA reviews are in many cases completely subjective and amount to little more than "I like this" or "I don't like this".Nigel Ish (talk) 17:23, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is a bit subjective, yes, but there are detailed criteria on how articles should be evaluated for GA. GAs that don't meet the criteria go through GAR. The linked "reduce the standard of reviews" discussion is not about reducing the standard of reviews but about reviewers who make additional comments beyond the standard of the reviews. And the quid prop quo proposal RfC is currently met with a swarm of opposition. Aaron Liu (talk) 17:48, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
At this point this discussion discussion has devolved into GA-bashing by people who apparently don't want any kind of quality control and for who any recognition of hard work is evidence of a social clique. Cremastra (talk) 01:18, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This user specifically seems to have an axe to grind against the GA process: see their userpage. Cremastra (talk) 05:18, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a post I made is linked here, I feel obligated to comment that this is a misrepresentation of what I said. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 03:42, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I'd ever noticed the tagline before, but I've definitely seen the topicons. The fact that they're coloured images makes them more noticeable than small italics, but having linked text in the tagline would probably cover some of that deficit. Maybe I've overestimating the readers, but because "good article" doesn't have a standard colloquial meaning, I think that if a reader did notice that the tagline said that, there wouldn't be any standard meaning to assume. If they wanted to know what it meant, they might click the link and learn more about the internal processes of the encyclopedia. If they didn't, they wouldn't walk away with any wrong assumptions. "Featured article" is a little different - assumptions could be made - but the meaning could vary wildly. Maybe this so-called "featured" article was chosen at random somehow to feature on the main page at some point in the past. I think the topicons make the meaning clearer, appearing to be badges the article has achieved somehow, but I don't think the additional text in the tagline would harm the project (outside of potential technical burden). 207.11.240.2 (talk) 08:59, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - because as written, the tagline is misleading. For instance, the first example listed: London Beer Flood. When you go to the talk page, it is clearly tagged as: London Beer Flood is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. So it is misleading to imply to our readers that the current version they are reading is the FA version. Isaidnoway (talk) 18:28, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that'd be a good thing. If an article's current state is incongruent with what one expects from being "one of the best articles", readers would be alerted to raise the issues somewhere. This can help ensure quality within FAs. Also, <pedantic>, the banner you quoted says the article or a previous version met the definition, and that the article is a featured article, not that it might be a previous version that is the featured article instead of the current version. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:00, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    No, what it means is that the FA article could be the current form or an earlier, possibly different, iteration of the article could be the FA. For instance, Michael Jackson was promoted to FA status 17 years ago, and on July 8, 2025, there was a brief edit war over a cleanup tag placed in a section. The article had 16,000+ pageviews that day, so how many readers (hundreds, thousands) read a version (current version) that didn't meet the criteria for a FA, and we shouldn't expect for our readers to try and hunt for a previous version that actually meets the FA criteria. I mean, if we are going to say to our readers with a tagline - the current version you are reading meets the criteria for a FA, but yet editors are squabbling over content that may not reflect what the cited sources actually say, then yeah, go ahead with a misleading tagline. Isaidnoway (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The article was still designated FA. The definition of FA is that the article or a previous version was reviewed and met criteria, not necessarily the current version even if the FA-designation is the status quo. I'm not saying we should expect our readers to hunt for that previous version; I'm saying that increasing this prominence invites readers who realize the incongruence to challenge. I don't see how the cleanup tag changes anything in your argument's favor here. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:47, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    invites readers who realize the incongruence to challenge the vast majority of readers will not recognise the incongruence, but will blindly trust that an article that proclaims to be top quality is top quality, even if it contains blatant misinformation. Even editors with years of experience working with featured articles will not always see an incongruence for topics (or even topic areas) they are not familiar with. Thryduulf (talk) 00:55, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Not if there's a giant orange banner. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:56, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry I missed this reply earlier, but I'm struggling to understand what relevance a banner has to anything in my comment? Thryduulf (talk) 18:58, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's alright. I was referring to maintenance tags. If the maintenance tags that are about eight times larger than the tagline (on desktop; on mobile it's probably gonna be like 3x) and colored in alarming ways say the article contains misinformation, the reader will believe the article contains misinformation over the tagline that says "featured article". Aaron Liu (talk) 19:15, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    True, but only a very small portion of current revisions (at the time any given reader loads the article) of good or featured articles that are not of that quality (due to vandalism, gradual degradation, changing standards, link rot, POV-pushing, real-world changes, editing disputes, etc, etc, etc) have maintenance tags. Thryduulf (talk) 20:25, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess that's where we diverge. I have not seen any GA/FAs that have problems untagged for a significant amount of time. Would you give me a post-Coldwell example? Aaron Liu (talk) 20:33, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know what you mean by "post-Coldwell" but see everything just before it was sent to FAR/GAR, every vandalised revision, etc. It doesn't matter how long the page is below the standard, it matters that whenever someone views a revision that is below standard (for whatever reason) the tag would be misleading. Sometimes only in a very minor way, other times in extremely major ways and of course everything in between. Thryduulf (talk) 10:09, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The article had 16,000+ pageviews that day, so how many readers (hundreds, thousands) read a version (current version) that didn't meet the criteria for a FA - Kind of beside the point, but an article doesn't automatically change from "FA quality" to "not FA quality" just because there's a tag (and similarly for GA). Instead it's usually one of two situations:
    1. The tag was justified, and therefore the article was already not up to FA/GA standard beforehand. It can be resolved, or the article brought to WP:FAR/WP:GAR if issues are pervasive enough.
    2. The tag was not justified, nd therefore it changes nothing about the article's rating.
    Though, I can't argue with the fact that the current version of an article that previously passed an FAC or a GAN may not necessarily be up to standard. That's why substandard articles are (and should be) listed at FAR or GAR. Epicgenius (talk) 03:43, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    On MJ's article, if you or I ran across the maintenance tag, sure, we would know it could be either one of the two situations you listed, but would our readers? If this prominent tagline had been in place on MJ, bragging about this is one of our very best articles, and a reader scrolls down to a section that is tagged with - the content you are about to read may not reflect what the cited sources actually say, they are going to walk away scratching their heads, thinking, this is their very best? Of course, this situation would hold true with the FA icon already present, but I just don't see how adding this prominent tagline (more bragging) is a benefit to our readers, when it has the potential to be misleading. It's bad enough these unnecessary icons are already on the page. Isaidnoway (talk) 06:50, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, per a combination of Ahecht's arguments (scope creep: rating is not what the tagline is for; and "a good article from Wikipedia" sounds bizarre for everybody not familiar with the technical meaning) and Thryduulf's (rating status is far too unreliable for such a highlighting to be responsible). I may add that both arguments apply particularly strongly to "good articles", for which I would oppose this proposal very strongly. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:20, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Future Perfect at Sunrise. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 23:31, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - clearly sensible, not least as readers on mobiles do not get to see the FA or GA icons. Whatever the merits or demerits of the GAN and FAC procedures, these articles do have a defined level of quality and it's helpful for readers to know that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:56, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Did you see above how readers on mobile also do not get to see the 'tagline'? — xaosflux Talk 09:25, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    these articles do have a defined level of quality. No they don't. A previous version of the article was assess as having a defined level of quality, but there is no guarantee that the version of the article the tagline is displayed on bears any resemblance to that version. Thryduulf (talk) 09:53, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This is just one of the things where Wikipedia works better in practice than in theory. "There is no guarantee that any of this is true" is correct for all of Wikipedia, yet it is highly trusted and extremely widely used. —Kusma (talk) 10:11, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed, but that's completely different to a prominent banner saying "this is our best work" with links saying that our best work has been verified etc, being placed on articles that are anything but our best work. While many people seeing a page that has been very obviously vandalised will realise that it has been vandalised, not everybody will and the more subtle the vandalism (or POV pushing, etc) the fewer people will know not to take the statement at face value. Doubly so if the article's POV has been slanted towards a POV the reader happens to share. Thryduulf (talk) 10:26, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thryduulf, I think you overestimate the amount of change that quality articles, especially FAs, see after their review. Ovalipes catharus has some small additions of references and phrasing tweaks ([1]) since it was promoted in January. Malicious edits would be reverted, which leaves potentially problematic edits down to POV-pushing, addition of inaccurate information, and bad writing. These would probably all be caught by the person who brought it to FA in the first place. Cremastra (talk) 15:00, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    All those mallicious edits, etc were current revisions before reversion. The person who brought it to FA is not watching it 24/7. Also, changes accumulate over time God of War III was promoted to FA in February 2015, it has since undergone significant changes. Is it still FA quality? I have absolutely no idea. Do I trust a 10-year-old rating? if yes, then it's misleading if I happen to have viewed it one of the many reverted revisions was current. If no, then it's pointless. Thryduulf (talk) 15:48, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    GAs can see many changes: Western Roman Empire 527 intermediate revisions by more than 100 users so far[2]; Catilinarian conspiracy 68 by 39[3]; Biblical Hebrew 791 by more than 100[4]. FAs too: Ethiopian historiography 192 by >100[5]; Eagle (British comics) 323 by >100[6]; John Lennon >3000 since being TFA on 8 Dec 2010[7] (apologies if I've missed any intervening reviews). NebY (talk) 15:50, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Taylor Swift has almost 10,000 intermediate revisions since its promotion to FA status back on October 31, 2016 (9 years ago), and there are complaints on the article's talk page that the article is a mess, outdated, and "completely bloated." Some1 (talk) 18:55, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, yeah, these intervening 9 years count for almost half of Taylor Swift's career. I wouldn't expect any article, let alone Swift's article, to remain unchanged in that time period.
    As for the article being bloated and outdated, that is less relevant to the topic currently at hand (mentioning FA status in the tagline) and more like a WP:FAR issue. – Epicgenius (talk) 19:58, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The fact that there are complaints about the featured article(s) just illustrates that these article ratings are subjective, provide little meaningful information to readers, and don't need to be given more prominence (and in this case, by modifying taglines, of all things). Some1 (talk) 20:17, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see how. It simply makes them wiki articles just as mistakes make us human. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:47, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    these article ratings are subjective,
    There are literally objective criteria (WP:GACR, WP:FACR) that are used to evaluate articles for GA or FA status. So no, it isn't a subjective rating.
    The fact that there are complaints about the article just mean that people have opinions. These may indicate that the article doesn't meet the criteria. They may also be unjustified, however, as Dan Leonard indicates below. – Epicgenius (talk) 21:51, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That recent complaint from an unregistered editor is plainly false (the masters buyback is covered in the lead with a link to Taylor Swift masters dispute and extensively in § 2018–2021: Lover, Folklore, and Evermore). I get that FAs sometimes get delisted but choosing one with a drive-by nonsense complaint isn't a very good argument. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 20:22, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it's fallacious to imply that just because an article has reached GA or FA status, it shouldn't undergo changes. It's one thing for an article to be modified significantly after its promotion to FA or GA status. Sometimes, this is even required in order for an article to keep its rating, especially for articles about people who are alive or things that still exist.
    It's another thing entirely for these changes to have significantly degraded the quality of the article, but even a small number of changes by a small number of editors can degrade an article's quality. In short, quantity of changes != quality of changes. – Epicgenius (talk) 16:27, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Whatever fallaciousness you might infer, I was not implying that just because an article has reached GA or FA status, it shouldn't undergo changes. I was responding to I think you overestimate the amount of change, began by saying many changes, and didn't discuss their quality or materiality. NebY (talk) 16:50, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Whatever fallaciousness you might infer, I was not implying that just because an article has reached GA or FA status, it shouldn't undergo changes.
    If I was mis-attributing that to you, then I apologize. I was speaking primarily in the context of Thryduulf's comment; they claimed that there is no guarantee that the version of the article the tagline is displayed on bears any resemblance to that version. Which may very well be true, but that comment also implied that articles have to remain more-or-less static after their promotion, which is not the case.
    I was replying to your comment about the number of changes to selected GAs/FAs because I was trying to convey the fact that a large number of changes may not necessarily be an indicator of an article's decline in quality. It can be an indication of such a deterioration of quality, but this can also be done by one or few editors who remove large parts of an article. – Epicgenius (talk) 17:19, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I wasn't saying that articles have to remain more-or-less static after promotion, and I'm not sure how you read that into my comment. I'm simply saying that because articles are not static, a previous version being assigned a quality rating is not a reliable indicator of the current quality of the article. It might be that there have been a thousand changes but no material change, it could be that there have been ten changes and the article is substantially different (which could mean it is worse, better or about the same quality). It is this changing nature that means the assessments are not a reliable indicator of the quality of the version displayed, so we should not be proclaiming that something is an example of our best work when we have absolutely no idea whether it is or isn't. Thryduulf (talk) 17:50, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support mildly increasing the visibility of our assessment processes. We should also strengthen GAR and FAR to ensure the designations remain meaningful. —Kusma (talk) 10:18, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This seems to put the cart before the horse. Shouldn't we ensure that the designations mean something before we increase their visibility? Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 18:46, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think they are meaningful. I am using the opportunity to assert that FAR and GAR are important in ensuring that the designations are meaningful. We do not have to improve all processes to perfection before considering something like the present proposal. —Kusma (talk) 19:37, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction The designations do mean something and always have. Cremastra (talk) 20:56, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose on the grounds that we shouldn't be shoving words that have specialized Wikipedian meanings in front of every reader. "Good" is a particularly bad word to use in this way. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 17:19, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Not only is the term "good article" overloading the ordinary word "good", but also, getting that status for an article really only requires the approval of one person. We shouldn't make that look more official than it is.
    I do not think this was intentional, but this proposal amounts to gratifying long-term editors at the cost of confusing readers. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 18:33, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It also requires the article surviving challenges to the good article status and the reviewer being in good standing.
    Why not give it a try and see if readers are confused? A lot of people here doubt they will be. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:09, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A similar number of people have made very strong arguments that readers will be confused and/or actively mislead. Why should we dismiss those concerns just because some experienced editors with detailed knowledge of the procedures vaugely hope that readers will understand that when shove jargon in their face they will understand both what it means and also that it might not actually mean that? Thryduulf (talk) 19:47, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Nobody is claiming readers will know right away what these terms mean, the idea is that they'll be clearer than the status quo of topicons. Czar's story in § Proposal 21: Make GA status more prominent in mainspace shows that readers currently don't understand what these icons mean and actually have serious misunderstandings. A plain-text phrase "good article" or "featured article", with a clear link to these meanings, will hopefully both alleviate confusion and onboard future contributors. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 20:14, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Another comment I somehow missed. If readers have serious misunderstandings about what the jargon means when it is tucked away in a corner and accompanied by a link and/or tooltip to an explanation, why would putting that same jargon front and centre not result in anything other than more readers with serious misunderstandings? Thryduulf (talk) 19:01, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My complaint is not about the info being tucked away in a corner but about being obscured by an icon and a tooltip. Tooltip explanations are discouraged by most accessibility guidelines including our own because readers clearly aren’t hovering over them to learn what they mean. Replacing (or here, supplementing) icon-and-tooltip presentation with plaintext and a link is self-evidently clearer and less confusing. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 19:11, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    One reviewer "in good standing" is still just one reviewer. And "good standing" is one more thing that is not explained either at the criteria page, the instructions page, or the guideline (which is a different page than the instructions). Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 19:59, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not a defined thing but empirical, basically the chances of such reviews ending up at GAR. It's not a real thing besides just having reviews that fit the criteria. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:04, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Good" is a pretty good description, better than "featured" but I think the link will be enough for people to cope. —Kusma (talk) 19:39, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If "Good article" actually meant something similar to the non-jargon meaning of "this article is good" then you might have a point. So while I applaud your optimism the evidence of how readers currently interact with Wikipedia suggest to me that it is significantly misplaced. Thryduulf (talk) 19:50, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Many here that !voted support believe that good articles are good. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:05, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That established Wikipedians can have a good faith disagreement about what the phrase "Good article" means is more than enough evidence that it will mislead some readers. Thryduulf (talk) 22:22, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Is there a GoodArticle you think is not good? If so, you should nominate that article for Review after starting a discussion about it, no matter how much the article has changed since it was reviewed. By something approaching induction GoodArticles are therefore good articles. I think the only situation where the GoodArticle process fails to produce good articles is if you believe the criteria are not enough to ensure "good", in which case I'd like to know. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:31, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My point is that in Wikipedia jargon "Good article" means that a specific revision of an article was judged by one person to meet a set of very specific criteria (that the current version of the article may or may not now meet). To most readers seeing a tagline saying "good article" would indicate that the version of the article has been assessed to be "good" and thus can be relied upon to be neutral, accurate, and at least reasonably comprehensive and thus by implication articles that are not "good" are "bad" and cannot be said to be poses any of those qualities. While it is true that the current version of many Good Articles is indeed good there are also current versions of Good Articles that are not good. There are also plenty of articles where the current version is accurate, neutral and comprehensive but which are not Good Articles simply because nobody has formally assessed it. Thryduulf (talk) 22:45, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we're going round in circles at this point. I made a similar reply at #c-Aaron_Liu-20250711004700-Isaidnoway-20250710235400.

    there are also current versions of Good Articles that are not good

    (besides what I say in the linked reply) Those are also very few.

    by implication articles that are not "good" are "bad"

    I don't think that's true. The rest are just unreviewed articles, and even not meeting the standard for good doesn't necessarily mean bad. I think this also addresses your last point. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:48, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As an editor familiar with the review process you know that "not good" doesn't mean "bad". The same is not true of the average reader who does not know that "Good article" is jargon, let alone what it means.
    Re current versions of Good Articles. If you mean stable versions then there probably are relatively few (but still a large number), however when you include every version that is current at some point it is much larger. There is no way for the casual reader to know whether the version they are seeing is the good version or the vandalised version. Thryduulf (talk) 02:41, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, I meant that I doubt that's what readers'll interpret it is. WIthout "good" it's still "articles".
    I mean at any moment. I don't think aggregating anyone that had any version that was bad is meaningful. And it's not like RC patrol's gone handicapped. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:47, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It does mean something similar, and I am indeed optimistic that our readers know that blue text means a link that can be clicked on to obtain clarification. Most of our readers are not using Wikipedia or the WWW for the first time. —Kusma (talk) 23:11, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd argue that "featured" is a less confusing term than "good" in this context, since it's less generic and actually conveys the connotation that the articles were selected via some process. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 19:55, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support a simple change to address a problem that has come up frequently. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:09, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What problem? Thryduulf (talk) 10:46, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Visibility of page status as addressed in the discussions listed at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Background_(tagline). Phlsph7 (talk) 13:36, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The proposal has indeed come up frequently. Some editors see increased visibility of article ratings as an improvement to the status quo, but if there is a problem with the status quo it is that it overstates the reliability and importance of article ratings, which is not something making them more prominent can solve (indeed rather the opposite). Thryduulf (talk) 17:26, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as I like the idea of better signaling which of our articles have met a minimum bar for quality. GAs aren't perfect articles, but we show worse articles on the main page every day. Ed [talk] [OMT] 20:03, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Unnecessary embellishment Logoshimpo (talk) 04:05, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    An embellishment is defined as ornamental, or decorative detail, to make something more attractive. Is it to your belief that the good article, and featured article processes are likewise embellishments? Dege31 (talk) 01:54, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes Logoshimpo (talk) 05:07, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose unnecessary and potentially misleading use of wikipedia jargon.--Staberinde (talk) 09:31, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Could you clarify what you mean by 'unnecessary'? Dege31 (talk) 01:52, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There is no noteworthy problem that requires fixing here.--Staberinde (talk) 20:10, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – for the same reasons I proposed more prominent topicons in 2021. As Wikipedia matures, I think it's increasingly important we 1) focus on raising the quality of existing content and 2) help readers learn how to effectively use and understand the varying quality of articles, especially in the current information landscape. Drawing attention to the main ways we review articles, however flawed they are, is a step in the right direction for both these aims, and by raising awareness of peer review processes it might help improve them. I think it would be even better if the "featured article" or "good article" text linked directly to the article's most recent FAC/FAR/GAN, but perhaps that wouldn't be feasible. I understand the valid concerns about the varying quality of FA/GA status articles, but ultimately it is better than no review at all, I trust that most readers understand Wikipedia is not infallible, and the more we focus on peer reviews the better for raising quality and trust in the project. Jr8825 • Talk 12:26, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support ways to make GA/FA status more prominently visible, including this proposal. My preferred way of going about it would be to have the icon next to the article title, kind of like how (on desktop) the icon is displayed next to the name of another language in the "Languages" list if that version of the article is good or featured (see e.g. Jupiter). Several of the opposing comments sound more to me like arguments to abolish GA/FA (or at minimum the icons) entirely, which I am fairly certain is a proposition that would be overwhelmingly rejected by the community. TompaDompa (talk) 23:35, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    To your point about opposing comments, I agree. Some of the oppose !votes bring up valid concerns, like Future Perfect at Sunrise's and Isaidnoway's comments that this tagline might not be appropriate for articles that actually need GAR or FAR. However, comments like "GA particularly has little to do with quality and is more of an Wikipedia:Esperanza-like process to promote the participants." and "Yes" (in response to a query about whether the respondent considered the GA/FA processes mere "embellishment") do seem to be rooted in opposition to the GA or FA processes, not to this specific proposal. – Epicgenius (talk) 01:54, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, per several of the arguments made above. If this is intended to bring in more editor participants, we're sending a confusing signal to a group very few of whom are the right target. The terms are opaque and likely to be misleading to our readers, since there are plenty of GAs that are no longer good quality but have not been reassessed yet. Fewer FAs are in that state, but there are some. If the GAR and FAR processes were working as well as we'd like, this would be less of an issue, but we haven't solved that problem yet. Future Perfect at Sunrise puts the case against well. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:20, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support trying this out, at least for some period. I believe Wikipedia should try to make GAs/FAs more visible to the common reader, and I think more awareness may also lead to more GAR and FAR helpers. ALittleClass (talk) 02:38, 18 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for "A good article from Wikipedia"; which implies that other articles are "not good".
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:22, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would you feel differently, @Pigsonthewing, if we renamed GAs/FAs to something like "high-quality article" and "top-quality article"? Sdkb talk 15:09, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That would imply that other articles are "not high quality", so no. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:15, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is there some other language we could rename GAs/FAs to to connote that they have undergone more thorough review and received a higher quality assessment than other articles, without implying that all our other articles are trash? I do think the concept of article quality assessments for articles should be fairly intuitive to most readers, Wikipedia being a work in progress and all that. Sdkb talk 15:25, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that, at least as things currently stand, articles that there is a set of articles that have been assessed as being of a particular quality at some point in their history and a set of articles that are currently that standard of quality. The two sets overlap but are not close to being the same with both high quality articles that have not been assessed as such and articles that were formerly high quality no longer being. Unless and until the significant majority of articles tagged as being of "X" quality currently (at the time any given reader loads the page) are that quality and the significant majority of articles that are that quality are tagged as such any tagline will be inherently misleading in some way. Thryduulf (talk) 15:39, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You could get around some of that by something that says something like like "on <date>, a <version> this article was assessed as being <quality standard>" with a link to that quality standard and an explanation that the current version may or may not be of that quality standard, but (a) that isn't a tagline, and (b) is not what is being proposed here. Thryduulf (talk) 15:42, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Part of our responsibility of editing the encyclopedia is to ensure that articles that should be FAs/GAs are nominated and that those designated as such but that no longer meet the standards are delisted. It's no different than having an article tagged as needing more citations: That tag was placed at a specific point in time, and represents our judgement at that time, but it doesn't imply that other articles don't also need more citations. And if, as the article evolves, it acquires enough citations, it's our responsibility to remove it. The articles tagged as needing more citations will never correspond precisely to those that actually do need more citations the most, but we still use the notice since it's a good enough (albeit imperfect) indicator. Ditto for quality article assessments. Sdkb talk 16:00, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Part of our responsibility of editing the encyclopedia is to ensure that articles that should be FAs/GAs are nominated..." No it isn't. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:22, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like you do not support having the GA/FA system as an integral part of the encyclopedia. Sdkb talk 16:59, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't an integral part of the encyclopaedia, it's an optional status symbol. Just because that status symbol motivates some editors to improve articles doesn't make it integral - look at the countless articles that get improved in other ways and for other reasons. Thryduulf (talk) 17:20, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say that; please read what I wrote. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:33, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. That's true in the abstract, but this proposal is not good - indeed for the reasons explained in detail multiple times it's actually harmfully bad. The comparison to dated tags that specify in detail what the problem is/was and do not proclaim or imply anything about other articles misses the mark in multiple different ways. Thryduulf (talk) 17:16, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It does no such thing, especially since there is a link explaining what "good article" actually means. —Kusma (talk) 09:50, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It might not do that to you, but it does to me and Andy and assuredly will to anyone who doesn't know that "good article" is jargon (regardless of whether there is or isn't a link). Thryduulf (talk) 09:54, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't think we have enough GAs or FAs that the absence of a "good article" tagline will be so widely noticed. I don't think the proposal will be as impactful as you and Andy seem to think, but we won't find out if we don't try it. —Kusma (talk) 10:01, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Whereas I believe that the multiple severe downsides (not just this one) combined with the extremely low benefits that will come even if successful mean that even a trial will come up with a significantly negative benefit:cost analysis. Thryduulf (talk) 12:10, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What will the net negative impacts of a trial be? Aaron Liu (talk) 13:44, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All the negatives explained by multiple people multiple times already. Thryduulf (talk) 13:52, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any argument that hasn't been responded to. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:56, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The arguments have been responded to but have not been refuted. Thryduulf (talk) 14:28, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For example, how does #c-Aaron_Liu-20250711005600-Thryduulf-20250711005500 and #c-Dan_Leonard-20250711201400-Thryduulf-20250711194700 not refute what you said? Aaron Liu (talk) 18:44, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any evidence of severe (!) downsides outside of hypothetical Wikipedia editor discussions? We already have the topicons. Why don't we see any inklings of these severe downsides, if they are a realistic concern? At least I'm not aware of any. Dege31 (talk) 04:08, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The top icons are decoration that most people ignore and have to be investigated (but even then others have pointed out that they cause misconceptions). A tagline is extremely prominent and makes a bold statement to everybody reading the article (even more so if it is expanded to mobile) meaning the problems caused by misleading statements will be very significantly amplified. Thryduulf (talk) 10:13, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Dopamine in the mobile view
  • Oppose I'd not noticed the taglines before and suppose that I've been blanking them as fluff. The specific suggestion of calling out FAs and GAs seems quite marginal as we don't have many of them. Why not give an assessment of the article when it has a lesser status too? It might be more useful to warn readers that an article is a stub or just C-class or whatever.
And I don't like the idea that this will be forced onto the mobile interface as space is at a premium in that. See the example of Dopamine which I took a snapshot of for another discussion recently. Notice that this doesn't manage to get all of the first sentence of the article onto the first screenful. Adding a tagline would push it off completely.
So, the idea of giving readers an assessment of the article upfront has merit but the implementation needs work.
Andrew🐉(talk) 17:55, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would you be in favour of putting the assessment class icon ( ) next to the article title? TompaDompa (talk) 18:12, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, those icons are too obscure and unclear. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:24, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Re: the specific suggestion of calling out FAs and GAs seems quite marginal as we don't have many of them: the good and featured systems have broad community support and are currently represented on articles already by topicons with tooltips like "this is a good article". This proposal is intended only as an extension of that as shown above in § Background (tagline), and so any extensions beyond what is already very highly supported would be undue. Also re: it might be more useful to warn readers that an article is a stub or just C-class or whatever a "warning" would violate WP:NODISCLAIMERS. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 18:30, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NODISCLAIMERS is irrelevant. Every page has a general disclaimer per WP:GENDIS. And there's already a well-established set of tags to show that that an article is a stub. The trouble is that these appear at the bottom of articles where the reader won't see them until it's too late. It's better to make the status of an article clear to the reader at the outset, so that they have this context as they are reading it. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:28, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You literally used the word "warning", though. That's exactly what NODISCLAIMERS is about. This proposal is about promoting articles that have reached a high standard of quality that the community is proud to present to readers. Giving a "warning" to readers that an article is "just C-class" is the opposite. That could be considered at a later point but should not be part of this proposal. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 22:32, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Exclusively promotional language is contrary to MOS:PUFFERY and WP:PROMO. It's more informative and NPOV to give the reader our quality rating in a uniform way, whether it's good or bad. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:13, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
B-class and lower can be changed by anyone anytime. I'm not confident in the quality assurance for those.
Also, if you want more mobile screen space, dismiss that banner. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:42, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Re:mobile accessibility- that might be easy for you or me, but the "dismiss banner" button is *really* tiny on mobile. I don't think my mother could reliably click it, for example, she just doesn't have the eyesight anymore. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 18:51, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fair point. But that's an issue we could easily solve by enlarging the button; we don't even need to file a task for it as we can simply do it through an interface admin. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:11, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd not noticed or understood that button. That's mainly banner blindness – Wikipedia has a very busy interface and so I tune out the clutter and extraneous excess. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:24, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This would be a positive for readers and editors alike. Perhaps people opposed should also advocate for removing WP:TMVs from articles—they link to editor-focused stuff as well. We have giant banners when an article has issues, but a small link when it has been determined to meet a set of standards is a bridge too far? Heartfox (talk) 03:15, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose. I do not see further clutter is necessary. Janhrach (talk) 13:38, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (tagline)

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@Dan Leonard: Can we not also have FLC, FAC, GAN? like so... 

{{#switch:{{#invoke:Page assessment raw|get_class|page={{FULLPAGENAME}}|project=Project-independent assessment}}
 | FA = A ''[[Wikipedia:Featured articles (linked from tagline)|featured article]]'' from
 | FL = A ''[[Wikipedia:Featured lists (linked from tagline)|featured list]]'' from
 | GA = A ''[[Wikipedia:Good articles (linked from tagline)|good article]]'' from
 | FAC = A ''[[Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/PAGENAME/archive#|featured article candidate]]'' from
 | FLC = A ''[[Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/PAGENAME/archive#|featured list candidate]]'' from
 | GAN = A ''[[Talk:PAGENAME/GA#|good article nominee]]'' from
 | From
}} Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

OR, if getting the archive# and GA# might be tedious, we could simply say... Can we not also have FLC, FAC, GAN? like so... 

{{#switch:{{#invoke:Page assessment raw|get_class|page={{FULLPAGENAME}}|project=Project-independent assessment}}
 | FA = A ''[[Wikipedia:Featured articles (linked from tagline)|featured article]]'' from
 | FL = A ''[[Wikipedia:Featured lists (linked from tagline)|featured list]]'' from
 | GA = A ''[[Wikipedia:Good articles (linked from tagline)|good article]]'' from
 | FAC = A ''[[Wikipedia:Featured article candidates|featured article candidate]]'' from
 | FLC = A ''[[Wikipedia:Featured list candidates|featured list candidate]]'' from
 | GAN = A ''[[Wikipedia:Good article nominations|good article nominee]]'' from
 | From
}} Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

--Vanderwaalforces (talk) 15:42, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the point in reader-facing indicators of article nominations. Best to be left for the talk page. Dege31 (talk) 16:10, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This RFC proposal is intentionally limited to be an extension to the topicons, which already get enough community support to exist. I disagree with this idea (drive-by junk GANs shouldn't be shown to readers) but also just don't think we should overcomplicate the proposal by going beyond what is already represented by topicons. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 16:30, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Dan Leonard that makes sense. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 19:14, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I would better understand those on the oppose side for non-technical reasons, if they could bring in some real data, or real examples, of harm caused by the smaller outreach variants already extant: that is, the topicons, and the talk page assessments. After all, if it is problematic, there should already be evidence. I haven't seen this presented in significant levels. To me, these pitfalls feel remote, and rare. I feel like the potential downsides aren't so big that we can't even do a test run to see how it goes. The large majority of readers read within the confines of the lead paragraphs, so that lessens the potential cumulative impact, too.

Nonetheless, valid concerns. The supporters should also answer: is there will, and capability for scaling up the maintenance of these articles? While this has been ramping up in recent years, this imposes a higher standard.

I've also thought about an idea (this is not a proposal, but fuel for separate discussions, if I, or anyone else, wants to take it further) that maybe takes into account some of the reluctance. It would involve an article losing its reader-facing indicators of GA status or FA status after X years of no review, or Y edits if it's very high activity. That way, there would be a guaranteed minimal level of accountability. Dege31 (talk) 00:38, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Eh, it’s a cosmetic change to the website so I think it's fine to balk at it subjectively. It is a shame that my proposal can't have any data or examples of how this would improve reader outreach (although there does seem to be some interesting-looking papers on FAs), as any analysis of such data would only be possible post hoc. If this passes I do hope to do a 30 day postmortem to see how many people click on the statistical redirects and see how many new editors participate in the project pages. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 00:51, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As you mention, I don't think there's enough problems to scale up the maintenance yet. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:52, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding scaling up the maintenance of these articles, I hope that one side benefit of this passing may be that, if GA/FA status confers additional prominence compared to the status quo, there will be both more incentive for editors to pursue that status for articles that deserve it and more editors noticing/sending to FAR/GAR when an article has that status that does not deserve it. Sdkb talk 04:43, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see some people voicing opposition because of reservations regarding WP:Good articles, specifically. An alternative might be to implement this for FA and FL, but not GA. TompaDompa (talk) 11:46, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Remove the births and deaths from all years on Wikipedia

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I believe that we should remove the births and deaths (specifically before 1980) from all of our year articles (or at least extend the range to as back as need be) and just link the categories (like for articles on years after 1980). It can be a time-consuming process to determine whether someone they are notable enough to even be included in the births and deaths section. I think it is better to just remove them altogether and just link the categories. Interstellarity (talk) 23:27, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would you consider separate lists? For example, instead of having 1900#Births, could we split off a List of births in 1900? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:58, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I support this proposal, especially in the case of births. Even in the case of someone very notable, their birth was almost never notable. To put it another way, the birth of notable person is not automatically a notable event. Nor is their death, in most cases. I would limit exceptions to cases where the birth or death actually had a real effect on the world. Zerotalk 12:54, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Already done. We had a previous RFC on the matter already. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 15:51, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That RFC, which the OP started out by linking, concluded with a consensus to split "large" articles. There was no consensus on what to do with the split material, but deletion explicitly did not get consensus. There was no consensus to split or remove births and deaths from articles that are not "large". While "large" was not explicitly defined, it seems the guidance at WP:SIZESPLIT was what most people seemed to be thinking of when using the term. Thryduulf (talk) 15:56, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't be opposed to doing a split of everything for consistency, to the extent it should be followed. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 16:53, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I support pushing the cutoff back from 1980 to some time in the early 1900s, but I do not support banning births and deaths from all years. Picking an old year article at random, 966 has a very manageable number of births and deaths. Even 1900 is at a reasonable length, but by 1930 the page starts getting excessively long. So, I support a cutoff at some year between those two.
Much of the challenge with these entries is that each requires a reference, which adds more to the page size than the entry itself. I think splitting is a better solution than deletion; these lists don't seem unmanageably large to me. Toadspike [Talk] 13:07, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is probably a good idea in that while the vast majorities of births and deaths are very important to that individual, they are usually not so important to the events of that year. There will be exceptions; perhaps someone might suggest the birth of Prince Hisahito of Akishino ending significant discussion on changing the Japanese system of primogeniture made an impact to 2006, although even our 2006 in Japan article doesn't currently link this birth to any particular impact. Regarding splitting a list of births, that effectively creates the Category in a different form. If there is use for this, you probably could somehow generate the list by reproducing the category plus short descriptions. CMD (talk) 15:28, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It would be nonsense to suggest not mentioning deaths such as that of JFK or Princess Diana, which were top global news stories for their respective years, in the articles about those years.
Most of the rest can be managed through separate list articles (which, of course, would be populated automatically from Wikidata in sane world), if not categories. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:32, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for discussion: No-AI Certification in Unblock Requests

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Administrators and other editors who work on the "Requests for unblock" queue have observed that many unblock requests appear to be written entirely or largely by AI LLMs. A request may sound sincere and unblockworthy, but because the editor hasn't actually written it, the promises it contains may not reflect the editor's actual intentions. And yet the editors submitting these requests can, as far as I know, validly claim no one ever told them that AI-generated requests are unhelpful.

Would it be worth prominently addressing this concern in Template:Unblock, with language such as Unblock requests should be submitted in the editor's own words. By submitting an unblock request, you certify that you wrote the unblock request yourself and that it was not generated by any form of artificial intelligence or something along those lines?

My apologies if this has been discussed before (could someone point me to the discussion) or would be better discussed elsewhere (in which case I'll re-post there). Thank you, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:53, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AI-detection is guesswork with high rates of both false positives and false negatives, so we absolutely should not be rejecting unblock requests just because it looks or feels like it might be AI-generated. That said, I don't have an issue with something like the assertion you suggest as long as we're clear it doesn't apply to AI-assisted translations, spell checking, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 02:19, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. My goal frankly is not just to screen out dubious unblock requests, but more importantly, to facilitate good ones that have a chance of turning blocked users into contributors. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:32, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The first reason you gave about editors making claims isn't compelling to me, because such claims don't excuse an insincere request, no matter how it was written. I'll agree though that helping editors write good requests makes the entire process more effective. isaacl (talk) 03:28, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Banner blindness may limit impact, but it might help some editors make unblock requests that are more likely to succeed. I've also seen "own words" issues occur when an editor copies a guideline into the unblock request, which invariably leaves others unconvinced the guideline is understood. CMD (talk) 03:40, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Adding advice to that matter (both in Template:Unblock and Wikipedia:Unblock wizard) could be a great idea. It doesn't require unblock reviewers to guess, but still helps users who might just not know that it isn't ideal. I feel like noting it in the unblock process (rather than in the block template) would make it less susceptible to banner blindness, as editors would be more focused on what is needed to submit their unblock. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 04:10, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
agree with language, but enforcing any AI detection with tools like gptzero would be a hard no for me while they have false positive rates.
at most, an admin should ask for more clarification if they believe there isn't sincerity in changing behavior. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:39, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bluethricecreamman The number of denied unblock requests that I've already seen over the past few months where the denial reason is simply a gptzero score is staggering. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:07, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the notice should use the phrase "Large Language Model" somewhere in there, while still using the term "Artificial intelligence" as well. That way it stays somewhat consistent, as I see a lot of other policy stuff on wikipedia use the term "Large Language model". Gaismagorm (talk) 01:02, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Newyorkbrad, I think it's difficult to conflate "wrote it myself" with "being sincere". Here's a story I was told (c. 2000):
A teenager's parent died. A friend wanted to express his sadness to her in a proper, suitably formal way. Unknown to anyone at the time, he had autism, so he didn't have a strong grasp of the subtleties of certain social forms. So instead of the correct form (which, in the US, is "Please accept my condolences") or the common, informal form ("I'm sorry your father died"), he confused them all by saying: "I apologize for your father's death."
This young man was very sincere. He was actually trying quite hard to say the best, most comforting thing possible. He just needed help figuring out how to express his sincerity.
When someone posts an unblock request, we need a good, shared understanding of what's being said. But I'm not sure that "don't use AI" actually gets us closer to that.
Maybe instead of affirming a bit of boilerplate (which anyone will do, exactly like we all click "I agree" without reading the terms of use first), I think it might be interesting to treat it like a survey and ask:
Did you use any AI such as <names of popular tools> or similar tools to write this? Please check all that apply:
⬚ I used AI/LLM to write a good explanation.
⬚ I used <names of popular tools> only for translation.
⬚ I used machine translation (e.g., Google Translate).
⬚ Yes, but I only used it for spelling and grammar checking.
⬚ No, I wrote this all myself.
Treating it like a survey might help us get accurate responses ("We're trying to see what's most popular") without incentivizing lies ("Say you didn't use AI, or we won't unblock you!"). Mostly, though, I think that the admins need to simply ask about it when an unblock request is posted and the editor's engagement with the request is uncertain. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That could be a good idea, I might add it to the Wikipedia:Unblock wizard's code! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 07:30, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Since you can't actually "check" boxes in a wikitext-based survey, you'll have to re-write it, but perhaps there's something useful in my example. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:50, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You can actually have checkboxes, Wikipedia:Unblock wizard/Sockpuppet has an example! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:58, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Adding some basic please use your own words language seems prudent, and as @Chipmunkdavis pointed out, that could also apply to other common issues with requests. I'd look less favorably on a longer, more explicit "don't use AI" message, both for banner bloat reasons and since we don't want it to backfire by giving people the idea to use AI when they weren't thinking of it previously. Sdkb talk 05:29, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 22:01, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This goes a bit too far for my comfort. Perhaps just the certification that the request reflects the editor's sincere and honest sentiment, or even a straightforward caution that submissions that are or appear to be written with LLMs, copy–pasted form P&G or prior discussions without editorial or reflection, or otherwise not in the editor's own words and reflective of their sincere commitment are likely to be viewed unfavorably. I'm sure most of these requests that set off admins' BS detectors really are garbage, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea that one can never get an assist, whether from technology or a trusted friend. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 01:28, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The most common block templates all link to Wikipedia:Guide to appealing blocks (WP:GAB), which contains a section (WP:NICETRY) that explains, "Write your request yourself; requests that appear to be written with an LLM or AI are likely to be summarily rejected." The fact that blocked editors still regularly submit LLM-generated unblock requests shows that either they are not reading this guidance, or they have read the guidance and are choosing to ignore it. Assuming good faith would require the administrator to assume that the editor did not see it, but either way, LLM-generated unblock requests are a waste of time for both the blocked editor and the reviewing administrator. I support presenting this guidance against LLM-generated unblock requests in a more visible way to ensure that the blocked editor sees it before they submit their request. — Newslinger talk 19:07, 17 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Convention for naming Australian place articles

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There is a RFC on the convention for naming Australia place articles at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#RfC: The convention for naming Australian place articles. Editors are invited to contribute. TarnishedPathtalk 03:20, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to clarify WP:AIGI in line with MOS:AIUPSCALE

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Background

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A previous RfC on the use of AI imagery resulted in WP:AIGI, which made it WP policy that images wholly generated by AI should not generally be used in articles, with certain exceptions, mainly relating to when the AI imagery itself is notable.

That policy applies to images wholly generated by AI. In WP:AIGI, cases of "major AI enhancement" are mentioned passingly as "marginal cases [...] subject to case by case consensus." The draft policy Wikipedia:AI image use gets a bit further into this, but I found that the topic was not discussed much in the original RfC, and so I am creating a new RfC to clarify what our policy should be relating to images substantially redrawn by generative AI, but based on an existing non-AI image.

As I understand, within the context of the previous RfC, images wholly generated by AI are understood to be those generated from a text-based prompt. Substantially AI-redrawn images are generated by AI using an image with a "restoration" function. In these cases, the AI image generator uses its models to create an image which matches (perhaps roughly) the original input image. Often, these functions are advertised as AI upscaling or restoration.

This topic is already covered in the editing guidelines, but not enshrined in WP:AIGI. See MOS:AIUPSCALE: "AI upscaling software should generally not be used to increase the resolution or quality of an old or low-resolution image. Original historical images should always be used in place of AI upscaled versions. If an AI-upscaled image is used in an article, this fact should be noted in its caption." However, this resulted from an earlier discussion which was not discussed in depth when the RfC which led to WP:AIGI took place.

Here is an example. The photo on the right has been significantly redrawn by generative AI in a way that is intended to match the original photo; the details and color, as can be seen here, did not exist in the input photo.

In another case (from Wikipedia:AI image use), we can see an old image and the output of this AI process:

  • Original
    Original
  • AI
    AI

Let me give some other examples of images "restored" using this process which I found in use on actual mainspace pages.

  • Original
    Original
  • AI
    AI
  • Original
    Original
  • AI
    AI
  • Original
    Original
  • AI
    AI

In some other cases, an image created using one of these processes is uploaded without the original to accompany it. However, even without an original for comparison, images created using this process are generally (as of 2025) visually identifiable. The details are unnaturally sharp in some places while being unnaturally soft or reduced in quality in other places in a distinctively uneven way. Some details are smoothed, while others are filled in with detail that clearly does not match the original image. As seen in some of the examples above, the "restored" versions of these images can add excessive and unnatural detail in the faces while leaving the rest of the image jarringly different.

  • 1
    1
  • 2
    2
  • 3
    3

The reason why these images look like this, of course, is because they are not actually produced via a photographic process, but are instead modified using software that searches for certain types of elements (e.g., faces) and uses generative AI to redraw those elements.

While this is most often done to "restore" images of faces, a similar process can be used to redraw other types of scenes. See, for example, commons:Category:Historical images of Minsk restored by AI.

  • Original photo
    Original photo
  • AI-regenerated version
    AI-regenerated version

Of course, I do recognize (as should not be controversial) that some of the original images are of low quality, and, where possible, I would like to replace images with better versions. However, I feel that any attempt to do so using AI is, at the very least, misguided. The MOS:AIUPSCALE guideline to avoid using these images seems sound to me, for a number of reasons.

  1. These images can be misleading, because they include details which are not part of the original historical images, distorting the historical images which should be incorporated into an encyclopedia.
  2. These images tend to look ugly and unnatural.

Proposal

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Should WP:AIGI be modified to incorporate MOS:AIUPSCALE? D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 21:48, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I propose the following:

  1. Since the topic of AI-redrawing (restoration, upscaling, enhancement) is closely and substantially related to the topic covered at WP:AIGI, the guideline at MOS:AIUPSCALE should be made part of the WP:AIGI (my suggestion) or, alternatively, linked from WP:AIGI as a relevant and related topic.
  2. Based on some discussion (I am not entirely sure myself), a clearer definition (or outline) of what constitues an AI-generated version of an existing image should be devised. Preliminarily, I suggest that this would relate to substantial details present in the original image being replaced by new AI-generated details (as opposed to a small portion of a corner or in a watermark-covered area being generated by cloning or a perceptibly equivalent process).

D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 21:41, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would support the proposal, although I believe that MOS:AIUPSCALE already has broad consensus. Not sure if a more specific definition of "AI-generated version" is needed, as smaller adjustments would likely also fall under the upscaling guideline, and would have even less of a need to be used as a separate version from the original. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:47, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While I had thought there was consensus, a recent debate I ran into hinged on whether this was prohibited by policy (with an editor replacing/overwriting various historical images with AI versions on this basis). I think the MOS item fairly clearly falls within the same spirit as the WP:AIGI policy, serving a similar purpose on a closely related subject, so the combination could be helpful.
The main reason I bring up clarification here is because not all AI modifications of this kind are labeled "upscaling," even if "restoration" or "recovery" AI tools are substantially the same as AI "upscalers." And if we expand the definition, then we could end up being too broad, especially since many tools now are advertised as "AI" due to the power of the buzzword. For instance, I don't think that the regular noise reduction you'd find in photo editing software (which is now sometimes marketed as "AI") should be covered, because it is fundamentally quite different from AI "restoration" tools.
(All that said, I think I know it when I see it — but it would be better to have a slightly more defined standard.) D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 22:04, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think there should be something said about uploading as a separate version of a file if something like this is used, i.e. instead of overwriting historical_photo.jpg with an upscaled (or otherwise potentially controversially enhanced version) upload it as historical_photo_(upscaled).jpg to allow editors to easily choose whichever they believe is the better image for their usecase (not all usecases are necessarily going to result the same choice). Thryduulf (talk) 08:54, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:AIUPSCALE was BOLD-ly added to the MOS after a brief discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images/Archive 11#Upscaling. There was no RfC, so it should never have been added to the MOS, and there is zero consensus on a blanket ban on photo restoration. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:31, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Checking with the policy pump, I'm told that a full RfC isn't required to amend the MOS, per WP:PGCHANGE. The discussion you link to was open for three months on the talk page before I added the paragraph, including a month-long wait for any objections to the proposed wording. Removing the paragraph at this point would require a consensus. Belbury (talk) 15:31, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think I support both proposals. I believe I was against a blanket ban on AI images last time around, but using AI to "upscale" existing images feels like a form of fabrication completely unlike asking AI to create a diagram. To me, it seems dishonest to suggest that the AI version is in any way equivalent to the original photo. I also support Thryduulf's point that upscaled images shouldn't be overwriting the original files. Toadspike [Talk] 12:53, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support interlinking/inclusion, the two are complementary and drive towards the same goal. A guideline might be a continuous work in progress, but as a very basic point is that we should expect that all enhanced images include such information in their description, as we would expect for example for a black and white image where colour has been added even before generative AI. CMD (talk) 14:58, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I continue to oppose AI-generated imagery broadly, and so support the prohibition of AI upscaling as a subset of my overall position. I agree with Toadspike that it in many cases feels even more fraudulent to doctor historical works in this way than even to generate new images wholesale. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 03:37, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose MOS:AIUPSCALE is null and void, as it is contrary to policy (WP:CONEXCEPT). Many of our images are on Commons and there is nothing we can do to prevent them being overwritten by AI upscaled images over there. This has already happened to me this morning: Commons replaced an image with an AI upscaled one, followed by an editor placing a drive-by tag, which I have removed, since there was no discussion on the talk page. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:34, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What are you talking about? Commons:Overwriting existing files already says that uploading a AI "restorations," AI-upscaled files, etc. should not be uploaded over original files, so, per Commons rules. So we should be able to expect that any non-AI file shouldn't get replaced by an AI file on Commons. There is no reason that the ENWP policy or MOS cannot prohibit users from using AI-regenerated images present on Commons. (As for the file you seem to be talking about — your image was not replaced with an AI-upscaled one; the original image that you uploaded appears to already be AI-upscaled, and someone was just labeling it as such. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:13, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That was not the case. An AI-upscaled file was uploaded over the original file I uploaded. So we must expect that any file may get replaced by an AI-upscaled file on Commons. Their use is not prohibited by our WP:AIGI, because it only refers to images wholly generated by AI. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:15, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The file that you uploaded is also AI upscaled. The file that was uploaded over only removes the AI-added color. Look at the two versions of the file closely and you will see that, except for the colorization, they are the same.
And, as I referenced, Commons rules already explicitly prohibit uploading AI-generated versions over non-AI files. Do people always follow the rules there? Surely not always. But that's not what this proposal is about.
If someone fails to follow the Commons rules, that has nothing to do with WP:AIGI or MOS:UPSCALE. My proposal here is to incorporate MOS:UPSCALE into WP:AIGI. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 01:26, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How can I tell if an image has been AI-upscaled? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:03, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The original version is here Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:34, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You can see the high level of detail in the facial features (which is artificial — compare with the uniform), then the "halo" separating it from areas not redrawn by the AI process. The full-face depth of field (with sharp "focus" whereas the uniform is not nearly as sharp) makes the fakery obvious. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 23:10, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Adam Cuerden: Pinging my go-to for image restoration for an opinion. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:37, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The biggest giveaway for me that this was retouched by AI rather than by hand was that the lips are very, very slightly pink. It becomes much more apparent you boost the saturation levels. AI upscalers often can't resist adding a little lip and eye colour to black and white photos. Belbury (talk) 10:05, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This rationale doesn't make sense. Just because a user on Commons might maliciously replace an image with an AI-"upscaled" version, does not mean we cannot have a policy prohibiting the use of upscaled images on English Wikipedia. Elestrophe (talk) 12:45, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support a clearly-worded ban on AI-"upscaled" images, since the nature of their task is to fabricate details which were not present in the source image. The use of such images inherently violates WP:OR, and it should be explicitly worded in policy. Elestrophe (talk) 12:41, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support enforcing a ban on faked and tampered images. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 15:40, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There should be a date preference option for 12-hour time formatting

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Tracked in Phabricator
Task T7649

it's baffling to me that there's not a 12-hour time format option, even though there's an option for MM/DD/YYYY formatting for the year, and more countries have 12-hour clocks than those that use MM/DD/YYYY -jakeyounglol (talk) 23:12, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There's a reason why 24 hour clock is used on Wikipedia. Its because we use UTC due to the fact people are editing Wikipedia from around the world, and its much easier to use UTC time with 24 hour clock as 24 hour is more international. 12 hour clock (at least when displayed) is only really common in the US so its false that most countries use 12 hour clock. As someone from the UK, I have all my devices set to 24 hour clock, and use UTC since that applies during the winter and its only an hour ahead during the summer.
But anyway, scripts are there to use 12 hour time, and also to adjust signatures to your time zone, such as WP:Comments in Local Time. JuniperChill (talk) 23:08, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Remove or Revise WP:RFD Deletion Reason #10 ("Could plausibly be expanded into an article")

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Text generated by a large language model (LLM) or similar tool has been collapsed per relevant Wikipedia guidelines. LLM-generated arguments should be excluded from assessments of consensus.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Hello all,

I would like to open a discussion regarding reason number 10 in the list of deletion reasons at WP:RFD#DELETE:

"If the redirect could plausibly be expanded into an article, and the target article contains virtually no information on the subject."

This reason is highly controversial and problematic for several reasons:

  1. Vagueness and Subjectivity: Almost any redirect topic could plausibly be expanded into an article at some point, which makes this reason overly broad and easy to apply inconsistently.
  2. Misapplication Against Useful Redirects: This criterion is frequently used to delete redirects that follow established naming conventions — for example, future sports season pages (e.g., "2025–26 Florida Gators men's basketball team") — which serve as important navigational aids until an article is created.
  3. Contradiction with WP:CHEAP and WP:PRESERVE: Wikipedia policy encourages keeping non-harmful redirects that aid navigation. Deleting redirects simply because they might be replaced by future articles runs counter to this philosophy.
  4. Discouragement of Contribution: Applying this reason too broadly can frustrate editors and discourage contributions, as it removes useful placeholders and perceived recognition for work done.

I propose we consider removing or substantially revising reason #10 to reflect a more nuanced and practical approach, focusing deletion efforts on redirects that are misleading, harmful, or truly unnecessary, rather than speculative future article potential.

I welcome community feedback, examples, and suggestions on how best to address this issue.

Thank you! Abhiramakella (talk) 22:09, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If it is highly controversial, where are some previous discussions where it has led to controversy? The last few RFD dicsussions you've participated in where consensus led to deletion on these grounds are § 2025–26 College Football Playoff, § 2025 Gasparilla Bowl, and § Super Bowl redirects, all of which have you as the only opposition to the deletion rationale. Also, all of your comments in these discussions use the same style of verbose numbered lists with loads of boldface that you're using here, which I advise you to try to make more concise. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 03:29, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Did you use an LLM to write this? Cremastra (talk · contribs) 05:26, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: WP:REDYES is useful and helpful in many cases. It also hasn't been demonstrated that reason #10 has been problematic. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:03, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: the spirit behind this is that a blue-link that's actually a redirect to somewhere with no information hides the fact that we have no article. It's therefore worse than a red-link, which might trigger someone to write an article (i.e. this justification for deletion of redirects encourages contribution rather than discouraging). The redirect is of little benefit to the reader because of the lack of information about the subject. The redirect won't be deleted without discussion and balanced review by an experienced editor, so misuse shouldn't be an issue. Redirects shouldn't be used as place-holders for articles that could be written; that's what stubs and drafts are for. As proof of the pudding, I used these grounds at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2025_March_8#Guido_Quaroni and the outcome was the removal of a redirect that was creating blue-links to an article that said almost nothing about Quaroni, and was based on an unsourced connection of him to a company (quite likely true, but I could find no sourcing). Instead, we now have Draft:Guido_Quaroni, which is actually about the subject, someone who is certainly notable. This is an example of where RFD #10 is improving the encyclopedia. If anyone feels it needs better explanation in the RFD page, by all means discuss, but it's a valuable reason for deletion. Elemimele (talk) 16:47, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A new "opt out of receiving automated messages" option

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I'm getting tired of having to de-spam my talk page. I don't want to see deletion warnings and get these messages. I asked before and was basically told that I would have to put up with it. Not good enough. Can you please create something and install it as an option in preferences where you can prevent automated messages being delivered to your talk page? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:17, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can we probably create a template which is recognised by twinkle to avoid auto placements? ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 16:24, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are not getting "automated" messages from the system. You are getting revisions published by other people. A "preferences" isn't going to be a fix for this. You could try {{nobots}}. — xaosflux Talk 16:27, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Does Twinkle respect {{nobots}}? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:31, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It hopefully doesn't and I don't know if it would be a good idea modifying Twinkle to support it. Some notices, including the kind that Dr. Blofeld is opposed to, are necessary for the functioning of the project. When editors open certain discussions, they are often required (AN/I), should (CSD, PROD), or are encouraged (AfD) to leave user talk page notices. If editors could opt out of Twinkle notices like [8] or [9], the deletion nominator could be unfairly accused of not giving the required user notice. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 22:19, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of no bots, what if we have a similar template for afd, csd, prod notifications only? If that is found on the talk page of the creator, then I don't think the nominator can be wrongly accused. Of course ANI ones are sent in any case, due to the mandate by previous consensus. ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 01:20, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like {{bots}} already takes parameters for AfD and PROD notices. I don't see anything in Twinkle documentation about it, though. @Dr. Blofeld: try configuring it on your talk page according to § Message notification opt out and see if it helps. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 04:31, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks have added to my talk page. But I also want twinkle messages blocked which seem to be responsible for a lot. I suggest something which updates the prod notice if on a twinkle blacklist which alerts the deleting admin. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:12, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Twinkle is just a client side script, revisions made using that script are the responsibility of the person publishing the revision - it says so right on the big banner describing the script. While bot edits are also the responsibility of the bot operator, they may be automated by said operator. Those could be subject to complying with nobots. — xaosflux Talk 22:23, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Twinkle seems to be responsible for a lot of the messages I get. I want something which prevents my talk page getting them. I suggest if Twinkle is blocked from user talk pages then something is modified to the prod template on the article so that the deleting admin knows the editor has opted out. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:57, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, other editors are responsible for these revisions, they are choosing to send these messages. When using that Twinkle script in its default configuration the editor is asked if they should notify the page creator when nominating a page for deletion. Policies such as Wikipedia:Proposed deletion and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion specifically call out that nominators should notify the article's creator or other significant contributors / Notify interested projects and editors - so it seems that these editors are following best practices. — xaosflux Talk 13:44, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There really ought to be a function in which editors can opt out of receiving Twinkle notices though, they are a form of automation too and part of the ongoing problem. If we had a list of editors who opt out of receiving Twinkle messages which was known to Twinkle users and deleting admins there is a way around this if they are able to recognize why I didn't get a message. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:35, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But, if a user opts out of receiving Twinkle notices, I think they would also be opting out of the right to receive notices at all. If editors prodding articles or nominating pages for deletion have to manually place notices to other editors that have opted out of receiving Twinkle notices, that is just creating more work for the same results. I propose that editors that have opted out of receiving Twinkle notices would not have grounds for a complaint that they were not notified about prods and XfDs when notices were sent by Twinkle. Donald Albury 15:14, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This. Perhaps Category:Wikipedia users who prefer not to receive notices of deletion discussions or the like? With the caveat that if someone still send you a notice it's not their fault they didn't notice you were in the category. Then you could ask script developers to look for it and skip such notices. — xaosflux Talk 15:47, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Wikipedians who opt out of template messages exists. I have no idea whether it was actually ever used. * Pppery * it has begun... 16:03, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I would support that Donald, and that would be laid out as one of the conditions for agreeing to it, no complaints later. Though I would remove "prefer" though Xao, as that implies optional if you're messaged. Category:Wikipedians who have opted out of receiving Twinkle notices would be my suggesion, and for Twinkle users, conditions of use to avoid and respect those who don't want the messages. No admin can complain about an editor not being given a warning then if they are on that list. If it is Pppery, it's not enforced! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 03:47, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Population progress table for Slovak places

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I wanna add the population progress table to Slovak places. Example is on simple:Prešov#Population. It is a part of my project "SK". Data are from commons, because the license of source data is CC BY.

None problem to change a frontend or visual. But i prefer primary a table before a graph. Ideal maybe would be for all as a tool with switch way between graph and table in one box (real exist someone?). Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 08:04, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features § "Add a link" experiment and next steps

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features § "Add a link" experiment and next steps. Sdkb-WMF (talk) 17:51, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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